Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/172

 164] ENGLISH HISTORY. [auo.

measure (July 7) the Secretary for War, the Marquess of Laos- downe, frankly disavowed any intention of legislating this year, although recognising the necessity for reform, and the general opinion on his proposals was that increased bounties to willing men on emergencies would be more popular than a wholesale conscription of unwilling men. His proposal was that the total number of men to be raised should be decided by the Govern- ment of the day, and the lord-lieutenants and their deputies should be th6 local authorities to see that the number was forthcoming. The areas to be dealt With would be the counties and subdivisions of counties. In the preparation and revision of the lists the census would be employed, with the overseers as enumerating officers. All men between the statutory ages of eighteen and thirty-five would be returned. He proposed to exempt efficient Volunteers ; but it would be necessary to restrict the establishment of the Volunteer battalions in order to prevent an indiscriminate influx of men at a time when the introduction of the ballot might be apprehended. Under the bill any person chosen by ballot who refused to serve might be arrested and compelled to serve for five years from the time of his arrest, and be treated as a deserter if he afterwards absconded. The other exemptions were substantially those of the 1871 bill.

The Tithe Rent Charge Bill was, however, a measure much more in sympathy with the tastes of the press, both foi criticism and approval. The second reading (July 24) was moved by the Earl of Selborne in a carefully prepared speech in which he •emphasised the case for the bill by insisting upon the hardship of specific cases. Lord Selborne showed among other things, ■the extreme hardship of the titheowner being obliged to pay on the gross income of the living, though in reality compulsory payments to a retired incumbent and to a daughter church might -eat up more than half his revenue. He quoted the case of a man with 1501. a year net paying 75J. a year in rates because the gross tithe income was 600/. a year. Lord Ribblesdale, on the other side, dwelt chiefly on the fact that the bill relieved the rich as well as the poor incumbent, and ended by declaring the question of rating should be dealt with as a whole. After Lord Balfour had stated that he had never been more impressed with the absolute justice of a case than with that which had been put forward by the clergy, Lord Kimberley urged the argument that there was no ground for taking money from the taxpayers to provide an additional endowment for the Church. Nothing was more likely to increase the existing dissatisfaction of large classes with the Church than the proposal of the Government.

Lord Salisbury, who followed, at once dealt with the essential condition of the question. He insisted upon the necessity for recalling the fact that the law which governed the whole subject of rating is the act which was passed for one year, in 1840, and which since then had been renewed every