§ The Duke of Richmondmoved the second reading o the Tithe on Turnips' Bill. It was scarcely necessary for him, after what occurred here a few days since, to trouble their Lordships at any length on this subject. He had no doubt that the decision given by his noble Friend (Lord Lyndhurst), when sitting in a Court of Law, that Turnips drawn from the ground to feed sheep were titheable, was quite correct, and therefore he thought the law ought to be amended; for such a law was a great injustice on the farmer. This Bill had been opposed as a Bill upon a matter affecting only an individual case—a matter not likely to occur again. If he believed that such a case as that on which his noble and learned Friend had decided would never occur again, he should not trouble their Lordships to give the Bill a second reading. But he anticipated on the contrary, that a claim of the sort recently established in a Court of Law, would again and again be brought into a Court of Justice; and such claims ought in justice to be prevented. He thought, too, that every friend of the Church must wish that the difficult and delicate question of tithes should be brought forward with as little prejudice as possible. The question of tithes was in itself already sufficiently complicated, and as a friend of the Church he wished that this new and ungracious claim, never before heard of, should not be added to the rest, to prejudice the minds of people on the discussion of the general question. He moved that the Bill be now read a second time.
§ Lord Ashburtoncould not consent in this case any more than in any other to proceed on any principle but that of right. He repeated that he objected to legislate on individual cases; at the same time he must admit that since the former stage of the Bill he had considered it more fully than on a former occasion, and that he must allow that the case on which it was founded was a case of considerable hardship; and that if cases of hardship could ever justify the Legislature in interfering, this was a case that would justify it. At 979 the same time he must again say, that upon principle he objected to the rule of the House legislating on individual cases. The noble Duke had stated on the former occasion that it was attempted to levy a tithe Upon Turnips moved from the ground for the purpose of the sheep feeding on them in the very field in which they were grown. It appeared that the law sanctioned such a claim of tithe. If that was so, the application of the principle of tithes was most unfortunate, but still it was a legal application of the principle. He should not, however, in this instance, oppose the further progress of the Bill.
Lord Broughamagreed with the noble Lord, that if ever there was an unfortunate result from the correct application of a legal principle, this was a case of that sort; but of the correctness of the application of the principle he had not the least doubt. By law the produce of the land became titheable upon its severance from the soil, but here the beast, too, that eat that produce, paid the tithe—for the tithe of agistment was paid; so that the produce paid tithe at once in the animal and in the vegetable form. He was heartily glad that his noble Friend had brought in the Bill to remedy this double payment of tithe in respect of one article; and he thought that his noble Friend was rendering a service to the Church itself by this measure.
§ Bill read a second time.