UPHOLDING THE ESTABLISHMENT Sus,—I think the 'gifts' from which the
Church Commissioners derive an annual £17 million in- come, referred to by Colonel Hornby (August 21), should be categorised lest they be equated with the Countess of Lauderdale's 'money given by past churolifolk for the specific purpose of assisting this or that aspect of church life and work.' This is but one, and' probably the least significant financially, of the categories.
The others are: (a) money bequeathed for masses for the .souls of the deceased to chantry chapels, dissolved at the Reformation; (h) lands and other revenues granted by Crown or Parliament to the Church during the long period when the hierarchy was second only to the monarchy in political power, and sometimes even pre-eminent; (c) lands and other revenues acquired through medimval forgeries, one of the major monastic industries; (d) bequests for charitable and educational purposes, taken over and 'administered' by the Church as the only body with correct legal status; (e) tithes imposed impartially on friend and foe alike, converted by the 1936 Tithe Act (modified by the 1951 Tithe Act and
Finance Act) into 3 per cent redemption stock, then reinvested in well-chosen equities: so that the new income is considerably in excess of the original tithes.
When liberal opinion calls for disendowment with the disestablishment of the Church of England, it has in mind the above endowments, to which the Church has no moral right, and not the genuine gifts referred to by the Countess Lauderdale, DAVID TRIM
National Secular Society. President 103 Borough 'High Street, SE!
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