§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS (Merionethshire)If the circumstances of a country were such that a Government could with propriety give religious instruction to a people, we have it on the authority of Lord Macaulay and Bishop Warburton that the religion that ought to be taught should, without doubt, be that of the majority, and on behalf of 880 the vast majority of Welsh people of the Principality I beg to move the resolution standing in my name. I maintain that no Church can justify its position as an Established Church unless it is the Church of the majority. As a Welshman, and as a representative of a Welsh constituency, I know perfectly well that the Established Church in Wales at the present time is not in any shape or form the national Church of the country. If we Welshmen had our way, this question of Disestablishment would be settled on a fair and equitable basis before many months were over. And it is, perhaps, because hitherto Welshmen have not insisted upon having their share in the attention of Government and Parliament, which they ought to have had, that this question has remained so long unsettled. I take it that no man with any fairness would desire that any church should be supported by an unwilling population, and I can conceive-no position more detrimental to any church or to any religion than that it should be dependent for its existence upon conditions of that sort, and I beg formally to move my Amendment.
§ MR. WILLIAM JONES (Carnarvonshire, Arfon)On national and religious-grounds, I beg to second this motion.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, as the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its professed object as a means of promoting the religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers to only a small minority of the population, its continuance as an Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly and an injustice which ought no longer to exist."—(Mr. Osmond Williams.)
§ MR. BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham)The hon. Gentleman who moved this motion stated that he was surprised that this question had received so little attention from Parliament during the last few years. I had the honour of sitting in the Parliament of 1892 when, I believe, we devoted something like three of four weeks to discussing this question, and now the hon. Gentleman opposite is apparently under the impression that three or four minutes will suffice—
§ It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
§ Adjourned at two minutes after Twelve of the clock.