"The income of the Establishment is close upon £5,000,000 per annum. It is the Church of a minority. The greater portion of its revenues were acquired by confiscation. Its division of them amongst its clergy is in defiance of all rule and justice. Cures of souls are matters of public barter. Only the other day the secretary of a race-course company bought the next presentation to a living in order to ensure that the views of the next pastor should be sound on the question of racing. In every country except this the principle has been recognised that so-called ecclesiastical property is national property. In some countries this principle has been pushed to its ultimate consequences, in others it has received a more restricted application. Were we all {235} members of the Established Church there might be some plea for our devoting a portion of our property to the maintenance of the Church's employés. But the majority of us are not churchmen. Why then should we perpetuate so invidious an application of national funds? The vested rights of living incumbents should be respected, and perhaps it would be only fair that the Church should retain those funds that she has received from the liberality of private donors within the last few years. On an excessive estimate this would amount to £1,000,000 per annum. We require the remaining £4,000,000 per annum for educational purposes, and we mean to have them.... "Whilst all Radicals are agreed that our land system requires a thorough reform, all are perhaps not in accord as to the details of that reform. Some are followers of Mr. George and demand the nationalisation of land; others--and these are the wiser--whilst admitting that it is to be regretted that the paramount proprietorship of the community has been almost entirely ignored, hardly see their way to resume it absolutely, nor do they admit that a person who has acquired a legal title to a freehold can be divested of it without fair compensation. All, however, are agreed that real estate has, in contradistinction to personal estate, certain inherent qualities: it is limited in quantity, and it is a natural instrument; consequently, the State has a right to regulate the conditions of its tenure, and its transmission from one individual to another. We would legislate to break up and destroy all huge domains; to make the occupier to all practical intents the master of the soil which he cultivates, and to secure to him not only fixity of tenure and independence of a landlord's rules and caprices, but the enjoyment of these rights at a fair and reasonable price. A long succession of landlord legislatures have, in the words of Mr. Cobden, 'robbed and bamboozled the people for ages.' All our laws affecting land have been made in order to perpetuate its tenure in the hands of the few from generation {236} to generation; to render its purchase difficult and expensive; to free its owners from taxes and obligations, in