The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-29 00:00:00

CHURCH RATE DEPUTATION.

The following is the statement read by Dr.
Foster to Lord Palmerston on Wednesday last :
My Lord,—We have been made aware by the public
journals that there has been laid before your lordship,
under high sanction, a statement professedly based upon
the returns now before Parliament, to the affect that
church rates produce a certain income of about 350,000/.
a year, the whole of which is necessary to the due
maintenance of Divine service, and ii collected without
opposition or difficulty from 95 per cent, of •the parishes
of the United Kingdom. We too, my lord, bare exa-
mined the returns, and, in hope of early legislation, we
wish to expose a statement so erroneous as we believe
tide to be.
Is appears, then, my lord, according to the latest re-
turns (1854), that the whole sum received by church-
wardens from all sources to meet the anneal expenditure
of the churches of England and Wales—comprising the
repairs, maintenance of Divine service, and repayment
of borrowed money—amounted to 484,000/. (431,5841.)
Of this amount the sum of 170,195/. was received from
sources independent of church-rates, and appears by the
returns to be a permanent income and to have increased
during the last 15 years by upwards of '25,000/. a year.
With respect to church rates, on the other hand, it
appears that the income derived from this source is so
little to be depended on that it has undergone a continu-
-1 out decline fr.,as 1827 downwards :—the returns giving
the amount at 519,000/. (512,307/.) in 1827 ; at 430,000/.
(432,5771.) in 1832 ; at 351,0001. (351,7711.) in 1839 ;
and in 1854 at 314,000/. (314,659/.) only, and thus
showing an aggregate loss of 205,000/. or nearly one-half
in 27 years.
Tnis loss is certainly cot due to any diminution either
in the wants of the Church or the ability of the country.
On the contrary, judging by the addition during this
period of more than one-sixth to the number of
churches as shown by the census, and to the amount
of rateable income of the community apparent from
the income-tax and poor-rate returns, there ought
insteid of this loss to have been an approximate addition
of 100,0001. a year to the original amount.
It is, moreover, beyond doubt, my lord, that even
this diminished income is largely in excess for any pur-
pose for which the law requires those who are not mem•
hers of the Church of England to make provision on its
behalf. Of the expenditure for the year 1854, it will be
found that Sir W. Clay's return gives less than 245,000/.
(244,7901.), as the amount expended on the fabric ; and
on careful examination it will be clear that a not incon-
siderable portion of even this amount must be deducted
as having in point of fact been applied to other purposes.
We believe the assumption to be a safe one that this sum
satisfied the whole provision required by law. Hav-
ing then, as has been already seen, an income from
other sources amounting to the sum of 170,000/. in
part supply of this expenditure, the conclusion is
inevitable that of the 314,0001, appearing to be received
from church rates, 74,0001 (74,3191) only ought to bo
raised :—the remaininiug 240,000/. (240,360/.) (or nearly
6-7ths of the whale) being applied to purposes not con-
templated by law.
We do not say, my lord, that all this expenditure is in
the strict sense of the word illegal, That there is illegal
expenditure to an extent constituting a practical ele-
ment in dealing with the question is part of our state-
ment to your lordship, but we are now combating the
representation that at church rate income of about
350,0001. is necessary to that due maintenance of Divine
service which the law requires parishioners generally to
provide for the Church of England. We are clearly ad-
vised that the law does not require the parish to provide
the usual salaries for organists, tuners and blowers,
singers, parish clerks, beadiest, pew-openers, and bell-
ringers, with the numerous sundries by which rates are
now ordinarily doubled, trepled, quintupled, and even
more. These may themselves be very proper items, if
paid for by those who use them • but they are in no sense
contemplated by the law of church rates, further than
that the churchwarden is not absolutely forbidden to
include them in his estimates if he thinks it consistent
with propriety to do so. There is no law to oblige a
vestry even to take them into consideration.
The proper amount to raise, then, being 75,000/. a
year, we believe your lordship will hardly expect us to
treat seriously the question whether church rates are to
be maintained for the sake of this sum—it being an
amount which may be exactly supplied by a pew rent of
three-halfpence per quarter per sittirg upon three million
out of the five million sittings belonging to the Church
of England, leaving two million sittings free to the poor.
With reference to the 95 per cent, cf tke parishes
which are said to retain church rates, we cannot but,
observe that the return relied upon for this conclu-
sion not only professes to give the least information,
but is, we believe, the most incomplete of any before
Parliament, and that the conclusion itself is not recon
cileable with the facts disclosed by the other returns. It
ignores almost altogether the borough parishes, into
which the inquiry was directed by Parliament ; and

.._ . .
although represented to your lordship as compri.ing
9,672 parishes, the real number comprised is certainly
1,000 less, and includes a striking number of places
which are not parishes at all, but districts paying rates
to the mother Church, and which appear to be counted
as if they were so many separate parishes. It appeare,
moreover, from comparison with Sir W. Clay's return,
that in a large number of the parishes represented as
granting church-rates, and entered no doubt with literal
truth as not having refused them during the 15 years
embraced by it, church-rates aro in fact not asked for,
owing to the existence of other provisions. The effect of
this single observation is. that while it has been stated
to your lordship that 403 parishes only have refused
church-rates, and 544 only have endowment, 440 being
doubtful, there appear on Sir Wm. Clay's return to be
2,700 parishes to be deriving income from other sources,
and 2,000 in which rates, whether granted or not, were
not collected ; and the bulk, certainly, of these to fill
up the 95 per cent. of parishes granting church-rates.
When to this we add, as information of the accuracy of
which we have no question, that is numerous parishes
the rates returned as granted are granted and accepten
as voluntary rates, the attempt to enforce which would
be the signal for general refusal ; we trust we have said
enough as to incompleteness and inaccuracy. But it
will probably strike your lordship that the aggregate
diminution of the rate throughout the country is a more
reliable test than is elf )rded by this return of the
amount of refusal by the parishes. The loss which has
been shown during twenty-seven years, of neatly halt
the Ourch-rate of the country must have been produced,
we submit, by opposition of a
,somewhat decisive
character in about half the parishes in the country
i
while, if the inquiry be confined to the lat,t 15 years,'
covered by the returns in question, daring
,vch the
b.
pendency of the Braintree case produced a-comparative
lull in the opposition, it will appear from
lation that the refusals must have extended, even then,
at the rate of about 100 fresh parishes every year. But
this, my lord, only gives the state of things prior to the
r
decision of the Braintree case ; its
ft ar, give your lordship, a simple calcu-
lation
results we caenot, we
even approximately. But we