TITLE OF THE CHURCH TO CHURCH-RATES.
WHILE the laity are meeting in all parts of the country to peti- tion the Legislature for the absolute and unconditional abolition of Church-rates, the clergy, with their usual discretion, are in- sisting upon more stringent measures to procure their payment in full. A conclave of Archdeacons, convened by a circular letter of the Archdeacon of London, assembled in the metropolis on the 13th instant. These holy men took the subject of Church-rates into their consideration, not with the view of promoting Christian peace and good-will by devising some less odious means than the present for repairing churches and providing for the other pur- poses to which the produce of the rates is devoted—not with the view of lessening their amount—but to press upon the Government the necessity of " additional enactments for raising or making the rate." The intent of the Archdeacons is plain enough—they wish to put it out of the power of the rateable inhabitants to re- fuse the demands of the Church. How far they will succeed, re- mains to be tried ; but stranger things have happened than the recovery by the Church party of their predominance in the Le- gislature ; and should they have the power, we see no symptoms at present of any squeamishness as to its exercise. The declaration of the necessity of new laws to compel recu- sants to pay Church-rates, is not the only remarkable point in the resolutions passed at the metropolitan muster of Archdeacons on the 13th. These venerable persons go very far back indeed to' establish the claim of Mother Church to the rates, and would seem to regard them as more sacred property even than tithes. For as to tithes, a good deal of chopping and changing is sanctioned; but Church-rates must not.-,be meddled with. The Archdeacons resolved- That Chinch-rates being a rent charge upon property older by centuries than the title to the property on which it fills, the payment of such rates in their present form cannot be justly consid,red as a harden upon conscience ; neither, on the Aber hand, could be transferred from that which is now, and Arm been from time immemorial, rateable, to persons and property at present not liable, without violation of the sacred rights of property, and con- sequently not without violence to consciences rightly informed. That this meeting hereby earnestly deprecates all interference with the principle of Church-rates ; being persuaded that no other mode of attaining the sante object equally safe and permanent can he devised."
Marvellous indeed must be the ignorance or stupidity of those persons who can suppose the present system to be " safe and per- manent;' curious notion• must. they have of "rightly-informed consciences," who compel Dissenters to support the Church ; and not over cautious were the Archdeacons when they declared Church-rates to be a " rent charge on property, older by cen- tunes than the title to the property on which it falls." It may be fliirly retorted, that only that property which was originally liable to the payment of rates should now be burdened with it. The property which was rateable from time immemorial ought to bear the whole weight of the impost ; for to transfer part of it to property since created—to land reclaimed from the sea—to houses and other buildings since erected—would be a " violation of the sacred rights of property," according to Archdeacons' notion of law and justice. No; if the argument of the Archdeacons against the transfer of the liability to pay Church-rates is good for any thing, it should serve as a protection to all that property which has been produced and established since the time when a tax was imposed for the repairs and erection of churches. To do justice to the parties who have been wronged by the existing system, is now impossible. Millions have been levied upon those who ought not to have paid them. Millions have been transferred from those who ought to have been the sole supporters of the Church, by the apportionment of the rates upon old and new property. But, to a certain extent, justice may yet be done, and the burden cast upon the right shoulders. Should such a process be attempted, we ap- prehend that the Archdeacons would willingly give up their an- cient, inviolable, and prescriptive claims, and rest upon the autho- rity of Acts of Parliament, even although they thereby did ac- knowledge the right of the Legislature to deal with Church-rates according to its discretion or its fully.
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