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Show privileges to his Mends. The tlthp Is property, and If the government abolished it or even amended it hi principle, It Is argued, It would then hare to reform all property laws. Sc the tithe question is one of parliament's parlia-ment's knottiest problems. riTHE A RELIC OF OTHER DAYS But Is Recognized as Property by English Law. The recent revolt of 10,000 farmers n southern England to resist the ayment of tithes directs attention o this form of taxation, which has 'rom time to time been the cuuse of considerable agitation In that coun ry. More than a year ago reports :ame from a Sussex town to the ef-'ect ef-'ect that angry farmers had at-acked at-acked a bailiff who attempted to telze sheep belonging to n neighbor j who had failed to meet his tithe payments pay-ments due the Church of England. In the present situation, auctioneers who have tried to sell the property of farmers who owe tithes hare met with as little success as the auctioneers auc-tioneers In foreclosure sales In parts of our own Mid-West. Tithe payments are a relic of ancient an-cient days, when persons were called upon to pay one-tenth of the produce of all land and labor to the support of the church. They were stabilized in England in 1025 by an act of parliament, par-liament, which laid down a fixed schedule of payments. Since then, however, the prices of live stock and agricultural produce have dropped by about CO per cent. The tithe probably originated in a tribute levied by n conqueror or ruler upon his subjects, and perhaps the custom of dedicating a tenth of the spoils of war to the gods led to the religious extension of the term. Before the Eighth century payment pay-ment of tithes was enjoined by ecclesiastical ec-clesiastical writers and church coun ells, hut the earliest authentic example ex-ample of a law of the state enforcing enforc-ing payment is probably that in the Capitularies of Charlemagne. In England the earliest xample of legal recognition of tithes is believed be-lieved to be a decree of a synod In 78G. The church received tithes .in the Middle Ages, but trouble arose under the reign of Henry VIII. When this monarch raided the monasteries mon-asteries he transferred their tithe |