The rent-charges are liable to parliamentary, parochial, county, and other rates, charges, and assessments, to which the tithes were liable. The great injustice of tithe-rent charges is that they are levied only upon agricultural produce, thus leaving free of such charges the extensive city and town lands. The lands in the vicinity of large cities and towns, which produced a rental £3 per acre, and tithe, 10_s._, when converted to building purposes produce enormous ground-rents, besides a reversion of the house property at the expiration of the leases. In such cases the tithe-owner receives no tithe on the building value. Thus the value of the landlord’s acre is increased one hundredfold, but the tithe is not increased, and thus the growing value of the land leaves no part of it for the support of religion. Let us take, for example, the enormous house properties in London held by three dukes, viz., Westminster, Portland, and Bedford. They pay but a small amount of rent-charge compared with their rentals. When the Commutation Act was passed, there was much boasting by the supporters of the Church as to the humility of the clergy who had not petitioned Parliament, or held any meetings to protest against the Bill while passing through Parliament. There was good reason for such silent acquiescence. The Church made a good bargain under the circumstances. The expenses of collecting the tithes in kind sometimes reached 50 per cent, of the gross value. The tithe-owner is now relieved of all this expense and trouble, and the Act has given him a firm security.