25 DECEMBER 1852, Page 10

JUSTICE TO THE BENEFICED CLERGY.

Weston-super-Mare, 15th December 1852. Enrron—Having by your courtesy been allowed to occupy your co- lumns in bringing before the public the claims of the beneficed clergy to compensation for the loss they have sustained, and must sustain, by the act of 1846, it was my wish and intention to have left the discussion of a proper remedy for this (by you) admitted hardship upon them to abler hands than mine ; not being gifted, Mr. Editor, with the fertile imagination of a Chan- cellor of the Exchequer to find the "ways and means." But having broken Eternal on the subject, I would throw out the suggestion, that the peculiar "p of their case might possibly be met by an act of the Legislature giving them a percentage on the amount of their septennial averages, gradu- ated by the average prices of wheat and other grams during those periods, so that no injustice would be done to the tithe-payers in the improbable event of a material rise in prices taking place hereafter in cereal produce. The concurrence of the Protectionist landowners in such a measure as this would go far to wipe off from them the stigma they have cast upon them- selves for so pertinaciously clamouring for compensation in some shape or another. In offering these remarks, I disclaim all sympathy for the Church pluralist and sinecurist, and would wish to enlist the sympathies of the pub- lic more especially on behalf of clergymen who hold small livings, whose parishes are yearly becoming more populous, and their duties more onerous, whilst their means are not increasing,—no. but decreasing, and who, with their poor brother curates, are the worst.paid class of men in wealthy Eng-