CANADIAN DISESTABLISHMENT.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:l SIB,—In the Spectator of last Saturday you say, "We wish those among the Irish clergy who, like Mr. Sherlock and Mr. W. C. Plunket, have the nerve to look the situation in the face, would examine the Canadian scheme, and state the points which render it applicable or inapplicable to Ireland ;" and you add, "they will find it much more useful to think that scheme out, than to write about the injustice of a sentence they cannot avert." Will you allow me to explain that this is exactly what I have attempted to do in collecting and publishing the Constitutions of the American, Canadian, and New Zealand Churches, comparing them together, and drawing a few practical conclusions from the review.
If, however, by the "Canadian scheme" you mean the financial arrangement with which the Canadian Church met the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, I will with your permission state the probable effect that such scheme if adopted in Ireland would have. If in any respect I err in my conclusions, it will give an opportunity for any person better informed to correct them, and set the matter in a clearer light.
In Canada power was given to commute, "with the consent of the parties interested," the vested rights of the clergy for a capital sum. This capital sum was made over to the Church Society, and the Society in return guaranteed to each clergyman his life income. The object of this was to save a sum for the permanent endowment of the Church, for of course when all these annuities had lapsed the Church Society would be in possession of the capital for which the life interests had been commuted. Now, there were about 173 clergymen in Canada receiving from the Clergy Reserves about £23,275 per annum. Their life interests were commuted for about 1.275,851, or a little less than twelve years' purchase. But, if 1 am rightly informed, it was found possible in Canada to invest this sum at 10 per cent. per annum ; and in that case the Canadian Church would seem in the end to have given up an income of £23,000, and to have received in return a capital that yielded 227,000 per annum.
That the result would be so favourable probably neither friends nor foes expected.
But it is impossible that a similar scheme applied to the Church in Ireland should yield nearly as favourable results.
Taking the annual income of the Church in Ireland at /600,000, this at twelve years' purchase would yield a capital of £7,200,000. Now, at the outset occurs the difficulty,—how is such a large capital to be invested advantageously? It has, indeed, been suggested that it might be employed in purchasing both glebe lands and tithe rent charge ; but the trustees would probably think that such an investment would only offer the temptation to disendow again at some future time, and would be shy of running such a risk.
Supposing, however, that this difficulty as to investment were surmounted, and the capital advantageously invested, what return would it produce? Certainly one cannot reasonably calculate on a higher rate of interest than four per cent. The annual income of the Church would thus be about /300,000, leaving another sum of 1300,000 to be made up. To meet this there would, of course, be the annual value of the glebe houses, and whatever post-Reformation endowments could be saved. An appeal would have to be made to Churchmen to provide the rest, and the owners of advowsons might fairly be called on not to regard the compensation granted to them as merely for their own private purposes.
But it may be asked what reasons are to recommend such a
scheme, or why should Churchmen be called on to make such exertions ? I answer :—
1. That such an opportunity of providing the Church with an endowment will never recur again, and it is surely worthy of the utmost exertions to secure on the easiest terms an adequate provision for the future wants of the Church.
2. The greatest effort will be called for at first, when the minds of men are most deeply interested, and they will be more disposed to make sacrifices for the cause. The sum to be raised, large at first, will every year decrease in amount as the life interests fall in by death. The elder men will naturally first fall off, and with them the heaviest charges will go. Meantime, the work of retrenchment will be carried on, and so the calls upon Churchmen for assistance will sensibly diminish. Out of 2,281 clergymen living in 1868, only 1,707 will be chargeable in 1878, and in 1888 only 1,188. It would, moreover, only be just that the Church should be at liberty to effect an equitable arrangement with any of the clergy who desire "to begin a new career in Ireland or England, or in the colonies." A considerable reduction in the annual charges might thus be made.
3. The plan proposed as an alternative will be utterly impracticable. To allow the life interests to die out gradually, and be replaced by the voluntary contributions of the Church, would really be to allow the Church to die by inches. In the majority of country districts there would be little or nothing provided.
I fear I have already trespassed too much upon your space, and therefore here conclude.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. SHERLOCK (CUBIC of Bray).
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