The Member for East Gloucestershire may be right in saying
England cannot become a huge market-garden, but we suppose he does not want to discourage any profitable cultivation. We may look, therefore, to his party to aid next Session in settling the question of " extraordinary " tithe, an impost directly—though, of course, accidentally—levelled at any such change of crop. Broadly speaking, if a man who has grown corn grows hops or market vegetables over any perceptible area, he is liable to have his tithe increased by a sum often equal to 10s. an acre,—that is, nearly to another rent, as rents are paid this year. The existence -of such a right in the clergy is almost an accident ; it never was intended to apply to such a state of things as the present, and it creates a furious, blind irritation, which makes new and powerful classes hostile to the Establishment. No more dan- gerous financial question was ever raised for the Church, which, -with the farmers fairly hostile, could not live. We trust a reasonable compromise will be found, but, if not," extraordinary -tithe" must, in the general interest, be summarily swept away. The Clergy might as well be invested with a right to prohibit agricultural experiment.
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