The Press.
London, England, 1855-07-07 00:00:00

CHURCH RATES.

Wz readily respond to the courteous criti-
cisms on our former article upon this subject
which appeared lately in the Morning Herald,
and resume the consideration of the question
with the conviction that when our scheme is
fully developed, it is one in which not only the
great body of Conservatives will find them-
selves agreed, but one also in which reasonable
men of all parties may concur without sacrifice
of principle.
That the fabrics of our,c. hurche s,as our national
inheritance, should be nationally maintained, is
conceded on all hands. We have selected a
county rate for the purpose (and our contem-
porary agrees with us), not because it is in
theory so correct as a diocesan rate would be,
but because it is practically more feasible, as
the machinery for its collection is ready made
and simple. On the other hand, we select it
in preference to a parish rate, among other
reasons, because the size and importance of
the church is very frequently disproportioned
to the present condition of the parish ; and to
leave our noble country churches to the care
of (in many cases) poor and reduced parishes
is either consigning them to ruin, or laying an
unequal burden upon parishes which are al-
ready overburdened. A county affords area
enough for equalising and rendering almost
imperceptible a charge which would often
otherwise be an unfair infliction.

It is next, and as generally, allowed that the
expenses of Divine worship (as separate from
those of the maintenance of the fabrics)—i.e.,
the congregational, as distinct from the na-
tional, charge—should be borne by the con-
gregations themselves. In reality, it is out of
these that the obloquy that has fallen upon
church rates almost wholly arises. To the
keeping of our churches in repair very few Dis-
senters object, or possibly can do so, while
they use the church so much as they do at
present. The vestry-meeting itself is housed
in a portion of the building ; the church tower
contains the public clock; Dissenters are

THE PRESS.

constantly being baptised, married, buried by
her ministers ; and we all know the outcry
that is raised if a clergyman (however impera-
tively the law may forbid him) refuses to bury
any parishioner, of whatever form of dissent.
But when we come to the charges for Divine
worship, the matter is somewhat different.
The church and churchyard may be, and often
are, used by them ; the clerk and organist are
not. They maintain their own worship, and
do not like to be called upon for both. As we
have said before, we think the whole sum
contributed by Dissenters so unimportant to
the Church, compared with the ill.feeling
engendered by the annual contest and the
compulsory rate, that we would willingly free
Dissenters from any payment to the Church
or its services at all. Any congregation that
grudges the very trifling expenses incidental
to its worship must have formed a very low
estimate of the value of its devotions—though
probably a very correct one.
The question, however, on which our con-
temporary joins issue with us is, whether
Dissenters shall be allowed to free themselves
from all payment to the Church (i.e., to the
fabric ; we agree in exempting them from
charge for the services) on certifying their
dissent? One of the details of our scheme,
had we gone into them, would, we think, have
obviated the objection of our contempo-
rary. We see no possible reason why a man's
conscience should be allowed to economise
his cash, or a premium should be offered for
dissent. Let the Dissenter by all means
cease to contribute to the Church; but it doer
not follow that he should cease to contribute ;
let his share of the impost go to the general
county rate ; or let it be paid to his own
chapel ; if he dissents from every sort of reli-
gion, let it go to provide for the increased
prison accommodation that will infallibly be
needed as soon as his unhappy opinions
become general ; in short, there are a hundred
ways of arranging the details of the scheme,
if people will but set to work with kindness
and forbearance. Moreover, while wo are
ready to make any and every concession in
the matter that is compatible with our main
principles (which are, the fabrics to be main-
tained nationally, allowing Dissenters to sub-
stitute a contribution to a different object
where they desire it ; the services to be main-
tained by the congregations; and persons who
have ceased to pay for the Church to have no
further voice in the management of her con-
cerns), we feel strongly, as we observed before,
that the plea of " conscience " has been sadly
shattered by the war taxes.
We quite agree that if " conscience "
is to excuse the paymek of taxes, of whatever
sort, an almost boundless supply of the article
may be calculated on at once, to the serious
damage of the Queen's revenue. A premium
will be offered upon it which far less question
able virtues fail to command, and the Heralds
capital story of the lazy undergraduate turn-
ing Dissenter and "cutting chapel" for con-
science sake will soon have a breadth of
application to imposts of all sorts that will
end in a very grim sort of pleasantry for the
country. We should imagine, also, that
Dissenters themselves, whose objection is,
almost ostentatiously, stated to rest not on the
amount of the payment (it is always a trivial
one), but on the principle involved in it, will
be glad of an alternative which obviates the
suspicion that necessarily attaches to the
motives of a person whose conscience and in-
terest happen, however accidentally, to go in
the same direction.

Our own feeling, however, is much more for
the support and extension of the Church and
of religion than for the scruples of convenient
consciences. And no one can have witnessed
a church-rate contest, on however small a
scale, without feeling that it is a scandal and a
hindrance immeasurably disproportioned to
the pence at stake. It will be very great gain
to the Church, on this ground alone, to have
the matter fairly and speedily settled. A still
greater gain will be her freedom thenceforth
from the meddling and interference in her
affairs of persons whose sympathies are in
opposition to her interests ; and (as we hope
at some future time to show) the greatest
gain of all to her will naturally and speedily
arise out of the new state of things, in the

631

increased interest which her lay members will
be led to take in the administration of her
parochial system.

THE POSTMASTER-GENERALSHIP.
WHITHER it be a wise system to link the
administration of the Post office with a seat
in the Cabinet, is a question on which great
diversity of opinion exists. Several persons
think that the Postmaster.Genemlship should
be the prize of able services in that particular
department, and that it should not be given
alternately amongst the various statesmen of
the country. Without meaning to disparage
them as individuals, they ask what peculiar
aptitude for the Post-office was possessed by
the Earl of ST. GERMANS, the Marquis of CLAN -
RICARDE, or Viscount CANNING, that the pre-
sidency over that department should have
been given to them ? We are then reminded
that the postal branch of the public service is
essentially one of minute detail, and that,
unlike the Admiralty and other offices, its
affairs are in no degree of a political character.
To this it is replied, on the other hand, that
the Cabinet must be formed somehow, and
that whether the number of Ministers be
eleven, or thirteen, or fifteen, they must
be at the head of some departments, and that
a certain amount of patronage must rest in
their hands. We are then reminded that it. is
not desirable to form a complete bureaucracy,
and leave the public interests in the hands
of mere clerks of office. The Post•otfice is
compared with the Presidentship of the
Council and other offices in the Ministry,
which are placed on similar grounds.
In discussing such a question, it is very
easy to use generalities on either side. But
for our part we think it plain that there is far
less special connection between a seat in the
Cabinet and the headship of the Post•oflice
than there is between the Excise, the Customs,
the Trinity-house, and other of the important
offices of the country. It is obviously quite
natural that in our empire the First Lord of the
Admiralty should be the possessor of a seat in
the Cabinet. The seat in the Ministry is not only
due to so important an official, but the Cabinet
should have one of themselves to give direct
and secret information about the actual state
of the navy. Again, on the important subjects
of public schools, education, religious sects,
&c., it is highly desirable that the Ministers
should have in their body some one statesman
specially charged with such functions as the
President of the Council has been expected to
discharge of late years.
But such considerations, it is obvious, do
not apply to a Postmaster-Generalship. What
special public knowledge of an important
character has such an official to communicate
to the Cabinet?

Besides, we are assured that, as a matter of
fact, the Postmaster-General has invariably
left the office to be worked by the Secretary at
St. Martin's-le-Grand. For a great number of
years Colonel MABERLEY was the real Post-
master-General, and some of the Noble Lords
who filled the office transacted its duties by
private secretaries and clerks bringing them
the papers for signature to their West end re-
sidences. We do not mean to assert that
their office so held was a sinecure, for, as in
the case of the Chancellorship of the Duchy
of Lancaster, important political work was as-
signed to them. But we confess that we
should prefer seeing the seats in the Ministry
with more distinct responsible duties. We
cannot help thinking that the Post office would
be better managed if its chief was not so often
changed ; its connection with the Cabinet is
of too anomalous a character to justify the
present system of a merely nominal " head."