The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-01-08 00:00:00

THE FARMERS AND THE TITHE.

A crowded meeting of farmers was held at Woking-
ham on Tuesday to discuss the inequalities of the tithe
rent-charge, and among the speakers was Mr. Walter,
M.P., who said he felt that his business in attending
that meeting was chiefly to take notes of the various
speeches on this important question) and, as far as he
was able, to make such comment as he thought they
required. He wished to know what the tithe-payers
looked upon as their great disadvantage and what
remedy existed to relieve them. They had heard
a great deal of the original intention that led to the
levying of tithes, of the use and abuse of religious
establishments; but however important those ques-
tions might be in themselves they were not strictly
germane to the question before them. It became their
duty first to inquire how far the country stood pledged
with regard to this question. He had studied very
carefully all the debates that took place at the passing
of the Tithe Commutation Act in 1836. He had
taken some trouble to make himself acquainted with
those careful; full, and argumentative debates, which
would stand side by side with those of any Parliament
elected since. Many of them were able to remember
those extraordinary, harassing times when everything
in the country had to pay tithe. They had, then,
in the first place, a very complicated state of the
law as to the amount of tithe to be imposed, whether
it was to be on the gross amount of the product—
a view generally held—or upon the profits of
the land. There were great tithes and little
tithes, tithes on hop gardens, pigs, growing wood, and
every conceivable kind of thing likely to be found.
They had decisions also in the courts of law to con-
tend with. Besides that, the tithes as they then
existed were felt to be great hindrances to the cultiva-
tion of the land. He did not know whether all these
complaints were reasonable and just, but it was a
recognized thing that there was an injustice in hop
gardens being higher taxed than other arable land.
There were complaints that the tithes discouraged the
laying out of money on the land. Besides that,
the collection of tithes gave occasion not only for
a great deal of litigation, but also for numerous
artful dodges. Such was the case of a man who
held an estate part of which was tithe free. The
farmer would grow untithable produce on the tith-
able part and tithable produce on the untithable
portion, so that after all he really paid no tithe at all.
That was the style that things went on in until 1836,
when the Tithe Commutation Act was passed. That
was after years of careful consideration. Sir Robert
Peel himself brought in a BiR that was not carried
through on account of his Ministry coming te an end,
but a Bill was brought in by Lord John Russell,
which was subjected to the most searching inquiry
because it appealed directly to both classes, the one
that received and the one that paid. That Bill was
passed as a binding compromise. It was based on the
then value of three of the greatest articles of agricultural
produce—namely, wheat, barley, and oats. It set forth
the basis on which the averages were to be calculated.
There were no such things as tithes, legally speaking, but
there was a rent-charge founded on certain averages.
He always contended that the great and fundamental
defect of that measure was that there was no easy and
expeditious machinery by means of which the tithe-
payer was able to redeem those tithes. It was unjust
to saddle the ,landowners with an unredeemable mort-
gage that they could not by any means get rid of.
Within the last few years Mr. Corbett had brought in
a Bill—there had been several during that time on the
subject of tithes—for the purpose of facilitating the re-
demption of tithes. He had himself been trying for the
last six months to redeem the tithes on land of his in his
own parish as an experiment. He wanted to see what
time and cost would be necessary for redeeming 140 or
150 acres, and if the experiment succeeded he would pro
bono public°, push thematter more forward. But he had
always said that the burden on the land must be
borne by the landlord, and the last two tenants
he had entered into agreements with had
their land tithe-free. It was a burden that
must in the end come in a great measure out of the
pockets of the landlords, and he was for letting it
come from them in the first place. The tithe was
a tax on the land, fluctuating with the price of food.
He believed that the clergy would be far better off if
they were not subject to those fluctuations. It would
be much better if, instead, they had a regular amount.
Mr, Walter concluded his speech by offering some
observations as to the collection of tithe averages.