THE HARD CASE OF THE CLERGY.
[To ten EDITOR or THE "Berm-meal
Sra,—With reference toyourartiele"Another Land Campaign" (Spectator, January 24th), perhaps you would allow me to call attention to the hardship inflicted by the new Land Tax on the clergy who derive part of their income from glebe. I received on Christmas Eve (a good day to choose) a notice that I should be required to pay over £20 on the part of the glebe which had been valued. Now the incumbent is, in no sense of the word, an owner of the glebe. He is not even a life tenant, for he derives the income from the land only so long as he ie of good behaviour and does the work required of him. He cannot develop the land or sell it for building pur- poses without obtaining the consent of the Bishop, the patron, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Indeed, a sale of the land is done only by the Commissioners. Yet he is taxed as though he were a landlord, holding up the land for his own selfish purposes. There is no money to make roads and lay sewers, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners naturally will not consent to a sale at a price which, when invested, will not produce ae much as the existing agricultural rents. The retrospective nature of the Act adds to the grievance, for most of na find such difficulty in making both ends meet that it ie next to impossible to find the money for the past four years to which the Act looks.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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