The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-10 00:00:00

/$ -;4 ; Th 4 r t ) , I C(r K _/' LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1858. No. 271.—V0L. VI. THE CHURCH-RATE QUESTION. Mao DERBY observed, with his usual penetra tion, that the first thing to be done, to bring about a reasonable adjustment of this question, was, to reject the demand for Total Repeal in a very decided manner. A majority -which ren- dered Sir Joint TRELAWNY'S Bill hopeless for many years to come, would be the most likely thing to bring the assailants to a reasonable state of mind; and so to render an adjustment of the question possible. This is most true: and yet we must discrimi nate the character of the assailants, so as not to 'hope where hope would be in vain. The decided tone taken by the House of Lords, its utter rejection of Total Repeal, and yet the declared willingness of every speaker to consider sny rational plan for a commutation, must operate powerfully on the minds of those mode rate Whigs of the House of Commons who really desire a settlement of the question without inflicting any great injury on the Church. All these will naturally be prepared to give up Total Repeal as hopeless, and to embrace any feasible scheme of commutation. But there is a more forward and noisy class, from whom it would be a mistake to expect the least concession. The active anti-Church-rate agitators are ' handed together in a Society into which no thought of compromise or concession will ever penetrate. Its presiding spirits, the MIALLs and MORLEYS, are men thoroughly imbued with hostility to all Established Churches, and who regard the attack upon Church-rates as merely the first step in the course they are taking. They mean the Tithes to follow the Church-rates ; they mean the exclusion of the Bishops from the House of Lords; and they do not even intend to ' leave the parish churches in the possession of the clergy. With men in this temper of mind, all negotiation is useless. And, below them, we find divers active agents, who are paid servants of the Society, and who do not wish the question to be settled, or the agitation to be quieted. In fact, of the whole body of agitators we must not entertain the least hope. The recent vote of the House of Lords may increase their animosity, but it will not render them in the slightest de gree more open to a rational consideration of the question. Their course will be unaltered. Their demands will not be in the smallest degree re duced. Their activity will be increased ; their warfare against the rates, in individual parishes, will go on. They will continually boast of new triumphs; and, at elections, they will constantly pledge large numbers of the borough members to support, and to accept nothing short of, Total Repeal. It would be the greatest possible mistake, therefore, to expect any change in the tactics of the Dissenting agitators, or to hope that the late vote of the House of Lords will render them more accessible to reason. It will do nothing of the kind. And to wait for their improvement would be merely to lose so much time. The decided negative of the Peers, therefore, is a good preparation, not for a negotiation with the Dissenters, but for propounding a rational plan of commutation to the moderate 'Whigs in Parliament. Lord GRANVILLE in the Upper House, and Lord JOHN RusaELL and Sir GEORGE LEWIS in the Lower, profess their willingness to consider any such plan ; and the question is too large to be dealt with by any smaller power than the Government itself. The Ministry will be expected to offer some proposal of this kind early in the next session. We have already indicated the outlines of two or three projects of this kind; and we will now mention one or two more suggestions which have been made, and which seem to merit at least some consideration. _ _ 1. The Tithe-cotimutation is now a completed thing. The sum levied on each parish is an as certained fact, and the aggregate of the whole collection could be ascertained. What would be the product of an added five or seven and a half per cent. ? If collected, the incumbent ought to pay it over (the added five or seven and a half per cent.) to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, or to the Ecclesiastical Com missioners, who might dispense it to the respective parish churches, upon the application of the Churchwardens, backed by the Archdeacon and the Diocesan Architect. 2. The parochial incumbents, everywhere, are at present most unjustly overcharged in the Poor-rate. Take any respectable village or small town. There is a solicitor, who occupies a house worth 501. a year, and who is rated at 401. There is a surgeon, who occupies a house worth 40/. a year, and who is rated at 321. Then there is the parson, whose house is also worth 401. a year , but instead of being rated at 321., he is rated at 250/. ! Why is this ? Because, while other people are rated merely upon the houses they occupy, he is rated upon his income ! The soli citor, probably, makes his 4001. or 5001. a year ; the surgeon, his 3001. or 400/. The incumbent receives 250/. from his tithes,—out of which, probably, he has to pay 20/. or 30/. for a school master; yet he is rated on his whole income, while the other inhabitants of the town are rated on what is probably not equal to one-sixth or one-tenth of theirs. This is clearly unjust ; yet so helpless are the clergy, that it has long bt.‘ett submitted to in silence. probably, if each incumbent Of a parish paid to the Poor-rate only a fair assessment on his dwelling, and paid the reQt of his assessment to the churchwarden fin - the expenses of the church, it might often suffice. Not that this would be fair or just ; but it would be better STAMPED UNSTAMPED -FIVEPENCE. than simply abolishing Church-rates, and leaving the incumbent to provide the expenses of the church himself. This would be a double in justice; whereas such a compromise as we have suggested would only rob the clergyman once. These two suggestions may serve to show how many ways might be discovered of providing something like a substitute for the present Church rates. Let the ensuing vacation be well and sedulously employed, in bringing some scheme of this sort into a practical shape; for we feel as sured that the friends of the Church have no time to lose. CONSERVATIVE-LIBERALISM. Ix his opening Declaration, on accepting office, in December, 1852, Lord ABERDEEN said :—" I " declare that, in my opinion, no Government " is possible except a Conservative Government. " I make another declaration, that no Government " is possible in this country except a Liberal Go " vernment. The truth is, that these terms have " no definite meaning." Upon which Lord DERBY calmly remarked, I that " the only intimation of the policy of the " Government is that it will be Liberal-Conser " vative or Conservative-Liberal. I confess that " this does not convey to my mind anything " very distinct." Mr. DISRAELI, with more pungency, remarked that "the people of England did not love Coali tions." And the truth of this remark was seen in the shipwreck of that Government within two years from that time. We were somewhat surprised, therefore, to find the Aberdeen doctrine revived in the Standard, a few days since, in an article which assures us that " there is no real antithesis between the " terms Conservative and Liberal." Was, then, Lord ABERDEEN right in 1852, or was Lord DERBY right, when he said that this mixed phrase conveyed no distinct meaning? Is a Liberal the same thing, or nearly the same thing, as a Conservative. What is the creed of a real, earnest, outspoken, and sincere Liberal—such an one, for instance, as Mr. BIUGIIT, or Mr. GILPIN, or Mr. FRANK CROSS LEO These are the men who are entitled to expound the Liberal creed; the mere Whigs are guilty of nothing more than flirtations with Liberalism. Liberalism, in its breadth and completeness. de nies thejustice and the expediency of Church Esuth lishments, and it intends, as Mr. MIALL plainly warns us, to open the • of Church and State, question has been gards the presence Lords as wholly i household or manhi tuencies of the H, gards the Ballot as the whole question • Is,. 0 • tte, so soon asObi l • cleared out ottNie , of the Bisho ; • r' • • b• indefensible. rg nhood guff louse of Cone; • gr q 'ai 4' s a sine qua nog ' l ,- J . • ' .:, 77