The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-05-31 00:00:00

CHURCH-RATES.

THE vexed question of Church-rates was brought
before the House of 'Commons on Thursday, and
the Ministers were content to postpone the discus-
sion on the Budget, in order that a decision upon it
might be pronounced. The motion was for leave
to bring in a Bill to alter and amend the law
respecting Church-rates, the chief provision being
that persons giving notice of their being Dissenters
should be exempted from payment. To this an
amendment was moved fora Committee to con-Eider
whether Church-rates-should not be abolished; and,
after an animated discussion, the original motion
was rejected by 208 to IS7, and the amendment
met a similar fate by 222 to 174. There is some-
thing refreshing in the return to a better feeling in
the House of Commons, as shown by these votes,
after the numerous approaches to latitudinarianism
-which the Lower House of Legislature has too fre-
quently exhibited. It is mere cant for Dissenters
-to assume that any point of conscience is involved
in the payment of Church-rates. It is simply a
charge upon house property, with which the tenant
has in reality no more concern than in the destina-
tion of other taxes, or even of his rent, and the
application is for the maintenance of the fabric of
the Church and the administration of parochial
affairs. The motion, however, did nct only attempt
to reduce the Church to the level of a religious sect,
which was the aim of many of its supporters, but
it would have perpetrated a tenfold greater mischief.
By making the profession of dissent a ground of
exemption from payment, a premium would have
been offered for defection from the Church, and the
burden of maintaining those sacred edifices, which
are the glory and the safeguard of our nation, would
have been thrown upon the pious few whose con.
sciences would have been above the temptation.
We can hardly conceive a greater evil than making
religious belief a test for taxation, yet this
must have been the alternative, or the Church
would be reduced from a national institution
to a mere voluntary association. At a time like
the present, when there is too great a tendency
to allow worldly interests to monopolise all other
considerations, .when amongst the vast masses of
our teeming population there is an immense amount
of indifference to all religion, except under the
excitement of theological controversy, the carrying
out of such a scheme would have been a heavy
blow and great discouragement to the Church, the
only real bulwark against the errors and encroach-
ments of Rome. The temptation of saving the
payment of rates would have been too strong to be
resisted, and numbers would have availed them-
selves of the privilege, not because they contributed
to other forms of worship, but in order to secure them-
selves from any payment whatever. The defence of
Church-rates is not based upon any wish to bind the
consciences of others, but England, as a State, recog-
nises Christianity as developed in her own Church,
and secures the proper means of Divine worship in
maintaining the structures which the piety of our
ancestors has raised. It is not fitting that this
should be thrown upon mere voluntary aid, as in
too many instances it may amount to nothing, and
it would be far worse policy to make hostility to
the Church a ground of exemption, lest the opporr
tunity should be too readily seized, and lukewarm
Churchmen converted into avowed Dissenters, but
practically men of no religion whatever.

THE DOCK-YARD INQUIRY,.
WHIG-RADICAL PURITY.
THE Select Committee of Inquiry into the alleged
abuse of patronage in the Dock-yards, by the late
Board of Admiralty, have presented their report to
the House of Commons; but so far from arriving
at any decision or pronouncing any opinion, they
have been contented with describing the principal
facts detailed in evidence, and left the Parliament to
form their own opinion and pronounce their own
verdict, if such a result be necessary. This open
verdict, if we may so call it, has been eagerly seized
pp)n by the organs of Liberalism, and much virtuous