Welsh Newspapers

Search 15 million Welsh newspaper articles

Hide Articles List

24 articles on this Page

---------------------NOTES…

News
Cite
Share

NOTES AND COMMENTS. IN THE last of the series of letters contri- buted by Dr Clifford to the Daily News on the subject of the Education Bill, he brought a serious charge against Lord Halifax and the English Church Union. Practically it amounted to this-that he and those mem- bers of the Church of England who worked with him had made deliberate attempts to subject their Church to the domination of the Pope and the Church of Rome. Lord Halifax and Mr Hill, the lay secretary of the English Church Union, repudiated the charge as absolutely untrue," and chal- lenged Dr Clifford to produce proofs of the accuracy of his statement. This the Doctor found r.9 "'ifficulty in doing, for he was able t o A." .from speeches delivered by Wich, if interpreted in the plain ,a.z:- neir words, could mean that and nothilig else. They were passages in which Lord Halifax expressed his earnest desire for the union of Christendom and the restoration of unity with the members of the Church abroad, East and West alike, but above all with the great Apostolic See of the West and asked whether there is a single instructed Christian who would not prefer Leo XIII. to the Privy Council," and welcome with his whole heart any advance on the part of Leo XIII. which might facili- tate the renewal of those relations between England and Rome which bound St Augus- tine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, to St Gregory the Great and the venerable traditions of the Roman Church." Lord Halifax may give what explanation he likes to these words of his, but plain Englishmen will interpret tham to mean that he would like to subject the English Church to the Papacy, and that is a thing they will not submit to. If a large section, as is alleged, of the Church of England agree with Lord Halifax, then Englishmen who value their freedom and prize their liberty are bound to resist a measure like the Education Bill, which will give opportunity and power to those clergymen to train the minds of the children of the country in these pernicious doctrines, IN THE absence of a reply from Lord Hali- fax to Dr Clifford s vindication, Mr Hill wrote a icLcr in which, finding himself unable to contradict or disprove the specific charges made against his patron, he sought to minimise their effect by abusing Dr Clifford and praising Lord Halifax. In this letter he spoke of the large-hearted tolerance" of Lord Halifax for such men as Dr Clifford." What impertinence Who is Lcrd Halifax that he should exercise tolerance towards Dr Clifford ? If Great Britain were polled it would be found that for one man or woman who knows and respects the former there are a thousand by whom the latter is loved and revered. Within the narrow bounds of the English Church Union Lord Halifax may be wor- shipped as a little Pope. But Dr Clifford's name and reputation as an eloquent advo- cate of political and religious liberty and justice, as a champion of the weak and op- pressed, as a fearless foe to tyranny and wrong, are known all over the Empire. BUT even if it were not so-if Lord Halifax were famous and Dr Clifford obscure-where is the ground for tolerance on the part of the one towards the other ? Dr Clifford is checked by no bonds such as the Establish- ment enables the State to impose on the Church of which Lord Halifax is a member. In his large freedom he can pity the President of the English Church Union' whose aspirations for union with Rome are baulked by the decrees of Parliament. From Lord Halifax and his followers he has nothing to ask andnothing to gain. His rights and his liberties were won for him more than a century ago by men who repudiated the tenets and resisted the pretensions of the Lord Halifaxes of their day. It is not, there- fore, tolerance or toleration that he asks that is already his legal and unchallengeable right. It is justice, or, rather, the preven- tion of flagrant Injustice, such as the passing of the Education Bill would inflict on him and c J ?r TsoncoiVormists. It is for thefull freedom, tlf-- "Smplete equality, which the bigotry and selfishness of the Church have checked and mutilated, that he is fighting so bravely and he claims and demands them, not "with bated breath and whispered humbleness as a concession or a boon, but as a right. Let all true Britons, all God's Englishmen," as Milton called the stalwarts of his day, rally to his side! We are a rich nation, a very rich nation, but it would be well if we paid some atten- tion to our present financial position as exhibited in the Parliamentary Return just published. From that we learn that our expenditure in the year 1901-2 was £ 179,675,830, our revenue Y,127,152,614 which shews that we spent X52,524,216 more than we raised by taxation. Again, the National Debt on March 31st, 1901, stood at Y,705,723,878, while on March 31st, 1902, it was Y,768,443,386 so our national in- debtedness has increased in the past year by £ 6,719,508. Of course, the South African war is responsible for the larger part of these increases, but not for the whole of them. There has been general extravagance during recent years, and whereas in Mr Gladstone's golden days it was the revenue, nowadays it is the expenditure that increases by leaps and bounds." Fortunately, the nation has been very prosperous, and has been able to bear the vastly-increased burdens imposed upon it with comparative ease. But lean years may follow the fat years, and it is a much more difficult task to retrench than to increase expenditure. With a falling trade and a shrinking yield from Customs and Excise, the credit of the nation will also diminish; but the debt will not grow smaller, and we shall have to raise more money by taxes and pay off less of the debt, or we shall have to borrow more to meet current expenses, and so increase the debt and the interest to be paid on it. It is a gloomy outlook, and it is not easy to see a way of escape. Certainly, there will be no improvement under Tory Governments, to whom extravagance is as natural as it is to the members of that aristocratic class from which those Governments are usually formed.

. SNAP SHOTS.

HAS BARRY BENEFITTED CARDIFF?

1ST BARRY COMPANY BOYs' BRIGADE.

Advertising

PRESENTATION AT CADOXTON.

------------.-GRIMSBY DEPUTATION…

NEW PATENTS.

Advertising

.jLOWN & DISTRICT --

Late Mr. J. Treharne, Cadoxton.

——— BARRY RAILWAYMEN.

Advertising

WITHIN X300 OF THE MARK.

Subscriptions Received.

Barry Nursing Association.

I------------I LATE RECTOR…

__------__-----FOOTBALL.

fcA>. K Y DOCK TIDE TABLE.

Death of Mrs J. Jenkins, Court…

THURSDAYS POLICE.

Barry Early Closing. --

--------.------_-__-- ------------BARRY…

SPIRITUALISM.