The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-06 00:00:00

MR STOUBBRIDGE OBSERVED.

bents, and on that date, therefore, the Act of Die-
establislunent will be formally complete. in the
meantime—that is, between the peening of the Act
and the let of January, 1871—vacancies will be filled
up in the ordinary way, and Bishops will be approved
by the Crown if presented by the Irish Bishops, and
such Biehops will receive from the new Commission
the usual emoluments of the offices they fill, but pro-
vieionally only, and until the year 1871 comes, when
they will be thrown for support upon the Disestablished
Church. On the let of January, 1871, the bishops
will cease to sit in the House of Lords, the Ecclesiasti-
cal Courts will have no further functions, the laws of
the Church, instead of being Imperial Statutes, will
degenerate into the conventions of a voluntary botlYt
We shall have therefore on that day on the one side a
Church perfectly reconstructed as a free society, on
the other a large body of ecclesiastics enjoying vested
interests subject to the continued performance of stated
duties.
The problem of Disestablishment being complete,
there remains the task of Disendawnient. Private
endowments that is, endowments from private
sources made since the year 1860—are to be handed
over to the new Governing Body. Churches in use
will be transferred to the same corporation, on an
undertaking to maintain them; and with respect to
some dozen churches—St. Patrick's Cathedral, and
others ot similar character, which are national monu-
ments—it is propoited that the new Commission shall
be empowered to allot a small sum for their mainte-
nance. Glebe houses, the total annual value of which,
according to Sir R. tAriffithe valuation, is but £18,600,
and which are subject to building charges granted
by existing or recent incumbents to the extent of
£250,000, are also to be transferred to the Governing
Body upon an agreement on their part to undertake
the burden of these mortgages. The present income
of the clergy is made up 4.f rents of lands, of profits
from lands in hand, and of tithe-rent charges. The
Government measure vests the tithe-rent charges im-
mediately in the new Commission, subject to the pay-
ment of equal annual sums to the clergy entitled to
receive them. It is proposed, moreover, that this
Commission shall be empowered to agree with every I
clew man for the exchange of his rent-charge annuity
and life interest in lands for a lump sum, to be paid
to the governing body of the Disestablished Church,
upon their undertaking to pay him his guaranteed
income. If such an arrangement should be extensively
adopted, as Mr. Gladstone hopes, the result woulu
he that at an early date the Governing Body of the
Disestablished Church would be in possession of
churcoes and parsonages, and of a large capital
charged with the life interests of existing incum-
bents and with the mortgages on the parsonages,
and, subject thereto, applicable to the general pur-
- if the Disestablished Church; while the new
~ominissiimers, who may appropriately be called the
liquidators of the Establishment, would be in pos-
session of lands and rent-charges, subject to the
debt they would necessarily have incurred in ra-sing
the capital money to be paid to the Governing
Body. We must still describe the mode of dealing ,
with the Regium Domini and the grant to May-
nooth. The Presbyterian ministers will enjoy 1
their vested interests, which may, however, be com-
muted on analogous terms to those offered to the clergy
of the Establishment. The sums paid to the Educa-
tional Establishments of the Presbyterians and to
Maynooth will be treated differently. No one person
has a vested interest in these, but they will be corn.
muted into capital sums of fourteen years' purchase,
representing the average expectation of office of a Pro-
fessor, and these capital sums will be handed over to
the respective Academies.
Disestablishment being complete, and also Disen-
dowment, what shall the liquidators do with the
property in their hands? They will be empowered
to sell limited portions of glebes—say ten acres
about each parsonage—to the Governing Body, at
a fair valuation. The rest of the lands in their non-
session will be sold under conditions giving their
actual tenants rights of pre-emption; and further,
to facilitate purchase by tenants, it is proposed that
three-fourths of the purchase money may be left on
the security of the land to be repaid by instalments
extending over twenty-two years. As to the tithe-rent
charges. the proposal of the Government is that they
shall absolutely cease at the end of forty-five years.
Mr. Gladstone did not state the proposition thus
nakedly, but the result is the same. If any landowner
chooses to redeem the tithe-rent charge at once, he is
to be allowed to do so at 22A (more correctly, 22 2-9)
years' purchase—that 4 to say, at an assumed rate of
interest of 41 per cent': If he declined this, the rent-
charge which he and his successors in title will an,
Dually pay will be divided into two parts, the one
to be taken as interest at 3i per cent, on the as-
sumed capital value if the rent charge at 221 years'
purchase, and the other part as an instalment of the
principal, which would pay it all off in 45 years.
n short, tithe-rent charges are to cease at the end
of forty years. The Commission, having thus disposed
of all its property in specie, will be left possessed of
considerable funds into which it has been converted,
representing, according to Mr. Gladetone's calculation,
an ultimate capital of nearly £8,000,000, and he pro-
ceeded to dispose of the income of this, which will
amount to, say, £311,000 a year. Briefly described
the Government propose to devote it to offices of
mercy—the relief of unavoidable calamity and suffering
not provided for by the Poor law, the maintenance of
lunatic asylums, idiot asylums, training schools for the
deaf, dumb, and blind ; training schools for nurses, and
county infirmaries; partially relieving thereby the
county cess, a Lich presses very hardly at present on
the poorer tenants of Ireland.
We have glanced only at the leading features of the
Government plan, but it will be seen at once that it is
a vast scheme. It deals with every branch of the
question, with ninny subsidiary topics to which for the
sake of simplicity we have not referred, and it was
correctly described by Mr. Gladstone as one of the
largest propos as ever submitted to a Legislative
Assembly during a time of peaceful legislation. It
must be added also that it is a scheme which as a
whole fairly accomplishes the task befere the Govern-
ment, and deserves, as it will doubtless receive, the
warm suppoit of Parliament. It is a great, a COM-
prehentiive work. It is an attempt to grapple
thoroughly with the question, and it does so in such a
manner as to justify- Mr. Gladstom a sanguine ex-
tireasion of confidence, at the close of his speech, that
the end of the great controversy of the Irish Establish-
ment is at hand.

Poses o,
Commissioners,

princi
In -'

etrnsideral