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lay element, and yet, withal, to introduce some portion of Sir William Clay's system. If the Church of England cannot preserve a legal rate, she may constitute a voluntary rate upon a plan somewhat similar to that recommended by Mr. Newsome,[1] the churchwarden of Headingley, but rendered more effective by ecclesiastical authority.
In the towns it is clear, as a general rule, that voluntary contributions are sufficient. In the principal towns of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Church rates have been abandoned for some years, and Churchmen find no difficulty in keeping the fabrics of the Church in repair.[2] Dissenters, who, as a class, are much less wealthy than Churchmen, not only maintain their own Chapels and worship, but have been constantly increasing the number of their places of worship, notwithstanding that they are subject to the payment of Church rate.
In country parishes the difficulty is far greater. Mr. Baines states, in his evidence, that the Dissenters, who possess throughout England and Wales a greater number of places of worship than the Church, experience a difficulty in maintaining self-supporting chapels in country villages. He says, that among the Wesleyans, Independents and Baptists there are, throughout England, County
