The fubject is of fo much confequence that we fhall make two further remarks on it: It is a fingular tact, that the unfounded clamour against the payment of tithe as an obstruction to the breaking up of new land, has, fince it has artificially been rendered prevalent, been contradicted by an experience rapidly increasing in its decifion. From the commencement of the lait peace, the ftrength of the proof of its falfity has been very nearly doubled in every five years: for, in the first and fecond of thofe terms, and the first four years of the war, the number of fuch bills have been, on an annual average, as 10, 17, and 35, refpectively. We have already feen how much was effected in the last century, when the spirit of enclofure was fo feeble at its commencement, that, in the thirteen' years Anne reigned, only eight fuch bills were paffed; Now the annual average in the first four years of the war was 70; in thirteen years, therefore, 910 fuch bills would be now paffed, or the celerity of inclofure is increased much more than an hundred fold: and, in a very thort time, without any aid from the fubversion of ecclefiaftical property, must leave no land which can be brought into cultivation to inclofe.

A reduction of the price of corn is fo held out as the confequence of the commutation; but nothing is more evident, than that it either will produce no effect in the corn market, or it will raife its prices: for if it be followed by no pecuniary advantages to the farmer, it will produce no effect, therefore no relief. But let it be fuppofed that he will be an immediate gainer by it, here it must be obferved, that Smith, the celebrated writer of the corn tracts, divides the farmers into four claffes: "the fourth, or richest of which are, as to fortune, in a capacity to keep back their crops; fpeculate on the markets; thresh out and fell, when they like the price.' The prices of late years have increased this clafs to the most dangerously difproportionate number: and the expected advantage of the commutation, if realized, muft till further augment it, and give them a more arbitrary command of the market, already much abufed.

The argument by which Mr. Cove proves that there has been no decrease of product (the fatality of feafons being allowed for), and confequently that no fuch decrease is to be afcribed to the payment of Tithes, amounts to demonstration. It is, in fubftance, as follows: If, in the period in which we exported corn, 351,000 acres had been thrown out of cultivation, we should have been under the neceffity of importing the fame quantity yearly, as was found neceffary on the ave rage of twenty years, ending in 1797: but the arable part of the three millions of acres, by which, according to him, the

land

land in cultivation has been increased, muft have fupplied fuch a vacuity, with a large excefs. The inequality of the fupply of corn to the demand, he rightly afcribes to the increase of our population.

The plea of neceffity urged for the commutation, that the voice of the nation calls for it, is h re very properly treated, as the pretence fet up in many inftances, and in this in particular, to carry through very bad measures. The clamours of the ignorant and profligate difturbers of human fociety, the deceivers and deceived; the former the higheft of criminals, the latter, often perhaps not without good meaning, as bad counsellors; have of late years conftandy had this emphatical name applied to them. Recent experience fhows us, to what obedience this voice of a nation leads it.

Yet in the conciution of this fuction of his Inquiry, this able defender of the righ's of property belonging to the establishment, has laid down a plan for a change in the tithe laws, with the evident view of conciliating its opponents, which we regard with extreme apprehenfion and at his juncture we esteem it neceffary to flate the grounds of that apprehenfion, as, from the actual measures taken on the propofition, there is the utmoft danger of its being carried into effect.

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The plan referred to is, that an act be paffed to enable clergymen, with the affent of the Bishop and patron on one fide, and the land-owner on the other, to grant leafes of their lithes and glebes for twenty-one years: and in cafe of any difference of opinion as to rent, two arbitrators are to be appointed; one to be named by the Bithop, patron, and incumbent, and the other by the landlord and tenant.

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There are two ftrong objections against fuch an act it will materi lly augment the number of non-residents, and ultimately materially diminish the income of the church.

There are undoubtedly many of the clergy who are become refident in their parithes, on account of the impoffibility of obtaining other wife an adequate compofition for their rights; and who being once refident continue fo: but when the tithes are under leafe, the restricted circumftance of the great majority, will be a strong inducement to them to refort to fuch places as they can live cheapeft in.

In the neceflity of the Bishop's affent to the leafe, we difcern very little effective protection to the interefts of the church. A proper valuation of the tithe of a parish is a very expenfive operation; and without fuch an eftimate, formed by a perfon whom he has confidence, the Bifhop will find it difficult to give reafons for with-holding his affent; when the incumbent, the party perfonally molt interefted to fupport the rights of his order,

order, has given his but he certainly will be utterly unable to make the proper inquiries about the value of the tithe of a fingle farm, a contract for which may be prefented to him for his confirmation; or the rent of a few acres of glebe, lying in a remote part of the diocefe.

Nor is the affent of the patron generally any fafeguard to the income of the living: he is moftly the fole land owner, or a great land owner in the parish; and his interest in the latter capacity being greater, he generally p efers i to that of the former. This is evident from the fact, that patrons ordinarily give their whole fupport to every claim to a modus, on whatever ground it refits. Their afcendancy over incumbents is great; and they make frequently little fcruple to employ it: and when the land of the patron is once under leafe, it will very feldom be set free; and the augmentations on it, if any, will in every period fall much below the average increase of compofitions: the lands of the patron is generally a confiderable part of a parish; and the occupiers of the reft, knowing that the tithe of the remaining lands, must be collected nearly with the fame expence and trouble as that of the whole, the referved compofitions, already extremely unequal to the value of the the, will become very shortly much more fo. The leafes to the patron's tenant will always be highly advantageous to him; and, to escape the reproach of being under an influence in its nature truly fimonical, those of the remaining lands will be nearly at the fame

rates.

Of a misplaced facility, of gratitude fhown at the expence of a public trust, and operated upon by the exertion of the whole afcendance of the patron, there will foon be many examples. The acquifitions of fome will raife the expectations of others; and the example of the obfequioufnefs of one fet of incumbents, will give additional ftrength to the inftances made with those who demur, and weaken their firmer judgment; and in two or three generations, most of the parishes of England will be under fuch leafes.

How far leafes granted by the church are fatal to its property, may be seen by thofe of church eftates: for "the lef fees, after making all deduction for referved rents and renewals, are at all times poffeffed of three fifths of the grofs value of the church eftates*." The influence of fines of renewal has occafioned this dilapidation of church property; the influence of the patron, and the combination and clamour of the occupiers, which will be employed against thofe who continue to

* Inquiry, part viii.

'demand

demand compofitions for tithe, will have a fimilar effect: and the one influence is not greatly inferior to the other. The fame modes will then be used to obtain leafes instead of compo fitions, as are now employed to obtain compofitions, instead of paying tithe in kind.

A leafe of glebe land for twenty-one years muft alfo be detrimental in the extreme to the income of the church: for; without actual poffeflion of the glebe lands, it is almost im poffible for the incumbent to collect his tithe in kind: this the occupier fees, and the compofition to be paid for it, dur ing the term, will be regulated accordingly.

The confequences which may arife, and which are too likely to arife, from fuch a fcheme being brought forward (for which the authority of fo able and zealous an advocate as Mr. Cove, for the well being of the church, may be pleaded) has made it our duty to confider it at a length relatively great with regard to the nature of our work, but very inadequate to the fubject itself, or the danger of the meafure. For the prefent, however, we lay afide our obfervations on this Inquiry.

With refpect to the juftice of the commutation plan, Mr. C. rightly ftates, that the tithes are private property, and the property of a highly refpe&table body of men, and that the laws fhould confider every fpecies of property as equally unchangeable: that the clergy, each in their feveral parishes, are the trustees of the revenue for the future maintenance of religion there, and therefore in confcience bound to diffent from any plan which muft impair it, even if their own prefent intereft was ferved by it. We may indeed be certain, whatever declarations are made to the contrary, that no fuch object is in contemplation; and, as the income of the Church is nominally increafing, but nominally only, the leaft object of all this agitation and intrigue is, to wreft all fuch contingent nominal increase from it: the confequence of which muft be, that this fixed nominal income, conitantly declining in real value, muft at no diftant period become totally inadequate to the decent fupport of the elergy, in a church where the provifions are already fuch, as this writer obferves from its expatriated enemy, Dr. Priestley,

hat they are at prefent but flenderly provided for." The fubftitution of a corn rent in lieu of a payment in money, has been by fome propofed: many juít objections are urged against that plan in the prefent tract; but if Mr. Cove had been furnished with the continuation of the Windfor Tables of the Price of Corn, lately printed by authority, he would have derived an additional argument from them, of the moft decifive nature. In ten years, commencing with 1690, the price of the quarter of wheat, itandard meafure, and of the middle quality, was 44s. 6d;

and

and in the equal term of ten years, during which the laft peace .continued, it was 445. d. therefore, if a corn rent had been established in the first term, at the end of the follow ing ninety-three years, during which the charge of the maintenance of every perfon of the fame rank in the middle claffes of life, was about doubled; the clergyman would have received an equal nominal income indeed, at the end of the term, but of only half the real value it bore at the commutation. But what must have been the ftate of the aged clergy, who furvived to the middle of the war of 1740, or forty-eight years after its eftablishment ? During the whole term the price of middling wheat fell and greatly its price, on the average of the feven years that war lafted, was 28s. 2d. Thus, if the income of one of this number, in the beginning of the term, had been tool. a year, it would, as appears by the Corn Table, have been decreafing with certain undulations during his whole life, and at that time been reduced to the nominal fum of 621. 55. or 3641. per cent.; but as the expence of the maintenance of perfons in this fituation, muft have doubled in ninety-fix years, in forty-eight years after the commutation, the value of money would have decreafed in the proportion of 3 to 2; and the nominal fum of 631. 55. which he would have received in the extremity of old age, would be equal in real value to 421. 25. 4d. only or very little above two fifths of that of his income, in the prime of life. $at

luis here taken that the average price of the war, was the price of the middle year thereof, or in 1744: but the rate of that and the preceding year was 19s. 7d *. the quarter only: in

The prices of the quarter of wheat at Windfor, of the best quality, and of 36 gallons; the meafure of that market until the end of 1792; was, on the average of ten years, beginning 1690, 56s. 4d.; of the ten years of the laft peace, 56s. 6d. extremely nearly; and of the eight years' war of 1740, 355. 50. ; and of the year 1743, 24s. 10d.; equal to that of 1744. Thefe prices reduced according to the proportion affigned by Smith in the Corn Tracts, and in the continuation mentioned above, give thofe of the quarter of wheat, ftandard meafure, of the middle quality as ftated in the text: we have used this proportion because it is customary; and rather than enter into an explana tion of the error thereof, as giving all prices 21. per cent. too low; and becaufe, whether the fall of the income by a corn rent, be determined from the unreduced prices, or thofe found from the true, or the eironeous reduction, the rate of the decrease of the income, will by each be found exactly the fame. If any one doubts this, he will find it true by referring to a reputable fchool-book of arithmetic.

Hh

ERIT. CRIT. VOL. XVII, APRIL, 1801.

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