The Edinburgh Review

ART. I. Reflections on the State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century; the progressive Operation of the Causes which have produced it; and the Measures best calculated to Remove some, and Mitigate others of them. 8vo. pp. 276. London, 1822.

IN spite of sad experience and often disappointed hopes, we

cannot but believe, that the sufferings of Ireland have at last touched the hearts of her rulers; and that a disposition actually prevails, among those who have the power, to reform the multiplied and aggravated abuses which have made that kingdom, after six centuries of subjection to British Government, and with its vast natural resources, one unvaried scene of disaffection, anarchy, poverty, and wretchedness. One of the evils felt to be most intolerable, and as to which all men are agreed about the necessity of immediate relief, is THE LAW OF TITHES, as there administered. It is not our intention, at present, to enter into any details respecting the nature and effect of this great tax; for, whatever may be the rights of the Church, or their opinion as to these rights, it is a tax, and nothing but a tax, upon the produce of the land and of agricul tural capital. It cannot now be requisite to point out the extreme injustice and inequality of its operation on the classes even who pay it; to illustrate how it represses the progress of industry, precisely where it is most important; or to show with what accumulated severity its exactions are felt, where a deficiency of capital, and the habits of the people, have divided the land among a poor and numerous tenantry. All these things must be plain to the most ordinary reflection; nor can any one doubt the extent of the grievance, who is alive to what passes round him. The clergy, unwilling to be the immediate instruments of extorting so heavy a contribution from an indigent people, devolve the work upon others; who, thus invested with the rights, but wanting the charity, of the Church, levy the tithes to the utmost extent that the means of A

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the parishioners admit, for in many instances it would be vain to look for recovery of the whole-and, with merciless rigour, seek their own profit only, regardless of the misery they inflict. Such is the practical oppression through a great part of Ireland, that every good feeling, and every true and honest interest, is united against the continuance of the present system. The more liberal of the Irish clergy themselves, some of them deriving their sole subsistence from tithes, do not conceal their aversion to the present state of things, and their anxiety that some means should be adopted to render the channel less odious through which their revenues are derived, and so to alter and mitigate the law as to prevent it from destroying their comfort and usefulness, by extinguishing, as it now does, those feelings of benevolence and respect which ought to mark the pastoral relation.

In these circumstances, and considering the state of religious sentiment in Ireland, it is not extraordinary that some question should be stirred, as to the justice and expediency of levying tithes at all, for the support of her ecclesiastical establishment, and of laying under contribution eleven-twelfths of her population, for the maintenance of a Clergy which can minister spiritual edification to the remaining twelfth only. But though such topics will intrude themselves, we do not mean to engage in the discussion. While we confess too, that we think the time not far distant, when a legislative revision shall be requisite of her establishment, and when a great and permanent relief will be sought by altering the mode and measure of its support, we do not now propose to examine the pretensions of the Church as a society to sacred and independent rights, or the nature of her boasted alliance with the State. Our present object is much humbler. No immediate relief, we apprehend, can be expected, except such as may be consistent with the present system in general, though calculated to reduce its inequality, to soften its severity, and, without any material sacrifice on the part of the Church, to render the collection of its revenues less oppressive and destructive to the people. In deliberating upon any such measure, the example of England could yield little or no assistance; for though the tithes there, being more mildly levied, and from a richer people, have not produced the dreadful and revolting effects which have in many places attended their exaction in Ireland, they are nevertheless felt to be a great hardship, and the law respecting them is substantially the same, and productive, though in a smaller degree, of the same evil consequences, But it is impossible for any one, whose attention is turned to this subject, to overlook the spectacle which our own country presents. Tithes are known in Scotland, as well

as in England or Ireland, and constitute equally, and at this hour, a separate estate. While subject to the domination of the Catholic Church, she supported her clergy by tithes, which, at the period of the Reformation, were not abolished, but still form the great fund out of which her establishment is maintained. The tithes, which were not appropriat ed to the Presbyterian ministers, passed, on that event, into the hands of the Crown and of lay impropriators, by whom they are at present possessed, so far as they have not been purchased by the proprietors of the ground. But though, in this manner, still subsisting as a separate estate, exactly as when they were in possession of the Church, we feel not, generally speaking, the oppression of the system. The tyranny and rapaciousness of the tithe-farmer are here unknown; every man carries home his own harvest without interruption; nor is there any direct and immediate participation in the produce of his land, or of his agricultural capital. The tithes, whether drawn by the Crown, the clergy, or laymen, invariably assume the form of a fixed rent, and never appear as a contribution of part of the actual produce, or vary according to its extent. There cannot be a greater contrast than between our situation, and that of England and Ireland, in this respect; and to her freedom from tithes as they are levied in these countries, joined to her immunity from any extensive poor-rate, Scotland owes, in no small degree, the extraordinary advances she has made within the last century and a half.

Every one who has canvassed any measure for the relief of Ireland from the oppression of the tithes, must be struck with the different results of what was originally the same system in both kingdoms; and in the desire which prudent men feel to have the guidance and sanction of Experience in any scheme of political Reformation, it is natural that the history and condition of Scotland in these respects, should, at this moment, be an object of great attention, as being likely to furnish some lights to direct the course of improvement in other countries. We understand, accordingly, that a strong and general wish has been expressed for some information upon this subject; and as we are not aware where it is to be had in a form that is intelligible to a common reader, we are induced to attempt supplying the deficiency, by explaining the history and present state of Scotland as to tithes, shortly, but we hope correctly, and the more usefully to the general inquirer, because disencumbered of those technical details which can be of no advantage to our Western or Southern neighbours, who must adapt any measure of improvement which may thus be suggested, to the genius and spirit of their own law. That we may be sure of

being understood, it is necessary to take some retrospect, and to advert to the whole revenues of the Church.

The history of the Christian Church in Scotland, previous to the Reformation, bears too close a resemblance to its history in the rest of Europe, to make it necessary that we should trace it minutely with reference to our present subject. By the same arts of the clergy, and the same weakness and ignorance of the sovereigns and of the people, the Scottish Church not only established an universal right to tithes, but also acquired property of enormous extent. Some of our law-writers estimate the lands held in property by the Church or its temporality, as it has been termed, as amounting to one-fourth of the whole land, and the tithes, or spirituality, as amounting to one-fourth of the whole rents of the kingdom. It is certain, at least, that the Ecclesiastics paid sometimes a third, but generally one-half, of every tax imposed on land, which, of itself, is a sufficient proof that they had engrossed, in one form or other, half the landed property of the kingdom; since, independently of the direct power they derived from being represented in Parliament, where they had fifty-three votes, the general spirit of the age, and their overwhelming influence in society, must have protected them from any unequal imposition. The distribution of this property, among the members of the Church, was very much the same in all the different countries of Europe. The lands, which had been so lavishly gifted to it, were generally appropriated by the dignitaries of the Church, and the religious houses; and the tithes, instead of being uniformly destined to the maintenance of the parochial clergy, had, to a great extent, suffered a similar appropriation. The repeated disasters, which have mutilated our public records, render. it impossible to obtain any accurate knowledge of the state of the Church revenues at the Reformation; but it would appear, from an enumeration contained in Keith's History, that there were only 262 parsonages which had not been appropriated to the maintenance of the regular clergy and the dignitaries of the Church; so that, estimating the whole parishes of the kingdom at their present number, or about 1000, which does not seem excessive, it has been computed that there were probably about 700 parsonages, the tithes of which were diverted from the parochial clergy to swell the wealth of the bishops and abbots.

The zeal of the Reformers of Scotland shook the whole fabric of society. The foundations of our religious and civil liberty were laid, amidst the din of arms, and the onset of contending factions; and law and justice were paralyzed at the commencement of a revolution, which, in its progress and conclusion, gave

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The Edinburgh Review, Volume 38