Page:Tithes, a paper read at the Diocesan Conference at Rochester, May 31, 1883.djvu/12

 season of 1879, the tithe-payer was paying £109 17s. It has fallen this year to £100 4s. 9¾d., and there is every prospect of a continued decrease. Bat coincidently with very low prices and bad harvests the tithe-average remained exceptionally high. This is of course very undesirable; but it is a question whether the much shorter average would not tend to make the fluctuations even more sudden. A longer average seems to give a fairer measure of value; and in the matter of farm lands and long agreements to make a calculation more easy. Mr. Gibson in his pamphlet (page 14) gives statistics to show that under a short system of averages the price of tithe in some of the late bad years would have been higher still. It all seems to me to point to this, that a fixed sum £100 of tithe to represent £100 of money, not calculated at all on corn average, would be the best change; but in these days of prospective decline in the value of tithe it may be difficult to get the tithe-payer to agree to this arrangement.

III.—The objection that is raised as to the way in which the averages are taken and the returns made from the different market towns is one which, if it does exercise much influence on the value, is a matter provided for by the Tithe Act of 1836, and can be remedied by a due enforcement of the law. I would only remark that it is a mistake to argue, as some do, that because wheat has fallen considerably in price of late years that therefore it stands to reason that the tithe ought to have fallen in the like ratio. The value of tithe depends more upon barley and oats, and both those kinds of corn are higher in price than at the time of the commutation, and are more extensively cultivated. This objection, like the former, would cease under a system of fixed money value.

IV.—Increased facilities, it is said, should also be given for redemption. This sounds at any rate promising, and if only the magic source could be found from which the already overburdened landlord could find the means to redeem, and the scheme be propounded which should be fair as between the tithe-owner and tithe-payer, what an excellent plan it would be. Unfortunately the suggestions most in favour amount simply to a confiscation of some ten per cent, of the tithe-owner's property, after deducting fifteen per cent, for poor rate and expenses of the collection. It was assumed by a