IRISH CHURCH FINANCE.
[TO THR EDITOR OF TIER SFRCTA TOR."]
Sfa,—I have been travelling about, or I might sooner have notice& Mr. Murphy's allusion in your publication of the 7th inst. to a controversy with me in your columns during last autumn. I doubted the wisdom of general commutation, and still more questioned the expediency of building sustentation upon com- mutation, and many friends assured me that I had the best of the argument, although Mx. Murphy (as you thought fit to stop the correspondence) had the last word. He disentombs a speech de- livered in the General Synod last April, in order to satisfy your readers by "arithmetical proofs" that he was right. I cannot think it does more than to cite Judge Longfield'a opinion that in about thirty years there would be no deficiency, but a gain for the future Church. At present, even by the Judge's showing there is an infringement on the commutation capital at the rate of /150,000 a year, only partly replaced by annual contributions ; and the question I virtually raised last year was this, whether these contributions would not have come in far more freely to the support of the Church, if only sustentation had not been built upon commutation. Does it tend to encourage our- laity to subscribe, when they feel, as they must do, that every pound they pay is an additional security for the Commutants ? Those who promoted general commutation should perhaps feel bound to subscribe the more largely, but for those who did not (and even opposed that policy), there is hardly a way open free- of the entanglements caused by commutation and compounding.
—I am, Sir, &c., Jouu S. GAIRDNER, 1 Proby Square, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.
[Mr. Gairdner shall have "the last word" this time, as we do- not think that any prolongation of the correspondence would be- really useful—ED. Spectator.]
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