The End of the Tithe Bill The Government has offered
no sufficient explanation for its abandonment of the Tithe Bill. It was a compromise between the tithe-owners and the tithe-payers and as such it received a substantial measure of support, being given a second reading in the House of Lords by 45 votes to 17. Opposition has been organized since by the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture and also by the Council of the National Farmers' Union, but it does not appear to have been of a kind that justified the Government throwing in their hand. The appointment of a Royal Commission on the whole question only perpetuates the existing difficulties, for the Commission may very well take two or three years to report, and it will be a good deal longer still before the report is implemented. In the meantime titlic- owners are likely to be put to increasing inconvenience in collecting their tithes, for tithe-payers will be strengthened in their grievances by their success ill frightening the Government into dropping its Bill. The Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty have sonic justification for their protest at this turn of events.
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