ly attempted
to meet the lords half-way by another compromise, and the measure was
abandoned only to be adopted, in a very modified shape, after the lapse
of four years. A like course was pursued by the upper house when a new
Irish tithe bill, with an appropriation clause, was sent up to them. Had
the whig government been well advised they would scarcely have
challenged a needless collision between the two houses by reviving this
burning question so early. It would have been possible to settle the
Irish tithe system on equitable lines, without prejudicing the future
application of superfluous Church revenues, and it was a somewhat
perverse obstinacy which persisted in coupling the two objects year
after year. The ingenuity of Lyndhurst in wrecking sound reforms should
have been left without excuse; whereas, in this case, the peers could
not have accepted what they regarded as a confiscation bill without a
sacrifice of conviction and self-respect.

Happily the commutation of tithes in England presented no political
difficulties of the same nature. The payment of tithes in kind, though
founded on immemorial usage, had, indeed, produced constant discord
between the parish clergyman and his flock, while landlords and farmers
justly complained that it impeded the improvement of agriculture. In
many localities the pressure of these evils had led to voluntary
compositions between tithe-owners and tithe-payers, which, being
temporary, lacked the force of law. The permissive tithe bills of
Althorp and Peel were designed to render general a practice which
already prevailed in a thousand parishes, and that now introduced by
Russell was little more than an extension of the same principle. Its
mainspring was the appointment of commissioners with compulsory powers
in the last resort, and the provision of a self-acting machinery for
assessing the reduced annual rent charge payable in lieu of tithes, so
as to vary with the average price of wheat, barley, and oats in the
seven preceding years. This practical solution of the question was
adopted cheerfully by the wearied legislature, and the commissioners
succeeded before long in effecting universal commutation. Amendments in
detail have of course been found necessary, but the system established
by 6 and 7 William IV., cap. 61, has stood the test of long experience,
and although tithe-owners have been impoverished by the fall of prices,
the payment of tithes in England has ceased to be a