THE TITHE QUESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Might I reply through your columns to a number of clergymen who have been good enough to write to me privately in regard to the Tithe Bill P "Your objections to it as a land- lord," say they all, "would be valid enough, if landlords were asked to undertake any new responsibility ; but in the opinion of the highest legal authorities, the intention of the Act of 1836 was to create a charge upon the land to be defrayed by the landowner, and the fact is, you unscrupulous landlords, with your usual craft and greed, have for more than half-a- century evaded your plain duties, to the great detriment of us. poor parsons, who are so easily worried and so shamelessly oppressed." What a shocking picture have we here of wrong-doing on the one hand, and of long-suffering on the other ! But is there not something amiss with the perspec- tive P First of all, "plain duties" that have to be expounded by "the highest legal authorities" cannot be so very plain. Then, again, the intention of an Act is to be gathered from the Act itself, and not from the obiter dicta of legal luminaries, however eminent. Now, the Act itself expressly takes away all personal liability for tithe, and leaves the tithe-owner to seek his remedy by distraint on the produce of the farm,— that is, upon the property of the tenant. How, then, can it be argued, even at Diocesan Conferences, that the " final " and " sacred " settlement of 1836 meant the landlord to be primarily liable for tithe, and that by contracting himself out of such liability he has been guilty of moral misconduct P. But it can be argued, and argued unanswerably, that to alter the main provisions of our Magna Charta in regard to tithe, is to overturn the basis of the settlement, and this cannot be admitted unless the whole question be reopened and readjusted- -I am, Sir, Ste., The Lyth, Ellesmere, April 12th. ARTHUR T. JEER.
Previous page
