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The Government had no better means of compelling the farmers to pay the tithes than those means which they had already vainly put at the disposal of the tithe-owners. The farmer who could not be coerced by the police and the military into settling his accounts with the incumbent was not likely to be any the more ready to pay up because the demand for payment was made by the Lord-Lieutenant.
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.
A very brief description will serve to explain the nature of this measure. The Government proposed to advance a certain sum of money for the relief of the tithe-owners who had not been able to recover what the law held to be their due, and in the meantime to apply themselves to the preparation of some scheme which might transfer the tithe burden from the occupiers to the owners of the land.
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 grievance, except with those who absolutely condemn the endowment of a Church.
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