[To THU EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:9 SIR,--The two statements
in your editorial note to Mr. Astley Cooper's letter in the Spectator of August 15th are un- doubtedly true: "The financial situation in many small rural parishes is, we fear, at present deplorable. There is clearly no
single remedy and no panacea." The Peterborough Diocesan Association tries to relieve the severe strain in the "clerical maintenance" branch of Church finance by the following three methods:—
(1) Union of Benefices.—Two " starvings" sometimes make a "living." But the number of benefices possible to be held in plurality is small, and only those who have tried to bring this about realise the difficulties that have to be overcome. Questions of contiguity and patronage at once arise. When these have been settled there remains "incompatibility of temper" on the part of the two parishes. When all that is possible has been done in this way, only the fringe of the present difficulty will have been touched.
(2) Further Endowment of Small Beneficcs.—The raising of a capital sum for this purpose is a slow process. This year's special scheme of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners is nothing short of splendid. Under it some ten or twelve benefices in this diocese will at once be raised to 2200 a year. Their ordinary scheme, and that of Queen Anne's Bounty, of meeting with an equal grant any sum raised locally for augmenting certain selected benefices to 2200 a year, has done yeoman service to the Church. The net result of our efforts in this respect last year was the investment of 21,350, or an increase in yearly income among three benefices of 240 10s., and a sum of 21,510 for the building of a vicarage in a parish where it was very much needed. It is hoped that this method will be continued, and with increasing rapidity. But meanwhile the burden presses very heavily on many of the clergy. So we turn to our next method.
(3) Queen Victoria Clergy Fund.—Diocesan branches managed by Committees of laymen, and working in con- junction with the Central Committee, appeal for and collect money for making annual grants to clergy whose benefices are poorly endowed. This Fund provides an effect ual method for relieving the present distress. If every member of the Church would do his or her part in supporting this Fund, the income of every parochial clergyman might at once be raised to 2200, a sufficiently modest aim to keep in view. Last year in thin diocese fifty-five grants were made varying in amount from 210 to 225. But there are two hundred benefices in the diocese with an income of less than 2200. This tells its own convincing tale !—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. E. POTTS, Hon. Treasurer Peterborough Diocesan Association. Thurcaston Rectory, Leicester.
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