The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-09-24 00:00:00

THE PROPERTY OF THE CHURCH.

1. Only about two-thirds of the land in England and
Wales are titheable.

2. Laymen have two-thirds of the whole of the tithes,

3. The whole tithe paid to the Clergy, when wheat was
X 3 18s 2d per quarter, amounted to £1,426,527 18s or less
than a million and a half.

4. If the tithes were equally divided, each parish clerg
man would have—acccrding to the present price of wheat-
£lso a-year.
5. There are in Englard ar
• 176 livir
736
1315
1963

—.30 a-year.
50
80
100

1. e. 4190 under £l6O a-year.
There are not thirty worth £2OOO a-year.
6. There are 4809 where there is no house for the clergy-
man, and of these 3080 are under £l5O a-year. Can the
clergyman build a house when he does not receive £l5O
a-year from the living? All the houses are kept in repair
by the clergyman. At this very time £220,000 have been
borrowed by clergymen to build or rebuild parsonage-houses.
7. The fee to the clergy in country parishes vary from
£3 to £7 on every 1000 persons of population. Most of
the fees do not go to the clergy : but are given to clerks and
other officers.
.8. Only 1I bishoprics pay their expenses! and from three
of these the subscriptions they are obliged to pay are £3OOO
a-year each.
9. If the income of the parochial clergy and of the bishops,
and the cathedral property were equally divided among the
parochial clergy, it would barely give £2OO to each, and out
of this they would_ have to pay curates ii larger parishes.
These facts, be it observed, were drawn rrom documents
laid before parliament. So now let us hear no more of the
enormous wealth of the church, which has been fully proved
to be very ill-paid on the whole. The duty annually paid
into the exchequer on account of tobacco and snuff, exceeds
the whole cost of the church establishment !!!
Let those who say the revenues of the church amount
to five or six millions, bring forward proof from documents
equally authentic as those from which the foregoing state-
ment was extracted, and not from the speeches of dema-
gogues.
Then again with respect to the persons who contribute
most to the support of this church—Who are they ? The
poor ? Nay, verily—they pay little or nothing. The far-
mers are the principal payers of tithe. And what would
these be the better, supposing that the tithe was abolished?
Literally nothing—and this because their landlords would
immediately raise their rents. A farm is now let at 30s per
per acre, and the tithe is 4s. Do away with the tithe, and
will not the landlord demand the whole 345? Certainly he
will, supposing it to be fairly let at this mument at 30s, while
subject to 4s. tithes. Thus the only persons benefitted by
the abolition of tithe, would be neither better nor worse for
the change, In fact, tithe comes out of the pockets of the
landlords. The farmer is merely paying to the clergy what
he would otherwise have to pay the gentry. Tithe-free land
always rents higher than any other.
It has been said that the clergy ought to support the poor
as their predecessors did. But it must be observed, that
since then four-fifths of the property of the church have
been forcibly taken from her. Restore her these, and then
fik* will support the poor.