laymen, and continued exempt from tithe, and from various other causes a considerable proportion of the lands of the country has become exempted. As the country became more populous, and its demands upon the produce of the soil more difficult to meet, the payment of tithes in kind was found a great hindrance to improved agriculture, as men were naturally unwilling to expend capital for the purpose of increasing the produce, while others who ran no risk, and bore no part of the toil, had a right to commuted share in that increase. Forty-two years ago it was determined that this should cease, and it was enacted that, instead of payment in kind, tithes should be commuted into a payment in money, calculated on the average receipts of the preceding seven years, the annual money value to vary according to the annual price of corn on a septennial average, but the quantity of corn then ascertained to remain for ever as the tithe of the parish.

from pay

ment in kind to a money payment.

A very important change of principle here took place. Up to that time, the income of the Church increased with the increased value

yielded by the land, the original object that the
Church should progress in material resources in
equal proportion with the land being thus
maintained. From 1836 that increment was
stopped. Since that time the land rental of
England has risen 50 per cent., and all that
portion of the increase which previous to 1836
would have gone to the Church has gone to the
landowners. A tenth of that would not, how-
ever, by any means adequately represent the
loss to the Church and the gain to the land-
owners; for the tithe in kind was the tenth of
the gross produce, which was equal to much
more than a tenth of the rent of arable land.
In 1836 the money value of the tithe, as com- Unex-
pared with the land rental, was as four millions

sterling to thirty-three. In 1876 the tithe was

still four millions, but the land rental had risen

to fifty. If the old principle of participation

pected effect of this, in

preventing

a rise in

the income

of the

Church,

and in

that of

owners.

had continued, the annual income of the Church creasing would now have been two millions greater than the landit is. Neither party anticipated a result to such an extent when the Tithe Commutation Act was passed, for not for twenty years after that

time had the rent of land in England recovered the heavy fall it experienced at the close of the war in 1815. It was not until the vast development of industry, under a policy of Free Trade, had so increased the general prosperity, that the value and rent of land began steadily to rise. It then became plain that under the operation of a law intended simply to encourage agricultural improvement, the community, represented by the Church, are gradually losing a part of their natural inheritance. The same change is in operation in the vicinity of the great cities and towns, where population and wealth increase and accumulate. An acre of land in such situations, which yielded in its natural state a rent to the landowner of £3, and to the tithe-owner of IOS., when converted to building may produce a ground rent of £300, besides the reversion to the landowner at the end of a long lease of the whole of the property erected on it by his lessee. No doubt, since the Reformation, the Church has been limited by law to the agricultural increased produce, and was not entitled to demand a share of the building value. But

it was not contemplated that the landowners should thus obtain the whole growing value of the land without leaving any part of it for the support of religion. The operation of this change has been chiefly in favour of the better class of lands, those which from their quality and position have risen most in value. Qn the poorest kinds of arable land-the cold clays, and the thinnest chalk-the increased cost of labour has brought about a lowering of rent, while the tithe can undergo no diminution. The landowner in such case has to bear the loss, just as in the other he gets the gain.

in number

In a country like this, in which the inevitable Parish clergy tendency of increasing wealth leads to the equivalent gradual diminution of small estates, there would to more be some considerable loss to the ranks of small

resident proprietors by any change which should

lead to the absorption of Church property. In every parish of the kingdom there is a resident landowner, who, as the clergyman of the parish, receives in residence, glebe, and tithe, about a tenth part of its rental, which he spends within it, and in return for which he is the minister of

than onefourth of the resi

dent land

owners,

over £200

a year.

rich and poor. The number may be about 12,000 in England alone, with an average annual value of £300. As their income is in no way affected by the question of rent, their position is one of perfect impartiality between landowners and their tenants, and they are the natural referees of the poorer inhabitants. In proportion to the whole number of landowners in England the removal of this numerous body would strike out more than a fourth of those receiving above £200 a year, and probably much more than one-fourth of the resident landowners. This, irrespective of the question of religion, would be a change of great magnitude in its social effect, which deserves careful consideration.

Her

Majesty's
Woods,
Forests,
and Land

revenue,

CROWN ESTATES.

Besides the domain and Great Park attached to the Royal Castle of Windsor, 14,000 acres in extent, and excluding the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, there are comprised in the Royal patrimony upwards of 70,000 acres of land in the kingdom let in farms to agricultural tenants,