The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

The evils of the Tithe System of Ireland may now be
considered as extinct. The important amendment carried
in the House of Commons on Wednesday evening, per-
fected -the Ministerial measure. Much error prevails re-
specting thes.effect produced by the vote of the majority on
Wednesday nigflit. Dean only be correctly estimated by
reference to the existing Statutes, taken in conjunction
with the various Bills now before Parliament, including the
Bill now in Committee to alter and amend the law relating
to the Temporalities of the Church of Ireland. Our
readers, interested in the question of Church Reform, will
recollect the substance of " Mr. Stanley's Act," in 1832,
establishing compositions for Tithes in Ireland, and making
such compositions permanent (2 and 3 William I V.,.ehap.
119.) By that act all future compositions were to be calcu-
lated on an average of seven years' tithes preceding No-
vember 1830, and in parishes where compositions
had not been made within three months the Lord
Lieutenant was invested with the power of nomi-
nating a Commission to fix the amount of compo-
sition. Tenants at will, or from year to year, were
exempted from payment of compositions after the first
of November, 1833, the person having the next greater es-
tate being made liable from that period. In all future
leases from the date of that Act the lessee was to be free
from tithes. Such was the substance of this Act ; but it
evidently did not reach the core of the evil. The subse-
quent Ministerial Act last year, " to alter and amend the
laws relating to the Temporalities of the Church of Ire-
land" (3d and 4th William I V., c. 37.) appointed an Ecclesi-
astical Commission to make a valuation of all Irish Church
property, to suppress certain livings and bishoprics as they
became vacant—to receive the sequestered funds--to ap-
propriate the surplus as therein directed, in augmentation
of small livings, and to the building and repairo churches
—and, in short, extensively dealing with the property and
revenues of the Irish Church Establishment. Still the
Tithe System continued an evil in Ireland, only partially
limited by the effect of compositions, and a portion
only of the Irish tenantry and occupiers being re-
lieved from the odious exaction. Cess or Church
Rate, was, however, wholly abolished. The returns of,
the amount of composition for Tithes in Ireland,
registered under the Statutes of Composition, exhibit an
annual total of 646,703/..55. 7/d. per annum—lmpropriate
110,9931. 15s. Oid., Ecclesiastical 501,9531. Is. ; the sum
of 31,529/. 4s. 2id. not being specified in their total. We
believe that these returns comprise nearly the entire tithe
levy of Ireland, and the magnitude of the evil contingent
on the mode of exaction—the persecution and sacrifice of
the unhappy and impoverished tenants—the natural repug-
nance of Catholics and Dissenters to support, by the tol-
rance of such a nuisance, an alien and sinecure Church—
may be imagined in England, though experience of the
grievance could alone give an adequate idea of it. Hence
the murders, frays, and outrages consequent on forcible
distraints for tithe. A more odious, oppressive, or unchris-
tian system never existed in any country, and its evils were
of course aggravated in Ireland by other social evils and op-
pressions. Can we wonder that political agitation pre-
vailed?—that Mr. O'Connell and his tribe of agitators
found willing audiences when they raised their voices
against such a system ? The Repeal of the Union, that
desperate expedient, would not have found so many advo-
cates but for the exasperation produced by the incessant
warfare on account of tithes. But a new era commences
for Ireland ; and the Bills to abolish Compositions for Irish
Tithes, to substitute in lieu of them a perpetual Land Tax,
and to alter .the Law regulating the Temporalities of the
Church of Ireland, are measures of immediate relief, which
will be hailed with joy, especially as perfected by the amend-
ment of Mr. O'Connell on Wednesday night. We yester-
day stated the effect of the proposition, carried by a great
majority evidently not in hostility to the Government—viz.,
to reduce the standard of tithe composition two-fifths or 40
per cent. ; to exonerate forthwith all tenants and occupiers
of lands in Ireland from the payment of tithe ; and to
compel all the landlords to pay the - remaining three-
fifths. The original Bill introduced by Lord Al-
thorp and Mr. Littleton offered the bonus of
40 per cent. to the landlord to assume the
payment as an option ; the amendment of Mr. O'Connell
makes that compulsory and general which was only op-
tional and partial. The pecuniary effect of this Bill, when
it passes into a law, will be to relieve the land altogether
from upwards of 270,000/., or two- fifths of the present
amount of tithe. The church will be no real loser. Up-
wards of 20 per cent. of the Irish tithe being cost of col-
lection, never reached the pockets of the clergy ; that por-
tion of it will be wholly extinguished. The remaining de-
ficiency of 150,0001. will b partly supplied by about
60,000/. per annum, the present surplus of the Church
Temporality Fund, leaving about 90,0001. at present
chargeable on the Consolidated Fund or State revenue—
but which advances will be ultimately refunded to the
State as the Temporalities Fund increases. We do not
deny that this sweeping Bill may operate as a hardship in
particular cases ; and we admit that the integrity of pro-
perty is partially affected by its principle of reduction of
40 per cent. in favour of the landlords. But viewing the
measure as a whole—considering the enormity and magni-
tude of the evils the Bill will extinguish—and considering
also the advantage of transferring the burden and legal
responsibility of payment from tenants and occupiers to
the landlords, we think the balance of good is in fa-
vour of the peasure ; and we do not attach much
weight to the otljections of fraud on the Church and par-
tiality to the Irish landlords. Taking the average cost of
collection at 23 per cent.—in some districts it is much less,
in others more—the landlords really receive from the State
but 17 per cent. bonus for their obligation of tithe payment.
It by no means follows, or is probable, that the landlords
will generally recover the whole additional burden of their
payment of tithe by a proportionate increase of rent from
their tenants ; some allowance was therefore due to them on
this account. And what do the clergy gain ? The sub-
stitute of a fixed and perpetual rent-charge in lieu of the
present obnoxious and uncertain impost—the advantage of
an improved security, and the freedom from collision with
the mass of the people. The State also secures 60 per
cent. of the gross tithe of Ireland from the grasp of the
landlords, who were evidently seeking to pocket the
whole tax. Thus, the tithes being equitably " applotted,"
and commuted in the reduced value of a Land Tax, will
be preserved for Parliament to deal with as may be here-
after determined ; and when the dimensions of the Irish
Church are further reduced, a State fund will exist for the pur-
poses of moral instruction, and for the demands of emer-
gencies. Objections are easily made, but legislators must
take all circumstances into consideration, and, like surgeons
they must sometimes resort to the amputation of a limb to
preserve the rest of the body. It is better that the patient
should lose a limb than his life ; the Gordian knot must be
cut when it cannot be untied. We also hail these measures
. as important with reference to England. Scotland has long
been freed from the evils of tithes, and the adjustment not
only benefitted the landowner but the whole nation, which
has now for two centuries been a stranger to agitation on
this account. England and Wales will not rest quiet under
the old nuisances of ecclesiastical imposition, and next ses-
sion a legislative remedy to the Tithe System of this part
of the kingdom must be provided. Among the important
benefits of these measures are the disposal of the doctrine
of the " inviolability" of Church property. The Clergy
will be what they were, as described by Dryden in his cha-
racter of the " Good Parson."
" True priests, he said, and preachers of the Word,
Were only stewards of their Sovereign Lord ;
Nothing was theirs ; but all the public store,
Intrusted riches to relieve the poor."
The Tories and their savoury journals may go on to rail
against Church reform, but a reformed Parliament will
treat the public property as a trust which the clergy only
enjoy on a conditional administration. We shall return to
this grateful subject ; but we must express our earnest hope
that the Irish landlords, being thus benefitted, will be com-
pelled to maintain their poor, for no country can thrive in
which provision is not made for extreme destitution. We
trust that Mr. O'Connell will, in the vacation, use his
great personal influence to allay national discords, and next
session aid Ministers and the Legislature in further mea-
sures for the improvement of the social condition of the
Irish people. Experience must, by this time, satisfy an
English Government that Ireland, now extricated from the
fangs of the Orange party, can only be governed by atten-
tion to the wishes of the people, and that six millions of
Catholics cannot be driven to a Protestant Church.—
Morning Chronicle,

Among the subjects appointed for consideration in the
House of Commons this evening is the third reading of the
Bill introduced by Lord Althorp and Mr. Baring for
amending the laws relating to the land and assessed taxes.
and although, from the careless manner in which this
measure has been announced to the House and the late
period of the Session, members would naturally infer that
its provisions are of little importance to the country, yet we
think the principle involved in it will be found to demand
their most serious attention. From the frequent allusions
made in Parliament and the notices of the public Press,
most persons are now pretty well acquainted with the great
inequality existing in the assessments for land tax ; and,
since Lord Althorp's notable scheme of paying the church
rates out of this tax, by which many places would be re-
lieved from those rates altogether, inasmuch as owing to
the great improvement of property' within their districts,
they contribute scarcely anything to the land tax, curiosity
has been still further awakened to observe the effects pro-
duced in different places by the present anomalous mode of
collecting this tax. The Act under which the assessments
were made (the 38th George 111., c. 5) passed in the
year 1798, but, although the Commissioners appointed by
that Act were empowered to determine what part of
the sum assessed upon each county should be paid
by the parisht,s or hundreds in such county, yet in settling

THE FLOOD AT RETFORD.—The whole of the
meadow and commons in the west end of the town, together
with many fields and gardens, wore on Sunday last the ap-
pearance of a sea, owing to a sudden rise of water in the river
Idle, consequent on the late heavy rains ; and to render the
illusion more perfect, sea-gulls, driven into the interior by the
stormy weather, were observed flying over the wide waste of
waters, and even sea-fish were caught in the river. Much
damage was done to several fields of hay, which had not been
before secured ; and at one time considerable apprehension
prevailed lest the town itself should be flooded. The waters
have, however, since receded.—Lincolnshire Chronicle.
MODE OF DESTROYING DRUNKENNESS.—It iS
the imperative duty of the statesman, as well as the moralist;
to watch over the social habits of the people, and to prevent
by every possible means the habit of indulging in spirituous
liquors, to which mankind are in general so much addicted.
The temptation to this horrid vice of inebriety is wofully in-
creased by fiscal duties on such articles as cocoa, coffee, tea,
sugar, &c., and every man who desires to see his fellow-crea-
tures sober, industrious, and virtuous (for these three are na-
tural sequences) will aid me in endeavouring to get the taxes
on the necessaries of life lightened and abolished, &c.—From
Montgomery Martin's History of the British Colonies, Vol.
11., West 'lndies.
FATAL MILL ACCIDENT.—OD Friday week, a
joiner, of the name of Joseph Heaton, in the employment of
Messrs. Nussey, of Leeds, was killed under the following
shocking circumstances :—He had been assisting in repairing
a tappit wheel in the race of the fulling mill; the shaft be-
longing to that part of the machinery had been thrown out of
gearing, the other part was running, and in that state it had
been formerly considered perfectly safe, and no misfortune
had happened or was apprehended. In consequence, how-
ever, of the introduction of a new invention, all was evidently
not right, the coupling box attaching that shaft with the other
part of the machinery, did not leave above one inch space be-
tween them ; by the weight of the machinery causing the shafts
to bounce, the coupling caught hold, and twice, within a very
short time, the machinery, when thrown out of gearing, had
started by connecting itself. John Benson, a millwright, had
only quitted the other side of the wheel about two minutes,
before the misfortune occurred. The unfortunate sufferer re-
ceived such dreadful injury upon the head and leg, that al-
though medical aid was promptly procured, he languished a
few hours, and then expired. On a former occasion, he had
the misfortune to lose two of his fingers, and to have a leg
broken by machinery ; and what renders the case still more
deplorable, he has left a wife, who had been for six weeks in
a mortal disease, and seven small children, to lament his un-
timely fate. On Saturday, an inquest was held on the body,
at the house of Mr. Gibson, the Horse and Jockey Inn, Hol-
beck, when the verdict was returned of accidental death, with
a request from the jury that the owners of the mill would cause
the machinery to be placed in a more secure state, before it
was again run ; the coroner kindly promised to carry the re-
commendation of the jury to the proper quarter that evening.
—York Chronicle_