§ MR. THOMAS ELLIS (Merionethshire)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the farmers of Llanarmon and similar upland parishes in Wales are suffering most heavily from a fall of nearly fifty per cent, in the price of cattle and dairy produce; whether, out of a population 661 of 1,681 in the parish of Llanarmon, only forty or fifty attend the ministrations of the tithe-receiver; and, whether he will take the necessary measures for protecting these hill farmers, who support their own form of religious worship, from the annoyance of peremptory distraint for tithe.
§ THE SECRETAEY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)In reply to the hon. Member I have to say that I have no information at the Home Office which would show me that agricultural depression is more severely felt in Wales than in other parts of the United Kingdom, and I have no means of ascertaining what percentage of the population of Llanarmon attend the ministrations of the tithe receiver. I have further to say that I have neither the intention nor the power to interfere with the ordinary process by which legal claims to tithe are enforced.