reported from the Committee on Group M of Private Bills, That the parties promoting the Clyde Navigation Bill [Lords] had stated that the evidence of John T. Costigane was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that his attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said John T. Costigane do attend the said Committee To-morrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

Ordered, That John T. Costigane do attend the Committee on Group M of Private Bills To-morrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

Private Bills (Group K)

reported from the Committee on Group K of Private Bills; That, to meet the convenience of parties, they had adjourned till Monday, the 17th of July.

Report to lie upon the Table.

BEXHILL AND ST. LEONARDS TRAMROADS BILL [Lords]

Reported [preamble not proved]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

I have to ask leave to introduce a Bill to amend certain provisions of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896, affecting the Congested Districts Board, and to make further provision for the expenses of that Board out of money provided by Parliament. The object of the Bill is to provide for an increase of the resources of the Congested Districts Board in accordance with the proposal which has already been made. It also includes some Amendments of the Act of 1896 affecting the Congested Districts Board which experience has shown to be desirable. The Bill is quite short, and we have every reason to believe that it will he found to be non-contentious. I beg to move:

Motion made, and Question proposed—

"That leave be given to introduce the Bill.—( Mr. G. W Balfour. )

I have no intention of offering any opposition to the Bill. It is a non-contentious measure of a necessary and useful character, and will not call for any searching criticism. I believe the object to be to provide greater resources and more powers for the Congested Districts Board. That is a purpose which Irish Members on both sides of the House approve, and it will therefore be our duty to assist the right hon. Gentleman in passing it as soon as possible. My object in rising is not to give the Chief Secretary that assurance, but to call his attention to the many opportunities which now present themselves in the West of Ireland for the buying of land through the Congested Districts Board, with the object of enlarging the holdings of small tenants. The right hon. Gentleman is aware, I am sure, that the transactions of that character which have been carried out by this Board have given general satisfaction. It is possible—indeed I have no doubt it is true—that the price given for the Dillon Estate may have induced many landlords to become willing to sell their estates wholly or in part. That price was too high; but it is inevitable, in my judgment, that while landlordism rules the roost in Dublin Castle, and has a paramount influence on both branches of the Legislature, prices, will be too high, whether the bargain is made between the landlord and tenant or between the Congested Districts Board and the landlord. I would nevertheless urge the right hon. Gentleman to pay attention to the popular feeling in the West of Ireland on this matter. He is probably aware that Lord Sligo and Mr. Donoghue, of Newport, have already expressed willingness to sell their estates in whole or in part. The tenants on these estates have been among those who have suffered most from poverty and distress in times past, and the right hon. Gentleman has therefore a unique opportunity to acquire this land on terms which would be satisfactory all round, and give these poor people a chance of improving their position in the future. I trust that the first use the right hon. Gentleman will make of this measure will be to carry out the wishes of the people in these parts.

Question put, and agreed to.

Three instructions to the Committee on this Bill stand on the Paper. The first and third, standing in the names of the hon. Member for Mid Glamorgan and the hon. Member for South Molton, are both out of order and for the same reason. They do not propose to amplify or to extend in any way the operation of the Bill. They are in the nature of alternative proposals and of a nature which, if carried, would be destructive to the principle of the Bill. Such motions are not in order as instructions. The object of these instructions would have been appropriate as an amendment to the Second Reading, and for raising a Second Reading debate, but it has been ruled before in this House, and I rule now, in accordance with those rulings, that such motions are not in order as instructions. The second instruction on the Paper, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Merthyr, is out of order, because it proposes to apply the provisions of the Bill to a subject matter which is foreign to the purpose of the Bill The object of the Bill is to give relief front rates upon the tithe rent-charge of beneficed clergy. To propose to apply it to schools and colleges is to propose to apply it to a certain class of lay impropriators who are altogether outside the object of the Bill. The instruction is, therefore, out of order, and the House will now go into Committee.

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1:—

The first Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Flint Burghs is out of order, because it proposes to postpone the consideration of the enacting clause until after the definition clause has been disposed of, which is contrary to the custom of Parliament. The second Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs is in the wrong place; it should come after the word "benefice." The same remark applies to the third Amendment, and also to the Amendments in the names of the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydvil and Northampton. The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for West Carmarthen should come in the definition clause. That in the name of the hon. Member for Hereford is in the wrong place. I call on the Member for Swansea District.

I shall not move, Sir.

The Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for North Monmouth must be taken with another Amendment which appears lower down on the Paper, winch applies a wholly different class of relief as an alternative to this clause. It would, therefore, be the proper course to move to strike out this clause and embody the proposal in a new clause. The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Flint Boroughs should also be raised in the definition clause. That in the name of the hon. Member for Mid Glamorgan it somewhat vague, and is better raised by a statement of the value of the particular rent-charge. There are several Amendments to that effect lower down. The Amendment of the hon. Member for South Molton would convert this Bill, which is one for the relief of the clergy, into a Church Discipline Bill. The next Amendment of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil should come in the definition clause, and the same remark applies to the Amendments of the hon. Members for Market Harborough and Pontefract. Then the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Molton anticipates its proper position by a word or two. The first Amendment therefore in order is that of the hon. Member for Anglesey.

I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my hon. friend the Member for Anglesey. It is practically the same as that of which I hail given notice at an earlier stage. It proposes to limit the relief granted under tins Bill to cases where the value of the tithe rent-charge is £200 a year. I think the Committee would do well to accept this Amendment for two or three reasons which I now propose to give. The House of Commons has decided that the clergy had a grievance; it has decided that they are too highly rated, and, therefore, I cannot go behind that decision. But it has not decided the principle on which that relief should be given; nor has it decided the extent of that relief. The only thing which is proposed by the Bill is that a certain remedy shall be applied to a grievance under which it is declared the clergy are suffering. It is admitted that our system of local taxation requires a good deal of readjustment and that the clergy are not the only ratepayers who suffer from the present system. It is admitted further that these grievances will have to be dealt with thoroughly and drastically in the course of the next few years. Therefore the only reason for passing this Bill is to extend temporary relief to classes of the community which are unduly pressed and reduced to a certain measure of distress by the present incidence of taxation. If that is the only reason for passing a crude measure of this kind, I think it would be very much better that the operation of the Act should be limited to those cases where the distress is undoubtedly real. The Committee will find upon reading the evidence given by clergymen themselves before the Royal Commission on Local Taxation that this is a suggestion which commended itself to the majority of the witnesses called. I find from a Memorandum prepared by the hon. Member for Tunbridge and appended to the Report, that he sent out a circular on this subject to 2,000 clergymen—at any rate, he received under 2,000 replies. I cannot understand upon what principle he selected 2,000 out of 13,000 clergymen affected by this Bill, but the response he received shows that only 1,600 regarded their cases as sufficiently distressing to require the attention of a Royal Commission.

I sent out only 3,000 circulars.

That makes my case still stronger. I think there are cases where the clergy may be suffering acute distress owing to the charge levied upon them, and those cases the House has decided to deal with. But I do ask the House to exercise the discretion which the hon. Member for Tunbridge himself has exercised. He is a friend of the clergy, and is not likely to err on the side of excessive severity in his treatment of them. He evidently thinks that there are only about 3,000 cases that require the attention of the House of Commons. Why should this Committee, which is not very disposed to vote public money for the relief of the wants of the clergy, proceed to give it in 13,000 cases, when the hon. Member himself thinks that only 3,000 cases require attention? He included in his Memorandum samples, as it were, of the letters which he received from the clergy. One of his correspondents, Mr. Lloyd, gives his opinion of what the remedy should be. He says that every man should have as a living wage at least £120 free of all deductions, but that taxes might be imposed on all he received over that amount. Now, my proposal is much more liberal than that. This clergyman, whose view is approved by the hon. Member for Tunbridge, simply pleads for exemption in respect of incomes of £120. I propose to improve upon that, and to extend exemption to £200, and in that I hope I shall have the support of the hon. Member for Tunbridge. Let us draw a line between really necessitous clergymen and those who are not in actual distress, owing to the present incidence of taxation. There were several clergymen who gave evidence before the Royal Commission, but, with one single exception, they all approved of the suggestion that the relief should be extended to the necessitous clergy. One clergyman examined was Mr. L. Ellis. He was asked if the grievance which he had been speaking of could not be met by means of some relief to the poorer clergy, and he answered in the affirmative. Mr. Manners-Sutton, another clerical witness, said the same thing. Mr. McPherson—who represented the distressed clergymen, and was there to plead their cause, having been chosen for that purpose, possibly, because he was a Scotchman, and therefore most likely to get money—was asked whether he would not be satisfied if relief were granted at the present moment to clergymen whose incomes were under £160. He said he was not prepared to answer that, but he added that the clergy naturally preferred that half their rates should be paid, whether their incomes were £1,000, £500, or £100. That need not be argued; it goes without saying. But the witness was pressed to say whether the clergy would be satis- fied, for the moment, if this relief were granted to those in real need. He replied that, for the moment, they might be. Seeing that this is only a temporary measure of relief, and nobody suggests that it is a complete or final answer as far as the grievances of the clergy or anybody else are concerned, I think the Committee would do well to accept my Amendment. The whole system of local taxation is in a chaotic condition; it is full of inequalities and injustices, not merely to the clergy but also to laymen. The Royal Commission has recommended that there should be some redress granted all round. The whole point therefore is this: if you are going in for a temporary measure of relief, why not confine it to those clergy who are really necessitous, and then await the introduction of a measure which will rest the whole system of local taxation upon a basis that will be fair to everybody all round? The worst of a measure of this kind is that it means that the redressing of the grievances of one section or class of the community imposes an additional burden on others who are suffering quite as badly. I therefore propose to limit it as much as possible. Several witnesses were called before the Royal Commission to prove the grievances of different classes of the community, and their evidence has not been challenged. One case given was that of a quarry owner who, for sixteen years, had paid hundreds of pounds as rates, and all the while had got nothing out of his quarry. Then there was a metropolitan gas company which complained that it was rated four times as heavily as a competing company in an adjoining union. It is obvious that people are suffering from grievances which require to be redressed. Mr. Cassels was the only lawyer who gave evidence in favour of the parsons, and they made the most of him and quoted his opinions, although he challenged the views of all the judges of the land. What did he say? He gave the case of a shopkeeper who paid £50 rates, and was doing a good trade. Next door to him was another shopkeeper, who, although he paid the same amount of rates, was making practically no profit; yet there was no distinction drawn between the two; the man who was practically a bankrupt had to pay just as much as the man who was thriving. I do not see exactly how this illustration was applicable to the parson, but I admit it shows grievances which ought to be redressed. What, however, I would like to point out is that, while you are relieving the parson, you are increasing the rate payable by the tradesman. Now, let me take the case of a clergyman who is receiving £500 a year from tithes. Upon that at present he has to pay £50. in rates. Under this Bill he will get off with paying £25. Compare his case with that of a shopkeeper who is rented at £150. As the rates average 6s. or 7s. in the pound, he also will have to pay £50. He possibly finds it quite as much as he can do to make both ends meet; yet, while the wealthy clergyman is to get his rates reduced by one half, the burden upon the trader is to be considerably increased in order to make up the £25 given to the parson. I think that that is exceedingly unfair, and I therefore submit that my proposal to limit the relief to clergymen whose incomes do not exceed £200 is in no way Unjust. Such an income probably represents £150 net, and it is perhaps unfair to ask the recipient to pay £20 or £30 in rates out of that. You ought to relieve him, but surely there is no necessity to give relief to the man who is in receipt of £500. This is a Bill which can only be justified on the plea of urgency. There is no principle of rating laid down in it, and there is no real grievance redressed; it is simply a rough-and-ready method of meeting an emergency. The only possible case that can be made out for this Bill is the one of poverty on the part of the persons to whom the relief is extended. There may be cases of poverty made out in the case of clergymen whose gross tithe is under £200, but there really cannot be a case made out for giving £50 a year to a clergyman who is in receipt of £1,000 a year. On what possible grounds could a grant be made out of the pockets of the taxpayers in such a case? I appeal to the House of Commons, as a matter of fair play to the thousands of poor shopkeepers in the country who are suffering far more grievously, that their burdens should not be increased for the purpose of relieving the rates of gentlemen who are in receipt of large incomes. It is an exceedingly unfair proposition, and I hope the House of Commons will not accede to it. Rates are steadily on the increase, and if the House passes Bills of this character they will continue to increase. There are classes in the community which deserve quite as much consideration from this House as the parsons and the landlords, and therefore I do urge that, if this Bill is to be passed at all, it should be passed in a form which will limit its operation to real cases of distress, and will not relieve the burdens of people who are very well able to bear them. I beg to move:

Amendment proposed—

"In page 1, line 5, after the word 'rent-charge, to insert the words, 'under the value of £200 a year.' and."—( Mr. Lloyd-George. )

Question proposed, "That those words proposed be there inserted."

The Amendment which the hon. Gentleman has just moved, as is natural with regard to the view those who act with him have lately expressed, is one which is directed against the whole principle of the Bill. The hon. Member has endeavoured, and has done so with great ability, to maintain that the object of the measure is to relieve distress. Hon. Members are perfectly entitled to hold their own views as to what the object is, but the same may be said of those who are responsible for the measure. The object ascribed by the hon. Member has nothing to do with the principle underlying this proposal. It is true that a large section of the clergy have carried on their work under very great difficulties and on very limited incomes, but there I are, as the hon. Member admitted, many other people who do that But people are not rated, except in the case of the clergy who are owners of tithe rent-charge, on their income. They arc rated on their houses, and the proposal has never been made that a man should be rated more because he was a rich man, although he lives in a moderate house. It is because the system under which the owners of tithe are rated is, in the opinion of the Government, unjust and requires amendment that the Bill has been introduced. If the Government were willing to adopt the view of the hon. Member, his proposal would not meet the difficulty, nor would it do anything to meet the eases where there is real distress. The Amendment which the hon. Member has moved on behalf of his colleague is not exactly the same as his own Amendment earlier on the Paper, which is clearer, because it defines what the value should be. This Amendment leaves it a matter of doubt whether the value is to be rateable value or commuted value. If we abandoned the principle of the Bill, which we have declared to be a reform of local taxation, and accepted the view of the hon. Member, this Amendment would not carry out his object, and limit the relief to the poor clergy. The hon. Member entirely ignores the fact that the limited incomes of imcumbents are made up from various sources. The effect of the Amendment would be most inequitable if the desire is to give relief to those of the clergy who are less well off. Take the case of an incumbent with an income from tithe on its commuted value of £210 a year. This clergyman would be outside the limit of relief proposed in the Amendment. Another incumbent near might have an income of £150 a year arising from tithe, but this income might be added to from other sources, such as pew rents, etc., bringing the total up to between £300 and £400. Under the hon. Member's proposal the incumbent with the larger income would receive relief, while the incumbent with £210 a year would be excluded. Therefore the poorer clergyman would get no relief. The Government cannot accept the Amendment, because it would be unjust in its working. It would at the same time be opposed to the object we have in view—namely, by this measure to initiate a system, which we hope will be permanently adopted, no doubt, in a modified form, with regard to the local taxation of this country.

The right hon. Gentleman has declared that the principle of this Bill has nothing to do with the poverty of the clergy. I hope that that will be borne in mind. You may depend upon it that it is only a sentiment of sympathy with that class of the clergy who are really impoverished and the feelings which have been aroused in their favour which form the slightest justification for this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman talks of the principle of the Bill. Yes, but what we want to know is what is the justification for the Bill? The right hon. Gentleman has made some extraordinary statements on this subject of the clergy being the only people who are rated on their incomes. I know that you have given back something to the landlords, but I thought that the landlords were rated on the income derived from land. This is the situation of the tithe-owner; he is precisely in the same situation as to the manner in winch he derives his income. It is not a professional income at all. You will say no doubt it is a justification for your Bill that you have already mulcted the general public for the benefit of one class, and that that is a justification for robbing the general public in favour of another class. That is what is called the principle of the Bill. Let us examine that principle. You committed the injustice at that time under the pretence of poverty. Nobody will pretend that the Agricultural Rates Bill was not passed in consequence of the fall in the price of produce. Now you are going to do the same thing for another class, and what will happen? I will tell the right hon. Gentleman. In every rural parish of this country there will be two men who are the richest men in that parish, and they and they alone will receive from the pockets of the public this dole. I have had some experience of country parishes, and I know that those two persons are the squire and the parson, and those are the two men who will only pay half their rates. That is the principle of the Bill. Now we understand exactly what it is. It is founded upon the proposition that the wealthiest men are those who are to have the most grant out of public money. It is said this is the income of the clergy. I absolutely contest that. The tithe has never been, taken as a whole, the income of the clergy, either before the Reformation or since, either before the Commutation Act of 1836 or since. You might just as well say that of a man who has £500 a year primarily and nominally paid to him, but which is subject to a mortgage or rent-charge, or some other reduction of that kind. There fore, it is perfectly untrue to take the tithe rent-charge and say that is the income of the clergy. It never was at any time. Tithe rent-charge has been always charged with the rates, and with the support of the poor under the Act of Elizabeth. Therefore the principle of your Bill is founded on an entire fallacy. A clergyman with an income of £500 a year never was entitled to £500 except subject to those deductions. The case is very much as if a landowner went before the overseers and said, "The rateable value of my property is so much, but my property is mortgaged for three-fourths of its value, and therefore I ought only to pay one-fourth of the rate." That is the principle of your Bill. We hope to be able in this Committee—so long as we are permitted to do so—to make the country understand that this is the principle, and I think the more it is examined the more it will be found to be utterly unjustifiable, and to be one of the worst kinds of class legislation, of legislation which is taking from those who have not in order to give to those who have. Because, let it be remembered, the poorer clergy do not, generally speaking, derive benefit from tithe. Therefore the very scope of the Bill, in dealing with tithe only as regards the clergy, is dealing not universally, but generally, with the wealthier class of the clergy. That is a proposition of which anybody who has studied the question will be perfectly well aware. I saw in the paper to-day—I do not know whether it is correct—that, on dividing the sum appropriated to incumbencies in England, the average to each incumbent upon a division would be £455 a year. Of course that means that a great many livings must be very much above that figure. Do you really believe you can justify to the people of this country, either the people who inhabit the large towns or those in the country parishes, this picking out a particular class of the community and giving to them a relief to which on any sound interpretation of law they are not and never were entitled? This proposal is unjustifiable, because it relieves the clergy of a payment to which they were subject, and which they have always taken over with their livings, and the clergy had no right to take those livings except under such conditions. I support the Amendment of my hon. friend because at least it has something to justify it, and that is the position of the poorer clergy. That is the only sort of justification to be offered for a measure of this character. As for taking the money of the people of the towns for the purpose of subsidising the larger incomes of the wealthier clergy, that is a thing which cannot be justified for a moment. We are told, indeed, that Parliament has nothing to do with the Church. Convocation has told us that all we have to do with the Church is to rob other people in order to pay her. That is said to be the province of Parliament in relation to the Church, but I think the Church should get this miserable pittance from other sources. This money is not to be distributed to the poor and those who want it, but is to be thrown broadcast for people to scramble for without any regard to whether it is going to do good in a particular place where it is to be given, or to a particular person on whom it is to bestowed. That, I venture to say, is repugnant to the common sense and the sentiment of common justice of the country, and I shall certainly support the Amendment of my hon. friend.

I desire to move an Amendment. We are told that this question has nothing to do with charity, but that it is a case of justice; that it is not a question of dealing with the poverty of the clergy, but it is simply to remove an injustice in the rating of the tithe rent-charge. What I should like to know is, if it is an injustice to rate the tithe rent-charge belonging to the clergy, why is it not an equal injustice to rate the tithe rent-charge which goes to colleges and schools? There can be no question about it that the rating of the tithe rent-charge payable to colleges and schools has reduced the amount of money which would otherwise have been devoted to scholarships and fellowships. We are told that this is an act of justice and not an act of charity, but I want to know why the tithe rent-charge of schools and colleges is not also dealt with at the same time? It has been stated that personal incomes are not rated, but I know from personal experience that in Monmouthshire colliery owners have had to pay 8d. a ton as a charge upon the coal even when they have been producing coal at a loss. I beg to move:

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—

"After the word 'the' to insert the word 'commuted'"—( Mr. D. A. Thomas. )

Question, "That the word 'commuted' be there inserted," put and agreed to.

The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture has told us that this would affect the principle of the Bill. I do not see that it can affect the principle of his measure if that principle be to give relief to those who need it most. My hon. friend below me has said that if this is the principle surely it should be made permanent, and not established only for two years. If it is intended as a reform of local taxation, why not introduce a Bill affecting all tithe-payers and not one particular class? If this be an injustice it has been going on for sixty-three years, and no attempt has ever been made to remedy it. This Amendment asks that relief be given to those who need it. I have in my hand a list of livings in which the tithes are considerably more than £250. There is a living in a parish in Dorset with a commuted tithe charge of £1,500, and you are going to relieve a clergyman with that income of half his rates. Can it be seriously urged that any reform of local taxation—which, I presume, means placing taxation on the shoulders of those best able to bear it—would relieve a man with an income of £1,500 a year? Then there is the living of Hatfield, a very historic parish, which contains the residence of the Prime Minister, which has a commuted tithe rent of £1,876, and the rector is to have half his rates paid. Can it be said that these gentlemen are mom unduly burdened than other ratepayers? The proposals of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire operated in favour of the poor, but you are giving relief to gentlemen with incomes of over £1,000. It would have been thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite, as representing the Church, would have limited this relief to the necessitous clergymen. Why, one would imagine that the Treasury had a kind of gold mine, from which they were scattering gold all over the country. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the Woodbridge Division said that there were seventy livings in the Diocese of Norwich with incomes less than £100 a year. Very well. There you have a place where you could relieve necessitous clergymen; but surely it cannot be said that you are relieving necessitous clergymen when you are relieving gentlemen with incomes of over £1,000 a year. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman this question: Does he think that in rural parishes it will be for the benefit of the Church that ratepayers should be compelled to pay half the rates of clergymen with incomes ten times greater than their own? Nothing will arouse greater hostility in the rural parishes, and the clergy know it. Why did not the Lower House of Convocation thank you for your Bill the other day? Why, they hardly accepted it, and the previous question was only negatived by one vote. Nothing is more calculated to make the ratepayers smart under a sense of injustice and to raise hostility to the Church. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see the force of this Amendment. This is only a temporary measure; it is not to be put on the Statute Book as a permanent measure of local taxation. Let it therefore relieve those necessitous clergymen, and not ask the taxpayers to pay for clergymen with large incomes.

I hardly think that the right hon. Gentleman grasps the point that lies at the base of my hon. friend's Amendment or the observations of my right hon. friend. The question we want an answer to is this: Why are you drawing a distinction between one class of tithe rent owners and another class? We could understand it if in response to the numerous representations which clergymen have made to you since you came into office you said: "Yes, you are valuable supporters of the present Government, and we will do what we can to help you in your distressed condition." We could understand then why on the basis of this interim Report you are asking that some relief should be given to necessitous clergymen. But that is not what you have done. You have brought in a Bill based, not on the particular circumstances of any class of tithe receivers, not on the necessities of the clergy, but on some injustice discovered with re-regard to the incidence of local taxation. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to say why, if it is just to pay half the rates of a tithe rent-charge owner who happens to be a beneficed clergyman, it is not also just to pay half the rates of the descendants of the men who bought tithes in the reign of Henry VIII.

The hon. Gentleman is now discussing an Amendment of his own which appears later on the Paper.

I was only replying to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, and I have no desire to raise the general question. When the right hon. Gentleman is challenged on the pecuniary limit, he replies that it is a matter of justice, and that it does not matter whether the clergy are paid a large sum or not. If that is the principle, why do you not relieve the colleges and private persons who are owners of tithe rent? The right hon. Gentleman says that in the case of colleges the tithe rent is income; but where in law can he find a distinction between a tithe rent charge paid to a clergyman and a tithe rent-charge paid to a college? Why is it income in one case and not in the other? I deny that it is income—it has always been treated as property. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman in his answer has not met the point. He has not shown us any real logical ground for distinguishing between the clergy and other tithe rent-charge owners. If he says that he is not animated with a desire to assist the clergy, I will only reply that that is contrary to many of the declarations made by Ministers.

I think it is perfectly patent, whatever may be the reasons adduced by Ministers of the Crown in this House, that this Bill can only in justice be based on the theory which the country entertains, namely, that the necessitous clergy alone should receive assistance from it. That appears to me to be the only defensible view to take in favour of this measure. It is somewhat significant that in the course of this Debate not a single Tory Member has spoken in defence of this extraordinary measure, and that is not surprising, considering that many hon. Members opposite represent great democratic constituencies such as Manchester, Leicester, Sheffield, and other great towns. The Bill has been repudiated by the Ministerial candidates at a recent election. A year or two ago we had a similar measure for assisting the clergy of this country by granting large subsidies to their sectarian schools. A very respected and worthy member of this House representing an East End constituency then told us that it was his habit whenever a clergyman approached his platform to gently push him off. After this Bill passes there will be many hon. Members who will desire to push the parson off their platforms. The object of the Amendment of my hon. friend is to provide that this relief or just payment, which ever it may be called, should be granted to the poorer clergy, and that the richer clergy should not receive this benefaction out of the public purse, which benefactions, I may remind the Committee, will be taken out of the important and useful grants which the county councils have been in the habit of applying for various purposes in counties and county boroughs. We must not forget, as indeed has been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture, that the clergy have various other sources of income which supplement what undoubtedly in many cases are very small stipends. I observe that in the ancient times to which the interim Report of the Commission refers the oblations were subject to rates. But although offertories, pew rents, and the benefactions of generous parishioners which come now and then in the way of the clergy are sources of income, none of these are subject to local taxation. There is a church down on the coast of Kent, well known to many Members of I the House—the church of the Parish of Lydd, connected with the great church of Canterbury. The revenue of the clergyman of that church includes the commuted tithe £1,381. But that is not the only source of income of the incumbent. He receives a very large grant from the Government in respect of the troops who are marched to his church from the neighbouring camp of Lydd. Then, although the tithe is commuted at £1,381, he is allowed an enormous percentage of deductions before arriving at the assessable value, which amounts to only £767, or little more than half of the total of the commuted value of the tithe rent-charge. On what principle of justice are the farmers—who are very heavily taxed for the tithe in the adjoining Romney Marshes—to contribute their proportion of the additional £50 a year presented out of this fund to the parish clergyman of Lydd? In the next parish of Midley there is an old ruin. No church exists at all. There is merely the gable end of an old church, which has been in ruins for three hundred or four hundred years. The tithes of that parish are now handed over to the rich neighbouring parish of Folkestone. It is a ludicrous conception of this Bill when such instances as I have quoted are adduced to describe it as doing justice. Now, I have had letters from several clergymen in the division of Lincolnshire which I represent asking me to support this Bill. I have not the honour to be supported by many clergymen. In my division of Lincolnshire, out of seventy-six clergymen seventy-two are my political opponents. Of the remaining four three have written to me to ask me to vote for this Bill, but two of them have discovered since they wrote me that they wrote me under a complete hallucination, and that the Bill will give them no relief at all. One finds that his benefice, which is attached to one of the Cambridge colleges, does not come under the Bill. If the Bill had been based on the principle of justice surely a college living would have been given some relief. Take another case. There is a rich living in my division where the un-unfortunate clergyman did a very foolish thing—he bought the living. I have done my very best for some years past to help him, as a benevolent friend of the clergy, over the various quagmires into which he every now and again gets plunged. His living is what is called sequestrated, and the Bishop of the Diocese has put in some legal functionary who seems to be kept a sort of an appendage to the Bishop; and that man is now in charge of the spiritual interests of this parish. The poor rector or vicar is a waif and stray, wandering from one end of the country to the other trying to earn a precarious living as locum tenens. When the Bill was introduced he thought he was in sight of the Land of Goshen, and pictured himself back again in his happy living; but now I am told the Bill does not apply to livings which have been sequestrated, and where the person in charge of the spiritual interests of the parish happens to be in the position of a receiver

It will apply just the same.

Well, he has taken legal advice.

That is another thing.

The advice is not mine. I am not learned in ecclesiastical law. But he has taken the advice of some learned chancellor or legal functionary, and he is told that he will still have to wander like a spiritual Arab over the length and breadth of the country and that he would get no relief. There is only one other clergyman who seems to be a beneficiary under the Act who has appealed to me to support it. His income is £600 a year. His ancestors bought the living, which has been gently handed down from father to son, and I suppose, unless the law is altered, that will go on for ever. His income, as I have said, is £600 a year. He is, I believe, an eloquent preacher, but his congregation is small. That is no fault of his, because the bulk of his parishioners are dissenters. His collections are also small, averaging less than 2s., and his congregation is less than twelve. On what grounds of justice—and this Bill is put before us purely as an act of justice—is this gentleman to get a benefaction of £30 a year? I do not think we are asking anything at all unreasonable in suggesting that this measure should be confined to the poor and necessitous clergy whose commuted tithe rent-charge stands at the figure of £200 a year. I beg to support the Amendment of my hon. friend.

I wish to challenge a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and by several other hon. Members at a previous stage of this Bill, that the tithes when originally given were given partly to the support Of the poor. The right hon. Gentleman used that as an argument for voting against the Second Reading.

That has nothing whatever to do with the Amendment before the Committee.

There has been a very extraordinary defence made by the Government in their opposition to this Amendment. I am not at all surprised that the Minister for Agriculture is the only person on that side of the House who speaks in favour of the Government proposal and against the Amendment, because votes are very seldom looked at by constituents, but speeches are; and speeches in the House of Commons in favour of this Bill would probably be exceedingly unpopular. Therefore it is not surprising that hon. Gentlemen are maintaining a discreet silence on the subject.

The hon. Member should not judge other people's constituencies from his own.

By what other standard should I judge them than by that of my own constituency, especially when mine contains rather more than the average number of clergy; and, therefore, I am still more surprised at the interruption. What I want to know is the extraordinary principle that the Bill is run on. It is called justice; but the only case that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture gave was where a benefice got £210 a year from the tithe rent-charge, and under this Amendment it would not be excluded, but if the next living had only £150 a year from tithe rent-charge and £200 a year from other sources of income it would be excluded. That is an exceedingly good reason for saying that where the whole income of the living exceeds £200 it should not be exempted, and if the right hon. Gentleman will accept that proposition surely there is ability sufficient on either side of the House to draft Amendments to meet the difficulty; that is to say, that where the whole income of the benefice, including the value of the house, does not exceed £200, the clergy should get advantage of the provisions of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman says that we ought not to curtail the extent of the Bill to prevent the relief of the richer clergy, because that would be very unpopular. Well, I will take, not his own county, or even the county of Stafford with which I am connected, or the City of Bristol, but the poorer places in those agricultural districts the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture is so anxious to relieve and where he did so much for the landlords. Take Somersetshire, where the rates amount to £14,000, or the more grievous case, the county of Essex, where the land is going out of cultivation because of the difficulty of paying the high rates. Surely that is a county where something should be done to alleviate the hardships of the poorer clergy. But if you leave the Bill as it stands, and do not cut off the relief to the richer parsons, you increase the rates in Essex to the extent of £1,500 a year—and that in a county that is going out of cultivation because the rates and taxes are so high upon it at present! That is a very serious case and one which agricultural Members in this House ought to think seriously about, before they vote for this haphazard addition to the revenues of the Church of England and for putting an additional burden on the ratepayers of the country. It may be said, "You ought not to want to reduce it, because it is already such a small sum—only £86,000 a year." Yes, but that is a very large sum. I will put it in this way. You are adding at one swoop, out of the unwilling ratepayers' pockets, 30 per cent. to the endowments of the Church during the last 200 years. That is too much to give to rich persons. I should not object if this Bill had proper safeguards such as is proposed by this Amendment, in order to ensure that all the money that you give goes to the needy parsons who have a difficulty to make both ends meet—either to the poor men who are working in our great towns for a miserable pittance of less than £100 a year, or to those engaged in the country districts who have not enough to keep their houses in a proper state of repair—but you give this money to those clergymen whose living is worth £1,000, and in some cases £2,000, who are perfectly able to take care of themselves. I hope to hear somebody on the opposite side of the House give some reason why you should tax the poor to subsidise the rich clergy of this country. I trust that later on, if not to-day, this Bill will be so curtailed as to avoid this great injustice.

I am not going to discuss the general question of the Bill on this Amendment. The Amendment itself is sufficiently serious, not only for the matter which it contains, but also for the declaration which the Minister in charge of the Bill has made, and which has been already powerfully emphasised by my right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouth. The Minister in charge of the Bill, said that it was entirely a Bill to be looked at in the light of justice, totally irrespective of the means or the position of the persons receiving the grant. (Ministerial cheers.) That sentiment was cheered—that it is the abstract right of the tithe-owner who pays rates to have half his rates paid to him because it is professional income. How does the right hon. Gentleman apply that principle?

I stated that no case had been brought forward by the Opposition to meet the challenge we had given—namely, that a clergyman is rated upon his income at a higher rate than anybody else's income. I did not use the words "professional income."

I will take the word "professional" out, but I do not see exactly the force of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, if it does not apply in the sense in which I apply it—viz., that the tithe-owner is to be relieved from the payment of his rates under the circumstances stated. The relief is to be given in both cases in the same way. I will put it in a concrete form. I will take Amersham, in Buckinghamshire. The net amount of the tithe in Amersham is £1,150 a year. The rates are paid by the landlord, and they were £286, and there was awarded to the clerical titheowner at Amersham a rent-charge of £1,500 a year, which covers both his tithe and rates. If we go to Wiltshire, there is a very strong case in the parish of Melksham. There the tithe is £976 4s. 4d., the rates were £178 2s. 8d., and the rent-charge is £1,278 8s. 10d. If I go to Mold in Flintshire, I find the tithe is £1,314, the rates £270, and the tithe rent-charge £1,645. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell the Committee where is the justice of taking public money, raised by the general taxation of the country, in order to make a present to gentlemen receiving incomes of between £1,000 and £2,000 a year. It is idle to say that the case for the Bill is not based upon the poor clergy. Were it not so the Bill would be laughed out of the House of Commons. I think the poor clergy have a very strong case. I said so on the Second Reading, but I do not think this is the proper way to meet it; on the contrary, I think it is a radically wrong way. Is it right to give this relief to a man who is receiving an income—income from property—of £1,600, £1,700, or £1,800 a year, and say to the urban taxpayers or the rural taxpayers that that man has a right to have one-half of his rates paid out of the general taxation? I shall support this Amendment on the principle that if this Bill is passed it should be confined to the poor clergy, to the people who are necessitous, and that the money proposed to be voted should not be lavished as it was under the Agricultural Rating Act, when you gave the owners of very valuable land in large towns the same contribution that you gave to the poor landowners like those of Essex. Hon. Gentlemen are the best judges of their own business, and they know whether this is a happy precedent to follow now. At all events, we know now that what we are going to divide upon is not the merits of the Bill, or whether this is a right mode of giving relief—that was decided on the Second Reading issue—but we are going to divide upon the question, Is it right or wrong that this relief should be confined to those who deserve it, and not given to those who are far better able to do without it than the vast masses of the people?

The right hon. Gentleman has asked a question, and, after the manner of the Opposition, he has selected for himself and for them what the issue before the Committee shall be; and naturally he has placed the question in a light which will be most agreeable to his friends. But I again repeat what I said before, that as it is the right hon. Gentleman's undoubted right to give his own description of the issue before the Committee, so it is undoubtedly the right of those of us who are responsible for the Bill to put the issue before the Committee as it appears to us. Certainly it is not as described by the right hon. Gentleman. He quoted certain cases from a Parliamentary Return in which additions were made. That has nothing to do, as far as we are able to see, with the line which is to be taken in regard to the payment of rates. The additions in respect of rates affect only the sum which has been already agreed upon by private arrangement between the tithe-owner and the tithepayer previous to the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. The effect of that Act is to rectify in some cases, to vary in others, but to make permanent in all, the arrangements arrived at previously between the two parties—the titheowner and the tithe-payer. The difference in the amounts referred to by the right hon. Gentleman is accounted for by the additions made in those cases where the bargain is regarded by the Commissioners as a bad one to the tithe-owner, or by deductions made in the other cases where the bargain is thought to be unfair to the tithe-payer. Whether the rates are high or low in no way affects the question now under consideration, but solely the property of the tithe-owner as fixed before the passing of the Act and subsequently confirmed by the Act. The right hon. Gentleman said that the cases he referred to could be quoted to any extent; it is true, because these arrangements were made previous to 1836 in 50 per cent. of the cases. The question is asked, Are you going to give this relief to a man whose income is from £1,000 to £1,200 a year, the same as to a man whose income is between £200 and £300 a year? My reply is "Yes." The right hon. Gentleman asks the reason why, and, although I stated it before, I have no objection to state it again. The position of the owner of tithe rent-charge to whom this Bill applies as a ratepayer is one, we contend, of injustice, comparing him with other ratepayers in the same position in regard to the property on which they are rated. In the case of the majority of ordinary ratepayers their rates amount to 1 or 2 per cent. of their incomes, whereas the owner of tithe rent-charge pays at the rate of 20 per cent. That is the reason why we say that, whether the income is great or small, it is just that Parliament, if we are dealing with a reform of this question, should deal with it as a whole, and not limit it in the manner indicated by the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.

If the argument the right hon. Gentleman has just used is the argument on which the Government are going to defend their proposals, I should like to put to him once more a question which has already been asked more than once—namely, why, if this is going to be a complete and logical measure, do you not give the same relief to a person who has exactly the same claim to it, the lay impropriator of tithes? He derives his income from precisely the same source as the beneficed clergy, and he is rated in respect of his income upon the same excessive scale as the clergyman is. If, therefore, that is ground for granting relief in the one case, it is obviously ground for granting relief in the other. It is totally impossible to represent this measure as anything but an illogical and half-hearted scheme. There is one other question I should like to put to the right hon. Gentleman in reference to the argument of my right hon. friend the Member for Wolverhampton. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what he conceives to be the income of the tithe-owner the day before the commutation. The income received by the parson is the amount of the composition, and not one halfpenny more, and therefore it is a complete fallacy to treat the sum awarded at the time of the commutation, which included the gross payments in respect of rates in addition to the amount of the net income he has been receiving before, as though that were or ever has been the income of the parson.

The right hon. Gentleman has asked the Committee to confine their attention to the principle of this Bill, and I think we should better understand the principle if we keep out of mind altogether the fact that it has anything to do with the clergy. What is the principle of rating? Rating has simply to do with property; it has nothing to do with the incomes of the people who pay the rates. The principle of rating has nothing in the world to do with any argument about income. That is quite beside the mark. The arrangement is that a certain proportion of the cost of bearing the public burdens should be raised from land, and that that proportion should be the first charge on the land—as upon all other property. So that in the case of the tithe rent payer, if he paid £100 a year for rates and received £300 for tithe, he never received £400 a year, his income was £300, the £100 being simply taken as first charge for the public burden. The rate has purely to do with how much is it fair to raise from certain classes of property to meet the public burden. There is a very important principle involved in the Bill—one which will deeply stir the mind of the public when once it is realised—and that is, whether or not you should shift a certain portion of the burden which has hitherto been borne by land from land to other kinds of property or taxation. It is not a question of whether we should relieve the clergy, or whether they pay in rates a larger or a smaller proportion of their income than others. The question is: Shall land pay such a proportion towards the public burdens? You are touching one of the most important principles of English law, the disturbance of which will shatter the Party opposite. Recent elections prove this. Nothing has stirred the heart of the people more than the feeling that the land does not now bear its fair share of the burden. In the face of these facts, is it not trivial to base this measure upon a principle? Would it not be politic to base it upon temporary expediency? The whole Bill has that aspect. In the first place, it is for three years only; secondly, it affects half the rates. Why not the whole or three-fourths?

Order, order! The hon. Gentleman is talking at random upon nearly all the subsequent Amendments. I must ask him to confine himself to the Amendment before the Committee.

I beg your pardon, Sir. I was going to appeal to the Government to regard this as a matter of temporary expediency, and not to take the dangerous step of basing it upon any principle. If that suggestion is adopted this Amendment is an admirable one. Let the Government say that they propose this as a measure of temporary relief for a distressed portion of the community, and appeal to the sympathy of the country. That is the ground upon which to base it, and in all good nature I make that suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman, believing that it will most commend this Bill to the country.

This Bill, we are told, has nothing to do with the necessities of the clergy, and is not formulated in this House to remedy the results of the hardship which the clergy are suffering in consequence of the reduction in the value of tithe. The argument is that this is a measure of justice to a very heavily-rated section of the community—a section of the community who, we are told, pay rates upon the whole of their income. I deny that from the outset. The clergy pay rates upon that part of their income derivable from rateable property, just as everybody else pays on their income from a similar class of property. The right hon. Gentleman said he was fully in agreement with the opinion of the House that this was only piecemeal legislation, and that ultimately the whole question of the burden on rate able and non-rateable property would have to be dealt with. Therefore even at its best, this is only a graduated piece of justice, and it is put forward merely as a modicum of justice until the whole question can be dealt with. The point I want to make is that money is required for giving this measure of justice to the clergy. Where does that money come from? It comes from the Local Taxation Account, which is distributable amongst——

The hon. Member is anticipating future Amendments. I must ask him to confine himself to the one before the Committee.

I was leading up to my argument, which is that as this is a measure of justice to the clergy it is pro tanto a measure of injustice to those rating authorities who have to find the money. I think that probably upon that line I may be permitted to argue.

I do not think that that is the question before the Committee. The question before the Committee is whether those who receive a larger tithe rent-charge than £200 are to be struck out of the Bill; whether the Bill is to be made applicable only to those who are in receipt of tithe rent-charge below £200.

Of course I submit to your ruling, but when you have heard my argument I think you will change your mind. If this be a measure of justice to the clergy, it is a measure of injustice to the towns. I would ask the House to limit that injustice by reducing in accordance with the terms of this Amendment the justice to the clergy. That is the argument I desire to develop, and I think it is coherent and, taken as a whole, in order. You cannot pick this money up on any Tom Tiddler's ground; you are going to obtain it from a fund which is distributable amongst all the rating authorities of the country. Out of the total number of assessments in the country the towns have the largest proportion, and therefore in proportion to the justice you are dealing out to the clergy you are dealing out injustice to the towns, because you are taking money from the towns and urban districts and handing it over to the clergy. That being so, is it not desirable that the injustice should be limited to the smallest possible amount which will enable you to relieve the most necessitous cases? This is a fine which the towns and rating authorities of the country will have to pay in order to augment the incomes of the clergy, and I suggest that the fine should be reduced to the smallest possible amount in order to keep the injustice within the closest possible limits.

The right hon. Gentleman says that he does not base his case for the Bill on the poverty of the clergy, but I do base my opposition to the clause upon the ground that I represent a large number of very poor people who cannot afford to pay their contribution towards the half of the rates of which the clergy are to be relieved. I heartily support the Amendment before the Committee, because under it the gross injustice to the poor of the country will be minimised to a certain extent. The right lion. Gentleman in charge of the Bill talks about injustice. Is he prepared to go down into the country and argue before men who receive 12s. a week that, as an act of justice, they should contribute out of their miserable wage a portion of the rates of the clergy? The clergy are in marry cases poor, but the great majority are in affluent circumstances compared to the Men upon whom they live, and who will have to contribute to the livelihood of these gentlemen out of their scanty earnings. I am astonished that the right hon. Gentleman who has charge of this Bill should have the nerve to introduce it—a Bill which, looking at it in its native hideousness, will compel a man in Devonshire earning 10s. a week to contribute to the living of a man with £10,000 a year.

How much will he contribute?

I am asked how much will he contribute. It need be very little, indeed, out of a weekly wage of 9s. or 10s. The hon. Gentleman has endeavourved to prove that the tithe rent is an increment, but as we understand it it is nothing of the kind. I desire to support the Amendment because this Bill without it will do a very great injustice to the other classes of the community. I object to the clergy being assisted out of the pockets of those who are worse off than themselves. This Bill, whether the Amendment is accepted or not, is another bribe in the face of a General Election, and as such I have great pleasure in endeavouring to reduce the amount of it.

I think it was unfortunate that an hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House was obliged to bring his speech to so premature a conclusion; because he was the only one on that side who rose to break the conspiracy of silence which we have to meet, and from which the country will draw its own conclusions. The President of the Board of Agriculture is opposed to the Amendment on the ground that this is an act of simple justice. That we deny, but assuming that view is sound, it is not a measure of justice to the whole, but only to a section of the tithe-payers, and it is because the Amendment now before the Committee to some extent limits the injustice of this measure that I give it my support.

If the hon. Member for the Harborough Division knew anything about cottage property he would know that the man getting 9s. a week pays no rates; they are paid for him under composition by the landlord, and the amount is so small that it is never taken into consideration in fixing the rent. With regard to the suggested injustice of this Bill, I might give one illustration of a rector I know, who, ever since he has had the living, has paid £25 a year more rates than a person occupying a similar house. In twenty years he has paid £500 more in rates than his neighbours, and now because we suggest that the ratepayers should take on themselves a burden which they ought to have taken long ago we are told it is unjust to the ratepayers. There is no injustice at all.

I was much surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Dorset say that a man who occupied a house at £9 a year paid no rates.

I said nothing of the kind. I said a man earning 9s. a week paid no appreciable share of the rates.

No, because the landlord pays it, and he gets it out of the rent, and what is more, the happy land-land gets 30s. off for paying it. Then he tells us a parson in his neighbourhood pays more rates than his neighbour, but what does the neighbour get his money out of? If he got it out of the tithes I could quite understand he would be hardly treated if the parson did pay more. But the parson gets his income out of the tithes, and he, like every tithe-owner, robs the community of the amount he gets out of the tithes. I am perfectly impartial on this Amendment, because I would take away the tithes under £200 a year, and I would take them away over £200 a year. I would take them away from the lay and from the clerical impropriator. It seems to me that this Amendment is not only of an impossible character, but it is one which will not hold water. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture has immortalised himself by muzzling dogs, arid now he seems to me to be trying to muzzle the supporters of the Government as if they were mere dogs. I do trust that this, and I implore hon. Gentlemen opposite not to sit stolidly silent but to find their tongues and say that they will not be treated in this way by the right hon. Gentleman. (Cries of "Question.") Why don't hon. Gentlemen opposite get up and make speeches upon this subject instead of crying out "Question, question"? There the hon. Member opposite sits lolling in that way——

Order, order. "Lolling" is not an appropriate expression to use, and I hope the hon. Member will withdraw it.

Then I will withdraw it at once, and I may say that the hon. Member sits in a most graceful attitude. The question has been asked if there is any person who pays rates upon his income; but do not colliery owners and quarry owners pay rates upon their income? That is a matter of hard fact, and very often they pay on a good deal more than their income. Now what is the Amendment? It is that the clergy receiving above £200 a year should not benefit by this dole which is being given. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has read through the evidence given before the Committee, but if he has done so he will have seen that a large number of clergy came forward as witnesses, and they said that it was only fair that this dole should be limited to those who had salaries below £150 per annum. A gentleman named Davis—a most estimable person—said he thought that £150 was about the correct figure, and I agree with him entirely. A pastor is a man—or ought to be—who does not preach the Gospel for his own benefit, but for the benefit of other people, and provided that he gets a small and reasonable income he ought to be satisfied. What did Oliver Goldsmith say in his "Deserted Village"? He said: "Passing rich on £40 a year." Surely a clergyman to-day is "passing rich" on £200 a year, and I do not want us to give him any help. Comparing the number of clergy receiving £200 a year, and the number of those receiving above that amount, if you gave nothing to those above £200 a year, you would be able to allow to the remainder not only half the rate on the tithe but the whole of it. If we are to treat this matter from the point of view of the State giving to these clergy a fair and adequate income, we certainly ought to do it in regard to the poor and not in regard to the rich. There are a number of livings with incomes of over £1,000 per annum. I should like to know how much the dissenting minister gets in a parish where the clergyman is receiving £1,000 per annum. The clergyman receives this money from the poorest of the poor, and he also receives a portion from the dissenting minister, who often only gets from £60 to £70 a year, and yet you call upon him to pay an extra amount of rates in order that the clergyman of the Church of England may receive a reduc- tion of £60 per annum upon his rates. The thing is positively unfair and unjust. I cannot really understand how any hon. Gentlemen opposite, looking at the matter in a fair way, can fail to agree with us that at any rate this reduction should be allowed only to those clergymen with salaries below £200 per annum. As a matter of abstract historical logical justice we ought not to give this money to the men who really have already a sufficient income, and have a far greater income than the average clergyman in any part of the world. It is nonsense to talk about a clergyman in a small country parish with £1,000 a year not having too much. I should like to see the whole of the money put into one fund and paid out according to the services rendered. If this were done the Church of England would be able to pay these clergymen without "sponging" on the community and without asking us to help men who are getting £1,000, £2,000, and in some cases £3,000 per annum. (Mr. TALBOT: "No, no.") The right hon. Gentleman says "No," and perhaps he knows a great deal more about it than I do. I am not myself in the Church, and I do not represent a university; therefore, I do not enter into these details like the right hon. Gentleman opposite. But the right hon. Gentleman is an able speaker, so I will sit down to let him get up and explain how many livings there are above £1,000 a year, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will follow me.

The real ground for this Bill is that there are a certain number of livings in the country where the parsons feel the pinch of poverty, and this is the real ground on which this measure is brought forward. The right hon. Gentleman opposite knows perfectly well the position of these poorer clergy, and yet he proposes to still further endow the rich livings of this country. The right hon. Gentleman is driven, in opposition to this very reasonable Amendment, to say that he does not do it to relieve poverty, but as an extension of what is fair and just in what he calls the principle of rating. But there is no principle of rating underlying this Bill at all, and no rating principle can be adduced by anybody on that side of the House in opposition to the Amendment of my hon. friend. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill says you ought to deal with all clerical incomes alike, and you ought not to tax professional incomes. But what sort of an income is dealt with in this case? The right hon. Gentleman says it is income, but I contend that it is not income at all. Suppose a man was appointed to a living two years ago, and it was worth £600 or £800. That man knew that out of that sum there would be certain deductions for rates and other matters amounting to about £200, and he knew that the net amount he would have was not £800 but £600. Now that man under this Bill is having a gift given to him of £40 a year. It will not do for the right hon. Gentleman and his friends to say, "We were forced to do something for the poor clergy, but we could not give £10 a year to a man with £150 a year without giving £40 to a man with £600 a year." The amount paid to the clergy is not income. The doctor has his patients, the lawyer his clients, and the shopkeeper his customers, but the incomes of the clergy are not founded on this principle. I venture to say that in many parishes in the country the people from whose land the tithes come do not go to that particular church at all. Therefore, how can you call it income in the sense of a man who earns his money in a profession like that of the law or of medicine? The whole case made out is not one of principle at all, but one of dole. You were content when the Agricultural Rating Bill was before this House with the statement that it was a mere temporary expedient, and now it is said that because the Agricultural Rating Act relieved those in occupation of agricultural land we ought to do the same for the parsons. The Secretary to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in answer to a question, stated that:

"The landowner having had his turn, the tithe-owner now thinks that his time has come."

You have pretended to give the farmer this relief, and now you say it is the turn for the Church. Supposing a widow had a sum of money left her three or four years ago, or at the time when Home Rule was before the country, when Consols were very high—I believe they got up to 115. Why should you not extend this principle, and make up the loss to this lady which she has sustained in consequence of the fall in the price? But these clergy- men have an association, and we find the hon. Member for Tunbridge sending leaflets broadcast to the poor clergy in the rural districts, inviting them to put their wails and sufferings before Parliament. I do not know exactly what the price of a curate is, but he was priced and valued by the hon. Member opposite at £150. It is curious to note that in some of the instances which are given in the evidence there are livings specified, and one witness—the Rev. Mr. Jepp—who is a justice of the peace and deputy-chairman of Quarter Sessions, said he thought there should be a uniform abatement in every benefice, because he thought "one man's services were as good as another theoretically." I do not suppose that we should have had this complaint if the Bill had been confined to the propositions contained within the four corners of this Amendment, and I should be very much surprised if the richer clergymen are not unanimously of opinion that this relief should be given to the poorer clergy. I do not know what the Rev. Mr. Jepp has to complain of, for his living is worth £323 a year and his net income is £244, while the whole church accommodation in his parish is only 450. Can it be said that that man is badly paid for administering to the spiritual needs of his congregation, when he cannot possibly get more than 450 people in his church? I know many Nonconformist ministers, who have much larger congregations, would be very glad if their incomes were brought up to £244. I will give another instance where the gross income of the living is £272, and this will be excluded if this Amendment is carried. Now, the net income in this case is £188, but what is the population of that parish? I daresay the Committee will be astonished to hear that the entire population is only seventy-nine people all told. The question is whether you ought to give relief to this man, who has only got seventy-nine people in his parish, and who already gets this large sum of money. This Amendment is most pertinent to this particular case, for the church accommodation in this instance is only sixty. This clergyman cannot stow more than sixty people when his church is full, and I have no doubt that he has ample room for his congregation. Is that a case in which you ought, under this Bill, to take money out of the public funds to assist these people? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University said there were not many livings worth £3,000 or £2,000 a year, but in this very Return there is a living in the county of Norfolk where the gross income is £1,254, which is more than an Under Secretary gets. The right hon. Gentleman says the clergyman has to pay curates £300, but if he does not do the work himself but employs curates to do it for him he ought to pay them. I do not think his work is so great that a curate is necessary. In the parish to which I have just alluded the church accommodation is only 365, and such cases might be multiplied over and over again. I think, however, two or three cases are as good as two or three dozen, and I do not want to weary the House. These are instances given from the appendix to the Report, and they are very material to the question which the Royal Commission considered. If the Government are bound, as a temporary expedient, to have recourse to the public funds in order to put money into the pockets of the clergy, why do you not confine your generosity to the case of the poor vicar and the poor rector? We are quite astonished that you should come to the public funds at all for this purpose. I suppose the noble Lord the Member for Rochester will claim that the adherents of the Church number ten millions. If that is so, all it means is that each member of the Church should give another twopence a year out of their own pockets. Do you really have so little regard for the comfort of your clergy and so little regard for their power of usefulness that you are prepared to say that the members of the Church of England will not put their hands in their pocket to provide another twopence per head per annum to make up this £87,000 which is proposed to be voted to the Church by this Bill? I do appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite who are supporters of the Government to vote according to their consciences on this question, and if they do so, I believe they will be bound to go into the lobby to prevent these public funds from being give to those men who are already amply remunerated.

With regard to this particular Amendment I would appeal to hon. Members opposite to consider whether it would not be wholly inconsistent with every prin- ciple of rating ever applied in this country to make a difference in rating where a man was receiving a large income or a small one. Would any hon. Member opposite suggest that if a man only possessed five or six houses his property should be rated differently to that of the man who owns a much larger number? If this Amendment is carried in its present form it will have this effect, for it is inconsistent with every principle of rating which has been carried in this House.

Why not reduce the rating upon the houses?

What I am trying to point out is that if this Amendment is carried it will make this Bill absolutely inconsistent with every principle of rating in this country by making a distinction between large owners and small ones. I challenge any hon. Member opposite to give a single illustration to show that the circumstance of a man deriving a large or a small income from the same kind of property has ever been made a reason for altering the rating of that property. That is what this Amendment seeks to do.

This Bill is the illustration.

In this very Bill a distinction is drawn between the same kind of property where it is held by a clerical person and a layman.

I think that interruption shows that my point has not been appreciated by the hon. Member. I am not going back to the whole question, but I am now dealing with this particular Amendment, and I am perfectly ready to admit that there is that distinction. What I wish to point out is that every member of the Royal Commission, except one, quite irrespective of politics, came to the conclusion that a distinction should be drawn between the two classes of property. It is not a question of poverty. The Agricultural Rating Bill was put forward because in the opinion of Sir Alfred Milner a certain class of property was really paying double what it ought to pay. That is the simple fact. I should like to refer to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, who is an admitted authority on such topics. We say in this Bill, not that this property should not be rated, but that it has been rated on a wrong basis and a wrong principle. That is the whole case, and it has not been met by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is an argumentative and difficult point, and the Royal Commission, having spent twenty or thirty days in hearing evidence, and having devoted an enormous amount of attention to it, came to the conclusion that tithe rent-charge was unjustly rated. Starting from that premises we ought to have immediate legislation such as is now suggested to remedy the injustice. I go further, and say it is the first step in the reform of local taxation so far as our recommendations are concerned, The only way to remedy matters of this kind is to seek for injustices and deal with them one by one. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton referred to what was done in 1836, but what was done then is quite irrelevant to what we are now discussing. The object then was to have in all cases rateable property assessed on the same basis in every instance. That was simply all that was done, but that has nothing on earth to do with the proper principle and basis upon which rating should be assessed. Speaking for myself, I cannot for a moment argue that this is not rateable property, or that it should not be rated as other property. The question is, is it so rated at the present time or not? The Royal Commission thought not, and therefore we ought to deal with this tithe rent-charge on the same basis as other property. The theory of this Amendment is to deal with property in different ways according as a man has a large or a small amount. It is absolutely inconsistent with every principle of rating, and apart from the question of poor man's prejudice, I do not think a single responsible Member with any knowledge of rating will rise and say that the principle involved in this Amendment is one that can be adopted without upsetting the whole theory and principle of rating in the country.

The hon. and learned Member has challenged us on the main proposition that property ought to be rated on the same footing, whatever its value may be, and he asks us to point out an exception to it. This Bill is the exception. He says with reference to land generally that no enquiry is made whether the income a man derives from it is £100 or £1,000. That is perfectly true, but you rate all land alike, and you do not rate all tithe alike. You have introduced a personal distinction; you have violated every law of rating by basing this Bill on the principle of personal distinctions. The Government were wise enough not to raise the question of personal service. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill never uttered the words "personal service." He knew what a rotten principle they involved, but the hon. and learned Member has let the cat out of the bag. If this Bill is to be based upon personal service, is the personal service to be the same in the case of the man who gets £1,500 a year as in the case of a man who gets £200 a year? The moment you come to personal service you must assess that service. But if that is to be assessed, why not the rectory house as well as the tithe rent-charge, and everything else from which an incumbent derives any income? The hon. and learned Gentleman has ruined this Bill. Now that we have got rid of the poverty argument and got on the ground of personal service, I think the contents of this Bill are utterly destroyed. I was longing all the time that we should get to personal service, because greater nonsense was never talked on the subject than by the Royal Commission from the Report of which the hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted, though really he is only quoting himself. I suppose the hon. and learned Gentleman is the original and sole discoverer of personal service, but as a foundation for this Bill it cannot be maintained for a moment. If the discussion on this Amendment has been somewhat extended, it is due to the fact, that the right hon. Gentleman immediately the Amendment was moved started upon the fundamental principles of the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to discuss the fundamental principles of the Bill, surely Members on this side are entitled to follow him. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stroud said the fundamental principle of the Bill was that all property should be rated alike, but then you introduce a Bill which distinguishes between tithe given to the owner of a benefice and tithe given to other people. Is that the fundamental principle of the Bill? I think we on this side ought to be extremely obliged to the hon. and learned Member.

Like the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down I rise to express my satisfaction that the hon. and learned Member opposite has recalled the Committee to the real point at issue. We have heard of the property argument based on the Report of the Royal Commission. Hon. Members opposite defend that Report but the Bill condemns it. The Commissioners proposed that there should be a deduction which would represent what it would cost to employ a curate. But the Bill throws that overboard, and proposes to pay half the rates, whether a curate is employed or not, and it draws no distinction between the cases winch the Commissioners recommended as fit for deduction and cases to which no such consideration was given. What is the use of quoting to us the Report of the Commission as an argument in favour of the proposal we are now discussing? What is the gravamen of the attack on this side? It is that you are not treating this property in the ordinary way. I should have thought that the Government would take some steps to bring under review the case of the Queen v. Sherman. As long as that case stands you are not entitled to make the reduction you are now setting up. If that case is wrong why not take it to the House of Lords? That tribunal will not be prejudiced in any appeal brought on behalf of clergymen of the Church of England. We have challenged the Solicitor-General on previous occasions to say that we are wrong, and he has not got up to defend the principle of this Bill. In face of these considerations it must be held that the Bill is really based on a footing of kindliness and a disposition to assist the clergy who are in difficulties. I sympathise with them, but it is impossible for us to look at the matter on any other footing. The £200 limit is at the bottom of the controversy, and on that we must go to a Division.

It is really distressing to see the inaccessibility of the other side of the House to argument, or at any rate to statement. Her Majesty's Ministers have told the House over and over again that this Bill is founded, not on mercy, but on justice. This Amendment is, however, based on the theory that the Bill is founded on mercy; but if the Bill is founded, as my right hon. friend has informed us, on justice, there is no reason why the amount should be limited. Before I part from the argument of mercy, let me say that I feel personally what the Government do not feel—that this Bill is to be largely defended on grounds of mercy. That is not the official view, and that is not the view in which any hon. Member on this side will vote. He will vote for justice and mercy. There is no ground whatever for the Amendment. Justice is our plea. The hon. and learned Member for Stroud stated that this Bill is an alteration in the method of rating to bring it into accord with justice. The Bill to my mind leaves rating exactly where it is, but provides some of the late on the ground of justice. I am a disciple of my hon. and learned friend as to the method. He says that the grievance is that a sufficient deduction has not been allowed, and that it is necessary, in order to place the owners of the tithe rent-charge in the same position as the owners of other rateable property, to provide by legislation for further reductions. If this Bill has not taken precisely that method, it may perhaps in its career through this House be brought into accord with it. I have an Amendment myself which is based on the principle of deducting a certain amount and allowing for it. I think the Bill may be open to amendment in respect of method. All I wish is to appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite to accept the grounds on which the Bill is based, and to reject from their minds all notion of mercy and all ideas of distressed clergymen going about looking for bread to give them strength to preach their sermons on the next Sunday. We have nothing to do with that in this Bill. It is to be solely discussed upon the principle of justice, and on that ground I think the present Amendment is entirely misconceived and must have emanated from the mind of an hon. Gentleman incapable of appreciating the high principle of justice. I, for my part, mean to stand on the ground of justice, and I am accordingly bound to vote against this Amendment, which is based on the ground of mercy.

My hon. friend who has just spoken has defended the Bill on the ground of justice, but has altogether forgotten the fact that although this Bill is based on the eternal principles of justice it is only to last for two years. If ever there was a Bill which, on the face of it, bears the character of urgency it is this measure. It is to meet a pressing case, and we are warned that when the Royal Commission finally reports this as well as other questions affecting local taxation will be dealt with at the same time. If you limit the application of this Bill to cases where the tithe rent-charge is under £200 a year you would, as the hon. and learned gentleman opposite contended, be allowing a reduction of £100 a year for personal service, because the result is exactly the same whether you pay half the rates on £200 or deduct £100 in respect of service. If a man gets over £200 a year we are assuming that he is overpaid, and we do not propose any deduction in that case. In carrying out this principle we are acting more fairly than if the Bill is left as it now stand. Instead of giving an equal reduction to all, you are giving very much to the very rich, less to the less rich, and nothing at all to the poor.

One statement has been made by the hon. and learned Member for Stroud (Mr. Cripps) which ought not to go unchallenged. Perhaps he rather despises the criticism of hon. Members on this side of the House, but we ought at all events to adhere to facts, and I distinctly challenge the accuracy of some of his statements. The hon. and learned Member said that in the case of those tithe-owners to whose incomes a certain sum for rates was added under the Commutation Act, that that was done for the purpose of establishing a rateable property. I challenge that statement on the ground that the tithe was rateable property before, and that therefore there was no necessity for the change.

The question is in whose hands the property was.

My contention is that it was already a rateable property, and that rates from time immemorial had been paid upon that property. The only change made by the Commutation Bill was to transfer payment of the rates to the man who received the tithe rent, for which purpose a sum was added equivalent to the then existing rates. At the very opening of the Debate in 1836, when the Commutation Act was passed, Lord John Russell entered upon this question. He did not introduce his Bill under a Ten minutes' rule, but he gave a very explicit statement of the circumstances of the case and of the line upon which the Government proposed to proceed, and one of his allegations was distinctly that it was for the purpose of uniformity that that procedure should be adopted. When the Commissioners came to look into those cases they found several methods of communication already in existence. In some cases the tithe-payer was the farmer, and in some cases he was the incumbent, and it was necessary that there should be one uniform method. Therefore Lord John Russell in introducing the Bill gave a very good reason for the procedure he proposed, and that was because, as he said, it was desirable that the incumbent should rank himself with other parishioners as a fellow-ratepayer in the parish, and that their interests should be identical to get the rates progressively lowered. Therefore I contend that the statement of the hon. and learned Member is incorrect, as is proved by the reason assigned for that procedure which was given by Lord John Russell in introducing that Bill. The hon. and learned Member also said that the basis of rateability in the case of tithe-rent charge was different from that of other property, and he entered upon a discussion of the personal element, that the tithe rent-charge was receivable on account of services rendered by the clergy. But that is contrary to all the facts of the case, and the misconception arises from the fact that hon. Members have had regard to the destination of the income rather than to its origin. All the tithe rent-charge arose and issued out of the land. That is the fundamental principle of the charge, and therefore as it issues out of the land it is rateable property. If we try to arrive at the reason why from time immemorial that property has been rateable we must go back to the time when tithe was levied in kind, when the parson went into the field and took the tenth sheep or the tenth portion of the produce, whatever it might be; and under those circumstances it was very reasonable when a man came into the field at the time of harvest—not at seed time, or the time of harrowing, or ploughing, or labouring—that he should at least pay rates on the property which he came and took from the industrious farmer who brought the crops to maturity. He was an illustration and an instance of those gentlemen who received their income but who "toiled not neither did they spin." He came and took the fruits of the soil. These are the facts of the case, and it is but reasonable that he should pay the rates on that portion of the produce which he took away. Therefore I am unable to see how the hon. and learned Member, or any other Member who advocates this Bill, has established that there is any injustice in the rating of the tithe rent-charge like all other property. Seeing that the principle of justice fails, it seems to us on this side of the House that we can only account for the introduction of the Bill on the ground that it is an act of mercy or charity. That being so I shall support this Amendment, because I believe it will reduce the amount of pillage which will be dishonestly drawn out of the general taxpayers' pocket, and put the balance in the hands of men who will know how wisely to spend the money.

Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House have appealed to these benches to accept the principle on which the Bill is said to be based—namely, that of justice—and they have thought that we were rather hard in declining to accept it. I will tell them why we decline to accept that basis for the Bill. We maintain that this plea of justice is a pretence which is not only false, but demonstrably false. In truth the real interest of this Debate to see how long the farce of pretending that this grant is not an endowment will be kept up. It is because it is an additional endowment of the Church of England that I support the Amendment. I do not care whether the Amendment is the best mode of stopping the proposed grant. It reduces it, and I am determined that I will keep that additional endowment as small as I can. One thing is quite certain, that unless the Government exercise such discipline over those men of their Party who understand the subject as to keep them from speaking it will be impossible to maintain this farce. I was delighted to see and hear the hon. and learned Member for Stroud—not that I underrate his ability; I have too often been his foe to do that—getting up and saying he would make short work of the Amendment, because he could show that it would be an excrescence on the whole rating system. He was right in this, but the Amendment is an infinitely less ugly excrescence than the Bill itself. I felt sure that although he might make short work with the Amendment, he could not speak for many minutes without making shorter work with the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill. When I came into the House I heard the hon. Gentleman challenge the Opposition to controvert the proposition that a clergyman who was a tithe-owner was the only person rated on his income. Well, the proposition was so absurdly stated that I was not surprised that it was not answered from this side of the House. The answer was reserved for the hon. Member for Stroud himself. Before he had finished three sentences of his speech he pointed out that the owner of every rateable property was rated on the income of that property, and therefore every person whose property consists of rateable property, if he is foolish enough to consider his income as the gross income of that property, is rated on that income. But if either he or a clergyman is sensible enough to realise that his true income is the net income of that property, neither he nor the clergyman is rated on his income. The whole case lies in a nutshell. It does not matter whether the tithe is in the hands of a layman or is an endowment of a benefice. Since the Act of Elizabeth no human being has ever been the beneficial proprietor of the gross tithe. He has only been the beneficial proprietor of the net tithe, and if you choose to attach the tithe to a benefice, all the income you have thus given to the benefice is the net tithe, and you have no business to talk about that income being rated. It it not until after it is rated that it becomes an income. When you turn to the Tithe Commutation Act—which has been described in various language by different Members, but which was drawn in the simplest possible language—what do you find? The framers of that Act took care that every tithe-owner got into his hands in the first place the gross tithes, in order that they might be doing justice in making him the person who was to pay the rates, so that after paying the rates he would be left in possession of the net tithe. There was no mystery about that. The object of the Tithe Commutation was simply to put the gross tithe in the hands of the tithe-owner, because he was unquestionably the man who had to pay to the community its share of the revenue, which left him in possession of the only property he ever had in it—namely, the net tithe. I should very much like to hear any hon. Member on the other side of the House get up and deny that that was what was done by the Tithe Commutation Act. Well, the consequence is that the lay impropriator or clergyman is in receipt of the net tithe. How does the lay impropriator get it? Why, he buys it. What does he pay for? The gross tithe? No, he pays for the income that comes out of the net tithe, and when he gets the net tithe, he gets all that he purchased. Now let me turn to the clergyman. How does he get it? He accepts a living with certain duties, and in return he gets the net tithe. He purchases it not by a capital sum, but by an undertaking to do certain work, and that is just as much a purchase of the net tithe, and not, therefore, the gross tithe, as if he paid £2,000 for it. The hon. Member for King's Lynn, I think it was, suggested that there should be a reduction of the rate upon tithes for personal services; but the clergyman has acquired the net tithe in return for personal services.

I beg the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. I did not make that statement.

Well, perhaps I ought to have referred to a suggestion by the hon. Member for Stroud. Let us hear no more about deductions for a curate or deductions for personal services. The clergyman not had to pay a capital sum to acquire the right to take that net tithe. The clergyman had to undertake that he would do something for it; and do you mean to say that it is in accordance with either justice, or any principle of rating, that a man can deduct from the income of rateable property the cost of acquiring that property by himself?

I must invite the hon. and learned Gentleman to approach the consideration of the question now before the House. The argument he is addressing to the Committee is not relevant to the Amendment.

I should accept instantly your decision, Mr. Lowther, but I would point out that this is a question of reducing the endowment. We say, therefore, we are justified in disregarding the plea of injustice, and restricting the increase to as small an endowment as possible. I am now dealing with the suggestion that it is an injustice, because there are certain services by which the clergyman gets possession of the tithe. I leave myself entirely in your hands, but I submit that my argument is very relevant to the question of whether this is a matter of justice in which all tithe is to be treated alike.

That question is raised by a subsequent Amendment.

I think I may remind you that we were challenged by the hon. Member for Stroud to go into this very matter. However, I accept your ruling, and pass on. We are dealing in this case with an Amendment which says that only the poorer clergy should have this endowment. Now I can quite understand why the Government oppose an Amendment like this, just as can understand why they give no relief to the lay impropriator. They do not know who he is, and he might be a Liberal. The poor clergyman may know enough about poor people to be a doubtful supporter of the Government. But there is no doubt about the rich clergyman. It is safe to go firm upon that. The consequence is that they naturally oppose the suggestion that the relief should only be given to the poorer clergymen. Now, on what principle is that to be done, that we should give this relief to all the people who own tithes? Is it to be said that it is a question here of the nature of an income from tithes? It is admitted that there is no case whatever in which a property should be increased by a gift from the State in this way to the owner. What was said in regard to the Agricultural Rating Act? That the relief was given to the tenant farmer, and that it was ridiculous to suggest that the landlords would receive it. If this is to be considered as a case, not of poverty, but of endowment—well, then, the last shadow of any justification for bringing in this Bill must go, and it must he looked upon as a deliberate gift to the rich in proportion to their wealth.

If any hon. Member is justified in sup- porting this Amendment, it is a man like myself, who represents one of the largest and poorest parishes in South London. Much has been said about the poor country parson, but not a word about the poor London parson. London is paying out of all proportion in regard to this Bill, to support the country parson. We are called upon to produce £19,000 for the relief of parsons, rich and poor alike, throughout the country, while of that sum we obtain only about £900. When my poor constituents go to Kennington Oval, they see it swarming with country parsons enjoying their ease, and looking on at cricket matches; they think it a hard case that they should be rated to further add to the luxury and comforts of the rich parsons. I speak on this question as a Churchman. If there is any desire to improve the position of the poor parsons throughout the country, the best way is to allocate some of the huge funds in possession of the wealthiest Church in the world for that purpose. When I tell my constituents in South London that the Archbishop of Canterbury has an income three times that of the Prime Minister, and draws £15,000 a year, and when they see all round them poor clergymen, Church of England as well as Nonconformist, doing, not the light work of the country parson, but more heavy and magnificent work in the poorest parts of London, I think they will say that it is the duty of the higher parsons in the Church of England to allocate some of these huge funds to the poor clergy. Reference has been made to personal service. Does it not occur to those who make such references that the Church of England is based upon personal service? Are not advowsons bought and sold every day in the open market, and whoever buys an advowson has imposed on him the necessity, within six months, of appointing some one who will give personal service. This Bill endows the Church of England; it endows equally the rich and the poor parson, but it endows the rich parson in a degree out of all proportion to that which it endows the poor parson. Furthermore, it endows the rich landlord who has been already relieved of the rates on agricultural property. The shop-keeper is rated at an average of 6s. or 7s. in the £, and has the greatest difficulty in making both ends meet. And yet this over-rated citizen, who works quite as hard as the London clergy, and far harder than any country clergyman, is called upon to re-endow out of his scanty earnings a Church to which probably he does not belong. The poor Roman Catholics, after they have made great sacrifices in order to pay their own clergy, have further to pay the parson of the Established Church, and furthermore, they arc called upon to augment to a certain extent the value of the advowsons. The ratepayers of London have good reason to feel that they are not being treated with anything like justice by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The principle on which this Bill is based is "To him that hath more shall be given," and giving less to the poor man than to the rich. If the Church of England is in need of funds, surely it is possible to do what was done by the Protestant Churchmen in Ireland. As soon as their endowment was practically taken away, the Irish Protestants put their hands into their pockets, and in most instances doubled the income of the parsons. We say it is the duty of the richest Church in the country to do what is done every day by the Nonconformists. What we feel most keenly in London is that those who belong to Nonconformist churches should be called upon to pay twice over, and out of all proportion to their means.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has spoken for a large urban constituency. I have been waiting in vain for any hon. Gentleman on the other side, a representative of a large urban constituency, to get up in his place and defend this Bill. This Bill is to some extent on the same principle as the Agricultural Rating Act, under which London lost £400,000 a Year. I would ask if the representatives of London and the great urban constituencies are going to allow another vast amount of money to slip through their fingers, and to be paid in larger part to the rich clergy of the country. The hon. Member for Stroud said that this Amendmend, if passed, would be inconsistent with every principle of rating. Well, the Government which the hon. Gentleman supports have done many inconsistent things in the past, and there is no reason why they should not do another. Take the case of the Voluntary Schools Bill for instance. In that case they departed from every principle upon which public schools had been treated before. I believe if it were put to the taxpayers of the country, and a plebiscite taken upon it, it would be found that 99 out of every 100 would reject the Government proposal without the slightest hesitation.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 155; Noes, 251. (Division List, No. 230.)