The Financial Reform Almanac* (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., Is. and
1s. 6d.) is a publication of which it is needless by this time to give any formal appreciation. It is for "politicians,' to quote from the title-page. One of its statements we may reproduce and emphatically contradict. "The Church of England is a very wealthy Church, and if its income were better distributed every minister in it would have a sufficient income." If by "a sufficient income" is meant, say, what a first-class clerk gets in a Government office, this is simply false. There are, in round numbers, twenty thousand working clergy in the Church of England,—abcrut fourteen thousand incumbents and six thousand curates. Taking £400 as an average stipend— and we very much doubt whether the editor of the Financial Reform Alnianack would consider this a sufficient income—we arrive at 8,000,000. Now the nominal value of tithe, excluding what goes to lay impropriators, is about .0,250,000,—equal at present value to about £2,200,000. Where the other income to make up the £5,800,000 comes, who can say ? Not the "politician" certainly. But what dees it matter to him ? The statement serves its purpose.
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