NONCONFORMIST ENDOWMENTS.
[TO VIZ EDITOR OF TER"SPECTATOR."] SEIL,—Will you allow me briefly to comment on Dr. P. V. Smith's letter on Church endowments in your paper of April 7th? Without any wrong statement, Dr. Smith, like other Church advocates, gives in effect a false impression, because he stops short of the vital matter. Tithe, no doubt, was not " created by Act of Parliament," but it was converted from a voluntary gift enforced by spiritual sanctions to a com- pulsory payment enforced by law about the twelfth century by the Judges of the realm. Originally it was an Income-tax on industry; gradually it has been limited in practice to a charge on the produce of land. But, Lord Selborne notwith- standing, I hold that such a conversion from a spiritual duty to a legally enforceable payment is as ranch a State endowment as if it had been imposed by an Act of Parliament. Larld brought into cultivation since the twelfth century was sub- jected to tithe as a matter of ordinary law, and it surely can make no matter for the purposes of the general argument. whether the ordinary law rested on Act bf Parliament or in the breast of the Judges. It has always appeared to me mere quibbling to maintain (as distinguished men often do) that an endowment of such an origin cannot fairly be called a " national" endowment, in contrast to more recent gifts by individuals, whether for Church or Nonconformist purposes. The other great portion of the old Church endowments are the lands given by the King, and a grant by the Sovereign in early English history for national uses is fairly to be con- sidered a national grant as compared with grants by private individuals. Both tithe and *Church land have for centuries been regulated by statute, and the conditions of their enjoy. ment defined and altered in a way and on a scale very different from any Parliamentary dealings with Noncon- formist endowments. And it seems to me that if the opponents of Disestablishment frankly recognised such facts, it would be more creditable to them than the violent and delusive language too frequently used, though often, no doubt, provoked by the wild language of the advocates of Disestablishment.—I am, Sir, &c., HENRY J. ROBY. Grasmere.
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