Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/136

 128| ENGLISH HISTOEY. [june

did not compensate for the ill-feeling which would be aroused in agricultural districts. Possibly, in the mind of the Ministry, some recognition was due to the clergy for the prominent part they had taken in the last general election, when the Church influence had been exercised unreservedly on behalf of Unionist candidates. Land owners and Church schools had received their respective grants out of the national exchequer, and the clergy were, it might be supposed, now to receive their share, but upon a very much reduced scale. The actual position of the question was of course obscured by issues raised by party politicians ; and not the least damaging assertion made by the Nonconformists was to the effect that at the time of the tithe commutation a sum of money was added to its value to enable future tithe rent charge owners to pay the rates thereon. Before the year 1836 every occupier of land (excepting land in which the tithe was .merged) was by law liable to be called upon to surrender annually to the owner of the tithes the tenth part of the actual produce of his land. For various reasons the Com- mutation Act abolished tithes, and in lieu of them fixed a money payment, in the form of a rent charge on the lands from which they issued. Directions were given in section 37 of the act for appraising the tithes. The average yearly value for the seven years preceding Christmas, 1835, was to be ascertained, and that value was to be the basis for calculating the sum due — varying with the corn averages — to the owner of the rent charge in future years. It was enacted that this rent charge should be subject to rates, just as the tithes in kind had been subject to rates. Commissioners were appointed to estimate the value of the tithes of every parish, and, in some cases, of every field in the parish. It was known that, although the titheowners had always the right to take the tithes in kind, and many of them did, the majority of them had long ceased to do so. Mutual convenience and the desire to avoid unpleasant- ness had led the landowner or farmer to make a bargain with the titheowner to surrender his right of taking tithes in kind for a sum of money. This was called composition, of which there were two kinds. In some instances the occupier paid the agreed sum in full to the titheowner directly. In others it wets arranged that the tithepayer should discharge his liability by paying part of it as rates to the rate-collector and the other part directly to the titheowner, and these parts were such that, if added together, their sum would equal the estimated full value of the tithes. There were, therefore, three classes of cases which the Tithe Commissioners had to consider : —

1. Where the titheowner collected his tithes in kind.

2. Composition with the farmer, who paid the whole sum agreed upon directly to the titheowner.

3. Composition with the fanner who, to save the tithe- owner trouble, agreed to pay the rates on the tithe and the balance of the tithe only to the titheowner. (