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

r OLE S e L N frON,

with such spiritual soldiers as our own some-
times'
employed in the enforcement of Church-
Rates., As an undeniable matter of fact,
our .blood would boil ; and as Dissenters'
blood is, we believe, very much like ours,
despite their preferring the conventicle to
the Church, we by no means wonder that their
blood boils--we should only wonder if it did not.
Hence we are never surprised to see the Rev.
Rector and Messrs. the Churchwardens challenged
at a vestry meeting. Rather we are surprised
that a vestry meeting ever passes off smoothly.
Were not the Dissenters in towns busy in their
their merchandise, and Dissenters in villages
busy in their farms or afraid of the rural
despots, we fancy no one would need to
trouble himself about a Church-Rate Abo-
lition Bill. The rate is paid to save time or
trouble, or to escape the wrath of the village
powers. The vestry war, however, is proceeding
bravely ; in all the more populous towns, and in
hundreds of smaller places, the vestries have con•
quered their freedom ; and still there are scores,
hundreds, perhaps, of these annual contests, in
which the Church-Rate party are sure to be ulti-
mate losers. In hardly an instance, unless by
some discreditable manoeuvre, is a Church-Rate
levied again where it has been for a few times
successfully refused, while on the other hand
some fresh parishes are conquered every year.
The rate-levying party are obviously the losing
party.
Indeed one of the most striking facts, proved
by Dr. FOSTER in the able document referred to,
is that the amount raised by Church-Rates has
diminished nearly one-half in the course of the
last thirty years ! If the Abolitionists have not
got a Bill yet—a whole Bill—they have at least
got half of one by their own exertions, without
owing any thanks to Lord ALTEOR? or Lord JOHN
RUSSELL, or Lord PALMERSTON, or to any of their
Whig Lordships. In the year 1827, according
to a return then obtained the amount collected
for Church-Rates was, in round numbers, not less
than 519,000/. ; in the year 1832 it had fallen
to 432,000/. ; in the year 1839 it had again
fallen to 351,0001. ; and by the last return in
1854 it had sunk to 314,000! We may pre-
sume that a return for 1857 would show yet
smaller amount. The ascertained loss, therefore,
in 27 years is 205,0001., or nearly half ! A
splendid result certainly to be achieved without
help from Parliament, by the sturdy local resist-
ance of Anglo-Saxon energy and love of liberty.
In what country of Europe could a populace be
formed thus to be heard all over the country, the
church of the aristocracy and the court, and of
the great ecclesiastics, to deprive it of half its
tribute t

For our part we feel disposed to urge our Dis-
senting friends to work yet more energetically in
the course which has proved so successful. There
is no Premier in a parish vestry, and no House of
Lords and bench of Bishops ahead. When their
point is carried there, they have succeeded fur
that time ; and when they ha►e succeeded
a few times, they have converted the refusal
into an act of vestry ; and
,the act of the
local Parliament is quite as good for them
as an act of the national Parliament. It
seems to us quite possible in this way to abolish
Church-Rates in detail, and to leave little for
the Imperial Legislature to do. It appears,
too, quite practicable now to turn the tables
of Church-Rate law upon its supporters. Till
the House of Lords reversed Judge TYNDAL'S
dictum, Church-Rate men repeatedly carried the
rate by minorities. We believe that it is in the
power of a resolute minority not. to defeat any rats
which Churchwardens may attempt to lay. Let a
relevant amendment be proposed—such as the
omission of some item, or the curtailing of another
—or a reference of the estimates to the Church-
wardens for amendment—on a refusal by a majo-
rity of the vestry, let a poll be demanded ; this
poll must take place on the amendment, but the
rate is not thereby carried ; another meeting
must be held to do that ; at this meeting another
amendment can be proposed and another poll
taken : the contest may thus be prolonged beyond
the endurance of the oppressors; and if they con-
cede everything, and reduce the rate to what is
allowed by strict law, in the vast majority of
eases it would be too small to be worth the trouble
of collection. All this is perfectly fair against
men who used to levy rates by minorities them-
selves, and who, in levying a rate at all, are
guilty of a gross infringement of religious liberty,
as mnderstood by Englishmen of the present day.
Dr. FOSTER completely diminishes the grounds
on which a demand is made for "compensation"
for the abolition of Church-Rates. He shows
that 75,0001. is the sum, out of the amount now
raised, which can be legally demanded from the
parishioners ; the amount derived from other
sources, as proved by the returns, being adequate,
with that small addition, to the strictly legal
objects of Church-Rates. His document also shows
that the Laymen's committee of Lord SEAFTESBURY
were guilty of most egregious blunders, we will call
it nothing worse, in telling Lord PALMERSTON that
Church-Rates were collected without diffioulty in
95 per cent. of the parishes of the kingdom. First,
Lord SHAFTESBI7RY stated, that there were returns
from 9,672 parishes ; it appears it should have
been 1,000 less ; secondly, his lordship said that
rates had been refused in only 408 parishes, and
that 544 only had endowments. The fact is that
2,700 parishes derive income from other sources,
and that in 2,000 parishes the rate; even if
granted, were not collected ! This, of course,
leaves as the result, that FIFTY PER CENT. OF THE

PARISHES DISPENSED WITH CHURCH-RATES ! We
refer the reader, however, to Dr. FOSTER'S con-
densed, yet very lucid and interesting, paper for
fuller information.
Llrd PALMERSTON seems to have been as good-
tempered, but as evasive, as usual, notwithstand-
ing Mr. T. DuisrcoNtnn's efforts to elicit a definite
promise from him. The deputation, therefore,
before separating, very properly recommended
their constituents to press another bill in Parlia-
ment this session, but above all to agitate the
question in the parish vestriem. The latter is
the way to succeed with the former.

Yesterday Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Lawrence and
Mr. Sheriff Allen (sheriffs of London and Middlesex),
accompanied by the Remembrancer, proceeded to
Windsor Castle for the purpose of learning, when it
would be agreeable to their Royal Highnee-es Prince
and Princees Frederick William of Prussia to receive
the congratulatory addresses of the Court of Common
Council. Their Royal Highnesses were pleased to
appoint to-morrow at half-past one o'cloak at Buckingham
Pilace.
MAILS FOE THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE —ArrangPrneets
have been made for the despatch of a packetfrom Devon-
port to the Cape of Good Hope once a month. Mails
will be made up in London on the evening of the
each mouth, and will be forwarded to Devonport for
transmission by these packet, ixcepting when the sth
falls on a Sunday, when the despatch will be deferred
until the following evening. All letters, &c., fur the
Pickets Cape of Good Hope, Natal, St. Helena, and Ascension
will be forwarded by these packets unless specially ad-
dressed to be otherwise sent. The packets will call at
St. Helena and Ascension on the homeward voyage only
Emperor Na) ICIL
but separate mails for those places will be made up for
outward packets to be delivered in all cases when the
each. ith their sucking
awkstone, w* '
instarces t-
of the may accidentally touch there, but in all other
_cm:nibs left on the return voyage.—By command
—Got:rat I,24t,eor:peneral, RoWLAND HILL, Secretary.
tBHROPBII/"L:STltioce, Jan. 23.
0 eon three shorthorn heifers, bred at
—Vim:Jaunt MI last week sold to
carves, for 150 guineas
He