TITHE PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 15

TITHE PROBLEM

English Farmers’ Resistance to Payment LONG-STANDING PROBLEM The tithe problem in England, to which frequent references have been made in cable messages'during the last four years, is one that does not engage the attention of the landowner in New Zealand, beset though he may be with demands for rates and taxes. One message published last week stated that distraint orders for non-payment of tithes were out against 700 to 800 farmers in the Ashdown district, in Kent, and that the farmers were living in terror, behind locked doors. Commenting on the position recently the chairman of the Ashdown Tithe Payers’ Association said that the problem was emptying the churches and ruining agriculture. The antiquity of the system is its strength, and the Church has for centuries derived much of its income from this source. Until the beginning of the depression there were continual complaints, and legislation relieved the tithe payers of some of their burden by making more equitable arrangements for payment. In 1931, however, decreasing returns from agriculture intensified the dissatisfaction, and from that date opposition, active and passive, has been marked by much bitterness. The tithe, originally one-tenth of a man’s property or produce, was a form of tribute, connected politically with taxation, levied by a ruler or. conqueror on his subjects, and religiously with the offering of “first-fruits” to a deity. The system existed in the ancient world, in Babylonia, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and even China. In England, it was a voluntary contribution for the maintenance of the parish priest, by the parishoners, of one-tenth of the yearly increase arising from their land and from the stock on it. From a voluntary contribution it became a customary one, and by the thirteenth century was recognised as a legal obligation. From this it has been rightly argued that the clergy have a far more ancient title to their tithe than the landowners, in the vast majority of cases, have to their land.

Payment in Money. In the sixteenth century, when the monasteries and other religious houses were dissolved under Henry VIII, their tithes were vested in the Crown and later regranted to other spiritual corporations or to laymen. Originally the payments were in kind, the actual farm produce being handed over to the person or body to which the tithe was due. Later, such payments were commuted to payments of money, this process being completed by the Tithe Commutation Act of 183 G. The amount was determined by a complicated system. The value of £lOO tithe rent charge (commuted amount) average cash value, according to returns of market prices, of 94 bushels of wheat, 168 of barley and 242 of oats. Its actual value fluctuated with the varying price of these agricultural products. Before 1886 it was never below £9O; by 1901 it had fallen to £66; in 1914 it was £76; and in 1918, £lO9. The prospect of further considerable rises produced legislation in 1918, stabilising the amount at £lO9 for seven years, after which it was to be based on a 15-year average instead of on a seven-year average. • In 1925 these concessions to the tithe-payer seemed inadequate. The principle of making the value of tithe follow the corn prices was finally abandoned, and by the Tithe Act of 1925 the value of £lOO tithe rent charge was stabilised at £lO5. Had this not been done, it would have been £l3l in 1926 and £136 in 1931. There have as yet been no satisfactory attempts to provide a solution. The payers of tithes have in recent years felt the burden to be Increasingly heavy and unjust, and it is generally admitted that in this matter they suffer hardship. Legally they are liable, as they are for other forms of taxation, but the concentrated attention upon this portion of their financial difficulties has without doubt resulted in a partial “emptying of the churches and ruining of agriculture,” referred to by the chairman of the Tithe Payers’ Association. Forms of Protest. The methods of protest and the manner of attempting to bring about a change have been both constitutional and unconstitutional. There have been questions in Parliament, petitions addressed to the Minister of Agriculture, a flood of correspondence to the newspapers, meetings of protest in different parts of rhe country. In some instances all present at these meetings bound themselves to refuse payment of the

charge. Attempts to seize defaulters’ property have been met with forcible resistance. There have also been other, more humorous, forms of resistance. Sympathisers in some cases have attended the sale of goods, bought them at ridiculously low figures, insufficient to meet the demands of the tithe holder, and presented them again to the farmer. The practice of recovering tithes by distraining on the stock and goods °f the defaulter has been a very prolific source of local disturbances. Commenting on the Tithe Bill of 1931, “The Times,” in an editorial, said: “No one can seriously propose to deprive of their income the Established Church, the universities, or other owners of tithes, which is beyond question a legal form of property quite separate from landed property. Tithe, therefore, has to be paid; and if it is not paid by the landowner it must be paid by the general taxpayer. There is no reason .why Dhe general taxpayer should assume this burden. Its weight is always taken into account when land is sold and reduces the price below what It would otherwise be. The landowner, who is the only person who pays the tax, has its amount allowed to him for income tax purposes, and its full capital value is deducted in the assessment for estate duties.” Case For and Against.

The present problem in England does not seem to admit of immediate solution. Almost three-quarters of the total value of commuted tithe charged on laud in England and Wales goes’ to the parochial clergy. Their expenses have increased, their stipends are notoriously inadequate, and their difficulty in providing is as great as that of their farming neighbours. Legislation allows of reductions in cases of peculiar hard-* ship, but this is in no way a solution; The grievance on the part of the farmers has a substantial basis, but that grievance has unfortunately been aggravated by the advent into the field of such organisations as the British Union of Fascists, who have attempted to interfere with the course of justice as laid down at present. Every attempt is being made by research into the problems involved to

alter the position. An unprecedented economic situation has this trouble as one of its offspring. If legislation fails, there remain two possible solutions. The first is that the Government should assume the Obligations at present binding tlhe payers of tithes, and the second that a. revival in the agricultural Industry will reverse this effect of the depression. In both, there are great difficulties.