South Wales Daily News

WELSH DISESTABLISH- MENT. BILl BROUGHT TNTO COMMONS. SPEECH BY MB ASQUITH. TORIES OBSTRUCT FIRST READING. WHAT THE GOVERNMENT PROPOSE. LUCID EXPLANATION OF DETAILS. I" the House of Commons on Monday, Mr ASQUITH, who was received with Minis- e"ial cheers on rising to mova the first reading of ■toe Welsh Disestablishment Bill, said In "ilJg to make the matiou which stands in my allie, I shall trespass for a very short time 1:Ideed on the attention of the Houre. I was *fcbuked when I asked for leave to bring in this Bill last year because I did not enter at any kmgth into the large and highly controversial Question of policy which proposals of this kind < necessarily raise in Parliament and in the "ountry. I pointed out what I venture 0 repat in my own justification m adopting similar course, that if I abstain from into these matters now it is Act in any dQgrea because I underrate j 'lieir gravity or shrink from their discussion i«,t is to say, when this Bill comes on to be read < second time I shall be perfectly prepared, in ^cordaisce with what used to be the uniform •iactico of the House. {Mtnimerial cheers. Sir 'e^la6l Hicks Bjach No.") The right hon. p-tHiemau says "No," and quarrels with that »tatemunt. Let me remind him that when the •fish Church Bill-a Bill of much greater com- p'tsity than the Bill I am introducing—was S'troduced by the member for Midlothian, in a of three duration, it was with :n assent and suggestion of Mr Disraeli, then of the Opposition, he was allowed to pro. ved with its first reading before dinner Dw the same night. So far as I am concerned, "cd the GnVértJmenb are concerned, we do not taftan to contribute to what we regard as the Rowing abuse of converting first reading debates kiio second reading debates. (Ministerial cheers.) 1)11 that assumption, and ae„ing on that principle, 1t would be, under ordinary circumstances my &uty to explain in considerable detail with a view ,0 laying before the House the provisions of this ^isasure, but as I discharged that task to the best my ability, with great elaboration, and, I fear, Excessive length when I introduced to you what Is to all intents and purposes identically THE SAME MEASURE AS LAST YBAR, hope tho House will not think I am guilty r.,f any disrespect or any disparagement the subject if I confine myself to a brief 'Capitulation of the main provisions of the '^heine. (Hear, hear.) Oar proposals shortly are hiese We propose that on the 1st January, 1897, fcha Church of England, so far as it is established 11 Wales and Mo nrnouthshire, shall cease to be j *11 Established Church, and from and after that fate both the privileges and the duties incident to the status of Establishment will come to an Clld. Coercive jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts will cease; what is now ecclesiastical law \\Tin be enforceable so far as it affects the dis- il}line of the clergy and dcetrines and ceremonies f the Church by way of contrast, and so far as It afffcts the enjoyment and use of pro- perty by way of trust. Provision will be made in the Bill for the formation of a repre- sentative Church body, and power is given to the bishops and clergy and laity in Wales to hold ftyuods, frame constitution, and generally to legislate in ecclesiastical matters for themselves. That, shortly stated, is the effect of the provi- sions of the Bill. 1 come now to the other aspect of the subject, viz., DISENDOW:,IF,NT, and here I may remind the Home that we are dealing only with ecclesiastical revenue arising from Wales itself. By Wales it must be under- stood throughout that I include the county of Monmouth. (Hear, hear.) The whole of the ecclesiastical revenue, to whatever purpose it is ^°w applied, whether in Wales or England, ^wies within the scope of the Bill. n the other hand, the ecclesiastical revenue sing in England, parts of which now, through Je operation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, oes to the benefit of the Church in Wales, do not olne within the scope of the Bill. The result is have to deal with a gross annual revenue of *"279,000, which, as I pointed out last year, may tie conveniently divided into two distinct heads, finely, first of all what I call parochial revenue— that is to say, the revenue at present attached to, Qnd enjoyed by, parochial benefices, which Counts in round figures to a. gross sum of ^233,000 a year and in the second place, what I Call the central fund of £46,000 a year, which is 111r.de up of the income of the capitular and ePiscopal estates, and of the revenues received by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and disposed of by them. With strict accuracy, and in order to ttiake the matter clear, I ought to point out before I pass from them that we have excluded from the operation of the Bill what we called private henefactions; and for this purpose we have Seated all private benefactors newly created 1703—the time of the constitution of Queen Anne's Bounty—as private benefactions, and, therefore, sums which ought to remain the Property of the DISESTABLISHED AND DISENDOWED CHURCH. In dealing with this fund we have acted upon to principles to which I ask the special atten- tion of the House. The first principle is this- we bave endeavoured to preserve the corpus of the Property for local and national purposes, and to Prevent its alienation and dissipation, and keep far as legislation can keep tt, as a valuable asset for the purpose for which we propose. Our second principle is that we have aimed throughout to provide, so far as this property and the income rising from it is at present derived from and cached to localities, it shall continue subject to a Somewhat elastic limitation, which I will pre- sently deal with, to be locally applied. For the Purpose of applying these principles to the cir- cumstances of the case. we call into existence, as ,-as done in the case of Ire!and, a commission, the institution of which the status of its members ^d their emoluments will be those I described year, and as they are matters of com* P^'atiyely unimportant detail the House will r £ ife me if I do nob go through thetn again. The functions of the commissioners lU be, in the first instance, to seoure the invest- lng of the various classes of property, the income from which is at present enjoyed by the Church in.Wales. it will be their duty to transfer the churches and parsonages, which we propose shall remain the property of the disendowed Church, to the representative body. The burial-grounds dad glebes will be transferred in rural parish to the parish councils, in urban parish to the district councils, and In county boroughs to the town counctls. THE TITHK-HKNT-CHAKGZ, \11hicb I need hardly remind; the House form by far the largest and most valuable ecclesiastical set in^.Wales, will be tested by the commis- sioners in each county in the county oouncij which the land is situated. The whole °* the other property of the Church will remain \rested in the commissioners themselves. I come I now for a moment to the provisions made in the Bill for existing interests. Sir F. POWELI, Cathedrals. (A laugh.) 1\b ASQOITH I propose that cathedrals should be treated as in the Bill of 'ast The pro. Pertyof tbe cathedr"h win be invested in the commissioners, who will, of course, have to main- them and keep them in repair, subject to the rigbt of the disestablished Church to use them for the purposes for which they are at present ed. Now I will go on to deal with the pro- made for existing interests. We adopted a Plan which we believe will avoid or mmimlse he anger which the practical working of the ris burch Act has shown to exist. We propose t a person who has at this moment a vest Interest in ecclesiastical offices shalJ, as long M lie =°ntinues to discharge the duty ot that office, receive -the emolument which he at present ""joys; and in order to prevent the dangers bich mighb arise, and hardships to the Church ^bich would undoubtedly ensue, from stereo- ,*PWg the existing arrangements and prevent- •i* the mobility of the clergy and It promotion of a man from one 08 to another, we provide an alternative of compensation under which the clergy lo* beneficiaries may receive au annuity on a Vy."v*r scale which is proportionate to his age ^ud conseub of the representative body, be adopts these teims it will not be a •hit' h& shall continue to discharge the In ^le which at present he holds, j, of the private patrons who in Wales *>tt 6Kn "le'r bands only one-third of the total Iojj er livings—344 out of 970—we propose to Precedent set by the right hon. IN the ACT for the Abolition r of Patronage in the Scotch Church in I 1874, which provided that where a patron chose to claim he might receive as compensation not exceeding one year of the net emolument of the living, on the basis of the three years before this Bill comes into law. Now I go on to con- sider the ULTIMATE APPLICATION OF THIS PROPERTY. The central funds—amounting, as I have said, to £ 45,000—we propose shall in the first instance be charged with the expenditure of administrating the Act, and the surplus which remains shall be applied by the Commissioners, not less than two- thirds to higher education. The local fuuds, which constitute by far the largest itetn of the property of the Church, and of which the tithe- rent charge is itself the most important impedient, will be applied in accordance with schemes framed by; the county councils, with the approval of the Commissioners. Now as this is a pârt of our measure which last year excited the largest amount of hostile criticism, and from those who accepted its principle, I think I may say a word or two upon it in passing. These local funds, if I may borrow the expression, are to be treated as local assets to be locally applied. It is perfectly true that if you treat, the property of the Church in Wales as one and indivisible, throwing it all into one Central fund.—(An hon. member As was done in Ireland.")—As was done in Ireland, as I am reminded, we are met with dangers and diffi- culties which have led us not to adopt that course.. If I say you were to treat the property of the Church in Wales as one and indivisible and throw it into one fund, and then proceed to distribute it according to population—which is, I suppose, the on!y alternative to the Govern- ment proposals-you would be led to some startling results. By way of illustration, let me I give ONE OR TWO SETS OF FIGURES. Glamorgan is by far the most populous county in Wales. Its population is 687,000; and the total ecclesiastical revenue in the county of Glamorgan at this moment—that is to say, the total income arising from ecclesiastical property situated in Glamorgan applied to ecclesiastical purposes there—is in round figures :£26,000. Monmouth, the next most populous county, with a population of 252;000 Sir MICHABL HICKS-BEACH: The right hon. gentleman does not mean the amount of the tithe? Mr ASQOITH I am dealing with income from tithes and rents. SU- MICHAEL HICKS BKACH: And glebes. Mr ASQUITH l\ot glebes, but rens and tithes, and the balance which is not tithe is very small, and if I had given the tithe alone it would bring about the same proportionate result, I may say these figures are based on a return moved for by my hon. friend the member for Merthyr last Session, which no doubt is in the hands of honourable members, and my figures may be verified by reference to that return. Monmouth has a population of 252,000, and its ecclesiastical income is only £27.000. The county of Denbigh has a population of 117,000, and the ecclesiastical income in that Pembroke, the last instance I will take, has a. population of 89,000, and the ecclesiastical income arising in the county is :£25,000, so you have four counties with popula- tions ranging fron 687,000 to 89,000 each, which already provide practically the same revenue. Now, I cannot think that it would give SATISFACTION TO THE PEOPLE OF WALES if you were to ignore the sources from which this property is derived, if you were to give to Glamorgan and Monmouth, the two most popu- lous, and certainly the two richest, counties in the Principality—{hear, hear)—not what they at present enjoy or not an equivalent to the burden under which they at present lie from ecclesiastical purposes, but a sum in proportion to their population —(hear, hear)—the result would b?, if that plan were adopted, that these two counties, having a, population of 940,000 out of a total Welsh population of 1% millions would take a share of more than half. (Hear, hear.) They would gab more than half of the ecclesiastical property, though only a quarter or a fifth had been derived from these two counties. (Hear, hear.) We do not believe that that would give satisfaction. (Hear, hear.) The anomalies that would arise, if we look at population as the test, arise from the fact that the burden of tithe falls upon land, and principally upon agricultural land, and these counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth are not very rich in agricultural land, and have, happily through the discoveries of mineral riches, developed very large industries, which have never contributed to the Church in the proportion that agricultural lands have contributed. We there- fore propose to adhere to our principle of distribu- tion, not looking all the population as the only test. E¡¡,cil county council wíIl ba empowered to appropriate local tithes arising within its county, but I wish to point out. that this would not prevent two or more counties from joining together for the purpose of applying the revenue, or part of it, to some joint purpose, nor will it prevent the whole of the counties in Wales if so minded from making a common contribution from their revenues thus received, to some central purpose in which the whole of the Principality may be interested. Mr D. A. THOMAS Then it will not be necessary in the schemes that the tithe should go back to the parish from which it is derived ? Mr ASQUITH I am coming to that. I am dealing with counties. A close examination of the figures as regards the various parishes does show, no doubt, that if you were to adopt a cast iron rule compelling the whole of the tithe derived from a parish to be devoted to purposes iu that parish alone, you would often have an absurd state of things leading up to waste of public funds. WHAT WE PROPOSE is this. While the commissioners and the county councils are to have a free band in the matter, yet in making schemes they will be subject to an instruction to have regard to the circumstances, the income, and so forth, of each parlslt-that they are, in fact, to take all the parochial circumstances into account. We do not propose a cast iron rule. We desire that due consideration should bo given to all the circumstances. Now the only thing that remains is the ultimate application, under these circumstances, of the fund that will be set free. I hope the House will allow me to read a list uf the purposes which will be found iucluded in the first schedule :— The erection or supplying of cottage or other hospitals, dispensaries, or convalescent homes (hear, hear) the provision of trained nurses for the sick poor (hear, bear) the foundation or maintenance of parish or district halls, institutes, or libraries (hear, hear, and a laugh) the pro- vision of labourers' dwellings to be let at reason- able rents, and of allotments (hear, hear); tech- nical or higher education the maintenance of libraries, museums, or academies of arts in Wales—(hear, hear, and a laugh)—or other objects of local or general utility, for which no provision is made under statute from the public rates. (Hear, hear. and laughter.) This enumeration seems to excite the hilarity of some hon. gentlemen opposite. I was prepared for an expression of the sentiment of indignation at the secularisation and misappro- priation of ecclesiastical funds—(hear, hear)—but apparently there are hon. gentlemen who prefer to treat this as a laughing matter. So far as we are concerned, although we no doubt shall be charged with the secularisation of religious funds —(hear, hear)—wo believe that the purposes, a list ofwhlchIhave read to the House, are in a large and perfectly legitimate sense of the term religious purposes. (Hear, hear, oh, oh, libraries and museums.") We do not consider it is any PROFANATION OF PROPERTY which is dedicated to pious uses that it should bo spent in the relief of suffering-(hear, bear)—in the ministering to the sick—(oh, oh, and "Museums")—yes, and even in providing and bringing home to the common people, at least, means of access to refining and humanising influence. (Hear, hear.) That is the spirit in which this Bill has been framed. I submit it now to the consideration of the House, and I am certain that whatever criticisms may be passed either on its main principles orpn particular details, it will be received as a Bill conceived with the honest desire to satisfy on the one hand what we believe to ba the genuine demand of the vast majority of the people of Wales, and on the I other hand to satisfy that demand with the slightest amount of hardship to individuals and the least possible detriment to those spiritual interests of which the Church will continue to be guardian. (Cheers.) The right ion. gentleman formally moved for leave to intro- dnce a Bill to terminate the establishment of the Ohurch of England in Wales and Monmouthshire thereof0 provi3Ion ,r» respect to the temporali- c MI0Hak^ HICKS-BEACH. ir ICKS-BKACH commenced by comment- ing upon the brevity of the speech in which the Home Secretary had introduced a measure of this great importmce. The right hon. gentleman appeared to treat his opponents with singular contempt. But he did not think that was the real reason of his reticence. No doubt the right hon. gantleman recognised, as the country also did, the unreality ot the proceedings in which they were then engaged. He stated that be spoke briefly because ho had spoken at consider- able length in introducing the Bill of lasb year. But when that Bill was introduced it was under circumstances which precluded any chance of its being passed. Now, however, it wa3 the first measure in the Government programme. The Prime Minister had. however, stated that there was no earthly chance of t.ho Bill being passed, and that he believed was the real reason why the right hon. gentleman had only spoken fot some 20 minutes. (Hear, hear.) He could assure the Home Secretary that the opponents of the Bill would not imitate bis example, TFEEY will opppso and criticise the Bill at every opportunity. (Hear, hear.) In his speech last year the right hon. gentleman had not made any state- ment as to the policy on which the Bill was founded, but had contented himself with mentioning a. few bold facts evi- dently culled from Liberationist publications, That was an unsatisfactory mode of treating the subject, but after all he preferred it to the method which the right hou. gentleman had adopted on his recent speeches in the country. In those speeches he had posed as THE SPECIAL FRIZKD OF THK WELSH OHUKCH, and had advocated its Disestablishment. If the right hon. gentleman could put himself in the position of the friends of the Church, he must feel that the language he had recently used was political cant of the nauseous kind. (Cheers.) He much preferred the right hon. gentleman's manner last year when he advocated this Bill on the ground that it had the support or 31 out oF34 of the Welsh members. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman had described the Welsh Church as an alien Church, and had spoken of it as connected with humiliating recollections for the Welsh people; but it was not true that the Welsh Church had been forced upon the Welsh people. That Church had not been forced by England upon Wales. It had existed centuries before it accepted the supremacy of Canterbury, and it could not be denied that in the Tudor and Stuart times it had been pre-eminently a National Church. Indeed, it was to the Church that THE PRESERVATION OF THE WELSH LANGUAGE was mainly due. When the Church in Wales was endeavouring to retrieve her position and was rapidly gaining in strength was not the time for proposing Disestablishment and Disendowment. (Ciieers.) It did not lie in the matter of those who refused to consent to a religious census to condemn the Established Church in Wales as the Ciiurch of a minority. (Cheers.) Bitterness and animosity were not with the Church, but with those who attacked, and it were by no means certain that those feeliugs on the part of Nonconformists would cease when the Church was disestablished and disendowed. The fact was that it was the Church of the wealthier and more educated classes, and it was for that reason that it was regarded with bitterness and animosity. (Cheers.) He did not thmk that the advocates of this policy had sufficiently considered what a power- ful force a disestablished and disendowed Church might become. (Hear, hear.) In his opinion, Establishment afforded better security for freeùom of reli1011 than any trust deed, and he believed that taking the funds of the Church and applying them to purposes other than those of the Church was a moral wrong. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, his views were entirely opposed to those of gentlemen opposite, but he would invite them to consider whether anything that had happened in any country afforded a precedent for the manner in which the principles they professed were proposed to be carried out in the Bill. It had been said that in II iman Catholic countries Chureh property had been taken for State purposes, and it was true that in France, Spain, and Belgium the property of convents, monasteries, and colleges had been confiscated by the State, but in not one of those countries had anything been done which afforded a precedent for the proposal of this But that the working parts of the Church, the bishops and the clergy should be derived of their endowments without compensation. (Hear, hear.) The property of the Church in England and Wales was property handed over to dioceses and parishes, and entirely consisted of private endowments — (" no, no," and cheers)—and they remained private endow- ments, and become State endowments by anything done at the Reformation. The Irish Church Act was no precedent for what was now proposed to be done. The condition of the Irish Church in 1869 was absolutely different to the living and GROWING CONDITION OF THE CHURCH IN WALES. (Cheers.) The endowments of the Church in Ireland were to a large extent Parliamentary, taken from a large population and given to a small minority, but the endowments of the Church m Wales had never belonged to any other Church. (Hear, hear.) If the Government felt it incum- bent upon them to disestablish and disendow four dioceses of the Church of England—for that was what their proposal really was-they were bound to provide for uniformity and unity in those dioceses, but they had done nothing of the kind. The right hon. gentleman had professed the desire to provide for the future welfare of the Church in Wales, but he would nob nccomplish that object by establishing a state of ecclesiastical anarchy. (Hear, hear.) If the Government were wise they would follow the example of the member for Midlothian in the case of the Irish Church, and BE GENEROUS TO THE CHURCH they were disestablishing. Under the scheme of a central fund the capital would be safer than when it was devoted to local purposes, hub the right lion, gentleman appeared to think that the strength of his Bill was to be found in the greed of the local ratepayers, (Cheers.) If Churchmen were compelled to maintain their Church where now maintained by old endow. ments the result must be to deprive local charitable institutions of a portion of their incomes. This was a blow aimed not merely at the Church in Wr.les, but was intended, if nob by the Government) at least by their supporters, to have an ulterior effect upon the Church in England. The English people werp, he thought, beginning to move upon this great question, and he was convinced that when once they realised the injustice and wrong proposed to ba done by this Bill to a living and growing part of the Church, they would visit the Bill and its authors with the condemnation they doserved. (Loud cheers.) MR FRANK EDWARDS. Mr FnANK EDWARDS said the right hon. gentle- man who had just sat down had charged them with hostility to the Church in asking for Dises- tablishment. Speaking for himself as a Church- man he was not acting in any hostile manner to the Church. He thought it would be a good thing for her when she was freed from the trammels of the State. A Churchman, the Rev. T, Edwin Jones, vicar of St. Mary's, Bangor, stated in effect that the anCK-nt British Church had long ceased to exist in Wales, and that the English Church in Wales was an alien church. The hand, he said, was the hand of Esau, but the voice was the voice of Jacob. The right hon. gentle- man had made aHusion to the question of foreign missions, and be inferred that if the Church in Wales was disendowed and disestablished there would be an end of foreign missionary work on the part of the Church in Wales. He did not think the facts were in accordance with any such statement. There were other religious bodies in Wales which had foreign missions, and, so far from declining, they were increasing. The Calvanistic Methodists had within a period of 20 years increased their collections for church purposes by 88 per cent., whilst the in- crease in the collections for missionary purposes amounted to 94 per cent. He was glad of the provision in the Bill as to the tithes. The right hon. gentleman opposite had described that provision as being intolerable, and not to be justified on general principles. He had always been told that they were the peculiar guardians of the country dtstricts,and yet they were found that night denouncing a provision of the Bill which secured to the country districts a source of income which was justly their own, and said it was intolerable. Thereby he claimed'that the tithes belonged to the Church, and if that was 'so, then the tithe of the parish belonged to the parish. The county ot Radnor—which he represented—was a. small county, with a small population, and the tithes only amounted to £4,000. Glamorgan, on the other hand, was a large, manufacturing county, possessed of much wealth, and the tithes of that county amounted to £11,000 a year. Yet Radnor was asked by certain gentle- men in that House to give of its small tithes to the rich county of Glamorgan. He thought the provision in the Bill as to tithes was a fair one. It was clear that the Church only administered to a minority of the people in Wales, and he supposed the hon. memo bars opposite would 'accept that. (An hon. member interrupting—" No, certainly not.") Then ho referred the hon. gentleman to thn statement! by Canon Hoyle ml890 that it was unquestionably the fact that the majority of, the people were no longer within the fold of the Church, and equally unquestionable was the fact that Church congregations were largely made up of English visitors and Anglicised Welshmen, and dIdn't; comprise the mass of the people who had the future of the Principality in their hands. (hear, hear.) There was an unqualified admission of the fact that the Church does nob administer to a majority of the people of Wales. (Hear, hear.) That being so, the people of Wales earnestly desired the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church. There had been some interesting inquiries made of Welsh clergy, men which, with answers, had appeared in the Record. In one of these replies a rector of a parish in the North of Wales spoke of his only source of income being tithe, the origin of which. he added, was unknown. Not known ? Well, it was contended that tithes were founded by our pious ancestors. And what a. number of these pious ancestors there must have been The owners of land in every parish must have been pious, for tithes were found every- where in North Wales. Not only so, but they learned that tithes were formerly ex- tracted from personal earnings, so the iand must have been swarming with such pious ancestors. Another inquiry was if there had been in old times that unwillingness to pay tithes which now existed. It was clear there was, for there was an Act passed, 27 and 28 Henry VIII., cap. 20, to enforce the payment of tithes" by divers numbers of evil-disposed persons inhabiting certain counties, oities, and country places in the realm, who attempted to withhold payment of their tithes and oblations," so that it was clear there was a repugnance to the payment of tithes in the days of Henry VIII., and the Act went on to command payment under penalty of imprison- ment. There was unwillingness then, and researches in history would discover a like tin- willingnsss before then. But a great part of the tithe came into existence since the days of Henry VIII. Lord WOLMEB, interrupting, asked the hon. member to give an instance of tithe having been instituted since Henry VII.'s tithe. Mr EDWARDS was no prepared an jn. stance, but obviously a great part of the !and had come into cultivation since that time. The rector whose statement he was quoting went on to say that thiø tithe, of uuknown origin, was his only source of income. This remarkable state- ment gave some reason for the bitterness felt against Disestablishment in Wales. There was a rector of the KstahlishedU Chui&K~> now in the nineteenth century said that the I tithe was his only source of income. Now the Church had been established in Wales for many centuries, but was it not strange that after all these centuries so little hold had the Church Establishment on the people of Wales that the only source of income for a rector was the tithe ? (Hear, hear.) Of course, the infer- ence was that if the tithe were taken away their clergymen would have no income on which to reJy. The voluntary principle would do for the Church in Wales what it had done for Noncon- formity and he felt convinced that Disestablish- ment would be a gain for Church and State. SIR EDWARD HILL. Blr E. HILL said he desired to intervene in tba debate as one who for 3D or 40 years had some j connection with the cathedral city of Llandaff and was intimately connected with the I great port of Cardiff, and as one who held the commission of the peace and filled the office of high sheriff of the county of Glamorgan. He was a devoted, though an humble member of the Church but he was not wanting in appreciation for the good work done by other religious bodie?, especially when the fires of Christianity burnt low and when the members required kindling into the flame now burning so brightly. He re-I gretted that an attempt should be made to destroy any spiritual agency I for good in AVaies, and regretted that the Prime Minister was so willing to strike a blow at a Church which he said at Cardiff was effete and useless, and an alien Church which alienated everybody, and a missionary Church which converted nobody. This was very pointed, bu it was wanting in veracity. (Hear, hear.) He had heard talk of the Welsh nation. There were, no doubt, beautiful remains of the Welsh race in Glamorgan and Monmouth- shire, but now the Welsh were inextricably com- mingled with the people of Great Britain and Ireland. He heard some talk of Wales for the Welsh. If that principle were adopted the devastation of the Principality would soon ba brought about. It was the alien who developed her resources in coal, iron, and tin, and aliens made her seaports and connected them with her mines. (Hear, hear.) Aliens did not establish her Church. Glamorgan and Monmouth had her Christian Church before St. Augustine came to England. It was established without the aid of Rome, although it afterwards fell under the influence of Rome—(hear, hear)—and yet those who had only an existence of 150 years or so, dared to insult her antiquity. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Further criticising the Prime Minister's speech, he asked if the Prime Minister was aware that 1,488 clergymen were at work in the four dioceses lie would fam destroy. Did lie know that the dioceses of London and Llandaff were bracketed together as equal? Did ha know what an immense sum of money had been spent in the four dioceses in the building of churches ? Why, something like £40,000 had been spent upon the restoration of Llandaff Cathedral. It was true there was no Welsh service there, for the reason there WAS no Welsh congregation to be obtained there. No one could d-ny the great efforts the Church had made in the four dioceses. Would anyone say that the Church's work in education had been useless ? In the last 10 years the attendance in the Sunday-schools had increased 30 per cent. Was that nothing? He could easily produce more figures to show the vitality of the Church, but he had said sufficient to prove the ex- cellence of the work she had accomplished, and although it might be annoying to the Agnostic and the Atheist, it ought to be a matter of rejoic- ing to eveiy true Christian. The Church was supported by its own property, some of which was given to her from remote times and some in modern times, and it was curious reasoning to say that because in times past some of that property bad been taken from her it was right to take away the rest. The Church was doing a great spiritual work in Wales, and it was a work that should continue to be done. He ventured to hope that all who loved Christianity, laying aside all prejudices, would unite to prevent the great injury to Christianity which was threatened in the Bill which the HOIne Secretary had introduced. (Cheers.) MR LLOYD MORGAN. Mr IJLOYD MORGAN said whatever might be the ultimate result of the introduction of this Bill, everyone who was in favour of religious equality might congratulate himself upon the fact that many of the arguments put forward on Church Defence platforms would be once and for ever dispelled. They had now got to the Bill, and people would be able by that Bill to judge what ib was that they proposed in the cause of religious equality. When the Bill was introduced last Session a great meeting of the Church party was held at Swansea, and the belief was then expressed that when the Welsh people understood the Bill they would repudiate its measures. Since the introduction of the Bill last year the Welsh members had had an opportunity of fnllyexplaining it to their constituents, and the Welsh members in favour of religious equality would be willing to stand or fall by it. (Cheers.) By the Bill the Church retained her articles, doctrines, rit-CS, and ceremonies. They had been told that by this Bill the churches would be turned into theatres and music-halls, and the graveyards into play grounds. (Cries of dissent.) That bad been the contention at Church Defence meetings, but it was not true. It was said the clergy would suffer by it, as they had nothing but the tithe on which they could keep themselves. Under this Bill the vested interests of the Church were protected. There was not a beneficed clergyman who. if the Bill became law, would not receive for the rest of his life not only the compensation if he needed it, bub his stipend. The plan by which this Disendowment was (brought about was of so gradual a character that there was no sudden strain upon the Church. The honourable member whe had just sat down spoke of the blow which the Welsh people were aiming at Christianity. The hon. member said be had known a great deal of the Welsh people. Well, ho was bound to say. from listening to his speech, he was rather surprised to hear he knew anything about them at all. (Hear, hear.) If he did know them and under- stood their motives and political action, the hon. member could not have made a abatement more at; ^variance with the truth. The Welsh people were aiming no blow at Christianity in their efforts to obtain religions equality. The question was oue which appealed to their deepest convictions. They believed it contrary to the teachings of religion that there should be any connection whatever between the Church and State. The member for Bristol said very much the same thing, that the Welsh people were influenced by their hatred of the Church. He had fallen into the same error, and was confounding the Church with the Establishment. (Cheers.) The Welsh people were not opposed to the Church, and never had been. It was the purely political asnect of the question which appealed to them. tt was the connection between the Church and the State which they desired to see severed. It was their desire that the Church should flourish, and it was their belief that when the Church was freed from the trammels which now bound her, she would become a far greater influence than she had ever been before. (Ilear, hoar.) Reference had been made to the Church in Wales being a rising, living Church, and it was said that it was constantly increasing. He did I not admit that as a fact, but assuming that to be so, he would agaiu point out that this was a political, and not a religious, question. (Hear, hear.) But admitting that the Church had grown, would it not also be admitted that Nonconformity had grown. The hon. member for Bristol said a census ought to be taken. The only census this House could deal with was the census of the polling booths—(hear, hear— and that question had been settled. How had this political movement for the Disestablishment of the Church rown When the Bill was first introduced in 1870 seven Welsh members voted for it on a division. If a division was now taken, he ventured to say that 31 out of 33 Welsh mem- bers would vote for it. (Hear, hear.) One thing could be proved, and that was that if the Church was growing in Wales there was growing alongside a feeling that the Church ought to be free from the State and all political influences. Since 1870 many difficulties had heen got rId of First of all, that of separate legislation for Wales. There was no difficulty about it now, and a second great difficutly was got rid of by the passing of the Irish Church Act.. He (the speaker) desired to support this BliJ, and while he did not say that every detail fell in with his idea, speaking generally, lie thought the Bill an excellent one. If the Government had not in- troduced it, an act of injustice would have been done to the Welsh people who had waited long enough. It had been a burning question in Wales for a quarter of a century, and the more hon, members looked into the condition of Wales, the more they would find that the voluntary principle was one which would promote the best interests of Christianity not only here. but in other countries. Dr. RENTOUL, speaking as an outsider to the Church, declared his emphatic and fixed hostility Disestablishment in any shape or form. SIR GEORGE OSBORNE MORGAN. SIR GEO. OSBORNE MORGAN said the hon. and learned gentleman in the amusing and somewhat discursive speech he had made addressed a challenge to the Welsh members to get up and I say, if any of them could, that they would tell their Nonconformist friends that they supported Disestablishment because they wished to see the Church flourish. Dr. RENTOUL said what he said was that the Welsh members would not tell their Noncon- formist constituents that they were supporting Disestablishment in the interests of the Church or that it would get the better of Dissent. Sir G, O. MORGAN I have over and over again told my constituents so, and I am A Churchman and the son of a Welsh clergyman. (Welsh cheers.) He had said always that, disestablished, the Church would be infinitely more powerful for good. The hon. and learned member appeared to test the value of a Church by a peculiar estimate. He did not seem to take much account of the spiritual damages. (La.ughter) Especially was that the case when they had to deal with a Bill which was discussed two or three nights last Session. Without committing himself to all the details of the Bill he believed it to be a just and statesmanlike measure, and looked upon from the point of view of the Opposition he believed it was about the best Bill they would ever get. (Cheers.) He rose to respectfully and earnestly appeal to the opponents of the measure. Ho did not address himself to those who held that the Church of England ruled by a sort of r Divine right over aU the counties. Welsh and English, south of the Tweed, and that any attempt to interfere with its I privileges and endowments was the worst form of sacrilege. It was useless tQ. appeal to them, but surely there were gentlemen I on the other side of the House who took a more practical view of the situation, and he would ask them in no menacing or offensive spirit whether they really believed that by fighting this Bill line by line, clause by clause, as he was told they intended to do—(Opposition cheers)—they cou!d avert the doom which was hanging over the Established Church? (Opposition cries of Yes, yes.") If that was their opinion it was certainly net the opinion of the member for West Blr- mingham—(Ministerial cheers)—for he had said in the most emphatic way that Disestablishment in Wales must, come. (Renewed cheers.) Church- man who did not look at the question through sacerdotal spectacles knew that the weakness of the Church in Wales was one that ha.d been entirely ignored by speakers on the other side— that its weakness lay in this, that its main support came not from within but from without, that the citadel they held must be held not by native levies, but by foreign auxiliaries. (Ministerial cheers and ironical Opposition cheers.) The argument bsed on the question of a census was about the silliest that could be advanced, because the real issue was not the relative pro- portion of Churchmen and Nonconformists, but the relative proportion of Welshmen and Churchmen as well as Nonconformists who de- sired Disestablishment. Speaking from long experience of the feeling of Wales, he asked the gentlemen opposite not to be misled and bam- boozled by what they heard and saw going on in Wales. (Opposition cheers and Ministerial counter cheers.) If he might offer them a little piece of advice, it would ly. that of the old lady, who, at the end of a long life, said she had learned to believe nothing that she heard, and only half what she saw. (Laughter and cheers.) They saw money poured like water into the Church in Wales for every pu pose from England—not Wales—for every purpose, from the restoration of a. delapi- dated church and the parish magic-lantern to the payment of the election expenses of any Church candidate—(Opposition cries of dissent)—or, to use the term used in Wales, any Grosvenor House" candidate who was willing to put a constituency to the c st of a contested election. (Ministerial cheers.) If noble lords chose to bo so foolish as to throw money away upon such Quixotic enterprise, he did no know that they had any right to complain. At the same time he thought it was a little hard that comparatively poor men should be put to the expense of from £1,300 to £1.500 simply because a knot of enormously wealthy peers, in ostentatious defiance of the Standing Order which was read at the beginning of every Session, could throw away a thousand pounds as easily as others could throw But of this he was sure, that not all the gold tn the coffers of the Duke of Westminster or the Bank of England would turn the Established Church of England into the National Church of Wales. (Cheers.) It; was an alien church. (Opposition cries of No, no.") It was alien in constitution, in ritual, and in the spirit in which it regarded the great national movement now going on III Wales. The separation between the people of Wales and the Church of England waa growing wider and wider every day. becalse while the nation was growing more democratic, theChurch wa.grvwing-more oligarchi- cal. How could it be otherwise when they saw the attitude which the Church, and bpecl- ally the bishops, in Wales presented to that great national movement—the education movement now going on in Wales ? How could if; be otherwise when they saw the Welsh prelates and English peers combining together to maul and mutilate the educational claims which had received the unanimous support of the local authorities ? How could it be otherwise when they saw the Church Defence institutions flouchg and insulting in every way they could the spirit of Welsh nationality—(cheers)— and when members got; up and told them that they in Wales were not entitled to Disestablish- ment because in England they were not rIpe for it ? He did not ask members opposite to accept what he said, but would they not accept it when it came from the very flower and elite of the Welsh clergy themselves? Last year a great deal was said about a revolt in the Welsh Parliamentary party. Well, they did not look much like it now. This year the revolt was in the opposite camp, and ib was a revolt that would shake the Church 111 Wales to the very foundations. It was the little rift within the lute which, if it did not "make the music mute," would certainly make the lute produce some very discordant sounds. (Minis- terial cheers.) A manifesto was lately issued. It was not numerously signed but it was signed by men of the very highest intelligence in the Welsh Church. Iu it they said that their object in signing the manifesto was to put an end to the present intolerable situation, to the disastrous conflicts which were at present dis- turbing their national unity and impairing their spiritual life. How did they propose to do that ? By the Disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and by restoring to the Church of Wales her ancient national character. From that term of restoring her ancienb national character it was perfectly clear that she did not at present possess that national character, and that was the burden of nearly all the letters of Welsh clergymen that had appeared in the Welsh papers. They said, as plainly as he could say it), that the Church of England in Wales was an alien Church. He knew that by the aid of the peers and prelates, who knew as little, and perhaps less of Wales as they did of Uganda, the settlement of this question of Disestablishment might be delayed, but what would that avail? They might depend upon it that the longer the settlement was de layed the more complete would it be. Mr BOSCAWEN said this Bill was brought in for pureiy political reasons. (Opposition cheers.) It was a Bill most unjust and unfair ín its methods, and neither iu that House nor in the country would Churchmen offer a new com- promise whatever. (Hear, hear.) They would oppose this Bill liae by line and clause by clause, believing it to be a most unfair and unjust measure, brought in merely for the sake of purchasing votes for a tottering Government, a Government which must inevitably como to grief in a very short time. (Loud cheers.) MR ABEL THOMAS. Mr ABEL THOMAS said he should not have taken part in the debate bub for some of the I mis-statements made by the hon. and learned member who had just sat down, and who must I be considered as the member for the Church of England in Wales. They must take every one of the hon. member's faots with a very large amount of salt. (Laughter and cheers.) It was not true to take the number of people who voted against the present members for Wales as being opposed to Disestablishment and Disendowment. He (Mr Thomas) was opposed by a gentleman who was in favour of Disestablishment, and many of his friends around him had been opposed by Noncon- formists and men in favour of Disestablishment and Disendowment, and yet those were figures that the Bishop of St. Asaph, and the members of tho Church in Wales flouted before them as tho number of those who did not believe in Disestablishment and Disendowment. The Church of England people were six times as strong as they were 30 years ago. Of course they were, but then the Christian brethren were five hundred times as strong, because they had no existence 50 years ago. The Church or England existence 50 years ago. The Church of England woke up about 50 years ago, and had been fight- ing bravely since that time, but the Church was not, getting on faster than the Nonconformists. While three churches had been built in the Rhondua Valley, 30 chapels had been built. (Cheers.) Iu Cardiff and Swansea the Church J had grown because the towns had grown. Non- conformity, however, was increasing as rapidly. He regretted the latter end of the speech of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who said that the Non- conformists spoke cant on this question. There I, Was much bitterness in that speech. It was an attack on Nonconformists. Sir MICHAEL HICKS-PEACH I did not say I that. Mr ABEL THOMAS No, not exactly; but he talked cf the political cant uttered on this I subject by political opponents. Tho fact was I there were Churchmen who despised and hated Dissenters. He thanked heaven they were 1JO all alike. (Hear, hear.) Hub he thought it was too late in the 19th century for oue man to be looked down upon because be was a Di:31!¿;mter, and another to BE looked up to because he belonged to the Church. The thing. waS too ridiculous, (Cheers.) On the motion of Lord WOLMER, the debate was adjourned. The House adjourned at 10 minutes past 12 o' clock. "'J7't .&