Page:Tithes, a paper read at the Diocesan Conference at Rochester, May 31, 1883.djvu/10

 is tithe? It is merely rent under another name. I have had to do with scores of farm agreements; what is the regular process by which the value of land for letting is arrived at? It is worth so much, say 30s. per acre. What is the tithe? 4s. per acre. What are the rates? 3s. in the pound. The land is then let to the tenant at the figure which remains after making these deductions. In the one case the land will be let to the tenant at a rent allowing for the tithe, in the other tithe will not be considered in estimating the letting value. The proposal is that it should be collected in the same way as the land tax, which by law the tenant is allowed to deduct from his rent, and which in practice now is usually paid directly by the landlord, and this is really the requirement of the Act which regulates tithes now. It is only by custom that the tenant pays them. This alteration is one which I have advocated more than once on public occasions, but I have done so not on the ground that any principle is involved, or that it would bring about any great change, but simply because it would tend to do away with those unhappy collisions which from time to time arise between the rector of a parish and the tithe-payer, which excite irritation against the Church of England, and impair the influence of the clergyman. The present system is also unsatisfactory in this respect, that the clergy naturally shrink from putting the law in force by the remedy which they have of levying a distress upon the tenant's property, and therefore arrears are allowed to run on, and the ultimate resort is to the landlord, although he may have no means of knowing the amount of the tenant's indebtedness. If the present system is to remain in force, it should certainly be enacted that no tithe-owner who had not taken steps to enforce payment should be able to recover from the landlord arrears for more than one year previous to the current year. I foresee certain difficulties in the change; the law will have to be altered which now gives power to recover from the produce of the land, and there is this objection, that whereas the occupier is always on the spot, and to be got at, the owner is not. Speaking as a landlord, the change will not add to our happiness; it will mean one more visit of the collector, and in making deductions to our tenants I am afraid the fact will slip out of sight that they no longer are burdened