THE TITHE BILL [To the Editor of Tug SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Mr. W. J. Wenham, in a letter in which a descent to personalities is not entirely concealed, charges me with running away from " the argument." I failed to discern any argument in his letter to you of June 22nd. It consisted almost entirely of a denunciation of the Government Bill, an attack on tithe, and derogatory references to the Church.
Notwithstanding that the Lord Chancellor had expressly stated in reference to the alternative powers of recovery that " this alteration of the law would not affect anybody . . . who is ready to pay this just debt of tithe," Mr. Wenham stated that " every lawyer saw through the trick " ; and his views of the Church and of tithe recovery were evidenced by
such phrases as " one privileged and predatory Church " exacting " a due for duties which it no longer discharges," with a reference to " the spectacle of Christian shepherds so urgently raiding the flock."
In a reply which you published I ventured to remind Mr.
_ Wenham that " the Lord Chancellor spoke, and he and other lawyers voted, in favour of the Bill "—among the Lords who voted for the Bill on the second reading there were seven lawyers, and there was one lawyer in opposition—and Mr. Wenham reminds me that the Lord Chancellor could not very well oppose a Bill promoted by the Government of which he is a member. He follows this with one or two amiable though somewhat cryptic phrases, one of which I should like to quote : " Politicians who happen also to be lawyers, and who may see through a political device, do not necessarily feel precluded thereby from supporting that expedient."
I should hate to construe that as implying insincerity on the part of lawyer-politicians. Mr. Wenham, as a lawyer, can hardly suggest that. I firmly believe, however, that the Bill was a sincere attempt on the part of the Government to settle the tithe dispute by a " compromise," as you, Sir, described the Bill. The tithepayers would have got further remission (very heavy in certain cases), and the titheowners a more satisfactory method of recovery, to quote the Lord Chan- cellor, " in those parts of the country where organized opposi- tion has brought the execution and the administration of the law temporarily into contempt." But the reception of the Bill was not favourable, and now we must all await the findings of the Royal Commission.
In the meantime Queen Anne's Bounty will continue its policy of considering hard cases " on their merits, and although one cannot expect that all attempts at evading the law will cease, it is a satisfactory reflection that in this country evasion seldom succeeds in the end.—I am, Sir, &c., GEORGE MIDDLETON (Chairman of the Tithe Committee of Queen Anne's Bounty). Bounty Office, 3 Dean's Yard, Westminster, S.W .1.
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