thing can best be tested by what it will fetch; that the value of land is its rent to the landlord, with deductions for repairs, &c.; and that the value of the tithe rent-charge being paid in money, is plain enough, and can be nothing else but its actual amount, with an allowance of some 2 per cent. for collection, and a deduction for rates. This we believe to be the basis of the present mode of assessment; but its injustice may be shown in many ways-more, indeed, than we can hope to portray in their legitimate force. The fairest and easiest mode of comparing the respective assessments of land and rent-charge is, perhaps, to put the tenant farmer out of the question, and to suppose the landowner to be himself in occupation. What analogy, in that case, is there between the supposed amount which the landowner would give for the value of his occupation, if it were not his own property, and the real income of the clergyman?

In the former case, the amount in its very nature excludes all personal labour and expenses necessary in order to obtain the income; whereas, in the latter case, it includes them under the form both of ecclesiastical duties, which are a condition of the tenure, and also of that capital which is necessary in taking orders, as a qualification for holding such property. The clergyman, then, is assessed on his full receipts, although he must have been at great expense to qualify himself for the possession of them, and must fulfil regular and even laborious duties in return for them; whereas the landowner, in occupation of his land, is assessed only on such an amount of his receipts as he might actually give to another person in the shape of rent (if he were not the owner), and is wholly free for that share of the produce of the land on which he himself lives, and which forms the tenant's profit. In strict justice, then, it would appear that if land is assessed on its rental, i.e. on one-third of its produce, tithes ought only to be assessed on the same proportion of their value. Why should that portion of the produce of land which belongs to the Church be assessed at a higher rate than the remainder which belongs to the proprietor? As, however, long custom and the mutual arrangements of a series of years have given to tithes more the character of a payment on land than a right to a share of one-tenth of the produce, it would hardly be prudent, at the present time, to argue for any more extensive readjustment in the relative proportions of assessment on land and rent-charge than for the tenant or landowner, if in occupation, to be assessed on his own profits as well as on the estimated rental-that is, on all which he receives from the land, with the exception of what he actually disburses for the necessary expenses of cultivation. This assessment would

amount to about two rents, and would therefore lower the clergyman's rates by one-half. This principle of rating was established by the decision of Mr. Justice Parke, in the Court of Queen's Bench, in the case of Rex versus Joddrell; and we believe it was only through the negligence of the legislature that this decision was not at once made the occasion of a special and distinct enactment. On the question again coming before the Court, in the case of Reg. versus Capel, in 1840, Lord Denman (so noted for decisions against the Church) gave his judgment on the other side, stating as his principal reason that the express object of the recent statute, 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 96, s. 1, had been to abolish distinctions, and to establish uniformity. in rating. The rule there laid down was, he considered, so far. applicable to tithes, that they are demisable at a year's rent.' After referring to Rex versus Joddrell, he concluded by saying that something much more positive was requisite to defeat an enactment so simple, practical, and useful.'

A thing may be simple, practical and useful,' without being also just; nor does Lord Denman seem to aim at proving that the former decision of the same Court ought to be upset on the ground of abstract justice. In the judgment of an approving critic, writing in the Jurist' with reference to this case, he is supposed to have arrived at as close an approximation to sub'stantial equality as is practicable, without having resort to the 'odious machinery of a property tax.' The argument in favour of assessment on the occupier's profit was thought to have 'savoured too much of the modern economics for the atmosphere 'of Westminster Hall,' and that the Court disclaimed being 'influenced in their judgment by any considerations founded on 'so unstable a science; and utterly repudiated the unlucky 'observations of Mr. Justice Parke in Rex versus Joddrell, 'which seemed at one time to promise an asylum to the vilified economists even in the temple of Themis herself.'

All this, though acknowledged by the writer to be an amusing feature of law, does not establish the real justice of Lord Denman's decision; nor does it upset the plain argument of Sir W. W. Follet, contained in his speech for the appellant, of which the following are short passages:

The objection to this rate is, that while the vicar is rated at the full value of his tithes, the occupiers of land in the parish are not rated on the same scale of value. If, for instance, a tenant rents land at 300l. per annum, and makes a profit of 2007., the former sum alone is taken as the rateable value. The appellant rests his case on the principle adopted from the earliest period of rating, that occupiers are to be rated at the ffull value; that the rent or sum at which the land would let is not to be taken as the full value, but one criterion only. This principle was declared in The Queen versus Joddrell, in accordance with the earlier cases, and is not affected by the recent statute, 6 & 7 Wm. IV. c. 96.

-This is not a new doctrine, but is in unison with all the authorities. The effect of that judgment is, that rent is part of the profits of the farm, and that the occupier is rateable for that part as well as for the residue of the profits. If, for instance, a farm is worth 3007. per annum in the hands of the owner, he is rateable for that amount; if the farm is let to a tenant for -100%. per annum, and he makes a profit of 2001. more, the tenant is rateable for 300%

Yet in spite of the obvious justice of these remarks, the simplicity and usefulness of making the clergyman pay far beyond his right proportion, induced the Court to decide in favour of the present custom, thereby perpetuating a grievous wrong to the Church. One test by which to estimate the justice of the present mode of rating is to examine the actual proportion of all the rates of a parish which fall on rent-charge. We have calculated this with reference to several agricultural parishes within our knowledge, and the proportion is about one-sixth, in places by no means above the average of injustice to the Clergy. What pretext can there be for a system which is thus convicted in its result of such gross unfairness? Tithe rent-charge is a substitution for one-tenth of the produce; and if it really amounted to that in practice, which it does not, it ought then to pay but one-tenth of the burdens of the land. The facts of the case are, however, much stronger than this. It is well known that tithe rent-charge is not much more than one-thirtieth of the produce of the land; yet it pays, as we have stated, one-sixth of the parish rates. We are not denying that there are considerations which should modify the prima facie deduction from this view of the case; for then we should be claiming on behalf of the Clergy an assessment of only one-fifth its present amount; but we certainly do think that the great and radical injustice which now exists, requires to be met by a concession up to the extent we have just pointed out, viz. by adding the tenant's profit to the amount of his present assessment.

Let it not be imagined by a hasty reader, that by doubling the tenant farmer's assessment, we would also double his rates. The only effect would be, the establishment of a different ratio between the whole body of farmers on the one hand, and the clergyman on the other hand. If the latter was thereby relieved of one-half what he now pays, the former would not suffer to any great amount when the difference was equally distributed among them.

But if the present law of assessment is unfair, even when there exists no bias to the prejudice of the Clergy, in its practical administration, how much more when the local injustice that is concocted in each parent vestry and each union Workhouse, is also taken into account!

The assessment of a parish is conducted under the management of the vestry, and it is far too generally the custom for the farmers there assembled to assess themselves as low as possible, and the clergyman as high as possible, trusting to the difficulty which is always felt in making an appeal. In the assessment of other property, about 20 per cent. is always deducted from the rent, whereas with tithes only about 2 for collection is allowed, beyond poor rates. It is not only, however, in the original assessment, that parochial authorities have the power of throwing an unequal share of burdens on the clergyman; they may so manage the affairs of a parish, as to let many payments fall on the rates, which ought properly to be borne by themselves individually; their object for doing which is plain enough, viz. that whatever falls on the rates of the parish is shared in very largely by the clergyman's high assessment on rent-charge.

The whole operation of the present poor-law is, we think, materially affected by this instinctive conspiracy among British farmers. When the new poor-law was first brought into operation, its professed object was to cure the degraded system then existing, by which every labourer was dependent on the parish, and was converted into a kind of serf attached to the land, and under the entire control of the farmers. The new law went on the principle of making pauperism a crime, and a state which could be avoided by diligence and care. The union-house was made a place of rigorous discipline, from the supposition that an industrious man could always keep out of it; out-door relief being, at the same time, forbidden to the able-bodied as unnecessary. There was henceforth to be no dependence on the parish, except of a kind which marked the object of it as more or less criminal. Under this severe test of the house, poorrates declined for a time; but farmers forgot on their part to fulfil one most essential condition on which this new theory depended for its ultimate success. If a labourer was to be independent, and able to save from his earnings, when in health and strength, some provision for old age and bad times, it is plain that his wages must be higher than the amount absolutely necessary to provide a sufficient quantity of bread for his family week by week, and also that he must be regularly supplied with work. The issue has been this; farmers having declined to allow such a rate, or such a stability of wages, as are necessary to carry out the principle of the new poor-law, matters drift back to the old system in spite of all enactments. Dependence on the parish is still the absolute and inseparable condition of the English agricultural labourer; and poor-rates are getting higher and higher, in spite of abundance of labour,

of the increase of emigration, and of other things which ought to have made them lower. Now, what is the cause of all this? The farmer (we blame not the individual, but the system which makes it his interest so to act) is aware that any advance in wages must come from his own single pocket, whereas, that if poor-rates instead of wages are increased, the additional sum will be paid to the extent of one-sixth by the clergyman. An agricultural labourer is a far more expensive article, taking the years of his life all round, than his direct wages imply or could produce; the deficit, therefore, must be supplied in some way, and the landed interests of this country have practically decided that parochial rates, with a state of dependence to the labourer, are the source whence it should be paid. By this means it is plainly to be seen, that tithe rent-charge is made to contribute largely towards the necessary expenses of even that amount of labour without which no land can be cultivated.

The defence set up for low wages is, that labour has its market price, and that those who require it are entitled to buy it as cheap as they can. But why is it cheap? It is cheap because it is not supporting-because parochial rates pay largely for it. If then, by any means, that temptation to throw men on the parish could be lessened, we feel sure that as poor-rates declined, wages would rise, and the condition of the labourer become more independent.

If things go on in their present course, we see no other result but that all the better class of our labourers-all those who wish to be independent, all who have any spirit or physical power in them-will leave the country, and find in distant shores a home and a maintenance, that their own country to its shame and its loss has denied them. Farmers have already begun seriously to dread emigration; and it will be to their own interest that they should offer higher inducements to retain in this country their young and good labourers than at present is the case, before they discover that in the cultivation of their land they are left either wholly deficient in labour, or at the mercy of very indifferent and spiritless workmen.

The same principle, which thus rules with regard to poorrates, is apparent also in the management of highways. If a farmer wants an arch to be built, or a road to be repaired which are connected with his own farm, he tries to make the parish do them at the public expense; and the other farmers in vestry, knowing that they all act themselves on the same principle, are perfectly willing to grant his request; the effect of which is, that the clergyman pays one-sixth of the money, though he wants no bridge on his own estates, nor holds any farm, the road to which will in its turn be repaired.