The Tithes Bill, on the other hand, is a party question of the most pronounced type. The measure proposes to hand over £87,000 ayeer, for two years, to the clerical owners of tithes to help them to'pay the rates on their tithes. The money is to be taken from the same fund which is at present partly devoted to assisting farmers to pay their rates under the Agricultural Rating Bill. The Government argument injits favour is that while other professional men are only rated on the basis of their rents, the clergyman who derives his income wholly or partly from tithes is to that extent rated on his professional income. The Radicals, on the other hand, urge that the tithes have been subject to these rates for three or four hundred years, and that the clerical owners of tithes are far better off now than they were when the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 was passed, rates having fallen very considerably since' then. That a large number of the clergy are miserably poor they do not deny; but they urge that the shame of this rests with the Church itself, the richest religious body in the world, and they strongly oppose the institution of what they contend is a new endowment of the Church from the Imperial Exchequer. The measure has been vehemently opposed by one Conservative member, Mr.-George Whitely, who indeed haa severed his connection' with his party and announced his intention of resigning his seat, while Mr. Leonard Courtney has also opposed it. In spite of these and two other Unionist opponents and a few Liberal Unionist abstentions, however, the second reading was passed last night by 138, which is the full normal majority' of the Government. The measure will, however, be anything but popular in the country. Avery significant fact in this connection is that both the Unionist candidates for Oldham, where a double bye-election is in progress, have expressed their disapproval of the Bill.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.