The repair of the parish church and the provision of the necessaries for divine service are thus entirely at the option of the majority of the parishioners assembled. Before the Reformation the parishioners could be punished in the ecclesiastical courts for failing to repair the parish church ; and the punishment was, to place the parish under an interdict, or sentence of excommunication, by which the church was shut up, the administra tion of the sacraments suspended, and any parishioner who died was buried without bell, book, or candle. But there is now no means of compelling the pa rishioners to provide church-rates. There is no remedy by mandamus : the Court of King's Bench will grant a mandamus, as has been already said, directing church wardens to call a parish meeting, but not to compel parishioners to make a rate. The ecclesiastical courts cannot make a rate, nor appoint commissioners to make one. An obiter dictum of Chief Justice Tindal in delivering the judgment of the Court of Exchequer Chamber in error in the Braintree case, has lately sugfested the possibility of proceeding criminally against parishioners for voting against a a rate, or absenting themselves from a meeting called to consider of a rate, where repairs are needed. In Braintree parish, after the parishioners on meeting had refused to make any rate, the church wardens had levied a rate of their own authority, and proceeded against a pa rishioner for refusing to pay his por tion. The Court of Exchequer Chamber, to which the churchwardens appealed against a prohibition issued by the Court of Queen's Bench, confirmed the prohi bition, and declared the churchwardens' rate to be illegal. But in delivering the judgment of the court, Chief Justice Tindal made the following remark :—" It is obvious that the effect of our judgment in this case is no more than to declare the opinion of the court, that the church wardens have in this instance pursued a course not authorized by law, and conse quently all the rower with which the spiritual court is invested by law to com pel the reparation of the church is left untouched. If that court is empowered (as is stated by Lyndwode, page 53, voce sub Fena, and other ecclekastical writers) to compel the churchwardens to repair the church by spiritual censures ; to call upon them to assemble the parishioners together, by due notice, to make a suffi cient rate ; to punish such of the pa rishioners as refuse to perform their duty in joining in the rate by excommunica tion, that is, since the statute of 53 Geo. III. c. 127, by imprisonment, and under the same penalty to compel each pa rishioner to pay his proportion of the church-rate ; the same power will still remain with them, notwithstanding the decision of this case." In December, 1842, some parishioners of St. George's, Cole gate, Norwich, were articled in the Court of Arches for having wilfully and contumaciously obstructed, or at least refused to make, or join and concur in making, a sufficient rate for the repair of the church of the parish. The articles were admitted by Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, the judge of the Court of Arches ; but on application to the Court of Queen's Bench the proceedings were stayed by prohibition. Church-rates depend, there fore, entirely on the will of a majority of the parishioners assembled: and this is obviously a state of things which, where dissenters from the established religion abound, may lead to parish churches being left to go to ruin.
The existing poor-rate of the parish is generally taken as the criterion for the imposition of the church-rate ; but de cisions as to poor-rates are not binding in cases of church-rates, and the proper test for church-rates is a valuation by competent judges, grounded on the rent the tenant would be willing to pay for the premises. All property in the pa rish is liable except the glebe-land of that parish, and the possessions of the crown when in the actual occupation of the crown, and places of public worship. Stock in trade is not generally rated for church repairs, but a custom may exist rendering it rateable in a particular parish. The ecclesiastical courts have the ex clusive authority of deciding on the va lidity of a rate, and the liability of a party to pay it ; but a ratepayer cannot by proceeding in those courts raise objections to a rate for the purpose of quashing it altogether. If he wishes to dispute it, he ought to attend at the vestry, and there state his objections ; if they are not removed, he may enter a caveat against the confirmation of the rate, or refuse to pay his assessment. In the latter case, if proceeded against in the ecclesiastical court, he may in his defence show either that the rate is generally invalid, or that he is unfairly assessed. The consequence of entering a caveat is an appeal to the ecclesiastical judge, who will see that right is done.
A retrospective church-rate, or rate for expenses previously incurred, is bad. This has been often decided in the courts of common law and equity, and in the ecclesiastical courts. The reason is stated by Lord Ellenborough in the judgment of the court in Rex v. Haworth (12 East, 556) :—" The regular way is for the churchwardens to raise the money before hand by a rate made in the regular form for the repairs of the church, in order that the money may be paid by the ex isting inhabitants at the time, on whom the burden ought to fall." It has lately
been decided by the Judicial Committee, in the case Chesterton v. Hutchins, re versing the decision of the Court of Arches, and confirming the previous de cision of the Consistory Court, that a rate not retrospective on the face of it, but ad mitted to be partly retrospective, was bad.
Previously to 53 Geo. III. c. 127, the only mode of recovering church-rates from parties refusing to pay was by suit in the ecclesiastical court for subtraction of rate. By that statute, where the sum to be recovered is under 10/. and there is no question as to the validity of the rate, or the liability of the party assessed, any justice of the county where the church is situated may, on complaint of the church warden, inquire into the merits of the me, and order the payment. Against his decision there is an appeal to the quarter - sessions. By several statutes, principally the 58 Geo. HI. C. 45, and 59 Geo. III. c. 134, acts passed for the promotion of building churches, the com mon-law powers of churchwardens have been varied, and extended so as to enable them to raise money on the security of church-rates, and to apply them for the en largement, improvement, &c. of churches, and for the building of new ones, &c.
The levying of church-rates on dissent ers, who are so numerous in this country, has caused so much irritation, and the frequently successful opposition of dis senters at vestry-meetings called to im pose rates has rendered church-rates so precarious a resource, that various at tempts have been made of late years to abolish them, and to substitute some more certain and less obnoxious provi sion for the repair of churches and the due celebration of divine worship. Lord Althorp, as chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Grey's government, brought in a bill for the abolition of church-rates in 1634, which proposed to charge the Con solidated Fund with 250,000/. a year, to be devoted to the repair of parish churches and chapels (including the chancel), and to be disbursed by commissioners after certificate from the quarter-sessions of the county in which the parish might lie, founded on a report by the county sur veyor,—to place on the rector or lay lin propriator, relieved of the duty of repair ing the chancel, the burden of providing necessaries for the performance of divine service, — to leave the preservation of pews to the owners or occupiers, and to leave the provision and repair of bells, organs, and ornaments to voluntary con tributions. This bill fell to the ground, principally owing to the opposition of dissenters, who viewed the substitution for church-rates of a charge on the public taxes as a mere shifting of the burden upon themselves, and objected altogether to being called upon to contribute to a church to which they did not belong. In 1837 Lord Melbourne's government made a second attempt to settle the question ; and a bill was brought in by Mr. Spring Rice, chancellor of the exchequer, to abolish church-rates, and provide for the objects of them by a surplus created by a better management of the church lands held by the archbishops, bishops, and deans and chapters ; these lands to be managed by commissioners, and 250,0001. a year to be the first charge on the sur plus. The opposition of the church and of church lessees frustrated this measure, and no measure has since been brought forward by any government.
Lord Althorp stated, in introducing his measure, that the amount of church-rates annually levied was from 500,000/. to 600,0001.; and about 249,00a was an nually expended on the fabrics of churches. Mr. Spring Rice calculated that in 5000 parishes in England no church-rates are levied. There are endowments in many parishes for the repair of the church, which render church-rates unnecessary ; and in many parishes arrangements have been made for voluntary subscriptions, to avoid squabblings between churchmen and dissenters, and the scandal of such disputes.
The Parliamentary Returns respecting local taxation issued in 1839 (No. 5(.2) give the following particulars respecting church-rates in England and Wales for the year ending Easter, 1839 :—Total amount of rates and monies received by churchwardens, 506,812/., of which 363,103/. was derived from the church rates, and 143,709/. from other sources. The total sum expended was 490,6621., and of this sum 215,301/. was expended in the repairs of churches. The debt secured on church-rates amounted to 535,236/. There is a more complete return for the year end inF Easter, 1832, which shows some of the principal of the " other sources" alluded to in the return of 1839. In the total amount which the churchwardens received was 663,8141., derived from the following sources s-- Church-rates, 446,247l.; estates, &c., 51,9191. ; mor tuary or burial fees, 18,216/. ; poor-rates, 41,4891. ; pews and sittings, 39,3821. ; other sources not stated, 66,559/. The payments by the churchwardens in the same year amounted to 645,8834, and included 46,3371. for hooks, wine, &c. ; salaries to clerks, sextons, &c., 126,1851.; organs, bells, &c., 41,7101. ; and repairs of churches, 248,1251.