LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE TAXATION OF CLERICAL INCOMES. [To THI EDITOR OP THZ " SrzcTiT026.9 Sin,—May I, having given, for good reasons, close attention to this matter, thank you for your admirable article, in the Spectator of March 27th, on the subject ? Just as Sir
Michael Hicks-Beach seems alone among Conservatives and Unionists to have kept a clear head in the House, so the Spectator alone in the Conservative and Unionist Press has dispassionately treated the subject of Mr. Round's motion, and has pointed out the dangers underlying its hasty acceptance. But, though I have headed this letter with the title chosen for your article, is not that title a petitio principii when the actual alleged grievance is only the taxation (i.e., the rating) of tithe rent-charge ? The clergy who derive their income (or the bulk of it) from that source may choose to describe it as " salary " or "clerical income," but in the eyes of the law it is tithe rent-charge alone, whether payable to clergy, to laymen, or to corporations. It is difficult, I know, in these hard times, to induce the clergy to listen to reason, and to look the facts calmly in the face ; but if they wish for relief, it is absolutely essential that they should do so, and that they should not confuse the fall in their incomes with the clear and distinct issue whether they are or have been unjustly treated in the matter of rates and taxes. It is on the latter ground that they can come to Parliament for relief.
Where, on this point, is their " grievance" ? It is, to my knowledge, a favourite argument in "Church Defence" that the parson's tithe is as good as the squire's freehold (it is now, from its preferential status, better). It is, and always has been, accordingly, liable, like the squire's land, to rates. When the Tithe Commutation Act was passed this was fully recog- nised, and the liability of the tithe to rate provided for. When a clergyman accepts a country living he does so with the full knowledge that its tithe is liable to rates, and that he must reckon for a deduction from its gross value accordingly. Where, then, I repeat, is the grievance ? A few of the clearer-sighted clergy see this, I believe, plainly, and recognise that the true grievance is one that they share with the squire,—namely, the fact that real property has to bear the whole burden of the rates, while personal property and salaries escape scot-free.
So much for the general question of rating the tithe rent- charge. The immediate grievance, however, of the clergy is their exclusion from the Rating Act of last year; and this, in the Press of both parties, seems to be thoughtlessly ad- mitted. As the spokesman of the Essex clergy urged on the county Members, it excluded them "from the relief which on. every ground of justice and equity they ought to have received." One of the answers to this complaint you have clearly set forth,—namely, that the Act was intended to encourage agriculture as "a matter of national concern," and that this justification does not include the parson. But surely, in equity, there is a farther reply. Sir William Harcourt's Finance Act had laid upon the land a wholly new burden of taxation in the Death-duties, from which the parson's tithe escaped. When this principle of "equalising" the burdens on real and personal property was carried out by relieving some of the former from part of its burden of ratee last year, it is obvious that the parson, who had escaped the Death-duties as a tithe-owner, had no such claim on this. ground as the landowner.
Lastly, no one reading the laments of the clergy in the Press would ever imagine that they can exact the whole of their tithe-rent charge before the nominal owner of the land, can receive a penny, and obtain it sometimes when the occupier in actually making a loss. I believe, indeed, that the mover of the resolution in the House of Com- mons has had personal experience of this state of things, and I know that there is much soreness of feeling among small landowners at the whole profit of farming, where there is a profit, being eaten up, in some cases, by the tithe,—a state of things, they contend, that can never have been contemplated. I have before me the case of a maiden lady whose rents are barely sufficient to pay the tithe, so that there is nothing left for herself; while another had to spend capital on a farm, then to let it rent-free, and, having done so, to pay the tithe out of her own pocket ! These people are not so ready to complain as the clergy, but their loss is greater.
Unfortunately the clergy will denounce one for lack of sympathy when, recognising to the full their cruelly straitened circumstances, one yet asks them to distinguish poverty from injustice. One of them, expounding in the Morning Post the grievances of the rural clergy, in the matter of rates and taxes, observed that he had nine children. It is because of such inconsequent arguments as this that they fail to im- press the public. If it is for the Church and Churchmen to relieve their increasing poverty, it is useless to appeal to the State on the ground of imaginary injustice.—I am, Sir, &c., J. H. R.
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