ch was brought forward for the
relief of the dissenters. The ministerial plan for the commutation of
tithes was brought before the house of commons by Lord John Russell
on the 9th of February. The subject, he said, consisted of two parts:
namely, the principles on which the commutation should be made, and the
machinery by which it was to be carried into execution. The machinery,
he confessed, would be borrowed from Sir Robert Peel's bill of last
year. There would be a central board of commissioners, consisting of
three persons, for the purpose of arranging the question of commutation;
and this board would have power to appoint assistant-commissioners to a
certain extent, and in certain cases, in the same manner as the poor-law
commissioners. His lordship admitted that the selection of the principle
on which the commutation should proceed was a subject attended with much
difficulty. In the plan government proposed, their object had been to
produce as little disturbance as possible in existing interests, not
to diminish violently or excessively the income now enjoyed by the
tithe-owners, and to produce some uniformity in the mode of calculating
and valuing tithe throughout England and Wales. As in the bill of last
year, any landowner would be allowed to agree with the tithe-owner for
a commutation of his tithe; and having made such an agreement, he would
stand to the tenant in the relation not only of landlord, but likewise
of tithe-owner. He also proposed that it should be competent for the
possessor or possessors of one-fourth of the value of the tithe to call
a meeting of the owners of land in the parish, at which parties might be
represented as they now were under the poor-law act. When three-fourths
in value of the owners of tithe agreed with three-fourths in value of
the owners of land, they would have power to make an agreement binding
on the whole parish, if no person appealed against it within a certain
period. If any person appealed, it should still be binding against those
who did not appeal. The parties appealing would be compelled to appear
before the assistant-commissioners, who, on hearing their statements,
would make an award, which award, on the ratification of the central
board, would become binding on the parish. If, at the end of a certain
period, he would say six months, no such agreement were made between
the tithe-owners and the tithe-payers, it would be competent for any
landowner, or any tithe-owner