17 APRIL 1897, Page 15

CLERICAL INCOMES.

[To TEE EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR:9 SIR.,—Paying tithe, when land produces no profit, is, as your correspondent " J. H. R." remarks in the Spectator of April 3rd, hard on the landowner. And it is also hard on the receiver of tithe, when land, by being used for building, increases in value. For while the work of the clergyman becomes greater, the tithe remains the same, and its collection more expensive. Both of these wrongs would be made right if the tithe did not depend upon the price of corn, grown for the most part in foreign countries, but upon the rateable value of land, subject to tithe. And this, no doubt, would have formed the basis of the Commutation Act, if the abandonment of Protection had been foreseen.—I am, Sir, &c.,