The Passive Resistance of Edinburgh, to the Clergy-Tax.
A system of Passive Resistance to the iniquitous local impost, disguised under the name of the Annuity Tax, has been brought to a crisis by the imprisonment of Mr. Tait, the proprietor of this Magazine, for his proportion of the tax by which our clergy are maintained.
How he should have had the honour thrust upon him of inflicting the death-blow on this obnoxious tax, it is easier to know than to tell.
Mr. Tait had neither been an active, nor obtrusive resister: though, like thousands of the most respectable citizens of Edinburgh, and particularly the booksellers, he refused to pay annuity.
This tax has ever been hateful to the people, from almost every reason which can render an impost odious.
It is considered a tax on conscience with many.
It is a tax unknown in the Kirk Establishment, and peculiar to Edinburgh; unequal in its pressure; and arbitrary and irritating in the mode of exaction; and it is one which gives, as has been seen, power to the clergy to disgrace themselves and their profession, and wound the cause of Christianity.
Power of imprisonment over their hearers and townsmen, is not a power for ministers of the Gospel.
For four years, measures have been taken to resist this impost; and for the last eighteen months it has been successfully opposed, so far as goods were concerned, by a well-concerted Passive Resistance.
Many of the citizens were (and are) under horning and liable to caption, at the time the clergy selected Mr. Tait.
For Passive Resistance, during the last eighteen months, has been, as we shall have occasion to explain, so well organized, and has wrought so well to defeat the collection of the tax, that, unless the ministers had turned the kirks into old-furniture warehouses, it was idle to seize any more feather-beds, teakettles, and chests of drawers; either from those who could not, or those who would not pay this irritating and unjust local impost, marked by every deformity which can render a tax hateful.
The legal right of the ministers of the Kirk in Edinburgh, to imprison for stipend, was questioned.
Mr. Tait is probably the first imprisoned victim of the Kirk; nor will there be many more, or we greatly misunderstand the character of the people and of the times in Scotland.
A few weeks back, it was decided by the Law Courts that the ministers had the right of imprisonment; though an appeal to the Lord Chancellor still lay open to the inhabitants, who have petitioned against the tax, till they are tired of petitioning.
The clergy, to give them their due, lost no time in exercising their new power. Hornings and captions were flying on all sides; though no one would believe that Presbyterian Divines, the Fathers of the Scottish Kirk, calling themselves ministers of the gospel of love, and peace, and charity, would ever proceed to the fearful extremity of throwing their townsmen and hearers into jail.
The first experiment was made on a gentleman in very delicate health, about a fortnight before Mr. Tait’s arrest.
This gentleman was attended to the jail door by numbers of the most respectable citizens — resisters — in carriages.
He paid, and the procession returned home.
Two of his escort were Mr. Adam Black, publisher of the Edinburgh Review, and Mr. Francis Howden, a wealthy retired jeweller, of the highest respectability.
These two gentlemen were, some few months before, chairman and deputy-chairman of the Lord Advocate’s election committee.
These are the kind of men who have actively opposed the tax.
There was a lull for ten days. A Quaker was expected to be the next victim;
but the unexpected honour fell on Mr. Tait. The clergy could not have
committed so capital a blunder if they had aimed at it; or so effectually
have laid the axe to the root of the tree. This grand stroke of policy was,
doubtless, intended to finish the thing at once. Once compel him to submit,
and glory and gain were secure. That there might be no more processions, he
was waylaid coming into town in the morning; and, to the consternation of
the clergy themselves, submitted to the alternative of going to prison
rather than pay the tax. His first letter, which is
subjoined, explains the nature of our
clergy-tax, which has now been opposed and resisted in every peaceful way.
The scenes in Ireland were faintly brought to our own door; and so great
excitement never certainly prevailed in Edinburgh against a Kirk tax, or
against the Establishment altogther, since “The dinging down o’ the
Cathedrals.” At the request of the Inhabitants’ Committee,
intimated in the newspapers, Mr. Tait consented to be
liberated; and having remained four days in the
bonds of the clergy, he was released with every mark of honour and
distinction his fellow-citizens could confer. His conduct, they thought, had
given an example of patriotism and moral courage needed
everywhere, and the death-blow to the
clergy-tax. We take the Scotsman’s account of the triumph of
passive resistance, as being shorter than some of the others, and,
containing everything necessary to be told:—
“He stepped into the open carriage, drawn by four horses, which stood on the street, and beside him sat Mr. Howden, Mr. R. Miller, Mr. Robert Chambers, and Mr. Deuchar.
At this moment, one of the gentlemen in the carriage, waving his hat, proposed three cheers for the King, and three cheers for Mr. Tait, — both of which propositions were most enthusiastically carried into effect.
The procession was then about to move off, when, much against the will of Mr. Tait and the Committee, the crowd took the horses from the carriage, and with ropes drew it along the route of procession, which was along Waterloo Place and Prince’s Street, to Walker Street.
As the procession marched along, it was joined by several other trades, who had been late in getting ready; and seldom have we seen such a dense mass of individuals as Prince’s Street presented on this occasion.
In the procession alone, there were not fewer than 8,000 individuals; and we are sure that the spectators were more than thrice as numerous.
Mr. Tait was frequently cheered as he passed along, — and never, but on the occasion of the Reform Bill, was a more unanimous feeling witnessed than on that which brought the people together yesterday afternoon.”
A respectable Tory print in Glasgow — for there are Tory prints that have
decent manners — in denouncing “the revolutionary movement in that
rebellious city,” states, “that Edinburgh requires a Coercion Bill as much
as Kilkenny.” We confess it. So do many of the English towns. The agitation
against tithes and church-rate is as great in England as in Ireland. And if
a Coercion Bill is to be the substitute for justice, the more universally it
is applied the better. The whole people of the United Kingdom are of the
same spirit.
No church-rate can be more oppressive than the Annuity; and the evil does not rest here. “A poor Kirk only will be a pure Kirk,” is exemplified in Edinburgh.
This is a tax levied on members of the Church Establishment; and on every
denomination of Dissenters, Catholic, Quaker, Jew, Turk, or Pagan, to raise
the Edinburgh clergy above their brethren of the Kirk; and to set them above
their proper functions. With a few honourable exceptions, the Edinburgh
clergy are anything but a working clergy. Edinburgh, among its other
felicities, holds all “the great prizes” (as the Duke of Wellington calls
the bishoprics) of the Kirk. It is too much that the inhabitants should also
monopolize the honour of maintaining “the great prizes,” in a style which
has set them above their duties, and given “a high tone” to Presbyterianism,
by making a few of its humble clergy fit associates for our Tory and Whig
Coteries, and the legal aristocracy, at the expense of the pastoral office.
The worst fault that we hitherto know about them, after all, is, that they
know nothing of their parishes; for, till now, they had no power of
imprisonment, a power of which they should be the first to try to denude
themselves. Ministers of the Reformed Presbyterian Church! — a Church
boasting its purity, its poverty, its tolerance, “rob widows’ houses,” and
throw men of all persuasions into prison for fractions of stipend! — and
this, too, with ample funds for their maintenance from other sources, — the
same kind of funds, and to a larger amount than those by which their
brethren are respectably supported in every other Scottish city. Shade of
John Knox! could you
have looked up from that old station in the Netherbow on the scenes
exhibited at the Cross of Edinburgh within the last ten years, by order of
your successors! and their proctors; seen the miserable furniture of poor
widows and destitute persons rouped for stipend! One scorns the
miserable fiction by which the Edinburgh clergy try to skulk behind their
agents: the Parsons in Ireland have given up the hypocritical pretext, “It
was not I, but the proctor.[”] Passive Resistance has put
an end to these revolting scenes, and introduced others, which the sincere
friends of the Kirk can regard as no less dangerous to its stability.
Mr. Tait’s letter explains the nature of the church-tax, but not all its deformities. First, it is peculiar to Edinburgh, and to a limited part of Edinburgh, rigorously visiting the shop-keeper, the physician, the artist, the half-pay officer, the poor and needy, while it totally exempts the class best able to contribute to the support of the Church, — the lawyers of all grades; those who, according to our Glasgow friend, drain the blood, and live on the marrow of Scotland; till, Jeshurun-like, our whole community, by their suckings, have waxen fat and are kicking, requiring to be put in strait waistcoats, and dieted on bread and water. Secondly, It is a shop tax; the people of London know what that means.
The rent of a man’s dwelling-house is a fair measure of his means, and in “our city of palaces,” every man likes a house rather above what he can afford than under it.
A shopkeeper who rents a house at from L.30 to L.50, may pay L.200 a-year, or more, for his place of business; and on this L.200, and on all the other premises he may rent in carrying on his trade, as well as on his dwelling-house, which is almost invariably at some distance from his place of business, he is liable to pay L.6 per cent. to the clergy, or be sent to jail, — be he Jew, Turk, Quaker, or Baptist.
The garret of a widow, the cellar of a porter, must contribute their proportion to the maintenance of “the great prizes” of the Kirk, and of the “tone” which now elevates Established Presbyterianism, in the gentility of its teachers, almost to equality with Episcopalian Dissent.
Of late years, since the Irish settled among us, many Catholics are called on to contribute to the maintenance of what they must think, our heretic clergy; an imposition on conscience, from which we hope to see Scotland soon freed for ever.
But, while the darkest den in the lanes, and
poor streets, of that central portion of Edinburgh (which, for the
Established clergy, may look for religious instruction where its inhabitants
please) must pay, every lordly mansion, of the first-born of Egypt, is past
bye. Our Lords of Session, and Clerks of Session, and Deputy-Clerks of
Session; and Clerks of Justiciary, and Deputy-Clerks of Justiciary, and Lord
Advocates, and Deputy-Advocates, and Sheriffs, and Substitute-Sheriffs; and
the whole tribes, kindreds, and languages, of our barristers; and every man
whose profession is symbolized on his door-plate by the mystic letters — W.S., or
S.S.C., the tax-gatherer respectfully passes. The
clergy themselves do not pay poor-rates in this city; for which rate another
6 per cent. on rent is levied from
the unfortunate shopkeeper, and householder. Is it surprising that the
people of Edinburgh have “rebelled,” since rebellion it must be called, and
refuse longer to submit to the hornings and gorings of the watchmen
of the flock?
The exemption of the College of Justice — this is the phrase, College of Justice — among a nation remarkable for the propriety of its names — is, however, the grievance of a past time; and the inclusion of the fifteen hundred, or two thousand, exempted lawyers will not now satisfy the people of Edinburgh; though this is the bait held out to make us bolt the Bill the Lord Advocate has been bungling at, “to enable the Edinburgh parsons to live like gentleman.” The people of Edinburgh will have their clergy live like their brethren in other towns, and like Christian ministers.
They will have no compulsory tax for their support.
They will have no Dissenter, no Catholic, no Quaker, or Jew, liable to a fraction of rate to maintain a Presbyterian minister.
They cannot more admire propagating religion by the tithe-pound, the Cross-rouping, and the Calton jail, than by the sword or the faggot; and will resist to the last every attempt to continue a power in the hands of the Edinburgh clergy, which they have recently used, and are still employing, to the violation of the first principles of the merciful faith they are bound to teach, and to the disgrace of their sacred office.
It is too late for compromise.
The principle which places this power in their hands is more dangerous, and much more to be guarded against, than the mere amount of the tribute levied.
Our ancestors, at some peril, and by despising persecution, won for us freedom of conscience and a Free Kirk: it will go hard but we maintain the right.
As this Magazine circulates through England and Ireland more widely than at
home, we have hitherto forborne afflicting our distant readers with local
grievances. Heaven knows that every town has abundance of them, local and
general; but, in passive resistance, Edinburgh is making common
cause with many other communities; and it may amuse strangers to learn how
it has been managed in the country of
the Porteous mob.
For years the spectators looked on with indignation and shame when furniture was rouped (sold by auction) at the Cross of Edinburgh, for annuity to the clergy.
At first such furniture belonged exclusively to very distressed persons; for though every one grumbled, no one who could scrape up the money durst refuse to pay, and thus incur the additional penalties of prosecution.
Not unfrequently generous individuals redeemed the miserable sticks so cruelly wrested from the more miserable owners.
The first act of passive resistance may have taken place about two years back; and we admit that since then it has been most actively passive, and has given rise to many melancholy and some humorous scenes.
Fortunately for the resisters, the goods must, by law, be exposed for sale at the Cross, which so far concentrated their field of action.
This, by the way, was a capital omission when the Annuity clause was smuggled over.
We hope the Lord Advocate (but the clergy’s agent will see to it) takes care, in the new Bill, that our goods, when confiscated for stipend, may be sent away and sold anywhere.
In Ireland we pay — the whole people of the empire pay — troops who march up from the country to Dublin, fifty or sixty miles, as escorts of the parson-pounded pigs and cattle, which passive resistance prevents from being sold or bought at home; and we also maintain barracks in that country which not only lodge the parsons’ military guards, but afford, of late, convenient resting-places in their journey to the poor people’s cattle, whom the soldiers are driving to sale; and which would otherwise be rescued on the road.
Our Edinburgh clergy could hitherto only operate round the Cross. If any of
our readers know that scene, let them imagine, after the resistance was
tolerably well organized, an unfortunate auctioneer arriving at the Cross
about noon, with a cart loaded with furniture for sale. Latterly the passive
hubbub rose as if by magic. Bells sounded, bagpipes brayed, the Fiery Cross
passed down the closses, and through the High Street and Cowgate;
and men, women, and children, rushed from all points towards the scene of
Passive Resistance. The tax had grinded the faces of the
poor, and the poor were, no doubt, the bitterest in indignation. Irish,
Highlanders, Lowlanders, were united by the bond of a common suffering.
Respectable shopkeepers might be seen coming in haste from the Bridges;
Irish traders flew from St.
Mary’s Wynd; brokers from the Cowgate; all pressing round the miserable
auctioneer; yelling, hooting, perhaps cursing, certainly saying anything but
what was affectionate or respectful of the clergy. And here were the black
placards tossing above the heads of the angry multitude—
ROUPING FOR STIPEND!
This notice was of itself enough to deter any one from purchasing; though we will say it for the good spirit of the people, that both the Scotch and Irish brokers disdained to take bargains of their suffering neighbours’ goods.
Of late months, no auctioneer would venture to the Cross to roup for stipend.
What human being has nerve enough to bear up against the scorn, hatred, and execration of his fellow-creatures, expressed in a cause he himself must feel just?
The people lodged the placards and flags in shops about the Cross, so that not a moment was lost in having their machinery in full operation, and scouts were ever ready to spread the intelligence if any symptoms of a sale were discovered.
These are among the things done and provoked in this reforming city of John Knox, in the name of supporting religious instruction!
Dr. Chalmers is reported to have said, the other day, in one of our Church
Courts, “Too little money is devoted to the religious instruction of the
city.” He is quite right: Too little indeed — almost none is so applied; — a
good deal goes into the pockets of the ministers, nevertheless. The condition
of the poor of Edinburgh — their want of the due means, from the
Establishment, either of religious instruction at home, or church
accommodation, is not the smallest evil in this system of setting Scotch
Presbyterian clergymen above their callings by high salaries. We might
imagine, that after a poor man or woman has paid annuity, or had their goods
sold, they might at least find a church door open to them somewhere in the
town. They will find exactly the door open, but a surly door-keeper to push
them back, and if they do get in, no seat in church. In addition to the
odious Annuity Tax, the rents of the pews in Edinburgh are, on the average,
three times higher than in any other Scottish city. Thus we pay for
our “great prizes” trebly; and, in their
diligence and fidelity as ministers; in their meekness, forbearance,
long-suffering, patience, gentleness, as Christains, have our reward.
We dare not inflict upon our English or Irish readers more about our Collegiate Charges; our royal chaplainships; our union of the pastoral office with the professorships in our university; our church jobs of all kinds.
We have not complained till now: Now complaint is redress.
