[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SpEcTirort."] SIE,—Your review of Professor
Nicholson's book in last week's Spectator omits (as possibly the Professor does) to notice the incidence of agricultural rates on the third partner in the concern,—viz., the parson. Your clerical readers prob- ably know better than your lay that the statute of Elizabeth expressly mentioned the parson among the inhabitants, who are, as Lord Lindley laid it down on the Queen's Bench, 1885, "rateable in respect of tithes, not as occupiers," but "in respect of tithes as being ostensible and tangible means of support." Not only is the parson excluded from the benefit of the Inhabitants' Exemption Act, annually renewed ever since, but he is rated on the whole of his tithe,—his clerical income, now 14s. in the pound ! Since the Commutation Act (1836), when the misleading term "rent charge" came in, it was generally clapped down by assessment committees in the rate-book as if it were rent. On the other hand, the farmer and landlord practically divide their rates between them, and are assessed on the rental, or (roughly) one-third of the whole produce, less the tithe. Thus, the parson pays on six times his lay neighbour's valuation. This monstrous wrong still continues unredressed, and the annual loss to the Church (in other words, the sacrilegious "robbery of God ") is only exceeded by the still more glaring abuse of lay impropriation.
[We noted in our review that the rates on tithe remain to prove that rates were intended to be a kind of local Income- tax. While personalty has " slipped the collar," the parson and the occupier of land and houses are left to drag the coach. Professor Nicholson does not deal with the rating of tithes, because his book, as its title shows, is confined to rates and taxes on agriculture.—ED. Spectator.]
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