§ (1) As from the date of Disestablishment, Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales and Monmouthshire shall cease to exercise any jurisdiction, and the ecclesiastical law of the Church in Wales shall cease to exist as law.
§ (2) As from the same date the then existing ecclesiastical law and the then existing articles, doctrines, rites, rules, discipline, and ordinances of the Church of England shall, with and subject to such modification or alteration, if any, as after the passing of this Act may be duly made therein, according to the constitution and regulations for the time being of the Church in Wales, be binding on the members for the time being of the Church in Wales in the same manner as if they had mutually agreed to be so bound, and shall be capable of being enforced in the temporal Courts in relation to any property which by virtue of this Act is held on behalf of the said Church or any members thereof, in the same manner and to the same extent as if such property had been expressly assured upon trust to be held on behalf of persons who should be so bound:
§ Provided that no alteration in the articles, doctrines, rites, or, save so far as may be rendered necessary by the passing of this Act, in the formularies of the Church in Wales, shall be so far binding on any ecclesiastical person having any existing interest saved by this Act, as to deprive him of that interest, if he, within one month after the making of the alteration, signifies in writing to the representative body hereinafter mentioned his dissent therefrom.
§ (3) The said constitution and regulations of the Church in Wales may, notwithstanding anything in this Section, provide for the establishment for the Church in Wales of Ecclesiastical Courts, and, if the Archbishop of Canterbury consents, for appeals from any of the Courts so established being heard and determined by the provincial Court of the Archbishop, and the Archbishop may, with the approval of 2652 His Majesty in Council, give such consent, but no such Courts shall exercise any coercive jurisdiction and no appeal shall lie from any such Court to His Majesty in Council.
§ (4) The power of making by such constitution and regulations alterations and modifications in ecclesiastical law shall include the power of altering and modifying such law so far as is embodied in the Church Discipline Act, 1840, the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, the Clergy Discipline Act, 1892, or the Ecclesiastical Dilapidations Acts, 1871 and 1872, or any other Act of Parliament.
§ (5) As from the date of Disestablishment the bishops and clergy of the Church in Wales shall cease to be members of or be represented in the Houses of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, but nothing in this Act shall affect the powers of those Houses so far as they relate to matters outside Wales and Monmouthshire.
The CHAIRMANThe first Amendment that I propose to take is that standing in the names of the hon. Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) and the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Hoare), proposing to leave out the words "Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales and Monmouthshire shall cease to exercise any jurisdiction, and." The next, if it is not covered in the earlier Debate, will be that standing in the name of the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord Robert Cecil), to leave out the words "and persons."
§ Mr. HOAREI beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales and Monmouthshire shall cease to exercise any jurisdiction, and."
Before proceeding further I should like to ask your ruling on a point connected with this proposal. I have a further Amendment on the Paper proposing to leave out the words "and the Ecclesiastical Law of the Church in Wales shall cease to exist as law." As Ecclesiastical Courts and Ecclesiastical Law hang very closely together, should I be in order in dealing generally with the subject in moving the first Amendment?
The CHAIRMANIf the hon. Member had proposed to move at the same time the omission of the two sentences, it would have been equivalent to omitting the Sub-section, which would have been equivalent to negativing the Clause, as the Clause could not stand without the Sub-section. 2653 Therefore I could not have taken the Amendment in that form. It may be necessary for the hon. Member to refer to the distinction between the abolition of the jurisdiction and the abolition of the law, so that I shall not restrict him on that point; but, of course, it will not be open to the Committee to repeat the discussion subsequently on the later Amendment.
§ Mr. HOAREI will attempt to follow your ruling. My object in moving this first Amendment is to call attention to two or three points of very real importance. I wish, first, to draw attention to the vagueness of the proposal contained in the words which I propose to omit; secondly, to call attention to what apparently is likely to be an interference with the internal organisation of a religious body; and, thirdly, to point out that if my Amendment is not carried the Church between the date of the passage of this Bill and the constitution of its representative body will be plunged into a state of chaos. First, on the point of vagueness. Apparently Ecclesiastical Courts and persons are to be abolished. That seems to be in direct contradiction to a number of other proposals later in the Bill. Several succeeding Clauses presuppose the existence of the Courts and officials proposed to be abolished under this sentence. For instance, Clause 8 (2) explicitly says that the Church property which is to be transferred to the Welsh Commissioners is to be transferred subject to all existing public and private rights with respect thereto. That proviso immediately presupposes the existence of certain of the officials and of certain of the Courts which the Government propose to destroy by the Sub-section under discussion. Clause 22 deals with the condition of the Marriage Law after this Bill comes into operation. That Clause, most inadequate as it is, presupposes the existence of Chancellors, Registrars and other officials who are now concerned with issuing licences and with other such matters. Here, again, the present Sub-section proposes to destroy these officials whilst their existence is absolutely necessary if Clause 22 means anything at all. Those are two examples of the way in which this extremely vague proposal is in direct contradiction to other Clauses in the Bill. That, then, is my first point—the extreme vagueness of the Government proposal. If it means anything at all it seems to me to be in direct contradiction to subsequent proposals. Secondly, it seems to me that 2654 the Government are proposing to make a perfectly unwarrantable interference with the internal organisation of a religious body. How can it hurt anyone, whether these Courts continue to exist or whether they come to an end? Surely that is a matter which the Church as a voluntary religious body should be left perfectly free to settle for itself. It seems to me to be an unwarranted interference with the internal management of a religious body that you should say that certain Courts, which have existed for many centuries and the existence of which involves no non-member of the Church of England in any grievance, should cease to exist. Thirdly —and I think this is the most important point—if the Sub-section is carried in its present shape it will involve the Church in a state of anarchy and chaos. Hon. Members will see that this Sub-section refers directly to a period—a long period I believe—which will elapse between the passage of the Bill and the constitution of the representative Church body. So far as I understand the Sub-section it is one directly designed to deal with this interregnum. At the end of the interregnum it is contemplated that the Church, if it so wills, shall be able to re-establish its Ecclesiastical Courts upon a basis of voluntary contract. But the important point is that in the meanwhile, if this Section is passed in its present shape, there will be no means at all left for the internal government of the Church. A period of anarchy and chaos may therefore very well exist at a most critical moment in the re-established Church's existence. Apparently under Sub-section (2) it is contemplated that any difficulties which may arise in the internal government of the Church are to be settled in the Temporal Courts upon the basis of property actions. It is extremely difficult to understand what is meant by Subsection (2), but that, it seems to me, is the only meaning that can be imposed upon it. If that be so, details, it may be of little importance to outsiders, but none the less serious to the Church, will come under the cognisance of these Courts.
In addition to that, questions of great principle will, when you have abolished the present Ecclesiastical Court, be settled in the Temporal Courts as though they were property actions and dealing only with property. I think that will be a most unfortunate state of affairs. First of all you will have the Temporal Courts deciding upon this basis questions of administrative detail which they have never been called 2655 upon to decide before, and which I believe they are absolutely incompetent to decide. I need not elaborate that point at any great length, but let me give the Committee two or three examples. Hon. Members who are members of the Church of England must be aware that a great many details of administration are at present settled by faculties in the Bishops Courts. What is intended if by this Subsection you abolish those Courts? Do you expect that the Civil Courts are to decide questions of faculties; questions, for instance, which deal with the suitability of ornaments or monuments that it is proposed to place or erect in the Church I Take another group of cases, cases frequent in the past, but I am glad to say much less frequent now, that deal with disputed claims with reference to ceremonies and ritual. Do you intend that in this interregnum, when the Ecclesiastical Courts have been abolished under this Subsection, that the Temporal Courts shall decide these detailed questions of rites, ritual, and ceremonies? More important than that, when you have abolished these courts, in this interregnum with which I am dealing, you will have nobody except, perhaps, the Provincial Court of the Archbishop, which seems to be left in a state of vagueness and indefiniteness at the end of this Clause, to decide grave questions of doctrine and other matters of that kind. Do you mean by your Clause that here again questions of doctrine are to be decided as property actions in a Civil Court? If so, I think it is a most unfortunate state of affairs, and entirely out of harmony with the general trend of public opinion. Why is it necessary at all that the Government should make a proposal of this kind? As I said at the beginning, this is a matter of internal organisation and administration which should be left to the Church, if indeed you wish the Church itself to have a free hand.
These Courts exercise two sorts of jurisdiction. They have exercised coercive jurisdiction with the authority of the State. They have for many centuries exercised spiritual jurisdiction, the right for which they draw from sources with which these Houses of Parliament have nothing whatever to do. Why should you even object to coercive jurisdiction continuing, for I do not see how it affects non-members of the Church of England? But do you extend the abolition of these Courts—apparently you do under 2656 this Sub-section—to spiritual jurisdiction? I totally deny your claim to interfere in any detail whatever with the spiritual jurisdiction of a religious body. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I am very glad that hon. Members opposite agree with me when I make that proposition. If that be so, I cannot help thinking that they will be only too ready to support the Amendment which I now propose, which is designed directly to safeguard the independence of religious bodies. A proposal of this kind, it seems to me, shows what we have always said on this side of the House: that many hon. Members opposite have no wish whatever to leave the Disestablished Church any freedom whatever. They are anxious to make it as difficult as ever they can for the Disestablished Church to start its new organisation, and to adopt its new methods of administration. If that were not so, here is a case in which they would certainly leave the Church an absolutely free hand to do whatever it thinks best. I desire then in moving this Amendment to ask first of all, what the Government mean? Do they mean to abolish jurisdiction both spiritual and civil? Secondly, if they do, how can they harmonise that with their desire to leave the Church a free hand in constituting itself in the future? Again, I desire to ask the Government, if that be the case, how, if they desire to abolish these officials and these Courts in all their capacities, can they harmonise that with subsequent provisions in the Bill which directly presuppose the continued existence both of these persons and of these Courts.
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)The hon. Gentleman charges us with denying the Disestablished Church freedom. I hope I shall be quite clear: so far from denying freedom to the Disestablished Church, that Church will have greater freedom after Disestablishment than it has now. What do we propose? In the first Sub-section of Clause 3 we propose that "Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales and Monmouthshire shall cease to exercise any jurisdiction." The "Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales and Monmouthshire" have now coercive jurisdiction. The possession of coercive jurisdiction by the Ecclesiastical Courts is one of the essential marks or notes of Establishment. If the Church is to be Disestablished it is obviously vital that the coercive jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Court should cease. What do we propose later in 2657 the Clause? The coercive jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts being abolished, we propose that the freed English Church in Wales may, if it chooses—not necessarily, as seems to be thought, not compulsorily by order of the Home Secretary— re-establish the Ecclesiastical Courts with precisely the same body of law, practice, and custom as those Courts live under to-day. They need not do so if they do not want it. They may set up any other kind of jurisdiction that suits them best. But if they choose they may revive the whole jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, with this exception: that that jurisdiction will no longer be coercive, but consensual. The members of the Church will submit themselves voluntarily to the jurisdiction of these Courts, if they choose.
Like any other Free Church, the Church of England in Wales will become self-governing, and no longer be governed by Parliamentary law, whether it be coercive Ecclesiastical Law, or coercive Statute Law. That is what we propose. I submit that it is really a condition of greater freedom. When the English Church in Wales becomes a Free Church it is obviously like any other Church. It can or can not, as it pleases, set up Ecclesiastical Courts for its own government, Courts of consensual jurisdiction. Sub-section (3) purposes to give this power to the Church. It is not really in a way necessary in the Bill at all. We only in this Sub-section refer to this power—power in the Church like any other body has in itself—because we suggest that if the freed Church of England in Wales so designs it shall also hereafter have the power of appealing from the Ecclesiastical Courts to the Courts of the Archbishop of Canterbury. That appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury could not be given unless authority for appeal were given in this Clause. But you need not avail yourselves of that power. There is no coercion in the Church of Wales in the apeal to the Court of the Archbishop. You may have your own Courts, your own system, your own jurisdiction, always provided that the jurisdiction of the Courts is a consensual jurisdiction, and not a coercive jurisdiction. You will therefore have, when this Bill is passed, complete freedom for the English Church in Wales, such as you do not enjoy now. What is one of the disadvantages of the Church of England to-day? We have had exhibitions of it from time to time in this House, where we have seen Bills introduced for the better discipline of the Church of England.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILAnd always obstructed by Radicals.
§ Mr. McKENNAThe Noble Lord makes what possibly would be described as a comprehensive statement when he attributes their obstruction to Radicals. We have seen from time to time the difficulties under which the Church labours under the conditions of Parliamentary control in securing its own discipline and in enforcing its own rules. No such difficulty would hereafterwards exist in the Church of England in Wales. It will have the same power of enforcing discipline as every other Free Church has in Wales at this moment. The hon. Gentleman put to me various questions. He said, "Are the Civil Courts to settle detailed questions of right and ceremonial?" Certainly not.
§ Mr. HOAREI referred to the interregnum between the passage of this Bill and the constitution of the representative body during which the Ecclesiastical Courts under this Section will cease to exist.
§ Mr. McKENNANot until the date after Disestablishment, which must be six months, and perhaps a year; until then nothing happens at all, and the Church of England in Wales will go on under its existing government.
§ Mr. HOAREYes, but there might even then be a considerable period before the representative body is formed, and until that time, as I read this Clause, it is impossible for the Courts to be reconstituted.
§ Mr. McKENNAThere will be a time— we debated this question yesterday at length—but there will be ample time during six months or a year for the Church of England to set up its own form of government.
§ Mr. McKENNAI know, but the Committee decided yesterday, and we must accept that decision, at any rate for the moment, as final. In another place, and on other proposals, we will consider it, but so far as this House is concerned we have settled it During six months the Church of England will have ample time to set up its own government, and consequently there will be no chaotic interval such as is suggested. Then the hon. Member wants to know whether all questions of doctrine are to be decided, like questions of property, by civil action. 2659 Certainly not. All questions of doctrine will be decided by the Church itself, and any person who disputes the rule of the Church can be punished in accordance with the rules of the Church. The hon. Member took the case, of where a clergyman is ejected from his benefices, and the case of his expulsion from the pulpit. These will be all questions that can be enforced by the Ecclesiastical Courts. All the Civil Courts will have to do is to take cognisance of the Ecclesiastical Courts, or such body of Government. The Civil Courts will take cognisance of their findings, and will eject a minister from his benefices in accordance with the wish of the Church itself. I hope I have said enough to make it quite clear that the hon. Member's fears are groundless, and that consistently with Disestablishment the fullest freedom has been given to the Church.
§ Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTONThe first part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman dealt entirely with the question of coercion, which he called one of the notes of Establishment. He said that the Spiritual Courts can call upon the Civil Courts to enforce its decrees. We discussed that quite recently. I understand the right hon. Gentleman says he wishes to get rid of what he calls the note of Establishment by abolishing that necessary coercive power which falls upon the spiritual body of the Church. My hon. Friend pointed out with singular lucidity what the object of the Amendment is. The object of the Amendment is to ascertain from the Government the reason why they abolished Ecclesiastical Courts and persons altogether as from the date of Disestablishment. Might not all the right hon. Gentleman argued for be affected by the deletion of the word "coercive." What we protest against in the strongest way is the total abolition of all the machinery after the date of Disestablishment, whereby the administrative details of the Church can be effectuated and carried out. It is quite idle to say that these points as to what authority is to enforce these matters in the future can be disposed of in six months. I will not go back upon the arguments of yesterday, but it really must be clear to everybody who has considered the subject, that in the enormous weight of matters which will have to be discussed and decided, after Disestablishment is passed, that the question of the Courts and the means of effectuating Ecclesiastical administration must 2660 be one of grave difficulty and must take a long time to decide. This is what I would ask the right hon. Gentleman in all seriousness to consider. What in the world is the use of abolishing the existing machinery which is adequate for the purpose for which it is used, and which is liked by those who rise it, and preferred by them, and which in its existence carries with it, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the note of Establishment.
If you once abolish the significavit, and the necessary enforcement by the Civil power of the right of the Ecclesiastical Court, you get rid of the colour, almost of Establishment, which is inherent in the Ecclesiastical Court. Why not in the interregnum have that Ecclesiastical Court, which is satisfactory to all those under whose jurisdiction it works and which really exists for the purpose of the administration of the laws of the Church? You may have the note of establishment upon it, but why take away the existing machinery, which is the usual machinery, which is ready on the spot, and which is capable of administering the law of the Church? Take the instance to which my hon. Friend referred. Take some clergyman who has his own views about the alteration of the Church inside, or the chancel. If it was in this period of interregnum when the Courts were abolished, that clergymen could effect what he liked without there being any ability on the part of anyone to stop him. The present Civil Courts have no knowledge of these questions, and I do not believe could be effected with the knowledge of these questions and still less so on the question of rights and doctrine. I think a judge of the High Court would despair of settling such matters, at any rate on a consensual basis, which is the right hon. Gentleman's answer by which you would ultimately invoke the authority of a Court of Chancery, or common law, in order to enforce a contract between members of the Church. That is an exceedingly clumsy and difficult way of effectuating these acts of administration, and what I want to know is what earthly purpose is served in abolishing the Courts proper for the purposes for which they are set up, when you have freed them from coercive authority, which is the only connection between them, and Establishment. What you are really doing is, you are interfering with the internal rights of the administration of the Church. It is perfectly true that hereafter you give the Church an 2661 opportunity of putting into force what you call the consensual basis, from which you distinguish the present power for what you give in the future. But the right hon. Gentleman utterly fails to show that during the interval any object would be served by the abolition of the Ecclesiastical Courts except the embarrassment of the Church. I might use the words "and person" also.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILOn a point of Order, Mr. Whitley. May I ask if my right hon. Friend enters upon this question "and persons"—I do not myself mind at all—I only want to know whether that would prevent the subsequent Amendment being taken?
The CHAIRMANI said I proposed to call the subsequent Amendment, and I think it is quite the same point as that raised by "and persons."
§ Mr. LYTTELTONI am much obliged, and I shall not repeat what I said. All I urge upon the Government is the desire of the Church to be left with its existing machinery, so long as it is necessary to deprive it of coercive jurisdiction, and if you deprive it of that machinery it would be most difficult for the Church to assert its authority in the period of interregnum that must arise.
§ Sir DAVID BRYNMOR JONESI listened with great attention and I am bound to say with some sympathy to the remarks of the Mover of this Amendment. I think the general object he had in his mind in moving the Amendment was to raise the question whether the provisions contained in this Bill are such as to confer proper and adequate authority in the new state of things which will arise, when the Bill comes into operation, for the decision of various questions that must inevitably arise from time to time in the working of the new, or, at any rate, the altered Church in Wales. Undoubtedly discussions must arise from time to time with regard to rights for the alteration of cathedrals or churches, in regard to many matters of property, and possibly cases may arise in which clergymen may have to be dealt with for various reasons.
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that no one on this side of the House wishes to put any barrier in the way of the new Church—I call it the new Church for the sake of convenience—carrying on its work with the utmost freedom and with the greatest efficiency. I cannot, however, see that the Amendment, or rather the accep- 2662 tance of the Amendment, which has been moved by the hon. Member will in any way assist him. He is moving to leave out the words from "Disestablishment" down to the word "the," and supposing those words are omitted, the Sub-section will read as follows:—
"As from the date of Disestablishment Ecclesiastical Law of the Church in Wales shall cease to exist as law."
But the law relating to the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales is obviously part of the Ecclesiastical Law, and even if these words be accepted the effect of the Sub-section will be precisely the same as if they were left in. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am dealing now with the Amendment before the Committee, and I take it that what I have said must be admitted. The hon. Member has moved it, and we will have to deal with it, and he says that unless the words are omitted, and it may be other words omitted, that the Clause as it stands is vague. In the second place, he says it would involve interference, I suppose by outsiders, with the internal arrangements of what I call the new Free Church; and thirdly, that the result will be a period of anarchy and chaos. With regard to that, I respectfully point out to the hon. Member that there is not a single word, so far as I can see, in the whole of Clause 3 as to the interpretation of which any reasonable doubt can arise. Take the terms "Ecclesiastical Courts," "persons," "Wales," and "Monmouthshire," or take "jurisdiction." There is really no vague term about any one of them, but there is one of the words, the word "jurisdiction," which certainly has a double meaning. In common conversation we use the term "jurisdiction" as equivalent to a power of deciding almost any question. We hear of the jurisdiction of arbitrators, but, in fact, arbitrators do not exercise jurisdiction. Then there is another definition of jurisdiction given in old law dictionaries which practically lays down that it is an office that comes from the King's will, like all other dignities. Therefore, all that is proposed by this Clause is to get rid of the jurisdiction of these Courts in the true and strict sense of the term. I think if the hon. Member will read the whole Clause he will see that whether these words are left in or not he will find that the Ecclesiastical Courts are not abolished. He will find that under Sub-section (3) Ecclesiastical Courts may be established by the new representative body.
§ Mr. HOAREBut that deals with a subsequent period—that is the period after the reconstitution of the Church.
§ Sir D. BRYNMOR JONESYes, but if that is part of the new constitution, and if there is any interregnum, it will be the fault of the adherents of this new Church. Just see what as going to take place! I understand that the Home Secretary would have no objection to extending the period for the operation of the Act over twelve months, but what I say to the hon. Member is that during that twelve months it is quite possible for the adherents of the new Church to meet together to consider the matter contemplated by the Act, secure their charter, and secure that the new Ecclesiastical Courts shall be set up. If they are not set up it will be the fault of the adherents of this new Church. The whole thing is perfectly fair, and if there is that zeal and energy amongst the members of the Church in Wales, as I believe exists, there will be none of the difficulties which the hon. Member anticipates. The hon. Gentleman appears to think that there will be a state of anarchy, but I do not agree with him in that. I gather that the effect of this Bill, and I have examined all its Clauses carefully, will be that there will be practically no change as regards the Church, and the very moment this Bill is passed, things will go on as they have been going on before. I do not suppose that there is a single parish priest in the whole of the Welsh counties who, after the Act comes into force will not go on Sundays to his parish church and hold services in the way he has done hitherto. All the dignitaries and archdeacons will go on holding their Courts and performing their functions in precisely the same way as before. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are abolished.] But the Act does not operate for six months, and it may not operate for twelve months.
§ Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTONWhenever the Act operates they are abolished.
§ Sir D. BRYNMOR JONESBut in the meantime a new constitution will have arisen. I am not aware of any dissatisfaction in the constitution of the Ecclesiastical Courts in Wales as to their working, and I assume that what will take place is that the new Church will adopt the existing constitution of the spiritual Courts, and they will adhere to the existing rules which they have to administer. That being so, I really fail to perceive that there is the slightest ground for anticipating any state of chaos or anarchy whatever. I can 2664 only say, speaking for myself personally, that if any suggestions can be made which would facilitate the carrying on of the work of the Church we should be quite willing to consider them, but I am perfectly certain that this Amendment is not a step in that direction.
§ Sir ALFRED CRIPPSI am afraid I do not quite follow the last part of the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. If he really wishes to assist the Church in Wales, I would ask him to leave us alone, and leave us to carry the Church on in our own way.
§ Sir D. BRYNMOR JONESI expressly stated that I am willing to leave the Church to carry on its own business in its own way.
§ Sir A. CRIPPSI do not wish to go on arguing that point—
The CHAIRMANPerhaps it may save trouble in future if I say we must recollect that in regard to this Bill the Second Beading has been passed, and we are now considering the Clauses.
§ >12.0 P.M.
§ Sir A. CRIPPSOf course I assent to that proposition, and that is why I said I would not deal with what the hon. Gentleman opposite said. I am going to deal with a very technical and difficult legal point. I differ entirely from what the Home Secretary has laid down in regard to this Amendment. In the first place, he has drawn a contrast between coercive jurisdiction and consensual jurisdiction. What does he mean by that contrast. At the present time we have our Ecclesiastical Courts, which are due to statutory enactments, but which have come down from olden times, and have no date at all from the Reformation Statutes, and they have the power which they ought to have of dealing with matters within their cognisance affecting the Church and the Church alone. I understand hon. Members opposite will agree that as regards matters affecting the Church and the Church alone we ought to have our own Courts apart from coercive jurisdiction. If that is true, then why not leave the Courts which have exercised their powers in a way which everyone knows, under conditions which have been in operation for centuries, powers which are extremely important as regards Church fabrics, doctrine, and discipline. Why should they be interfered with? The Home Secretary wishes to take away their coercive jurisdiction, and all he has to do in regard to that is to destroy 2665 two writs. One is the writ of significavit by which you enforce what these Churches have decided, and the other is the old-fashioned writ which is called the writ de hœreticis comburendo. [Laughter.] I am glad to see that hon. Members on the other side recognise an old formula. Now let me take what the Home Secretary calls consensual jurisdiction. There is no such thing as the hon. Member for Swansea (Sir D. Brynmor Jones) has pointed out, as consensual jurisdiction. People enter into contractual relations with one another, and their rights are enforced in the Common Law Courts. But that is not consensul jurisdiction, but coercive jurisdiction. If the hon. Gentleman opposite enters into a consensual arrangement he has entered into a contract, and if he breaks this contract and is taken before the Courts he will find that the Courts have coercive jurisdiction of the strongest character in order to enforce him to carry out the duties he has undertaken. Therefore, this is really altogether a myth as between coercive jurisdiction and consensual jurisdiction. It really means this: ought you to have matters like discipline in the Church, ritual of the Church, and doctrine of the Church dealt with by the Ecclesiastical Courts with an appeal to the Privy Council, which is the existing condition? The Privy Council, as hon. Members know, for this purpose has special assessors who have a knowledge of these technical religious topics. Is that the best way of dealing with them, or is it better to go to an ordinary Common Law Court which has necessarily no knowledge whatever of these technical and difficult topics at all? If you have jurisdiction at all, you must have consent behind it, and a Court in which that jurisdiction is exercised; and you cannot have a worse Court to deal with questions of this kind than the ordinary Common Law Court, which knows nothing on earth about them, and has had no experience in dealing with them. Let me point the moral in order that the Home Secretary may appreciate what I say. I suppose he would say the Scotch Church to which we have referred was the case of a Church bound together in a common community by contract. That contract was enforced, and it went through all the Scotch Courts up to the House of Lords. There is no such thing known as consensual jurisdiction; you have always had coercive jurisdiction, and must have coercive jurisdiction if it is to be effective at all, and the question is: Are you to have it 2666 carried out as in the past with the least friction and by the most competent Court? Under these circumstances, I join issue with the right hon. Gentleman altogether. Quite apart from the question of the interregnum, I say it is a matter of substance and for all time. It is much better to leave the Courts as they are now, exercising a jurisdiction with which they are familiar, and dealing with subject matters with which they are familiar, the only difference being as to whether they are to have an ultimate appeal to the House of Lords or to the Privy Council. The Privy Council have technical assessors with knowledge of these topics, and anyone who is really cognisant of what is done in these cases will say it is infinitely the best Court for these purposes. Many Churchmen object to the Privy Council at all, but I take matters as they stand. You will simply be taking away jurisdiction from those who know how to exercise it, with the best Court of appellant jurisdiction, and be giving it to Courts who know nothing of the subject matter and introducing a Court of Appeal that is not by any means the best Court for dealing with matters of this sort. That is the first point on which I join issue with the Home Secretary. I think his whole notion is really very inaccurate as regards what the Courts do and how jurisdiction is exercised.
Let me deal with another point of substance, which I think is perhaps even more important The result of this Clause without the Amendment is that you would have one series of Courts and one Court of Appeal as regards Church of England matters in Wales, and another set of Courts and another ultimate Court of Appeal as regards Church of England matters in the other dioceses outside the present four Welsh dioceses and Monmouthshire. Is not that the essence of what we call dismemberment? It is the very essence of it. The Privy Council may come to one view as regards what is done in the dioceses in this country, and the House of Lords or some other tribunal may come to a different view as regards the same thing in Wales. Can you have a greater illustration of dismemberment than that which is now one body should be placed under two separate jurisdictions who in a matter of this kind can come to two determinations wholly inconsistent with one another? How can you carry the doctrine of dismemberment further than that I You can take the same thing in ritual. We know a considerable 2667 discussion has taken place as regards matters of ritual. Are we to have our United Church placed in this position; that what is illegal in England may be legalised by a different tribunal in Wales? You cannot have dismemberment more forcibly brought home to you than that, whereas you have one community as regards ritual matters you may have two divergent decisions, the Courts in one case giving a different determination from the determination of the Courts in the other. And so with regard to Church discipline. Everyone knows perfectly well religious matters of Church discipline are extremely important. The discipline of the clergy in the Church is an extremely important matter. There, again, what greater instance can you have of dismemberment of a Church than by having one test of discipline as regards the clergy in the Welsh dioceses and another test of discipline as regards the clergy in the dioceses which are in England.
Really, if I may, I would put it to the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary, they have looked at this as a matter to be governed by the Irish precedent. The Irish precedent, however, had nothing to do with by far the most intricate topic here. Supposing you were to Disestablish the whole Church in all the dioceses of England and Wales, these difficulties I am pointing out would not arise, because the new consensual jurisdiction would be applicable to the whole Church, and, it being applicable to the whole Church, you would still have one community under one government appealing to the same Courts in order that you might have consistency as regards doctrine, ritual, or discipline. That is what happened in the case of the Irish Church; but you cannot have that here, because you are dismembering the community. I appeal to the Home Secretary: How he can justify a Clause which dismembers what is now one Church on all the most vital matters which decide whether you have one body or two. I say he cannot answer that question. If you put that portion of the Church of England in Wales under a new jurisdiction which is not applicable to the other dioceses, you at once dismember fundamentally right through what is now one religious community, and for that there is no precedent; it is wholly opposed to everything as regards religious equality or religious feeling. It means that people who want to live together in one religious community 2668 are to be coerced so that they can be no longer in that position in the future. For one community you must have one system of Courts, and directly you have two systems of Courts you get a dismembered community. It is on that ground I support the Amendment, going even further than my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Hoare). I quite agree with him as to the difficulties with regard to the interregnum, but you will have greater difficulties still when it comes to an end, and, as a Churchman, I protest against this coercive dismemberment of the great religious community to which I belong.
Mr. CAWLEYListening to hon. Members opposite, one would conclude the only connection between these Courts and the State was the power to issue this writ of significavit, or the still more extraordinary writ de hœretieis comburendo. In the first place, these are legal Courts recognised by the law and Courts which no other religious denomination have. They are one of the badges and the privileges of Establishment. Quite apart, from this power of issuing this writ of significavit, and the coercive powers of the lay Courts, they are a distinct privilege of establishment. In the second place, the large part of the jurisdiction of these Courts is statutory by the law of the land. The Courts themselves are legal Courts, and the law they administer is, to a large extent, Statute Law of the land. We are asked to leave these Courts administering the English Statute Law passed by this Parliament, and to do that on the pretence that we are putting this Church on an equality with the other Churches in Wales. I submit it is absolutely impossible, if you are going to Disestablish the Church, to leave to the Church the main mark of its establishment, marking it out from the other denominations in Wales and an essential bond of the connection between that Church and this Parliament. If you are going to Disestablish the Church, you must sever that bond, and you must cease to have these Courts administering Statute Law of the land passed by Parliament.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREMy hon. Friends above the Gangway have only put the English aspect of the question, and I desire to look at it from the Welsh point of view. I am in considerable agreement with one or two points made by the hon. Member for Swansea District (Sir D. Brynmor Jones). It appears to me his contention is right, that after the passing of this Act, with this Clause as it stands, there would 2669 not be a single change in the Archdeacons' Court and the parishes would be drawn exactly the same, so that far from having any freedom or power to change or make any progress, the Church in Wales would be absolutely stereotyped, and we should still have to come under a system of legal control, though different in constitutional theory from what it is at present. You are in this Clause merely substituting one form of legal control for another. That seems to me perfectly clear. The hon. Member for Swansea District said the Ecclesiastical Courts are not abolished. That is perfectly true. If you were really going to free the Church you would abolish them, but you not only do not abolish them, you make them more binding. Does the Home Secretary really maintain that is going to give freedom to the Church? It is absolute nonsense to say this Clause is going to give freedom to the Church in any way. I think the Home Secretary will admit the great desire of the Welsh Church, laymen and clergy alike, is to remain in communion with the rest of the great Church of England. That is one of the things we are always putting forward and that, rightly or wrongly, is the point of view of the vast mass of Churchmen in Wales. We wish to remain part of that great community, just as I think Welsh Wesleyans wish to remain part of the great Wesleyan body, and to advance with them, if they advanced, or to go down with them, if they go down. It is obvious that if this Clause stands part of the Bill we shall be bound just as long and just as much as the rest of the Church of England is bound. That will be the practical effect. The only difference will be that by this Clause whereas the decisions of the Church of England in England are enforceable in one way, ours will be enforceable in another. Ecclesiastical Courts will exist, as the hon. Member for Swansea District said, and matters will be discussed in those Courts. What will happen under Sub-section (3)? There will be a dispute, let us say, between the bishop and one of the beneficed clergy in his diocese. That goes to the Archdeacons Court, the Bishops Court, and various other Courts, and the appeal goes up to the Archbishop of Canterbury. That is the ridiculous position we come to, that the appeal goes from the Disestablished Church in Wales, which is separated by this Bill from the Province of Canterbury, to the Archbishop, if the Synod likes, or the representative body likes, or the plaintiff likes, or the defendant likes.
§ Mr. McKENNAIt is the representative body of the Church, in accordance with their constitution.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI will come to that point, which opens the field of controversy I want to come to, in a minute. Let us assume that we do avail ourselves of Sub-section (3). This appeal goes up to the archbishop, and the archbishop gives a decision against the archdeacon and in favour of the bishop. He cannot turn him out of his benefice; he cannot do anything. It simply ends in a cul de sac. You expressly say that the appeal can be carried up to the Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who may give a decision which is not binding on anybody. It is perfectly unthinkable that it is not binding upon anybody, because if it involves a matter of property it is to be a matter for the Temporal Courts under Sub-section (2). The whole legal constitution set up by this Clause is one which, when I first read it, I could not make head or tale of; but having studied it, I say it is designed for one purpose only, that is to sterotype and make binding in future the existing Ecclesiastical Courts and Law in practice and in theory upon the Disestablished Church in Wales, although the Disestablished Church in Wales is to have no representative in Convocation to influence the trend of change which may take place in the Church of England itself. I particularly want to come to the point raised by the Home Secretary just now—the question of the representative body. That is to be the body which is to decide on all these points of Ecclesiastical Courts and Ecclesiastical Law. It is to be a body which is to be sovereign within the Disestablished Church of Wales. How are you going to get at that body? I regard this as a most important point in connection with the Disestablishment aspect of this Bill. I must again refresh the Home Secretary's memory with his promise and undertaking given in answers to questions I put to him on the 13th May. He said:—
The representative body will be incorporated by charter. The condition precedent to such incorporation is that His Majesty must lie satisfied that the body has been elected to represent the bishops, clergy, and laity of the Church. The constitution drawn up by the Synod will decide who is or is not a member of the Church in Wales. Following the precedent of the Irish Act, the composition of the first Synod is not determined by the Bill, but if it is desired to insert specific provisions, I shall be glad todoso."—[OFFICIAL-REPORT, 13th May, 1912, col. 774, Vol. XXXVIII.]
The CHAIRMANThat is on Subsection (3), and there are Amendments on the Paper dealing with that. We cannot deal with that at the present moment.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI bow to your ruling, Sir. I really wish before we get to Sub-section (3), or go on with the further discussion of this Clause, to get what is the exact proposal of the Government. We must know what is to be the constitution proposed for the Church. Yesterday we had a typical instance. We were talking about members of the Church in Wales, and an hon. Member on the other side said, "We are all members." If the hon. Member for Swansea District (Sir D. Brynmor Jones) and the hon. Member for Swansea Town (Sir A. Mond) are to be members of the representative body—
The CHAIRMANThere is an Amendment a little lower down which I propose to select—I think it appears in the hon. Member's name—dealing with that very point, and I am anxious we should get to it.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREThen I will reserve my remarks on that point for that Amendment, Let me conclude by saying that having listened carefully to the legal arguments on both sides in regard to this Amendment, it seems to me that so far from freeing the Disestablished Church in Wales, you are imposing upon the Disestablished Church in Wales Courts and a system of law which will be absolutely binding upon it, but which will give no real freedom at all to that Church.
§ Mr. ELLIS DAVIESI have listened to the speech of the hon. Member with some interest, but I am rather at a loss to reconcile his speech with some other speeches that have been delivered. He said more than once that he objected to stereotyping the Church in Wales. We, on this side of the Committee, particularly those who represent Welsh constituencies, are anxious to ascertain what will be the attitude of laymen in the Welsh Church towards the new constitution given by the Bill. I understand that the present Amendment is one upon which that cannot be stated, and I shall await with considerable interest a further speech from the hon. Member. I understood the object of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment was not to discuss the question of dismemberment, but to ascertain the position of the Church in the interregnum between the day of Disestablishment and the day when the new regulations of the Welsh Church will come into force. I understand that under Clause 2 the laws and regulations as affecting Courts have already been decided. 2672 All that this Clause does is to do away with the Courts themselves. In other words, the third Clause is only the corollary of what has already taken place under Clause 2. May I point out that whatever powers are being taken away from the Church may be re-established in Wales. In the meantime—this seems to be a point rather overlooked by the hon. Member who spoke last—by Sub-section (2) of Clause 3 until the new regulations are in force it is provided that—
"As from the same date the then existing Ecclesiastical Law and the then existing articles, doctrines, rites, rules, discipline, and ordinances of the Church of England shall, with and subject to such modification and alteration, if any, as after the passing of this Act may be duly made therein …. be binding on the members for the time being of the Church in Wales."
The hon. Member talked about dilapidations committed by clergymen. I agree there may be some difficulty as to how that law, which clearly must be enforced during the interregnum period, is going to be enforced, but I suggest that if it is part of the law of the land that clergymen shall not commit dilapidations, surely there must be a Common Law remedy, either at the instigation of the parishioners or possibly of the bishop, to prevent those dilapidations in future, I understand that the Clause follows the precedent set up by the Irish Church Act, and, so far as I am aware, no difficulties were experienced in enforcing the law during the interregnum in that case.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI desire to make a few observations about this Clause, because it is one of the Clauses which I must say I have found the greatest possible difficulty in understanding. I have read it several times, and I am not at all clear in my own mind that I know even now exactly what it means. I do not understand the drafting of the Clause at all. The two Clauses which deal with the re-establishment of the Church in Wales are Clauses 3 and 13. I cannot imagine why they are separated in that way, or why they should not be put together. I cannot imagine why the precedent of the Irish Church, of which we are constantly being reminded, is not followed. There you had a whole group of Clauses put together in their logical order, namely, the provisions for the re-establishment of the legislative body first, and then dealing 2673 with the law which the legislative body might deal with. The matter is intelligible in the Irish Church Act, but I must say that in the case of the present Bill I have experienced the greatest difficulty in ascertaining exactly what is meant. If I am right, the effect of the Clause is to provide that as from the day of Disestablishment all the law, as such, is to be abolished, but there is substituted for it temporarily, and by this House of Parliament imposing upon the Church in Wales their own conception of what is right to give the Church, all the laws that existed in Wales as though all the members for the time being of the Church in Wales had mutually agreed to be bound.
§ Mr. McKENNAWill the Noble Lord read from three lines before that, line 16, which says:
"Subject to such modification or alteration."
§ Lord ROBERT CECILThe right hon. Gentleman really does not follow his own Bill. That subject deals with the possible alteration of the law to be made by the representative body later. That is an entirely different matter, and has nothing to do with what I was trying to lay before the Committee as the true effect of the Clause. The effect of the Clause is to fasten on the Church in Wales this body of law, right or wrong, which now exists, subject, no doubt, to the power of alteration by the representative body. Among other things it abolishes the existing Courts altogether. They are not re-established later.
§ Mr. McKENNAindicated dissent.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI do not know what is the matter with the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think he is giving me his attention. It is quite clear that the Courts are abolished. They are abolished in so many words by Sub-section (1). It is equally clear that the representative body is given power, which is quite unnecessary according to the right hon. Gentleman, and I rather agree with him, to re-establish these or any others. But they are to be abolished. That is the point, and the question of the interregnum becomes very important. Until you have your representative body in working order it is quite plain you will have no Courts at all to enforce this law, which is made binding— as if it were a matter of contract—on Churchmen in Wales. What will be the effect of that? This Bill, it is said, is going 2674 to give greater freedom. I venture to assert that it is going to do nothing of the sort, for during that period, if any member of the Church in Wales desires to enforce his rights, he has to go to the Civil Courts. He will say, "Here is a clergyman who is wearing a particular kind of vestment of which I disapprove, and the wearing of which is forbidden by the ancient laws of the Church." The member of the Church will have to prove that proposition before the Civil Courts of this country. The point is this, if it is not greater freedom you are substituting for the Ecclesiastical Court the Civil Court, then, instead of freeing the Church from the State, you are putting it more completely under the heel of the State by this provision. That is really the effect of your proposal. It is not a merely theoretical view.
There are some hon. Members opposite who have given considerable study to this question and who will be familiar with the litigation that arose some years ago in connection with Bishop Colenso, of Natal. You were there dealing with a Disestablished Church. What was the question which came up to the Privy Council? It came up nominally as a matter of property. It came up in this way. The bishop claimed a right to go into a Church, he claimed a right of property, and the question was whether he was properly forbidden by his ecclesiastical superiors from going into the Church, and whether, indeed, he had any ecclesiastical superiors. Both questions were raised, and the discussion before the Privy Council turned on an important doctrine of the Christian Church. These were matters which were discussed and determined by a Law Court. It is the merest folly and absurdity to suppose that in any civilised country you can get rid of the ultimate appeal to the Law Courts. To the ultimate control of the State you must come, and everybody knows that, whether it be the Nonconformist Church or the Established Church which is concerned. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Silvester Home) made a very able speech last night, the only decent defence that has yet been given on the Bill, and it was one which really carried conviction to-my mind and to the minds of other hon. Members that the hon. Member who was speaking was sincere, however profoundly mistaken we may have thought him to be. The hon. Member said it was important, speaking from the point of view of a candid friend of the Church of England— it was important for the influence of the Church of England to free it 2675 entirely from the control and shackles of the State. But that is an ideal which never can be realised unless you get rid of coercive jurisdiction, and, in this world of sorrow, I venture to say you will never be able to get rid of it. I wish we could have had an opportunity of further discussion arising out of that speech, which raised very interesting questions that might have been thoroughly debated if this were a free assembly. But I know it would not be in order for me to enlarge on the matters raised by it.
During the period of the interregnum you are not going to free the Church, you are going to put her still more completely under the heel and jurisdiction of the State, and you are going to do that not by the consent of the ecclesiastical body itself, but by the authoritative interference of this lay body—the House of Commons. And having done that, I am not at all sure you are going to do it effectively. You are going to say that all these matters are to be decided by the Civil Courts and not by the Ecclesiastical Courts; that is what you are really doing by this Sub-section. But are you quite sure that the Civil Courts will have any means of carrying out your wishes even if that is really your desire? Take any case you like. Take the case of a curate whose licence has been revoked by his bishop. This is a part of our discipline, a necessary discipline in order to secure that only those who are worthy ministers of religion shall officiate in the Church. Suppose this curate's licence is revoked, and he elects to go on discharging his duty in spite of the revocation. I am not clear a licence could be revoked under this Section. But assuming that it can, and assuming that the curate is determined to go on performing his duties, what is to be your course? He is to be deemed to have made a contract—I do not know with whom, but at any rate with somebody. In this Clause it will be assumed that he has made a contract with the bishop, that he will submit to have his licence revoked. You go to the Court of Chancery; you ask, I suppose, for an injunction to compel him to submit. He pleads that by the ancient Ecclesiastical Laws of the realm he is not bound to submit, or that the charge against him is false. I do not feel at all sure that you have succeeded, by the words you have put in, in giving the Court power to determine any of these questions. At any rate, it will be an extremely doubtful matter, and it will involve, obviously, the 2676 determination of the construction of Ecclesiastical Laws. It wall be conferring, by a side wind on the Courts, a jurisdiction which they do not now possess, and I have the gravest doubt whether your system will not result in complete anarchy during the period of the interregnum.
We are told when we make that criticism that this can only arise if there is delay, and that that delay will be the fault of the Church. I think that that is a kind of phrase which throws a rather lurid light on the suggestion constantly made that there is no atmosphere of hostility in the conduct of hon. Members opposite. What does the hon. Member for the Swansea District really mean? Does he suppose that if there is a section of the Church, a comparatively small section, which choses to be obstructive, does he suppose that in six months there could, by any possibility whatever, be an opportunity of bringing a representative body into thorough working order. If the hon. Member were a member of the Church of England, I have no doubt he would meet the difficulty, as best he could, quite fairly. I understand there is a good deal of force in the contention that everyone who has not deliberately separated from the Church of England must be treated as a member of that Church. I think it is probably true, that everyone who has not formerly declared himself to be separated from the Church is a member of it, and there must be thousands of men in Wales who, while they are bitterly opposed to the Church, yet are technically members of it. What security have we that they will not use this power—
The CHAIRMANI think I must ask the Noble Lord to confine himself to this particular Amendment. He seems to be going rather too much into Sub-section (2) of the Clause. I see how necessary it is to refer to it in the argument, but he is going rather too much into detail.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILOf course I am not disputing your ruling, but I am sure you will see how difficult it is to deal with what is to happen in the interregnum unless one can point out what is going to be done by Sub-section (2) of this Clause. I was replying for the moment to the arguments of the hon. Member opposite that the delay would entirely and necessarily be due to members of the Church, and that the lengthening of the interregnum would also be necessarily due to the conduct of members of that Church. It is quite plain that that is a very misleading 2677 way of dealing with the matter. I wish to make this further point: We are told that this is an Irish question; I have pointed out to the Committee that the Irish precedent has been departed from to a very large extent. But that is not the only thing. You have in this case an entirely different position to that of the Irish Church. I quite agree that under the ruling of the Chairman I must not deal with this by more than a phrase. But it is quite plain you have two great distinctions between Ireland and Wales. In Ireland there was no question of dismemberment; and, secondly, in the case of the Irish population there was practically no danger whatever of any confusion as to who was a member of the Church of Ireland. That is a very important distinction. I quite agree it would be improper for me to go into that, even although I recognise the great difficulties we are under at present, and that we may never be able to discuss it. I shall not, however, attempt to go behind the ruling of the Chair; I will merely point out that the distinction is a vital one and is of the utmost possible importance. When you come to such a phrase as "a member of the Church in Wales" I really do not pretend to have the slightest conception of what legal effect such a phrase can possibly have. I do not believe it has any legal effect, and I do not think anyone can possibly lay down any definition of what is meant by it. I am sorry to have occupied this Committee so long, but this is a very complicated matter, and unless it is understood there is not the slightest chance of the Committee coming to a right conclusion. I say very deliberately this Amendment would have this great advantage, that it would leave the machinery of the Church untouched to enforce even your consensual laws. Assume the fact that your Sub-section is to establish a consensual law. By your action now you are sweeping away the only Court which could enforce that consensual law, and you are driving the Church into the ordinary Civil Courts of the realm to discuss and enforce spiritual and doctrinal matters. It cannot be necessary for you to do it. There is no reason for it except the one reason given by the hon. Member (Mr. Cawley), who gave the true reason, no doubt, that the object of it was to destroy one of the privileges of the Church. That is the object I agree. But what light does that throw on the perpetual claim that that Bill is not devised in any spirit 2678 of hostility to the Church? That is the truth. The hon. Member (Mr. Silvester Home) I have no doubt is perfectly sincere when he tells us that he believes in his own mind that he is actuated by no hostility to the Church. I accept, as I have no doubt he would accept from me, any statement of his own personal position, but we must really be excused on this side of the House if we regard him as an almost unique exception. We are bound to look at the whole facts of the case. We must apply the old legal maxim that men are to be taken to intend the natural consequences of their acts. No one can dispute that this particular provision is really designed not to remedy any grievance of the Nonconformists, and not to raise the position of Nonconformity in any way. We hare no desire to depress Nonconformists. That is not our object. We say if you wish to level the two Churches do it by levelling up and not by levelling down. If, on the other hand, you do not wish—and we do not wish to enforce it upon you—for this ancient historic means of enforcing the discipline and doctrines of the Church of England to be applied to your Churches, we leave you gladly to judge for yourselves. Reciprocate our action. Leave us to judge for ourselves what is good for our Church, and if you say that that is not your object, but that your object in destroying the Church is to destroy what the hon. Member called the line of demarcation between one kind of religious ministers and another, then I say that your object, however you may conceal it from yourselves, is really to attack the Church and nothing else. I should like to reply to a great many points that the hon. Member made, but it would be out of order. I must honestly say, having given all he said the most candid consideration of which I am capable, I am absolutely unable to accept his view that most of those who are moving in this matter are not actuated by hostility to the Church. It seems to me too much to ask us to believe. We have to look not only at this incident, but at many others which have preceded it.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILI will only say that in my judgment this Amendment, for the reasons which I have endeavoured to give, does some small measure of justice 2679 to the Church, and it is upon these grounds only that I appeal to the Committee to accept it.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSThe Noble Lord said it is impossible in any civilised State for any Church to be free from all control by the State. No one, however high his views of Church government may be, will to-day contend that any Church should be free from all control, and therefore when we say on this side of the House that we mean, and honestly mean, to give as much freedom to the Church in Wales after Disestablishment as the Free Churches, as they are called, possess now, we do not mean that the Church, any more than the Free Churches, will be exempt from the jurisdiction of the Courts, but we want to give the Church in Wales the same liberty to ordain its own discipline and to carry on its own government as the Free Churches have to-day. As far as I can see, there will be no interregnum at all. The Noble Lord spoke constantly of an interregnum, and several other speakers on that side have said the same thing. As far as I can see, there need necessarily be no interregnum at all. Take, for instance, what constantly happens to-day. A clergyman in a certain parish wishes to restore the Parish Church; he applies for a faculty to the Ecclesiastical Court. The hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps) seems to imagine that everything is for the best at present, and that there is no dissatisfaction about the way in which these faculties are obtained. That is not the information that I have. I have been sitting lately on the Joint Committee of the two Houses to consider the question of the preservation of ancient monuments and one of the things that came before us and was pressed upon our attention in that Joint Committee by every hon. Member opposite who sat on that Committee was that the present system of granting faculties was a very unsatisfactory one, and not only that, but a noble prelate who sat on the Committee said that even if a clergyman to-day restored or attempted to restore his Church without any faculty at all, there would be no possibility for the bishop to exercise any jurisdiction over him at all. He was asked how he punished, if such a term may be used, a clergyman who altered his Church without a faculty, and he said, the only means he had of visiting condign punishment upon that recalcitrant clergy- 2680 man was by refusing to go to the opening of the Church.
§ Mr. DUKESurely the hon. Member does not mean to suggest that the bishop has no power to deal with such an elementary matter in Church Law as proceeding by irregular means to alter a Church.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSThat is the answer which the Bishop of Bristol gave. I dispute therefore entirely what has been said by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps) that things are almost in a perfect state as far as these Ecclesiastical Courts are concerned. I know that Church people themselves are very dissatisfied with the position of the Ecclesiastical Courts. What the Bill says is that, not after the Bill has become law, but six months after that, the Ecclesiastical Courts shall not have any jurisdiction. During that time the bishops, clergy, and laity of the Church can meet together in Synod and form a new constitution. It has been suggested that my right hon. Friend (Sir D. B. Jones) might consider himself a member of the Church and attend the Synod. Such a proceeding is not, in my opinion, possible. But with regard to that, any form of words which hon. Gentlemen opposite would like to suggest to safeguard the interests of bonâ fide members of the Church of England in Wales, we on this, side will be only too glad to accept. What will happen then? After the Synod has met, a new constitution will be set up. They can set up any constitution they please. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps) suggested that there would be two jurisdictions set up, one in Wales and one in England, and to that extent he said it was dismemberment which was proposed by the Bill. I agree that may be so, but I have yet to learn that Churchmen in England would object to Having the Archbishop of Canterbury made an Appellate Court instead of the Privy Council. I always understood that the Privy Council was a very unpopular Court of Appeal, and that earnest men in the Church objected very much to have a lay tribunal, like the Privy Council, to look after the discipline and the ordinance of the Church. It may be that under Sub-section (3), if the Archbishop of Canterbury consents and the Welsh Synod is willing, questions of discipline, and I suppose of doctrine, can be sent on appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury. At all events there is some appeal possible under 2681 the Bill, and therefore to that extent the real religious interests of the newly constituted Church will be safeguarded in Wales.
With regard to the Amendment itself, I do not see that even if we accepted it there will be any real difference. I disagree entirely with the hon. Member (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) that the Welsh Church will be handed over bound hand and foot. My view for what it is worth, and it is a sincere view, is that the bonâ fide members of the Church in Wales will have liberty and freedom to reconstitute their Church in their own way. If they dislike the present Ecclesiastical Courts, for instance, if they can think of a better system whereby the discipline of the Church can be maintained or the restoration of Churches or any other things of that sort can be carried out they will have freedom to do so. They would have in their new emancipated Church the power to reconstitute these Ecclesiastical Courts, but if they do not want to reconstitute them they will cease to exist.
§ 1.0 P.M.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURThe hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) stated in a very kindly spirit, so far as the form of his speech was concerned, what the Government proposal is in regard to the future position of the Welsh Church, and he said, "If you do not like the proposal, you can suggest another for consideration." What the Church wants he will not give. The one form of Courts the Church desires to maintain he takes away from it—[An HON. MEMBER: "How?"] —not, I understand, on the ground urged by other hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway that they desire to give greater liberty to the Church. On the contrary, as I gathered from the earlier part of his speech, he wants to see more coercive jurisdiction than that which now exists. He thinks the existing law is quite inadequate to carry out the purpose. He thinks that the incumbent of a living has far too great licence and power under the existing law, and he desires more coercive jurisdiction. He therefore is not one of those who think that the existing legal shackles on members of the Church of England are too severe. He wants to make the law more severe and more effective than it is now. I think, at all events, that is a matter on which the Church in Wales might be allowed to deal with its own affairs. [Cheers.] Therefore, if I interpret those cheers aright, as I think I 2682 do, he ought to allow the Church in Wales to retain the Courts under which it now works. If what hon. Gentlemen think is that the Church ought to be under the Courts they desire, why do they not allow it the Courts they desire? [An HON. MEMBER: "We do."] I beg your pardon. It is quite true that the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) said it would be in its power when Disestablished for the Church in Wales to arrange its constitution. It would be in its power, as I understand it, to send up an appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Is that the liberty of which the hon. Member speaks?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe existing Ecclesiastical Courts can be set up again, as the right hon. Gentleman will see if he will look at paragraph 3 of the Clause.
§ Mr. BALFOURThen I should like to know what meaning any of the speeches has. After an interval of five minutes we are placed in exactly the same position as we were before, the Church assuming all the badges of superiority which, if I rightly understood the hon. Gentleman opposite who spoke a short time ago, is what he wants to get rid of, and getting again that position of superiority, as he thinks, and exceptional treatment, as he thinks, it has now. Then I fail to understand what the object of this part of the Bill is at all. Why cannot you leave this thing alone? If you restore absolutely and immediately the position of the Church in Wales—if, in other words, the Church in Wales can immediately re-establish itself after you have Disestablished it with the same legal apparatus in every respect—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, I fail to understand the interruption of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. McKENNAI never said that.
§ Mr. BALFOURThat is precisely what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He knows perfectly well the Church cannot do that. When he says it can restore the present ecclesiastical jurisdiction, I say it cannot restore the present ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In truth, the interruption of the right hon. Gentleman shows precisely the horns of the dilemma, on which he and his Friends are. If you really are going to give liberty to this Church to have the Courts of Law it likes, then, so far as the Courts of Law are concerned, this Clause is wholly unnecessary. But that is not what you want. You do not want to give 2683 the Church full liberty, and to have all the privileges you say you are giving it. You want to prevent it having the Courts under which it now works. You do not want it, in other words, to have spiritual Courts to deal with spiritual affairs. On what possible principle of religious liberty, on what principle of high ecclesiastical policy—whatever your point of view is, whether you are Nonconformists or members of the Church of England, or Presbyterians, or whatever it may be—do you make this proposal? I am utterly unable to understand this peculiar Erastianism of the right hon. Gentleman. It was pointed out, and I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman has really given any answer to it, by my hon. and learned Friend (Sir A. Cripps) that by the course you are adopting you are compelling what is a single Church at the present moment to divide into two for legal purposes, and to have a different set of Courts dealing with each half, with the result that, whether the two halves like it or not, they may find different decisions given upon the same subject. I say that is an atrocity you would not commit in regard to any other ecclesiastical body in the kingdom. If you were to take the Wesleyan body, or the Congregational body, or any other great Nonconformist body, and say, "You shall be divided into two for purposes in which you come into connection with the Courts of the land, and one of you shall go through one set of Courts to one final Court of Appeal, and another shall go through a different set of Courts to a second final Court of Appeal," would not that be regarded as a monstrous interference with these gentlemen in the name of liberty? They get up and impose this perfectly gratuitous hardship upon a Church to which they do not happen to belong.
Who is going to gain by it? Is there a single Nonconformist who will feel that his status, or the status of the religious body to which he belongs, is raised by a hair's breadth? Is there a single member of a Nonconformist body who thinks that the spiritual interests of his communion, or of any other communion, is in the slightest degree improved? Not one, and nobody has suggested from the benches opposite a single point, topic, or case in which anybody outside of the Church you are dealing with will be benefited by the injury you propose to inflict on the Church you are dealing with. Why inflict it, and if you do inflict it, why adorn your crime by all 2684 these fine phrases which really have no meaning and no relevance to the matter at all? I must honestly say that I agree entirely with what fell from my Noble Friend in this connection. Here is a crucial case in which you are inflicting plain and manifest injury upon the organisation of the Church with which you are dealing: here is a case in which that injury carries with it no shadow or tittle of corresponding advantage to any Church. That being so, that injury can have only one object, namely, to inflict injury. It is not an unhappy and incidental consequence of a necessary policy; it is not one of those cases in which some hardship must be done in this direction in order that greater good may be done in another direction. It stands by itself, and while it injures those against whom it is directed, no other human being, no other institution, gains the smallest fragment of advantage.
§ The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Hobhouse)The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) and the Noble Lord who preceded him in the course of the Debate I think entirely misunderstand the position which we on this side of the House take up. The whole of the argument to-day which has proceeded from this bench has been conditioned by the one fact that Disestablishment is at the present moment the accepted principle of the Bill before the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London told us that we used very amiable phraseology, but that when we come to the facts there is no trace of that amiability. That may be true if the right hon. Gentleman ignores the principle upon which our concessions to him in this Bill must be founded.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILWhat concessions?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEPardon me. All our concessions, whatever they be, to the other side must be founded and conditioned on the fact that Disestablishment is precedent to them. The argument which has come from the other side of the House has been founded upon the hope or belief, the wish certainly, that Disestablishment ought to disappear altogether, and therefore we are standing on either side of a chasm which is perfectly un-bridgable. It is only if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite will acknowledge the position in which we stand in the speeches which they address to the House, and if they will accept the principle which has 2685 already been acceded to in this Bill, namely, Disestablishment, that we can hope to approach each other. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London said in his concluding phrases, what would you do if there was a proposal to dismember the Wesleyan body? All I can say is that if the Wesleyan body desired to have Establishment, and if they were put in the position of the Established Church at the present moment, then I would take up exactly the same attitude towards them that in my judgent, and I may add, in my conscience, ought to be taken up by Members on this side of the House towards the Established Church. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London said that there was one authority which the Church desired to have, and that was the one authority which we would not give him. From our point of view—I do not ask anything more from the Members opposite than that they should, at all events, acknowledge our point of view—we are giving them the authority they desire minus the coercive power which the authority has, and minus the connection with the State which the coercive authority indicates. What would, in truth, happen? Let us consider what would happen if the arrangement provided for in Sub-section (3) of this Clause were adopted. They will go exactly to the same persons they go to now. The persons who administer the Ecclesiastical Law will have the same jurisdiction as they have now. They will found their judgment upon the same body of law as it is now founded on.
The only difference between a Consistory Court under the present law and a Consistory Court of the future, is the absence of coercive temporal power. Therefore there is in substance, taking away the coercive power and the connection between the Church and State, no difference between the authority of the future and the authority of the present. There is not, even in the highest Court of all, any difference. If my contention is well founded, that there is no difference between the authority of the future and the present, the question alone left is the question of interregnum. So far as I can see, if the Church is willing to create a representative authority which shall have power to say on behalf of the Church whether or not the Church will accept the proposal of the Bill, there need be no confusion and no delay. The time is ample. The only question is whether the Church will avail itself of the time. I 2686 go so far as to say that I think it is desirable, from the point of view of the Church, that some stimulus should be given to it within the ample time that is provided for it to create such a representative body to speak with authority on its behalf. If there is a minority in the Church which is desirous of accepting the proposals of the enactment and meeting the wishes of the enormous majority of the people of Wales, it is not desirable that it should not be allowed to do so. I have very briefly endeavoured to show that we have a standpoint in this matter to which we attach as much importance as hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that if they will not accept that standpoint as being justifiable, we cannot attempt to argue this question on the basis which I think ought to subsist between the two sides of the House, but that if they are in earnest in desiring a better government of the Church, as I believe they are, not only when it is Established, but when it is Disestablished, we, at all events, are just as much in earnest in that point of view as they are.
§ Lord HUGH CECILIt seems to me that the answer of the Chancellor of the Duchy is an altogether inconclusive and even an unilluminating one. I am still in great doubt as to what the Bill really means. I thought that when the Government spoke they would have cleared it up. Nor do I see that the right hon. Gentleman has made any defence to the accusation of my right hon. Friend, that what is being done is to inflict injury for the sake of inflicting injury. He says there is this essential difference between his point of view and our point of view, that Disestablishment must be assumed from his point of view while we reject it. There is not the smallest reason for the sake of Disestablishment of carrying out the provisions of this Sub-section. The right hon. Gentleman puts a very arbitrary-meaning on Disestablishment. He says that a particularly injurious provision is necessary to Disestablishment, and therefore we must have it. He does not attempt to show that it is necessary. Disestablishment has never been expounded in my hearing by any Member of the Government, and I do not believe that they know in the least what it means. I do not complain of the right hon. Gentleman not telling us. I am only amused to notice that he has a self-complacent consciousness of knowledge, which he refuses to communicate to the House, of this esoteric body of doctrine within the Government, by 2687 which it is known quite well what they mean by "Disestablishment," though they will not explain to us what it means. It is not for the profane and vulgar. Who is there in the House of Commons to know these arcana of Liberal Government?
But as far as I can see there is no reason whatever, when you are Disestablishing that Church, you should not say, "Keep the Courts you have, until you set up new ones." Why is that contrary to the principles of Disestablishment, Why is that not consistent with the theory of religious liberty which you profess with your lips but do not act upon in the provisions of your Act of Parliament? Why is it necessary to sweep away at once all the existing fabric of Courts and law, and then in an infinitely clumsy and almost incoherent way try to set it up as a contract, as if it comes to the same thing, or has the same moral basis? The position, of course, of the individual incumbent, or the individual bishop or churchwarden, who comes into Church Law is not the position of a contracting party. He never voluntarily enters into a contract, yet you are going to impose a contract on the public merely to enjoy the spiteful pleasure of sweeping away what you regard as a bad expedient. If hon. Members who were at one time inspired by this Bill with a very edifying desire to read ecclesiastical history had pursued their researches far enough back to the third century, they would have found that at that time a pagan Emperor treated the Christian Church in those days very much better on this very point than you propose to treat the Church in Wales. In a famous case this pagan Emperor enforced the decisions of the Church Synod. He had no theories about Establishment or Disestablishment, but he had common sense, and when a religious body came to a decision he thought that that decision should be carried out. Why cannot you do the same, accept the Courts until they are amended, and let the jurisdiction of these Courts go on until a better jurisdiction is put in their place?
We do not dream of shutting out that possibility of future reforms in the Courts, but we say that while there is a system working, it should go on working until a better one is put in its place. You wish to destroy it altogether merely for the pleasure of taking away what you say is a "badge of superiority," though I do not see that it is. What you wish to do is to 2688 tear that badge off the Church, just as a disreputable officer is drummed out of the Army. It is a manifestation of the indignation and the desire for humiliation that seize hon. Members' minds when they are discussing other Christian bodies which they wish to injure. Why take this offensive Clause? It is not in accordance with religious liberty; it is not in accordance with religious equality; because you are placing on the Church a position which has never been put upon any Nonconformist body. They have voluntarily undertaken a contractual relation which is imposed upon them by law, but the Church has never undertaken such a relation. You wish to impose quite exceptional disabilities and humiliation, and you have no purpose, except to gratify the feeling to which I have referred. No answer has been offered to these arguments, and I think an answer we are entitled to have. There is a further point, merely as a matter of information. I confess I do not understand how, ultimately, either during the interregnum or after it, this Clause would work. What is meant by "jurisdiction," and what is meant by "law"? "Jurisdiction" apparently means something different from "coercive jurisdiction," In the Bill of 1909 only "coercive jurisdiction" was dealt with. The other jurisdiction was left. But jurisdiction which is not ultimately coercive is a meaningless thing. Of course, you can have an "arbitrary jurisdiction," which is accepted by the persons who consent to submit to it, but for the purposes of this Section "coercive jurisdiction" must come in the end, and neither during nor after the interregnum do I understand that any coercive power is to be used.
Suppose that litigation arises during the interregnum. Suppose the matter is then brought by a litigant before the bishop, and the bishop says, "I do not know what the law of the State is under this complicated Section, but I propose to hear and determine the matter, or to allow my Chancellor to do so." This is determined under the old law. No one can stop that being done, I suppose. Then judgment is given. There is no coercive force. Recourse must then be had to the Secular Courts. What particular process is to be taken in the Secular Courts? I do not understand how a bishop would propose to deprive a clergyman by action in the Secular Courts. I suppose there would be some process. At any rate, action would be brought by somebody in the Secular 2689 Courts. Would the Secular Courts attach weight to the judgment given by the bishop or the Chancellor in the voluntary Court? That is a very important point. Would that be within the contract or not? Would the judgment given by the Chancellor be said to be contractually binding on the incumbent, the subject of the litigation, or would it not? I do not know whether any Member of the Government knows. I would like to invite any Member of the Government who does know to hold up his hand. I do not believe that anybody knows. That is one element of great confusion which I see in this Clause. After the interregnum, it is very solemnly said that we may set up in the Church in Wales all these Courts again, and there may even be the luxury of an appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury. I cannot conceive what the purport of putting that in is, because if the Church is to be perfectly free it can have them itself. You do not require a special provision to set up Courts or anything else you like.
The other point is, what is to be the effect of the judgment of these Courts when it is given? Again, when it is brought into a Secular Court, is the Secular Court to accept the judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court so set up under Subsection (3), or is it to go behind and say, "This is a wrong interpretation of the formularies and rites of the Church, and we reverse, in effect, the decision of the Ecclesiastical Courts?" We must have that explained to us. Finally, I do not understand what is the bearing, or the interaction of Sub-section (1), and the proviso of Sub-section (2), because apparently, after all, Ecclesiastical Law, as law, is in some respects retained by the proviso. As I understand the secular rights of an existing incumbent are safeguarded under the proviso, so that he will have a remedy before the Courts if anything done in consequence of this Act imperils his existing secular rights. If so, as I understand, Ecclesiastical Law would be retained by that proviso, after all insofar as it had a bearing on the secular position of existing incumbents. There, again, I should be very glad if the Government would explain exactly what is the relation of Sub-section (1) to Sub-section (2)? Would not it have been far simpler to have merely passed an enactment freeing the Church from this existing limitation by law, and leaving it to settle what the Ecclesiastical Courts and law were to be, and then to lend to the decision of those Courts and 2690 that law the coercive force of the State? If it is said that that is not done in respect of Nonconformist bodies, I say it might be done. I am sure that no one would have the smallest objection. It is already done for the doctors. Why are you to refuse to a large religious body—whether it is Established or Unestablished—what you are ready to give to the doctor and, I believe, to the barrister? Why are you not to lend the coercive jurisdiction of the State when it is evidently convenient that you should lend it? Why, except that hon. Members have in their heads only the futile desire to spite and degrade and humiliate the Ecclesiastical body from which they have severed their connection? There is really nothing in it except that. Partly they have got it into their minds that that is what Disestablishment means, and partly they have got it by inheritance of past spite rather than the existence of present spite; but it is spitefulness, past and present, from top to bottom, from beginning to end. What we ask for is with the single object of making an arrangement favourable to a religious body, one which will be consistent with the ordinary principle of equality and liberty.
§ Mr. EDGAR JONESI should like to put to the Noble Lord and those who spoke recently in the Debate a slightly different point of view with regard to this proposal. The difficulty of hon. Members opposite is that they are discussing the matter from a kind of watertight compartment; they do not look round the subject from a general point of view. I would suggest another point of view respecting these matters. First of all, with regard to the objection to removing the coercive jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, this freed Church will have to be precisely like Nonconformist bodies in relation to the Secular Courts, and in that Nonconformists find no difficulty. The Noble Lord put the objection that has been put before, of the bishop wanting to deprive a clergyman of his position, or something or other, and he put it that it would be a very objectionable thing to have to go to the Secular Courts. In practice Nonconformists have to do the same thing. We have to be constantly doing the same thing every year, and in practice we find no difficulty. What we find is that if there is a decision by the controlling body of the Nonconformist denomination as to a particular minister or a particular person, 2691 that decision is accepted, and it is very rarely that resort to the Courts becomes necessary.
I do not believe that under the system of the freed Church that a curate or clergyman will be any the less or more amenable to the opinion of his own Church. Among Nonconformist bodies, with very few exceptions indeed, all these matters of discipline, ritual, and doctrine are, in fact, carried out and settled finally without appeal or resort to the Secular Courts. That, to my mind, sufficiently disposes of the point. I put to the Noble Lord and hon. Members who ask us why we are doing this, that they themselves furnish the answer. The speech of the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps) was a complete argument from that side of the House yesterday, and a complete answer to the other arguments to-day. The whole point of his speech was that the Church of England did possess a specially privileged position in that she has a Court which is coercive in itself without resort at all to the ordinary Courts of Law, as Nonconformists have to do. On that point you have rested practically a considerable portion of the meaning of Establishment. It must be obvious, when you claim and insist that this one denomination, as it will be, out of five or six, shall have recognised by the State the finality, the coercive finality, of this Court of its own, you are, in fact, still keeping it under the State in a position of very considerable privilege indeed
§ Lord HUGH CECILWhy is it privilege?
§ Mr. E. JONESWe think it is. The Noble Lord must have regard to the fact that the great mass of the Welsh people, who are Nonconformists, for forty years have had the case made by the Noble Lord put to them by very able lecturers on Church defence. Yet the Welsh people are still of opinion, and they are the people to judge, that there is a great disability upon them, and that they have a great grievance which has got to be removed. The Noble Lord does not believe that that does not dispose of it. I want to put one other point to hon. Members who have spoken on the other side, among them the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord Robert Cecil). The Noble Lord, I think, said that this Bill is imposing something on the new Church. It is doing nothing of the kind. As I understand it—and I submit that it is the 2692 right view of the Bill—this is the position. We say that we are going to put the laity, clergy, and bishops of the Anglican Church in Wales in as good a position, even in a more favourable position as a matter of fact, but let us say in as good a position in every respect as that of the big denominations. In order to do it, we say to the Anglican Church that they can use the Courts, just as they can be used by Nonconformist bodies, to meet certain difficulties. First of all, what is going to happen? We must set up proper machinery for the freed Church to be able to put herself on a free basis. It is idle to suggest there is not absolute freedom. Of course there is. The Bill does not say absolutely how the Synod is to be composed, but we will accept any kind of definition which will satisfy Churchmen on the point. The laity, who are Nonconformists, do not want to interfere. They may constitute the Synod in their own way, and shall be absolutely free to decide what they shall do. You cannot point out to me any way in which they will not be free They will be perfectly free to discuss whether they should set up a system similar to that of the Congregationalists or the Baptists; it is for them to decide; and after they have decided, their decision as a body in regard to discipline, doctrine, and everything else will have the same coercive power, in fact and in practice, as have the decisions of other denominational bodies at the present time.
The difficulties to which the Noble Lord called attention are not difficulties as against the Church at all. They are only permissive Clauses which have been put in the Bill to allow the Church to continue under its existing doctrine, and so on, during the time that it is constituting itself. If the Church during six months has decided its new organisation, then these permissive provisions are unnecessary or are subject to modifications to meet the conditions and needs of the Church. Therefore I cannot see where the difficulties referred to by the Noble Lord come in at all. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) asked why are we doing this. The sense of nationality in Wales is becoming very keen, and it has been becoming keen for the last thirty years, and it is a factor which hon. Members opposite do themselves no good in ignoring. There it is. This fact of nationality applies itself very effectively to this particular question. We contend that some of the Welshmen who are 2693 zealous members of the Church will decide, if they be given an opportunity, to set up an organisation which will enable them to work the freed Church more effectively in their own way for their own Church than they have done in the past. A section of young clergymen of the Church in Wales are very loyal at the present time to the Church, because they think she ought not to be deprived of her endowments under this Bill; but I have reason to know that there is a big section of the clergy who will not set up the old system of ritual, and of Courts, and so on, because they want to set up a system of their own which would be more applicable to Wales. I submit that is the reason why we think it better that we should not interfere with the constitution of this new Church. We will not say to them in this Bill that they must carry on under this system, or the Canterbury system, or some other system; we simply say to them, "You are free yourselves to start to build your new constitution in your own way." Looking at it from the point of view of freedom, and from the broad plain facts, that you cannot get away from, there is no difficulty whatever, so far as coercion is concerned, any more than there is with Nonconformists or other bodies, and I submit that there is no case and no real foundation of fact in support of the Amendment which has been moved.
§ Mr. HUME WILLIAMSThis Debate possesses the advantage that it will afford, in the attitude adopted by the Government towards the Amendment we are now considering, a very fair test of the way in which they propose to treat any suggested alterations of the Bill which may come from the Opposition. The words of the Section of the Bill of 1900 were these:—
"In this Section, Ecclesiastical Courts and persons in Wales and Monmouthshire shall cease to exercise any coercive jurisdiction."
That was in the Irish Bill also. In the present Bill the Government have gone further, and the object of this Amendment is to omit the words which deprive these Courts of jurisdiction until this rather remote period when some fresh Courts are to be established. If you deprive the Courts of jurisdiction they will not know what they are to do. Without jurisdiction it is the play of "Hamlet" with the part of Hamlet omitted. Why is this done? It is done apparently in order that new Courts may be established, and what are those Courts going to be? First of all new 2694 Courts are to be brought into being by the "said constitution," and after a care ful study of this Section, I am quite unable to discover what is the meaning of the words "the said constitution." Is the said constitution dealt with in an earlier part of the Section? That is not the only inconsistency in the Bill. You are going to establish a Court without a coercive jurisdiction; that is not a Court at all. What is a Court without coercive jurisdiction? A Court is a tribunal that sits to determine disputes, and gives a judgment which can be enforced. What is the jurisdiction of the substitute to be? It is to be consultative and persuasive. What is a Court with persuasive jurisdiction? In even a Court of arbitration there is power to enforce the award under order of the Court, and otherwise nobody would have recourse to arbitration at all, unsatisfactory as it often is. I cannot understand what the object is of setting up Courts of that kind at all. Just consider you are going to do away with what you are pleased to call the coercive jurisdiction of the Courts. How is it exercised now? It is exercised purely in regard to questions which concern the Church, its internal regulation, its discipline, rules, ritual, and Ecclesiastical Law. It does not affect a single Nonconformist. If any Nonconformist is prejudiced by any act of Churchmen, if he is refused admission to a Church, or to any of the rites and ceremonies of burial, marriage, or anything else, he has his remedy in the ordinary Common Law Courts.
The existing coercive jurisdiction of these Courts which you are going to destroy affects the Church of England in Wales only, and you are going to take that away because, as the hon. Member who spoke last said, he had a grievance. What grievance? I have listened during the whole of this Debate with the closest attention to the speeches that have come from the Government, and the very able speeches from the other side of the House, and although the existence of this grievance has been reiterated, nobody has said what the grievance is. Indeed if you apply your common sense to it, what grievance can there be to the Nonconformist in the existence of a Court which has no jurisdiction over him, and which cannot affect a single one of his acts. What is the grievance? All we are told is that the existence of these Courts is incident to Establishment, and, therefore, if Establishment goes, this Court should go too. 2695 Yes, but we have the professed protestations of hon. Members opposite that you do not want to interfere with the internal administration of the Church to their prejudice, and if those Courts exercise jurisdiction on questions of internal administration only, and if the members of the Church of England desire that they should retain what is the practical power in any Court, namely, coercive jurisdiction, what right have you got to interfere with them? What has it got to do with you? I do not say that offensively or rudely, but I say it in supplement of your own protestations and your own speeches. Here is a case in which, with no detailed grievance, you are putting your hands upon the internal administration of the Church, and you are altering it not only despite, but contrary to, the desires of members of that Church, although you profess to be willing to strengthen and to aid this Church which you are going to Disestablish, and although you must admit that those Courts, the existence of which you are going to do away with, cannot affect a human being except those who form a part of the Church. What are you going to substitute?
By this Section, whenever there is any question of dispute, even between two members of the Church of England, which affects property the whole question, even if it involves, according to the Section,
"existing articles, doctrines, rites, rules, discipline, and ordinances of the Church of England,"
the right to some family vault or some question that involves even indirectly a question of property, you oust the jurisdiction of the Courts which have been established to administer a peculiarly difficult law, which they understand, and you are going to take this, I suppose, to the County Court or the Judge of Assize or one of the Common Law Courts. Why? It is not as if you were able to show that there are questions here involved between the Church and those who do not belong to' it, and who are outside its pale and whom their Ecclesiastical Laws do not concern, and to whom the Common Law Courts of the country are open. You are not doing that, but you are saying that, even if there are questions which involve the most intricate examination into the ordinances and regulations of the Ecclesiastical Law, that you are to do away with the Ecclesiastical Courts and oust the jurisdiction which they have over the members of their 2696 own Church, and take them to the Common Law Courts of the realm, where they do not, frankly, understand all the questions which are involved. What is the argument? It is said, "Oh, it is right that that should be so, because whenever any question of property is involved in the Nonconformist corporations their remedy is at present to go to the Courts, and therefore if it is good enough for them it should be good enough for the Church of England." Does any Member of this House, whether a member of the Church of England or not, believe that the questions which arise with reference to the Ecclesiastical Law of the comparatively recently established Nonconformist corporations have the least similarity with the Ecclesiastical Laws and rites and ordinances of a Church that has existed for thousands of years, whose law and whose customs have been involved through many changes of doctrine and constitution, and a law to discover which you have to go back and study the works of those who are long dead and gone, and look back to the archives of history in order to find out what the existing law is?
You require a Court to deal with questions of that kind. It is no answer to our objection to say, "We leave you such a Court," but it is a Court of persuasive and consultative jurisdiction, and it is to have no right to enforce its decision. I say if the Church of England want a Court—that is a real Court, and not a sham one—can you give me a conceivable reason why they should not have it? The Government say they are Disestablishing the Church for the Church's good, and that they are Disendowing the Church for the Church's good. If they are Disestablishing the Church for the Church's good, then in common sense and common justice consult the wishes of the Church, at any rate as to questions of her own internal administration. I submit this Amendment is a very important one, and I take it as a type of the, I hope, well-considered suggestions made from this side of the House with reference to the alteration and improvement of this Bill if it has got to go, and if the Government will not accept an Amendment to leave to the Church of England the real administration of her own internal affairs, I challenge them to show us some grievance that exists which necessitates the removal of these Courts. If they will not do that, and if they will not accept the Amendment and will not help us, then I think we are justified in taking it as one more proof that the real intention 2697 is not to do us any good, not to leave us the real determination of our own affairs, but to do away with the Established Church, which has done no one any harm, which is doing splendid work in a Christian land, and that you are attempting to cripple it and hurt it, and bring pain to those who belong to it, in order that you may have the support of a small political section and remain in office a little longer.
§ Mr. STEPHEN GWYNNI gather from the peroration of the hon. Member that he considers, as the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil) did, that it is impossible for anybody to support this Amendment without hostility to the Church of England. I propose to give my reasons for supporting the Clause without any spirit of hostility. I have never, I think, been so much impressed as in this Debate with the passion of the Tory party for authority, and for that expression of authority which is known by the word "coercion." So far as I can gather, they conceive that a Church which has not the power of coercion, the temporal power of coercion, is not really a Church at all, and I gather that the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil), whom I am heartily sorry is not in his place, goes so far as to be willing to extend the temporal power of coercion to all Churches other than the Church of England, to the Free Churches of England and Wales, and, I presume, also to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. I wish very much that some of his allies from Lister were here to listen to that proposal coming from him. It would be very interesting to hear him make a speech in Ulster declaring it as his opinion that the Church of Rome in Ireland, a Disestablished Church, ought to have full power of Establishment at its disposal in order to enforce its spiritual decrees. The hon. Member who spoke last asked, was a Court which had not coercive power to enforce its decrees a Court at all? I think that I might put his question in this way, that so far as I gather this coercive power contributed by the State is essential to the existence of the Church of England, and the Church of England, if it ceases to have this coercive power through these Courts, ceases to be a Church.
§ Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSI really did not say anything of the kind. All I said was, if you have got a Church which has Courts to administer its own internal affairs, you ought to leave her the Courts 2698 which she desires, and not substitute another.
§ 2.0 P.M.
§ Mr. S. GWYNNI have, I find, pushed my inference too far, but I think it might have been fairly logically argued from what was said by the hon. Member. I submit that you may have Courts which are Courts none the less, although they have no coercive power, and what is more, speaking as a Member of a Disestablished Church, I believe that such Courts are the only Courts applicable to a spiritual community. The Church is a spiritual community, and the decrees of that Church, so far as I understand them ought to have only a spiritual sanction. What we are concerned with, in the discussion of this Amendment, is not the machinery of the Courts, not the Courts, but the sanction that lies behind those Courts. It appears to me absolutely clear that a Church which can invoke the sanction of the State for its decree is an Established Church, and, therefore, if you are going to Disestablish the Church you must take away from the Church that sanction. I do not think the Church will be any the worse for losing it What, after all, is the coercive power worth to a Church? I am perfectly familiar with the working of two Churches, neither of them Established, that is to say, the Disestablished Church of Ireland and the Church of Rome in Ireland, both of which are Churches that work and operate and transact their business without this power. I do not say that they have no difficulties in enforcing their discipline; but who will tell me that the Church of England has no difficulties in enforcing her discipline at the present time? Take a case that has happened in every Church that I have heard of, that of a clergyman who has created scandal because he has given way to drink. The Church of Rome in Ireland the Church of Ireland, and the Church of England all have difficulties in dealing with such a case. From my experience, from what I have heard and known, I cannot say that the Church of England has surmounted those difficulties any more successfully than the Church of Rome in Ireland or the Church of England itself. You have different means of enforcing your sanction; the sanction, if you like, is less definite. No doubt in the Church of Rome the sanction is more a matter of spiritual authority. In the Church of Ireland it is more a matter of public opinion. But speaking as one who has lived his whole 2699 life in close touch with the clergy of the Church of Ireland, I say that there is no Church in which the discipline is more rigidly enforced. I do not know any Church in which the clergy are less free; I think they are not free enough. But the sanction imposed there is the sanction of public opinion. It is the will of the community, which forces itself upon the ministers of religion and upon the members of the spiritual community. That is the sanction upon which I think the Disestablished Church in Wales will have to rely. I do not at the present moment know what Spiritual Courts there are in Ireland. I do not know that such cases have ever been taken to Spiritual Courts. What I do know is that the Church of Ireland gets on and works with such sanctions as are at its disposal. There have been cases, of course, dealing with mere matters of contract. But we in Ireland get on perfectly well with the powers that are proposed to be left to the Church in Wales under this Bill.
§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTI can assure the Committee that it is in no militant spirit that I listen to arguments founded upon this part of the Bill attempting to justify the principle of Disestablishment; but I can feel no sympathy whatever with this particular Clause, because in my opinion it is unnecessarily provocative and wholly illogical. With regard to the interesting and moderate speech just delivered, I think it is open to argument whether the coercive jurisdiction of an Ecclesiastical Court is, from a purely spiritual point of view, a desirable kind of jurisdiction for such a Court to possess. But surely it is also arguable that if existing and future members of a particular religious community accept membership of that community, with all its rights, liabilities, and obligations as part of the system under which they are prepared to be ruled in religious matters, and if they also accept as part of the implied agreement between them and other members of the Church a particular kind of jurisdiction, surely it is a matter for them, and it is not for the State to say that they should be deprived of that jurisdiction. I listened with some interest but with no feeling of conviction to the speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy. He said that Disestablishment was the accepted policy of this House in connection with this Bill, and that therefore the Government could accept nothing which 2700 appeared to conflict with that policy. Assuming for the moment that this particular Clause is part of a Disestablishment policy—personally I do not think it is—it is difficult to understand why in another part of the Clause, provision is made to enable the Church to Disestablish itself in this respect. But is this any part of Disestablishment? I suggest that if that is the position of the Government, it is wholly illogical. To my mind this Clause is the very negation of that freedom which is supposed to form the whole basis of a Disestablishment policy. In my opinion this is purely a domestic matter, and as such ought to be left to the Church itself to decide.
Why abolish the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts if you yourselves admit that the Church of England desires the continued existence of these Courts, and if you also admit, as has been admitted from the Government Bench to-day, that immediately these Courts are destroyed the Church of England may take steps to restore them? In my opinion the House of Commons itself it not well fitted to deal with religious questions; but still less to my mind are the ordinary Civil Courts well fitted to do so in a judicial manner. Comments have been made, I think justifiably, on the fact that it has been left to Roman Catholics from Ireland to decide issues between two different sections of the Protestant Reformed Church. If there is any sort of, I will not say scandal, but of incongruity in such proceedings, surely there is equal incongruity in asking a Roman Catholic or a Nonconformist judge to settle questions of Church discipline or of Church ritual, at any rate in the first instance. That being so, if the Church of England desires to retain for the domestic consideration of these questions an Ecclesiastical Court of her own, why seek to deprive her of it by the suggestion that it is necessarily a part of a Disestablishment policy? The hon. Member for Merthyr, I think, suggested that there were certain Members of the Church of England in Wales, including certain young clergymen, who did not desire the continuance of this ecclesiastical jurisdiction. I cannot see that there is anything whatever in this Clause which will enable those young clergymen to find themselves in a different position from that in which they find themselves to-day.
If this Clause is passed the Church of England will seek at once, as suggested by the Government themselves, to set up 2701 the same system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. These young clergymen will be in the position they are now in, of having a voice, in Church matters, of being able to use that voice, and to argue, if it can be argued, that the existing jurisdiction of the Courts is undesirable. Due weight will be given to their opinion. The opinion of the majority must prevail in the future as it has prevailed in the past. That being so, nothing that this Clause provides will put them in a different position from that in which they find themselves to-day. If, as the right hon. Gentleman has told us, the sole object of this Clause is to abolish the coercive jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, why not say so in so many words? Why devote fifty lines—there are about fifty lines in this Clause—to Disestablishing, as it is called, the whole jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and making provision for the re-establishment, either total or partial, of such jurisdiction, when, in fact, all you want to do is to deprive the Ecclesiastical Courts of that coercive jurisdiction which they possess today? Surely that can be done in far fewer words, and without that immense amount of provocation which such a Clause as this must lend itself to in the eyes of members of the Church of England. In connection with that, after listening, I am bound to admit, with a somewhat impartial mind to this part of the discussion on the Bill, I have not heard a single argument put forward from those benches that convinces me of the necessity of passing a Clause such as this, which is wholly opposed, at any rate in my opinion, to those principles of freedom and domestic government upon which it is suggested that this policy of Disestablishment is based.
Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDSI had not intended to intervene in this part of the Debate had it not been for the perfectly amazing doctrine to which we have just listened in the admirable speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down; and also in the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bassetlaw. That doctrine is this, that a purely voluntary association called a Church can, after being Disestablished, be put in a position of having the power of a Court of coercive jurisdiction. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bathurst) argued that this was purely a domestic matter for the members of the Disestablished Church. He put his case in terms with which I do not in the least degree quarrel. He said there can be no hardship upon a member joining a Church 2702 with a full knowledge of what are the conditions attached, subjecting himself to the voluntary jurisdiction of the Court within the four corners of that Church. I think that is the hon. Member's argument. On this question of a Court attached to a voluntary body with coercive power there should be in principle no real distinction as between a Church and any other body existing for what I may call social or common purposes. There can be no difference in principle, if I can be allowed the analogy, between a Church which possesses a Court with coercive jurisdiction over its members and a trade union which possesses a Court of coercive jurisdiction over its members. In a Committee of this House at the present time we have hon. and learned Members opposite fighting strenuously against the suggestion that a trade union shall have in regard to political action full power by a majority vote over its members.
If the hon. Member's principle is right, that men who join with their eyes open, prepared to submit themselves to that jurisdiction, there can be no possible harm in allowing trade unions to possess the power of coercion against the minority. Yet hon. Members opposite have taken that view unanimously that this is wrong in principle, and the vast majority of the Liberal party and of the Labour party on this side of the House have taken up precisely the same attitude. It is an anomaly that you should have a State within a State. It is an anomaly that you should permit any body of persons—because that is what it would amount to—the power of contracting out of the ordinary law of the land, and of contracting themselves into a special jurisdiction. By exactly the same parity of reasoning there is no reason why shareholders who join a company should not be permitted to agree that in the event of any dispute arising they will accept the decision of a committee of the directors deciding as to what (heir rights inter se may be. There is no reason why precisely the same thing should not be done with a friendly society or any other social organisation. If that were done we should simply reduce the judicial system of the land to anarchy, and perhaps to a farce.
So long as the Church is Established; so long as the Church is in the position of being, if one may say so, the formally recognised religious expression of the State, it is quite right that to the extent of that attachment it should have the coercive power of the State, But that it should con- 2703 tinue to exercise coercive power after it is, presumably by this measure, put into precisely the same position as any other denomination, would be to create an anachronism for the like of which you would look in vain to the legislation of this, or I venture to say, any ether civilised country. The hon. Member who has just sat down suggests that Parliament is not a fit and proper body to exercise an opinion in regard to matters of religion. With that view I entirely agree. That view forms the very foundation and basis upon which we have asked that the Church shall be Disestablished, so as to take these questions outside the jurisdiction of Parliament. To Nonconformists like myself it is objectionable that we should be asked to exercise opinions as to doctrine, ritual, and teaching of the Church, which Church is not ours. The hon. Member, in advancing that argument, incidentally advanced a very potent argument in favour of the broad principles of the Bill. He also incidentally advanced arguments in favour of another great measure which is now before Parliament, when he contended that it was an anomalous condition of things that we should have a large body of Roman Catholic representatives from Ireland deciding as between the two branches of the Protestant Church in this land. That in certain senses maybe an anomaly, but it is an anomaly incident to the position of Establishment and ceases with Disestablishment. It was an anomaly that was present when the Opposition were in power, for the Education Act of 1902 was a measure which they were only able to carry by means of the Catholic votes from Ireland.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean)These remarks of the hon. Member are not quite relevant to the Amendment before the Committee.
Mr. C. EDWARDSI am sorry to have been drawn into making observations not quite germane to the Amendment. But this anomaly would cease with Disestablishment. The point I wanted to make particular was this, that there can be no Disestablishment in the true sense while in the first Clause of this Bill you say that the Church of England in Wales is to be Disestablished, but you still qualify with coercive powers the Courts which it is suggested by hon. Members opposite should still exist within the ranks of the Disestablished Church. I submit, if we assented to that, we would 2704 be taking away by one stroke that which is already conceded in the Bill by another stroke. It is suggested by hon. Members opposite that while it is an anomaly for Parliament with a variety of religious views represented by Members to deal with matters of internal administration and doctrine in what will be the Disestablished Church, it will be also an anomaly for a judge who may hold views under an Established or a Disestablished Church to-have to deal with questions of internal dispute in the Disestablished Church. That may be, but it is no more an anomaly than that a judge holding views belonging to what is now the Established Church should have to deal with matters of dispute touching property as between members of Nonconformist bodies, and if you are to carry that argument to its logical conclusion it would mean this, that no-judge ought to be allowed to exercise jurisdiction where he holds views which are fundament ally different to those of cither litigants who come before him.
Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOWI should like to apologise for not having heard the speech of the Home Secretary, and for two reasons. First, because I was not able to hear any reference he might have made to the Irish Church Act, and, secondly, because I was taking part as a presiding official in one of those Ecclesiastical Courts which we are now discussing. A good deal has been said about this question of coercive jurisdiction. There seems to be a good deal of confusion about this, and I am sorry so much time has been taken up with the question. There is no doubt about this, that if you are dealing purely with ecclesiastical matters, that as between the Courts of a Disestablished Church or a Fret- Church without any State connection and a Church with State connection, that the latter have greater powers of enforcing their decrees than a Free Church. The matter has been frequently discussed in Scotland, because there you have established a Presbyterian Church with State connection and coercive powers. You have the Free Church with Voluntary Courts whose decisions cannot be enforced; they decide such spiritual things as whether a minister is preaching the doctrine he professes to hold. There is no difficulty about that. But what is important is, to see exactly what the Government are going to do under this particular Clause. If they do not grant the Church Courts coercive jurisdiction under the Clauses as 2705 drawn, they will be cutting off at one blow, from a large number of members of the State who are not members of the Church of England, the rights they at present exercise, and rights which the Church as such is proud to grant. That obligation, if you like, is imposed upon the Church by Ecclesiastical Law which you are going to sweep away. That is the point of view that I think has not been very sufficiently pressed in this Debate. Let us consider what the position is.
I am not dealing at all with the question of membership, or what the new Representative Church body is to be, although that will be very important when the Church body comes to be modified, because you are going to allow modification of the Ecclesiastical Law of the country by the new Church body, and we are assured by unofficial members that the bodies will be constituted as we think fit, and that hon. Members are willing to concede to us our definition of Church membership. The Bill does not say so. The Irish Act did use the words, "in communion with the Church." We have heard of definition of membership which we could not accept. But assuming that the new body is properly constituted by a definition which we could accept, that body would be very important in future, because it would have the modification of Ecclesiastical Law under the Bill. But what is the existing condition until that body comes into being. The Ecclesiastical Law as a law is swept away. I think the Home Secretary will agree with that. That is to be the position under the next Section. I am not going into that now, but I will show why it is material with regard to the question of coercive jurisdiction and to what extent existing Ecclesiastical Law is to exist as matter of contract, but it is to be between members of the Church and members only. The result is, if there is any portion of the Ecclesiastical Law which at present imposes burdens on the Church, it only applies as between members. I do not think there is any question about that. Take such things as the question of marriage.
At present any parishioner has the right to come to be married in the Church of his parish or district irrespective of his religious opinion. The Bill partially accepts that but puts limitations on it. I suppose it was considered to be a concession to the Church that one of the contracting parties must be a member of the Church—that I think is under Section 22 of the Bill. Then 2706 one Nonconformist or one non-member of the Church, I will put it in that way, can if he likes come to the Church and demand the right of marriage in the Church. But he is not a member and exhypothesi directly this Bill passes, he cannot enforce his right as all Ecclesiastical Law and all rights of Ecclesiastical Law cease except, as between members. Take the case of the marriage of divorced persons. Under the Divorce Law as it at present exists, the Churches of the country are put at the disposal of divorced persons to be married if they can get a properly licensed minister to perform the ceremony. In other words a person not being a member of the Church being divorced can come to the Church and insist upon that ceremony being performed. That is the right of an outsider who is not a member of the Church, but that right will cease under this Bill, because the new law is in relation and binding only between members. Take the ease of baptism. To all ecclesiastical lawyers it is perfectly known that baptism has been the right of every person who demands it ever since the earliest canons of the Christian Church. Hon. Members opposite know that the Church of England recognises baptism as celebrated in the Nonconformist Church. Baptism, for many purposes, is almost a civil right, and the evidence of the baptism register is taken for many purposes as complete and satisfactory. It is accepted by pension committees as evidence of age, and any parishioner has the right to come to the Church and demand a ceremony of baptism. In future that will be swept away, except as it applies only to members under this Section directly it is passed. Take the question of burial. It has been part of the Common Law of the land as long as the memory of man can go back that any parishioner can claim the right of burial in his parish churchyard. That right also ceases for non-members. Incidentally by this Bill, which is very badly drafted, there is no provision dealing with churchyards at all. It is true that you deal with burial grounds, but that does not include churchyards according to the legal definition. That right is going to be swept away under this Bill.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI think the hon. Member will agree with me that I am allowing considerable latitude in his remarks in relation to this Amendment. I hope, however, that he will make his remarks more relevant to the Amendment than he has been doing during the last two or three minutes.
Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOWAssuming that these laws are swept away by the next Sub-section, because Ecclesiastical Law ceases, and it is left binding only between members, what I say is material for this reason. If you allow coercive jurisdiction so that the authorities can proceed against their ministers in the Church Courts for an infringement of Ecclesiastical Law, then the law remains in effect as regards members and non-members alike, and a minister may be proceeded against in the Ecclesiastical Courts by his bishop for infringement assuming that you allow coercive jurisdiction in the Court. But the individual Nonconformist whose child is refused baptism cannot proceed in any Court. The Ecclesiastical Court will not be open to him. He cannot proceed in the secular Court because it will have been swept away, and he cannot set the Church Law in motion because his right has ceased and the law exists only between members. Every officer of the Church is subject to Ecclesiastical jurisdiction if you leave the Courts through which that jurisdiction is exercised. If you leave the Chancellor's Court and the Court of the Archbishop in existence, the minister who refuses to carry out the duties of marriage, divorce, and baptism, and a great many others under modern Ecclesiastical Statutes, as well as under the old Canon Law, that law will remain in existence inferentially and incumbent or ministers who refuse to carry out that law can be proceeded against by an Ecclesiastic superior. But if you sweep the Courts away then away go all those rights, because in Sub-section (3) you say Ecclesiastical Law as a whole is to be a contract binding only between members. Strictly speaking this is no concern of ours as Churchmen; but I wish to point out to the Government the muddle they are getting into by sweeping away these Ecclesiastical Laws for non-members, and at the same time sweeping away the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Courts because they are depriving a large number of people of the right which at present exists, and in future there will be no means whatever of enforcing those rights.
§ Sir RYLAND ADKINSWe have just had a luminous exposition of Ecclesiastical Law from the hon. Member who has just sat down. I may say that it leaves me at any rate cold, and does not in any way affect the support I propose to give to the proposals as they stand in the Bill. It 2708 will be perfectly open for members of the Church in Wales, after Disestablishment, for their ministers and authorities to extend any of these benefits to which the hon. Gentleman has referred to anyone who applies for them, Rightly or wrongly the view of those on this side of the House is that there ought to be no such coercive jurisdiction applicable to any religious community in the interests of those who do not belong to it. I know the Committee is familiar with the circumstances under which this state of things came about. It is true that Ecclesiastical Law at the present time dates back mainly to the time when the Church and the nation were coterminous and in many respects identical, and when you come to the state of things in which we are living now, and when that is no longer true, it is open to any person acquainted with Ecclesiastical Law to point out how many things will be altered. What is the alternative which the hon. Member suggests? He speaks of the Amendment now before the Committee as if it would leave the Ecclesiastical Law as it is, and leave the Ecclesiastical Courts, which have been conditioned by their national character of the Church of which they were Courts, not only during the interregnum but in perpetuity to a Church which is no longer Established, and which no longer by common consent does represent, or is able to meet the needs of the whole, population of Wales or anything approaching it. I have heard nearly the whole of this Debate, and I will promise the Committee, in the remaining sentenecs I wish to utter, that I will use no adjective and impute no party motive. I must say, however, that I think there has been a certain monotony of peroration on the opposite side of the Committee which I do not think has altogether been in harmony with the serious arguments which have been adduced on both sides. May I say why on this side of the House many of us believe that the provision made by the Government—subject to the period given for reconstruction being longer, and that arises, of course, upon the previous Clause which we discussed yesterday, and subject to the view, at any rate, which we take that if it is wrong it can be considered again on Report—and the time allowed, after the Bill receives the Royal Assent, within which the reconstruction of the Church in Wales can take place is long enough to enable them to reconstruct these Courts, or whatever machinery they use, providing it is not of a coercive character.
2709 Why is it we support the Government proposals? It has been said over and over again that we look upon the ceasing of these Ecclesiastical Courts as a necessary incident of Disestablishment. It is not with the taking away of a privilege that we are concerned; it is as to the appropriateness or non-appropriateness of special Courts for one religious society. Some people may think they are for the good of that society, and other people may think they are for the harm of that society, but, speaking, not from the point of view of a Churchman or a Nonconformist, but from that of an ordinary citizen, is it in the interests of the community as a whole that any religious Church or society which is not Established, and which has not a specific national character attaching to it in law or custom should have special Courts with a coercive character, apart from all reference to the ordinary Courts of the realm. We who believe it is not for the good of the community think the relations of all citizens in the community to the ordinary Courts of the country should be alike, whatever their religious opinions and to whatever Church or religious society they belong. Their relations to the ordinary Courts of the country, whenever matters of property arise, or whenever any matter on which the ordinary Courts would have jurisdiction arises, should be uniform. We believe any special legal relations between the Church of England in Wales, which is not held by any other religious Church or society, are really, in the long run, against the due development of law, and create an equality of method which in the long run delays the law and lends itself easily to expensive procedure and machinery which is inconvenient to those poorer people for whom the law mainly exists. It is on those national grounds, and not on any ground of hostility towards or any special interest in any religious community, that, while attaching importance to the adequacy of the length of time allowed the Church to reorganise its Courts as she pleases, provided they do not themselves have a coercive character, I support the Government now, and desire to keep an open mind with regard to that period of time being sufficient.
§ Mr. HEWINSIf I may say so without offence, I do not think the hon. Member who has just sat down made a single remark which had anything whatever to do with the case. He spoke in vague generalities which had no reference to the history or legal aspect of the question. I think it 2710 is desirable the Committee should know precisely where we are and get the necessary light and assistance from the Government opposite. I propose to put a number of questions to the Home Secretary to which I trust he will give absolutely clear and categorical replies. I should like, first of all, to say this proposal of the Government is a purely Erastian proposal. It is a proposition to extend to the Church of England in Wales the practice and principles which at present hold with regard to Nonconformist bodies. The position of the Nonconformist bodies in England is determined at the present time entirely by the Act of 1844. That was the last of a long series of Acts beginning with the first Act of Toleration, in which, I think, the Nonconformists generally consented to have their liberty of action restricted. The earlier Toleration Acts, in which toleration was permitted on the understanding that Nonconformist ministers should agree to certain selected articles of the Church of England, really gave them a far wider measure of liberty than the Act of 1944. That Act has often been quoted, and I refer to it because it establishes my proposition that hon. Gentlemen opposite are really proposing to restrict the liberty of the Church of England in Wales in the same way as their own liberty is restricted in an Erastian sense under the Act which governs their action. That Act makes the Civil Courts the ultimate interpreters of the doctrines of Nonconformist bodies. The Under-Secretary shakes his head, but that is absolutely certain. A number of cases arose in the years before that Act was passed, in which it was a matter of doubt, looking at the various legislative changes which had taken place, whether certain Nonconformist bodies were really entitled to the Endowments they held. Then that Act was passed, and it said, where there was any doubt, and in the absence of any book or document or trust deed or anything of that kind which defined the doctrinal position of these bodies, the usage of the congregation for the last twenty-five years should decide what the doctrines were.
The most important part of that Act was the proviso that where there was a trust deed or a book or a document which threw light on the doctrinal position of these bodies, then, notwithstanding the usage of the congregation for the last twenty-five years those doctrines were to be taught. It is therefore perfectly 2711 obvious that the Civil Courts are the interpreters of the doctrinal position in these respects of those bodies. There is no appeal beyond that. Personally, I intensely detest these cant phrases about "the Free Churches," and so on. The Nonconformist bodies, as a matter of fact, are not Free Churches. They are subjected to the civil power in a more important sense than the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church. I want to ask the Home Secretary where we are with regard to this particular Bill. Do I understand the Act of Royal Supremacy is repealed so far as the Welsh Church is concerned? Cannot the Home Secretary give me an answer?
§ Mr. McKENNADoes the hon. Gentleman conceive it is relevant to this particular question?
§ Mr. HEWINSYes. The great difficulty we have on this side of the House is to know where we stand in relation to this question.
§ Mr. McKENNADoes the hon. Member suggest the Act of Royal Supremacy is a matter concerning the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts, which is the sole subject under discussion?
§ Mr. HEWINSCertainly: I asked the right hon. Gentleman that question because it is necessary for my argument with regard to the Ecclesiastical Courts. The right hon. Gentleman evidently does not know what is in the Act of Royal Supremacy. Has he ever read it? I want to know what is going to be the legal procedure if this Bill is carried in the form in which it is before us in regard to a curate or a beneficed clergyman who departs from the received doctrines of the Church.
§ Mr. STEPHEN COLLINSHas this anything to do with the Amendment?
The CHAIRMANI had not yet gathered enough of the hon. Member's argument to be able to express an opinion that it is not in order.
§ Mr. HEWINSPerhaps I may be permitted to develop my argument. The point is that you are substituting certain legal procedure for the Ecclesiastical Courts, and I want to know from the Home Secretary how it works out in the particular illustration I have given. Under the 2712 Act of Royal Supremacy, with which the Home Secretary seems to be totally unacquainted, the test of what is the correct doctrine of the Church of England in Wales is laid down, and there is a Clause defining the situation. I want to know how this test is going to be applied. I want to know whether it is to continue in operation, or what test the Home Secretary is substituting for the procedure at the present time, and for which he professes to throw open his new Consensual Courts or jurisdiction? The Act of Royal Supremacy, 1559, governs the Church of England at the present time, and we do not know whether it is to be repealed or not. It gives a test of what doctrine a man may hold. I am not going to develop it. It is laid down that the test of sound doctrine is that it should be in accordance with the canonical Scriptures or decisions of the First Four General Councils, or any of them, or of any other General Council deciding in accordance with the canonical Scriptures or by the High Court of Parliament with the assent of the clergy in their Convocations. The right hon. Gentleman is proposing to set up an entirely new test, and I want to know is this to be decided in the Courts? Will the Civil Courts, which are to have power of adjudication in these matters in the future, be competent to decide questions of this kind, or would it not be far better to leave them in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Courts? You have no guarantee that the Civil Courts, which the right hon. Gentleman is going to substitute for the present Ecclesiastical Courts, have that acquaintance with tradition, history, procedure, or theology, which is so necessary when these matters come to be dealt with. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, first, what is the legal procedure? Is the new Church to accept the old legal procedure or not? Or does it start afresh with some criteria which are derived, not from learning, history, or theology, but from the wishes and votes of people who are opposed to the Church? I will put another point to the right hon. Gentleman. He says they are making the Church free. Suppose a beneficed clergyman wishes to join the Unitarian body, can he do so, or is there any legal procedure to prevent him? The right hon. Gentleman knows that in recent years, there have been demands for what is called a reunion of Christian bodies. Suppose a beneficed clergyman takes action on these lines, and acknowledges the 2713 doctrine and jurisdiction of the Pope, can he be turned out under this procedure? Will the Civil Courts have power in such a case? Does this Bill repeal the Act of 1568 concerning bishops, from which they derive so much jurisdiction?
We are under the utmost difficulties upon this side in discussing any proposition in this Bill for the simple reason that, as far as we can see, by examining the Bill, the right hon. Gentlemen opposite have never looked into these matters. They do not know, apparently, anything about them, but they have legislated upon analogies, taking the Irish Church Act as their standard. I have listened to nearly all the speeches on this particular Amendment, and I have never discerned the slightest glimmering of understanding of the historical position of the Church Acts on that side of the House. Let us consider what they are proposing to do. Are they proposing to repeal those Acts which may be said to have defined the position of the Church in times past? They are proposing to take the Church to pieces; to substitute civil procedure for the ecclesiastical procedure which we have had during the last 700 or 800 years. I challenge the Home Secretary to tell the Committee what Acts of Parliament bearing on the position and jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts this Bill repeals? Will he give us the titles of those Statutes and the references to them, so that we may examine them and understand where we are, and what the Welsh Church is to have?
The CHAIRMANMay I make a suggestion to the Committee? It seems to me that if we could get to the Motion to leave out Sub-section (2), answers to these questions could properly be given. If that is the view of the Committee, the Amendment of the Noble Lord need only take a few minutes to be disposed of, and then there would be opportunity for considerable debate on these points.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILMay I say, in order to facilitate the discussion which is proceeding under very great difficulty, that I do not propose to move my Amendment, so that we can go straight on with the discussion of the Sub-section.
The CHAIRMANIt seems to be the general view of the Committee that the course I have suggested should be adopted. It is not in my power, neither do I wish to 2714 impose it on the Committee, but perhaps the hon. Member will defer to the general desire of the Committee.
§ Mr. KINGWith due respect, Sir. I have sat out the whole Debate, and I have risen on every occasion when a speaker has sat down. A large number of questions have been pointedly put by the hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat, and it is perfectly evident to my mind that the Debate is very far from being exhausted. Under these circumstances I suggest that it should be allowed to go on a little longer. May I point out to the Committee there are at least 1¾ hours more in which this most important Amendment, which is imperfectly understood on the other side, may be further discussed. In the course of this Debate I have been struck by the fact, that the Committee has been addressed by two types of speakers— those who know something about Ecclesiastical Courts, and those who know nothing about them. As I have had very bitter experience of Ecclesiastical Courts, I propose to address the Committee as belonging to the former typo. I am proud to say that only once have I been a party to an action in a Court of Law, and only once have I been called as a witness in a Court of Law. That was in connection with an Ecclesiastical case in the Diocesan Court in the diocese of London. Before I proceed to discuss the Diocesan Courts, let me ask the Committee what are Ecclesiastical Courts. As a matter of fact, no one has really approached the question of what an Ecclesiastical Court is. Strictly speaking, there are two Courts which are definitely ecclesiastical and in no sense secular. There is, first of all, the Court of Arches. That has hardly been mentioned in the Debate at all, yet it is an Ecclesiastical Court, about which I have heard from time to time very strong and decided opinions from Churchmen. Those opinions, in my experience, have always been unfavourable. Again and again I have heard the strongest language directed against the Court of Arches. That is not very complimentary to the Court of Arches, nor very creditable to those people who have used them, because they ought to respect their Ecclesiastical Courts to which they now profess such devoted attachment. Under this Clause the Disestablished Church may, if it likes, get rid, once and for all,' of the Court of Arches. I believe it will do so. That is the advantage which this Clause gives to the Disestablished 2715 Church, on which we have not had a single expression of opinion from the opposite side. The great advantage, from the point of view of High Churchmen, in this Clause is—
§ Lord ROBERT CECILrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
§ Question put accordingly, "That the words 'Ecclesiastical Courts' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 241; Noes, 134.
2717| Division No. 396.] | AYES. | [3.0 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Fitzgibbon, John | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Flavin, Michael Joseph | M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) |
| Addison, Dr. C. | George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd | Manfield, Harry |
| Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. | Gilhooly, James | Marks, Sir George Croydon |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Gill, A. H. | Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Ginnell, L. | Meagher, Michael |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Gladstone, W. G. C. | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) |
| Arnold, Sydney | Glanville, H. J. | Menzies, Sir Walter |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Millar, James Duncan |
| Baring, Sir Godtrey (Barnstaple) | Goldstone, Frank | Molloy, Michael |
| Barnes, George N. | Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Barton, William | Greig, Colonel J. W. | Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz |
| Beale, Sir William Phipson | Griffith, Ellis Jones | Money, L. G. Chiozza |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke) | Mooney, John J. |
| Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo.) | Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E). | Morrell, Philip |
| Boland, John Plus | Guiney, Patrick | Morison, Hector |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Hackett, J. | Muldoon, John |
| Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) | Hancock, John George | Munro, R. |
| Brady, P. J. | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale) | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Brocklehurst, William B. | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Norman, Sir Henry |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | Norton, Captain Cecil W. |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.) | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar) | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Byles, Sir William Pollard | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Doherty, Philip |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Hazleton, Richard | O'Donnell, Thomas |
| Cawley, H. T. (Heywood) | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | O'Grady, James |
| Chancellor, H. G. | Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.) | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) |
| Chapple, Dr. William Allen | Hemmerde, Edward George | O'Malley, William |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) |
| Clough, William | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Clynes, John R. | Higham, John Sharp | O'Shee, James John |
| Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) | Hinds, John | O'Sullivan, Timothy |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. | Hodge, John | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Holmes, Daniel Turner | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Cotton, William Francis | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Pointer, Joseph |
| Crawshay-Williams, Eliot | Hudson, Walter | Pollard, Sir George H. |
| Crean, Eugene | Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Crooks, William | Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Crumley, Patrick | John, Edward Thomas | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Pringle, William M. R. |
| Daves, Timothy (Lncs., Louth) | Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) | Raffan, Peter Wilson |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) |
| Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) | Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) | Reddy, M. |
| Dawes, J. A. | Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Delany, William | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Joyce, Michael | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) |
| Devlin, Joseph | Keating, Matthew | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Dickinson, W. H. | Kellaway, Frederick George | Richards, Thomas |
| Dillon, John | Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Kilbride, Denis | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Doris, William | King, J. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Duffy, William J. | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.) | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Leach, Charles | Robinson, Sidney |
| Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Lewis, John Herbert | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Lundon, T. | Roche, Augustine (Louth) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Rowlands, James |
| Essex, Richard Walter | Lynch, A. A. | Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W. |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Falconer, James | McGhee, Richard | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Scanlan, Thomas |
| Ffrench, Peter | MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) |
| Field, William | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Sheehy, David |
| Sherwell, Arthur James | Toulmin, Sir George | Whyte, A. F. (Perth) |
| Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Williams, John (Glamorgan) |
| Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton) | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim) | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| Snowden, Philip | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) | Winfrey, Richard |
| Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) | Waring, Walter | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.) |
| Sutherland, J. E. | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay | Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.) |
| Sutton, John E. | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Tennant, Harold John | Webb, H. | |
| Thomas, James Henry | White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) | Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| Thorne, William (West Ham) | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Duke, Henry Edward | Newman, John R. P. |
| Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R. | Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M. | Newton, Harry Kottingham |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major William | Faber, George Denison (Clapham) | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Norton-Griffiths, J. |
| Baird, J. L. | Falle, B. G. | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) |
| Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.) | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Fletcher, John Samuel | Perkins, Walter F. |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Forster, Henry William | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Barnston, Harry | Foster, Philip Staveley | Pryce-Jones, Col. E. |
| Bathurst, C. (Wilts, Wilton) | Gardner, Ernest | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Gibbs, G. A. | Rees, Sir J. D. |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Rothschild, Lionel de |
| Bigland, Alfred A. | Grant, J. A. | Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen) |
| Bird, A. | Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Blair, Reginald | Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Sanders, Robert Arthur |
| Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue | Harris, Henry Percy | Sanderson, Lancelot |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Sassoon, Sir Philip |
| Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) | Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Smith, Harold (Warrington) |
| Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hill, Sir Clement L. | Stanier, Beville |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford) | Starkey, John Ralph |
| Campion, W. R. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred | Hume-Williams, Wm. Ellis | Talbot, Lord E. |
| Cassel, Felix | Hunt, Rowland | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) |
| Cator, John | Hunter, Sir C. R. | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Joynson-Hicks, William | Touche, George Alexander |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) | Kerry, Earl of | Tryon, Captain George Clement |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Tullibardine, Marquess of |
| Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. | Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury) | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Chambers, James | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Wills, Sir Gilbert |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee | Winterton, Earl |
| Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.) | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Clive, Captain Percy Archer | Macmaster, Donald | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Cooper, Richard Ashmole | McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Worthington-Evans, L. |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Magnus, Sir Philip | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Malcolm, Ian | Yate, Colonel C. E. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian | Mallaby-Deeley, Harry | Yerburgh, Robert A. |
| Cripps, Sir C. A. | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Dalziel, D. (Brixton) | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Denniss, E. R. B. | Mount, William Arthur | Hoare and Mr. Barlow. |
| Doughty, Sir George | Newdegate, F. A. |
Question "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
§ Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENI beg to move to leave out Sub-section (2).
I do so because I want to get some explanation of what exactly is intended by the Clause, and also to point out some of the many difficulties which arise from this attempt to separate the Church in Wales from the Church in England. This Subsection, if I understand it aright, is really a sort of re-establishing Sub-section. What you do in Sub-section (1) is to abolish all Ecclesiastical Courts of Law— to get rid of the Ecclesiastical Courts, of the judges, of the persons who have been 2718 in the habit of administering these Courts. Then it appears to have dawned upon the Government that great confusion will follow if all Ecclesiastical Law has been abolished, and there is nothing to take its place, and especially would that confusion arise if, owing to the very short time which is given to us in consequence of the Debate yesterday, an interval takes place—it may be a very considerable interval—between the date of Disestablishment, when the Act comes into operation, and the reconstitution of the Church under Clause 13. The Government 2719 propose that Ecclesiastical Law, which they have abolished by the first Sub-section as law, should then remain on a sort of voluntary basis and be binding upon members of the Church of England for the time being. Every kind of confusion will result. How on earth are some of the obligations and duties now performed by Ecclesiastical Courts to take place under a contractual system? You have abolished all your Ecclesiastical judges. How are the sort of cases which they have to decide now to be decided in their absence? Let me take an example. We will take the case of a clergyman who wishes to make great alteration in his Church by way of what may be called restoration. He proposes a large number of changes in the building which, under the present law, he has to get a faculty for. You say the present law is to exist on a voluntary basis, but how can he get a faculty when the Ecclesiastical officers who used to grant the faculty no longer exist? Who is to grant the faculty? Is he to go to a Law Court? If so, it seems to me you will get persons deciding these questions who have no knowledge of them, and you are taking the jurisdiction away from people who are thoroughly versed in the matter, and submitting it to people who have no knowledge of the question whatever.
But that is not all. It is not only a case of getting a faculty. All questions of clergy discipline, question of dilapidation, questions of the election and admission of churchwardens are administered now by Ecclesiastical officers and judges. Who on earth is to administer them in the future if you carry out the Bill as you propose At present? All the talk about freeing the Church and getting rid of the special features of Establishment really goes. If this law is to exist on a contractual basis and be binding upon members of the Church there must be some coercive authority to enforce it. If it is not to be the Church Courts it must be the secular Courts, and what you are doing is to transfer the jurisdiction over the Church from Courts which thoroughly understand the question to other secular Courts, and there is no freeing the Church whatsoever.
I pass to another point. By Sub-section (2) it is provided that various alterations or modifications may be duly made from time to time in the constitution and regulations of the Church in Wales. I wish to ask the Home Secretary what is meant by the words "duly made." Who is to be 2720 the judge of what is duly made? What is the body that is to lay down the regulations? I think we are entitled to ask some explanation of these words. For my part, I would prefer that the words "duly made" were left out altogether. If the alterations are made they are made, and I object to a lay tribunal deciding what has and what has not been duly made. The Sub-section also says that these alteration shall—
"be binding on the members for the time being of the Church in Wales."
I venture again to ask who are the members of the Church in Wales? We attach no definition, and we hold, notwithstanding the statement made by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, that there is very great, danger, after this Bill passes, that people who in no true sense are members of the Church at all may claim to exercise jurisdiction over it. They may claim to be members. I know it may be said that these words occur in the Irish Church Act, but the conditions in Wales are quite different. In Ireland the people are Roman Catholics, and there never was any fear that they would try to interfere in the government of the Anglican Church. There is not the same distinction between the members of the Anglican Church and the members of the various Nonconformist bodies existing in Wales at the present time, and there is therefore very great danger, unless some definition is put in—and I do not know at this stage what definition can be made—that an attempt will be made by people who have no connection with the Church to control the Church.
I come to another point. There is a curious proviso at the end of the Subsection to the effect that—
"no alteration …shall be so far binding on any ecclesiastical person having any existing interest saved by this Act, as to deprive him of that interest, if he, within one month after the making of the alteration, signifies in writing to the representative body hereinafter mentioned his dissent therefrom."
I notice that proviso only applies to alterations made in the formularies of the Church. Apparently it does not apply also to alterations made in the discipline of the Church. Is that intended? If a man objects to a change in the formularies and the doctrines, that will not affect his holding property; but if he objects to some change connected with discipline, it will affect his 2721 holding property. Is that intended? I think we ought to have some explanation of that as of other points. The whole of this Sub-section shows the absurdity of the proposals of the Government and the difficulties they get into by trying to separate the Church in Wales from the Church in England. The fact that they have to enact this Sub-section entirely destroys their case for the first Sub-section. If they want the present Ecclesiastical Law to remain binding on the members of the Church in Wales, and if they abolish the Church Courts under the first Sub-section, the position is perfectly inconsistent, and I think I have every right to move the omission of the Sub-section in order to obtain some explanation from the Government.
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Ellis Griffith)We all admit that in a complex Hill of this kind it is easy enough to point out difficulties that may arise. It has been said more than once by hon. Members opposite, and said truly, that once you have a measure of Disestablishment, or, to use their own words, a separate Church, difficulties must arise out of that process. It has been suggested by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, among others to-day, that we are endeavouring by means of this Clause to inflict additional and unnecessary hardship upon the Church. I do not think hon. Members on the other side really think that. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London said that we are adorning our crime with professions of friendship in which he disbelieves. I put it to hon. Members opposite, admitting that Disestablishment has got to take place, are not these consequences inevitable? [HON. Members: "No."] You can only say "No" upon one supposition. You think you can Disestablish a Church and let it retain its Ecclesiastical Courts and coercive jurisdiction. Does anyone think we could Disestablish the Church in Wales, or in England, and still allow it to have its Ecclesiastical Courts and coercive jurisdiction? If that is so, there is a real fundamental difference between this side of the House and the other side as to the real meaning and substance of Disestablishment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) has called attention to three phrases in the Sub-section. Let me point out that so far as these difficulties are concerned, if the constitution and the regulations of the new Free Church are prepared and ready before 2722 the date of Disestablishment, the difficulties will be considerably less than they otherwise would be.
I cannot say what interregnum may take place between Disestablishment and the subsequent constitution and the making of arrangements by the Disestablished Church. Our belief is that within six months, or at the utmost within twelve months, the Church will be able to make provision for itself as what we call a Free Church. We do not make regulations for the Baptist Church. That Church has means of discipline with which its members are fully satisfied. It has been pointed out that here are two Churches now in the same communion, and you are going to separate them by the Disestablishment of one. I admit that is a platitude. Of course, we are going to separate them. One will remain the Established Church and the other will be a Free Church. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite is never tired of pointing out the iniquity of having two separate systems on different sides of the border. That is inevitable from the Bill. He complains of anomalies. There is much more symmetry in slavery than there is in freedom. You have symmetry because you are bound to have symmetry and because you are creatures of the law. You will not obey the law, it is true, but you want the advantage of a legal Establishment, and also the advantages of disobedience when it suits you. Among other things this Bill will take away the temptation to disobey the law, though I daresay it will not be a great attraction to you. "Duly made," I take it, means made by the constitution of the Church. It has been pointed out more than once in reference to all these phrases that whatever difficulties there are are difficulties which we have had to meet in all our Free Churches. I do not for a moment deny there would be a change in the position of the Church. We all know that. But surely cannot the Church in six or twelve months frame for itself a new constitution and the necessary regulalations? Hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite know the sentiment of the House of Lords better than we do, but I should think you would have more than six months, and that you would really have over a year or two in which to frame these regulations. That may or may not be so. Now as to the question as to who are members of the Church. In my view it is not for Parliament to say this. I would ask members of the Church here: Have 2723 you got any definition of the Church? My personal view is that it is not for Parliament to say who the members of the Church are, but it is for you yourselves to lay down the constitution and regulations.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSWho are to be the people who are to make that constitution?
§ Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITHDo I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the Church has no means at its disposal to pick out the men who are representative of the Church? Is the Church in Wales so vague and nebulous a body that it cannot get anybody to represent it? There are the bishops. There is no doubt who they are. There are the clergy, and there is no doubt who they are. The only doubt is about the laity. Really I should have thought that five or six minutes would have sufficed to decide what is required in this respect. Do you really think, although from the debating point of view, and as dialectical matter, a great deal is made of it, that there is really any substance in this objection? Our view is that it is not for the House of Commons nor for hon. Members opposite to say what the Church is under this new constitution. It is for the Church itself. There are Churchmen in Wales who are probably not adequately represented by hon. Members opposite. There is a great number of Churchmen in Wales who, though they dislike Disestablishment and Disendowment, yet the moment they think it inevitable, will do their best to place the self-government of the Church in Wales not merely in the hands of the bishops and clergy, but in the hands of the laity, and lot. it found itself upon the people who belong to the Church in Wales. That is why we have not put any definition in this Bill; but let me say that if we are satisfied that there really is any general agreement not among hon. Members opposite, but among the representatives of the Church in Wales, and they want to make the position easier in this respect, I do not think it is for us to quarrel with them. I do not think it is quite in accordance with our general principles in this matter, but if we are pressed in this direction, for my part I would say that it is very difficult to resist the voice of the Church. But whatever happens, what we are anxious to do is to give to the Church in Wales a voice in determining its own future.
2724 It is said, what is the use of Sub-section (2) if you pass Sub-section (I)? You cannot get Disestablishment without something corresponding to Sub-section (1). It is in the Irish Bill. There is a Section in the Irish Bill corresponding to this Subsection (2). It is the only way known as yet for Disestablishment.
Our object, as hon. Members know, is to safeguard the position of the Church between the date of the Disestablishment and the date of this new self-government. If we had not something of this kind it would be said, "You are leaving this Church in chaos and anarchy. You are doing nothing to provide for it." We do our best to provide for it, and again we are criticised, because whatever we do is wrong. With regard to the proviso, I should have thought that hon. Members opposite would have been with us here. Here is a proviso dealing with life interests under this Bill. Suppose here after when the new Welsh Church is working out its own salvation in its own way, that one of these men who have a life interest in a benefice has imposed upon him by the new Welsh Church something in which he disbelieves, then so far as the proviso goes, it provides, as regards rectors, vicars, and all incumbents, that nothing that may be proposed by the new representative Church body, as far as doctrine is concerned, will interfere with them. Everyone agrees that all life interests ought to be protected and that no new doctrine should be imposed in the case of any person with a life interest. There should be no conscientious difficulties in his way, and he ought to be allowed to preach the doctrines in the belief of which he subscribed the 39 Articles. I hope, although the House may not approve of this Section, it will understand that it is exceedingly difficult to point to any other way out of the difficulty in which we are placed. The Church goes on for the six months or twelve months exactly as it is. If in the meantime the new constitution is framed, the Church goes on its new path simply directed by its own free will and by the opinions of the people who belong to it. If, on the other hand, there is an interval of a month or two, all we can do is this, to say as far as possible, not by means of law, for Ecclesiastical Law is gone with Disestablishment, but by means of consent that the law which has governed the Church up to the Disestablishment shall continue to govern it, not as a matter of law, but as one of consent. I hope that hon. Members 2725 will see that in this respect we have done our best to maintain order and discipline in the Church during the intervening period to which I have referred.
§ Lord HUGH CECILThe lion. Gentleman has made a very remarkable speech, and one which seems to me to concede to the Opposition much of what they contend for. Our case is that dismemberment of a religious body involves essentially and necessarily a great many outrages on religious feelings and insults to religious sentiment, and we find, when we come to examine the details of this Clause, that there are just such outrages as we said there would be. When we confronted the Government we said, "What else do you expect from the dismemberment of the Church?" It is the essence of our position. We said on the Second Reading it was the essence of our position. You denied it. You argue first one way and then the other. When we say that dismemberment is an outrage, you say it can be done without outrage to religious sentiment; when we point out that an outrage is being done, you say it is inevitable from dismemberment. The Under-Secretary's observations only amounted to this, that the most serious thing that could happen to one in a battle would be to have one's head cut off, and one of the most serious things that could happen to the Church is to be cut in two. He did not deal with any of the real difficulties which the Clause raises. What does the Clause do? It substitutes a contractual system for the positive law. The hon. Gentleman spoke of consent. There is no consent in the matter; there is a contract which is binding on every clergyman, instead of the old positive law. That does not make for liberty. The Government have hardly considered what strange facts may result from the substitution of contract for the positive law. The law has been interpreted for a number of years by certain Courts, and some strange rules of interpretation exist, while witnesses are required to prove certain charges and the like.
All that is set aside, and you substitute the contractual system. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury thinks it is a gain to get rid of the existing Ecclesiastical Courts. I quite agree that there are some things in the Ecclesiastical Courts I should like to see reformed; but the right hon. Gentleman thinks that, from his point of view the proposal of the Clause is better than the existing system. But under the new system there would be no 2726 veto on bringing proceedings against an incumbent. Any layman might go to the Court and say that the incumbent had been guilty of a breach of contract by transgressing a particular rubric, however slight the transgression might have been. And if anything was made clear by the inquiry of the Royal Commission five or six years ago, it was that all the rubrics are never kept by anyone; they are so very complex, archaic, and the like. As far as I can see, an action for breach of contract would lie against every clergyman for breach of the rubric. That would be the consequence of imposing a contractual obligation instead of the old obligation of positive law, with its safeguards. This certainly does not make for liberty. The obligations under contract are of a much closer kind than the obligations of public law, and they are not to be dispensed with by any authority. A contract may be enforced by anyone interested in the contract; so that instead of giving increased liberty you are immensely increasing the servitude of the Church to the law. Not only that, you are placing the interpretation of the law in the hands of tribunals absolutely secular. Under this proposed system the Court of Chancery or the Court of King's Bench might be called upon to try actions, and I should not be surprised if a common jury had to interpret certain obligations.
What is in the minds of hon. Members opposite is that they want to put the Church in the same position as a Nonconformist body. Supposing a diocese in Wales were now to secede from the Church of England, making a separate religious body of their own, I submit that they would not dream of having a contract so elaborate as to bind every person to every detail of doctrine, every detail of the Prayer Book, or of the Articles, or of Ecclesiastical Law. They would not dream of any such thing; they would know that it would end in absolute chaos. They would have some fundamental principle, with the power to dispense in particular cases. Indeed, where recent Ecclesiastical Courts have been set up, those who have formed them have carefully guarded themselves against this danger, and made the system as little contractual as possible, giving the widest discretion, with the precise object of getting out of the difficulty of contracts. You might have some cantankerous person causing infinite trouble because, indefensibly and unjustifiably as many people think, you substitute for the present 2727 system by far the most Erastian system hitherto set up by any Church, and you will have purely secular tribunals to interpret the obligations under contracts. I cannot believe that the Government really intended that. We are told by way of palliation that as soon as the Church has formed its own representative body it can alter things. But the Financial Secretary to the Treasury knows pretty well that the process of setting up a constitution may take a considerable number of years. He knows that it has been a matter of the greatest possible difficulty to establish even a provisional constitution or consultative body. It is not at all an easy matter. There is to be decided what are the peculiar properties of the bishops, of the clergy, and of the laity; and there is to be decided who the laity are, and under what systems they should be represented.
On the face of it, the phrase "those members of the Church" is one that ought never to have been used. According to the teaching of the Church of England, every baptised person is a member of that Church, and on their own principle they would be obliged to admit every baptised person into their representative body. According to the legal definition I believe it is still wider, and that every parishioner is a member of the Church. Instead of "members of the Church," another phrase ought to have been used, such as "persons recognised by the bishops," "qualified persons," according to the definition arrived at by the representative Church Council in England; there are many definitions that would have been more tolerable than "members of the Church," which cannot be defended. It is necessary, of course, to provide that a secular person having a secular post shall not be affected by an alteration made my Act of Parliament. I am glad to have so respectful a regard by the Government to secular interests, because they have sometimes shown symptoms of a desire to ignore the rights of property and to destroy it. It is owing to this desire to destroy existing Courts before new ones are set up that it is necessary to put in this proviso. If the present Courts and authorities had been left in existence until the existing incumbents had died out in respect of their rights, there would have been no difficulty at all, but the Government are obliged to give special exemption because of their plan to substitute a contractual system for the present one, 2728 imposing a new obligation in regard to the temporal interests of these people. Let us suppose a representative body set up a new system of Courts, and in some respects modified the Ecclesiastical Law. It is quite enough for my purpose to suppose that they would decide some controversial point, a fairly controversial point, one way or the other. An incumbent disobeys the law; he incurs reprobation, and at once recourse is had to the Temporal Courts. They decide in a very clear case, and he remains in possession of his temporal interests, whereas I suppose the spiritual care of that parish is given to another incumbent. Is it not obvious that that would produce a great deal of disorder and inconvenience in the working of the Church? Is it not unfair to the Church as a body to impose on them a particular officer who transgresses their laws? That is a flagrant contradiction of the whole principle which hon. Members opposite support and maintain, the right thing being to leave that man in his old position under his own Courts until he dies, and then his successor could conic under the new system without friction or disturbance.
We are told that the Welsh people ought to set up their new constitution. Let us be quite clear about this. The Church of England in Wales or in England has certain religious principles, and the Government propose to respect them. It certainly would be a clear contradiction of the principles of that Church of England if the people or the clergy or the bishops in Wales were to declare themselves loose from the Province of Canterbury. I do not at all say that that Province of Canterbury might not itself let that General Assembly separate as an organisation and make them an independent province. That might, very possibly, be done, but I am quite clear of this, and I am quite sure the Financial Secretary in his knowledge of ecclesiastical tradition and teaching will agree with me, that the four dioceses to separate themselves without the consent of the parent Metropolitan See and its Synod would be flagrantly in contradiction of all the teachings and position of the Church of England. Therefore, what you are asking the Welsh people to do is something which the principles of Church people do not allow them to take upon themselves, and is a power which in their view does not belong to them. If the Province of Canterbury give them that power, it is another matter. If you are to respect 2729 their consciences you ought to leave to the Synod of that Province of Canterbury to authorise new provisions for the people according to their consciences. Nor is it clear to me that the representative body has the powers which you ought to give it, because that phrase is "general management." You want powers much more extensive to make a Free Church.
What you ought to do is to give that Church absolute liberty to manage her own affairs in her own way. To do that you must study her principles, and do it as she wishes it to be done. Why do you think it wrong to lend coercive jurisdiction under certain conditions when you think it right to lend it under certain conditions? However you lend the authority of the State you ought to leave the Church to decide how it is to be constituted according to her principles and by her own Synod. Any other arrangement is an insult to the religious convictions of Churchmen. I quite agree it is a difficult thing to do, but you cannot do an unjust thing justly. You are doing a thing which is essentially unfair and unjust according to all the principles of Disestablishment. You ought to Disestablish the whole Church, or no part of it. If you did that, these difficulties would not arise. You insist on the wrong way from the basest of reasons, mainly because the support of Welsh Nonconformist opinion is necessary for your political future.
The CHAIRMANI must remind the Noble Lord that he must not impute motives to lion. Members. The Noble Lord must be well aware that we carry on controversies in this House on the basis of mutual good faith. Hon. Members receive, and, I hope, give that to one another. That is the basis of our Debates, however strongly we hold views on either side.
§ Lord HUGH CECILI am imputing that hon. Members have acted from political motives in a religious controversy, and I declare that is true. This is a matter not to be set aside by the conventional customs of any assembly, however august. We believe from the bottom of our hearts we are being wronged, and that hon. Members opposite are prostituting their own honour.
§ 4.0 P.M.
Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDSThe Noble Lord's speeches remind me of a certain part of the City of London. When you get to the top of St. Mary-at-Hill, you seem to be suffused with the ecclesiastical atmosphere. You then follow the Noble Lord, and suddenly, you find you have emerged 2730 at Billingsgate. I am not going to follow him in the concluding remarks he has just made. He has criticised this proposal of the Government to meet a very special difficulty, that is to say, to meet the difficulty which must necessarily arise during the interval between the moment when the Church is Disestablished, and the time when the Disestablished Church under its new organisation has set up machinery for its own government. Whilst he has advanced a good many phrases in negative criticism of that proposal, he has carefully refrained from making the smallest suggestion as to how the difficulty might be met during that period. I do suggest to the Noble Lord that even if this particular Sub-section were not in the Bill, now that, we have passed Sub-section (l) abolishing the Ecclesiastical Courts, and doing away with their jurisdiction, the condition of things, even without Sub-section (2), would not be materially different to what is there expressly provided. In other words I very much doubt whether Subsection (2) is more than declaratory of what the law would be even in its absence. In other words, if any dispute does arise touching and concerning property during this interval, the matter has got to be settled by certain Courts, and now that the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts is ousted by the passing of Subsection (1) then automatically the jurisdiction of the ordinary Courts of the land come into operation. In the event of disputes arising touching property, the Courts would have to have reference to certain conditions to ascertain what were the rights of the parcies in relation to that property, and I have no hesitation whatever in saying that what the Courts would require would be those particular conditions, whether as to ritual or doctrine or rights, under which the incumbent who would, no doubt, be a party to the case, had taken up his office. What I suggest is that the Government have taken the simplest and most proper method of dealing with the problem by the provisions which they have made in Sub-section (2).
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSThe hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. C. Edwards) has not in any way met the speech of the Mover of the Amendment. For instance, who is going to deal with the question of the alteration or reformation of the Church during this period? Are you going to refer a matter like that to the ordinary Courts? The answer of the Under-Secretary was simply that you 2731 cannot Disestablish the Church without getting rid of the coercive jurisdiction of the Church Courts. I am a little inclined to assume the acceptance of that expression. But if you are going to Disestablish the Church there is no reason whatever why you should abolish the non-coercive or administrative jurisdiction of the Church Courts. The hon. and learned Member must know that in the Bill of 1909 the word "coercive" was inserted. It was only the coercive jurisdiction of the Church Courts that was to be abolished. Why has that alteration been made? What has happened in the interval to cause the Government to take away the administrative jurisdiction of the Courts? I can quite understand your saying, "We must not give the Courts of a Disestablished Church coercive jurisdiction"; but surely you might give the non-coercive jurisdiction. Under a further Sub-section you propose to give power to reestablish Church Courts with their non coercive jurisdiction. Would it not have been simpler, as you are giving the right to reestablish Ecclesiastical Law and the non-coercive jurisdiction, to have merely put into the Bill that the coercive jurisdiction was abolished, leaving the continuity of Ecclesiastical Law and of the non-coercive jurisdiction of the Church Courts to go on? I hope the Home Secretary will deal with that point. I want to go to the root of the matter raised by the Under-Secretary. He said that it was perfectly possible for the bishops, clergy, and laity of the Church to come together and formulate their own constitution. He told us that the Free Churches had done that. There is this difference. A free Church in the beginning, when its constitution is being formulated, consists of a certain definite number of people who have seceded from a particular organisation, and those actual human beings, be the number a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand, are formed into a Church. There is no question as to who is to be included in the new Church. Here you say that the bishop, clergy, and laity of the Church in Wales are to form themselves into a new body, a new Free Church. But who are they? One hon. Member said, "Let the bishops summon the right people." But whom are the bishops to summon? Is the Home Secretary to be summoned? The Home Secretary has repeatedly told us that he is a member of the Church of England.
§ Mr. McKENNAdissented.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSI beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He has told us that he is a member of the Church of England.
§ Mr. McKENNAOnce, not repeatedly.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILAre we not to believe a single statement of the Home Secretary?
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSFollowing the Chairman's ruling, that we should proceed on a basis of mutual good faith, when the right hon. Gentleman says once that he is a member of the Church of England we believe him. He has told us that he is a member of the Church of England who takes advantage of the Toleration Act. But the Toleration Act is Ecclesiastical Law. It is part of the Law Ecclesiastic. I am not quite sure what the position will be under the provisions of this Bill—if it ever becomes law—but the right hon. Gentleman has claimed to be a member of the Church of England. There may be, I think, probably there are, thousands of men in the same position as the right hon. Gentleman. Are the bishops to summon them or not? What is to be the deciding factor? Let us assume for a moment that the bishops take upon themselves to summon 10,000 people, or, if you like, 500,000, from Wales in order to formulate this new constitution, and the right hon. Gentleman himself is left out. Surely he would have a remedy; he would be entitled, along with thousands of others, to say that this new constitution was ultra rires? "We," it might be said "were not summoned." You must put some definition into the Bill enabling the Bill to say that somebody should call together a collection of people to formulate the new body, the new constitution. You must say who is to summon them, and who are to be the people summoned—either by delegation or otherwise —to the preliminary convention to formulate the constitutional body of a new Church. That point was certainly not answered in any way by the hon. and learned Gentleman. All that he told us was that there need be no difficulty, and no delay, because if the bishops and those who are acting for them chose to get their new constitution ready, they would get it ready as soon as this new Act had passed.
Somebody yesterday said in debate, I think, that the Irish Church had their new constitution perfectly in order within a very few months of the passing of the Irish Church Act. I notice that the right hon. Gentleman opposite expresses approval of 2733 that statement. But there is this initial difference between the formulation of the Irish Church constitution and the formulation of this Welsh Church constitution, Everybody knew that the Irish Church was going to be Disestablished. In that case there had been a General Election ad hoc. It was quite right that the Irish Church should prepare to put their house in order and to have their constitution ready at the earliest possible time. Here we have done nothing of the kind. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh."] I should say that the bishops and laity of the Church of Wales would be most foolish to attempt to get their constitution ready, because they do not believe that this Act is ever going to pass. If, by a General Election, the country, England as well as Wales, had decided that this Church is to be dismembered, then will be ample time for the Church to formulate their new constitution. But the whole position, the whole of the difficulties which we are in, remind me very much of a speech made by Mr. Gladstone. I will not extend my remarks, but I will remind hon. Members how prophetic Mr. Gladstone was on the difficulty of the dismemberment and disentanglement of the Welsh Church from the English Church. Only a few years ago, when this question was debated before, he said—and I want hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to take this not merely as a question of the view of their own side, but as the view of Churchmen on both sides, and both in Wales and England:—
There is no doubt it will be found that the Church of England is tied. knotted, and tangled—I might almost say in such a multitude of legal bonds or meshes to the Church of Wales—that it will be a very formidable matter indeed accomplishing this untying performance.You are trying to do what Mr. Gladstone said would be a very formidable matter. I do suggest to the Committee that the Government have given us no explanation whatever of how they mean to perform this untying, this disentangling process, and how we Churchmen, or the Churchmen of Wales, are to formulate and get a body together to establish the new constitution under the provisions of this Act.
§ Mr. KINGI am extremely glad to have another opportunity of enlightening the Committee upon a subject which I really do understand, and I trust I may be allowed to continue the tenour of my remarks uninterrupted by any Closure Resolution. The hon. Member who moved this Amendment and the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, I dare say to 2734 their own benefit, might give me the kindness of their attention. They made a great deal out of the fact that the words "member of the Church of Wales," come into this Clause, and they demanded that some definition should be put into the Bill to explain what "member of the Church of Wales" is. If they had only attended, as I did, the few ecclesiastical Debates we had last Session, and if they had been present in the House on the 20th July, 1911, they would have heard a very eloquent speech from the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Stuart-Wortley), in which he completely gave an answer to their question. The right hon. Gentleman has just apparently wakened up to the fact that his authority is very great upon this matter: On that occasion, as those Members of the House who are ecclesiastically-minded and interested may like to learn, we were discussing a Clause to be added to a Bill to this effect, that only those persons should appoint to livings who signed a paper declaring that they were members of the Church of England. Objection was raised at once, and it was asked what is a member of the Church of England? To that we had a very complete and able reply from the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Perhaps I may remind the House that that was one of the last occasions on which the late Mr. George Harwood, then Member for Bolton, addressed this House, and in reply to Mr. George Harwood, the right hon. Gentleman opposite used these words—
These words are not a new departure.That is to say, the term "member of the Church of England."What we have adopted is a well-known form of words embodied in Acts of Parliament which have been followed for many years, which have been acted upon for a long time in the history of the Church, and have never been challenged in any Court of Law. More than that, this particular form of words has been copied into many patronage trust deeds constituting a patronage trust such as we are constituting under this Bill. Under these circumstances I hope the House will allow these words to staud."— OFFICIAL REPORT. 20th July, 1911, col. 1373. Vol. XXVIII.]
§ Mr. STUART-WORTLEYYou are creating new motives for calling these words in question.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSWill the hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt him?
§ Mr. KINGNo. As soon as ever I make a point, as I frequently do, which is absolutely unanswerable there are irrelevant 2735 interjections from the other side. I believe the right hon. Gentleman can look that up, and when we resume the discussion of this Bill next week or the week after he can give us something that will appeal to my final judgment. I address myself now to another point in connection with this Amendment. It has become abundantly evident that those who now, in the name of the Church, oppose this Bill, have become suddenly devoted to their Ecclesiastical Courts. As I know something of the Church of England and of the rank and file—not like those who set themselves up to know everything except the feeling of their flock—I say the Ecclesiastical Courts as they exist now are not popular, and are not resorted to if a member of the Church of England can avoid it. They are extremely costly, and I say it would be for the benefit of the Church of England if these Ecclesiastical Courts vanished at once. I have had the painful necessity of being a suitor in an Ecclesiastical Court, and I have also been there as a witness, and I have helped to pay the bill in an Ecclesiastical Court, and on those grounds I say that it would be an extremely good thing for the Church if those Ecclesiastical Courts, as they exist at the present time, were swept away. What kind of case have they to deal with? In most instances they are simple cases. Some of them relate to discipline connected with a refractory priest, or some breach of order or morality. These cases, I contend, would be a good deal better heard in camera, and not in an open Ecclesiastical Court—
The CHAIRMANI am afraid the hon. Member is now resuming a speech which I have already interrupted. We have passed Sub-section (1), and now we are dealing with the new state of things when the Courts to which he has been referring have disappeared.
§ Mr. DUKEI want to bring back the Debate to two questions which seem to me to arise under this Sub-section. The first is with regard to the proposed new jurisdiction. It is the ordinary common law jurisdiction to which Englishmen as a rule are attached. I recognise that something may be said in many circumstances for referring disputes which arise to the Courts of Law, and for withdrawing them from the Ecclesiastical Courts which the hon. Member said were unpopular, but when 2736 you come to consider what the class of subject is with which you propose to deal here, what the tribunals are now, and what the tribunals are to which you propose to leave them, I think it will be seen that anything more inept and more inappropriate than the reference of the subjects which are defined in this Sub-section to the tribunals to which they are to be left would be very difficult to conceive. You say you are going to preserve by this Subsection the rights of the members of the Church of England as they exist at the present time; but you transform them from rights arising by Statute to rights arising by contract, and having transformed the rights you proceed to deal with them by new tribunals as they will exist under the new contractual relations. Some of these questions will be as difficult as any questions which can be conceived. The questions litigated in Church Courts are sometimes not only difficult but in cases like the Mackonochie case, the Purchas case and other well-known instances they go down to the fundamentals and the essentials of the beliefs of many people. Such cases have involved persons in civil disabilities and sometimes imprisonment, and those who found themselves subject to those disabilities and disadvantages suffered cheerfully because of the conscientious considerations which they thought entered into the questions. These are matters of the most vital consequence in the minds of many, and matters of the most extreme difficulty. What do you propose to do with them I So far as I can gather you propose not to make any right enforceable unless it is the right in relation to property. Take the ordinary case of the relation of the parishioner to the minister of the Church, the churchwardens, and the congregation of the Church, and the right to receive particular ministrations. Take the much-debated case of the man who has married his deceased wife's sister and who is the father of children. You have those questions to deal with in the Church in Wales, and, so far as I can see, the only mode in which such questions can be tried will be upon an action of trespass, or of assault for the exclusion of the parishioner or child of the parishioner from a particular ministration which may be tried in the County Court. It is quite true by some formal means you may raise a particular difficult question and get it decided, but you will raise it before a tribunal which knows 2737 nothing of the law relating to the matter and which must be enlightened by evidence of ecclesiastical lawyers. When you have established by the evidence of ecclesiastical lawyers the prevalent view on the one side or the other, you will submit the matter to the judgment of a man who in that particular is not a lawyer and has no trained mind. That, to my mind, is an injustice to a man who has a serious right to be investigated. It will not arise only with regard to the parishioner. You take the case of the clergyman who differs upon matters of doctrine from the body of his fellow clergymen and from the general view of the Church and you are going to try his right to his benefice in the County Court or in the King's Bench Division or in the Chancery Division. If you are going to do that, you expose yourself to the same censure of providing an inadequate tribunal and of taking no security that justice is done between people whose vital interests are involved.
I cannot conceive why the Government, when they were dealing with this matter, did not at any rate save the trouble and expense which will be involved in the course of litigation which may arise by retaining for the existing Courts a declaratory jurisdiction. It would have been a perfectly simple matter to have had two blanches of jurisdiction, one of them to ascertain the law and the other to enforce it. What possible objection in reason or fairness could there be to the law being ascertained by people familiar with it and by processes familiar to the persons who are concerned? The Government, as I understand the matter, have at any rate for the present put that out of their contemplation and want us to consider this Clause as it stands. The tribunal is inappropriate, it will be unskilled, it will be costly beyond precedent of legal expenses in this country, and after all it will not have the advantage which hon. Members opposite profess they have in view. They say they desire a tribunal which shall not be coercive; but the Courts to which they bring these questions will be coercive in a sense and with a stringency absolutely unknown in any Ecclesiastical Courts of this country. How will they proceed? They will proceed inevitably in all serious matters by injunction. What is the penalty for a breach of injunction? Imprisonment, and imprisonment until there is obedience. You have long since relieved the Ecclesiastical Courts of the stigma 2738 of imposing imprisonment as a punishment for offences in spiritual matters, but the immediate and necessary and inevitable result of this Sub-section will be to restore the most extreme form of coercion, short of interference with the life of the subject, and you are doing this under the pretence of giving liberty to the Church in Wales. There is one other matter. There is the question who are the people who are to have the privileges, or rather the rights and the duties under this new scheme which it is proposed to call into existence. Clause 13, which refers to the possible constitution of the new tribunals for the Church in Wales, is a mere mockery. It does not provide for any corporate existence of the Church in Wales. We have it abundantly manifested in the speeches made by Members of the Government and others that this Bill obliterates the membership of the Church in Wales. It extinguishes it root and branch, and the result is to destroy in Wales not only the Church, but the membership of the Church. You can have no membership of a non-existent body. That, is the dilemma in which the Government have put themselves. The}' refer to members of the Church of England in Wales, but from the time when this Bill becomes law, if it ever does, the members of the Church of England in Wales will be persons who find themselves transitorily there. You will have extinguished the four dioceses in which there were communicants of the Church; you will have deprived yourself of any test of membership, and you will have created a vicious circle in which you cannot define your members for want of a Church, and you cannot define your Church for want of members. It is indisputable you have destroyed the corporate character of the Church if you pass this Bill. You have destroyed the existing membership, and that is why members of the Government and unofficial Members of the House speak of the new Church, and of organising a free Church and giving it control in the management of its own affairs. What right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are contemplating is the existence in Wales of an aggregate of persons who have been members of the Church of England, and they hope, as they profess, they may find some means of regaining for themselves a corporate character and the characteristics of a Church. You have nothing of that sort at the present time, and when you propose to impose duties 2739 and confer rights upon people whom you have struck out of existence, and when you take no means by the remainder of your legislation—no effectual means—for providing that these people shall in truth and with certainty have, at any rate, facilities for regaining their corporate existence, the characteristics of this Sub-section seem to me to add insult to the injury which is inflicted on the Church in Wales.
§ Mr. McKENNAI do not follow the hon. and learned Gentleman in the latter part of his very interesting speech, because I think it would be more relevant to another Clause than to this particular Sub-section, which it is proposed to omit from the Bill. But one or two questions have been addressed to me to which I have been invited to give specific answers, and I really think that those answers, if they are appreciated, will remove certain of the difficulties which lion. Members feel about this Clause at present. I have been asked why we did not simply abolish the coercive powers of the existing Ecclesiastical Courts, and why we have gone out of our way to abolish the whole jurisdiction of the Court and then to re-establish the Courts without coercive jurisdiction? The answer is very simple. If we had merely abolished the coercive jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts we should have been saying in an Act of Parliament that the Church of England in Wales, when Disestablished, shall be governed by Ecclesiastical Courts, and shall, in those Courts, administer ecclesiastical law.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSThe point is that you have not provided for the interregnum.
§ Mr. McKENNAThat is precisely what we do. What we have said is that until such time as you have established your own Courts, be they Ecclesiastical Courts, as you have now, or other Courts, we shall leave you subject to the Ecclesiastical Courts.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSThe Clause says—
"in the same manner as if they had mutually agreed to be so bound, and shall be capable of being enforced in the Temporal Courts."
§ Mr. McKENNAIf the hon. Member will allow me to finish, I will make my point good. Everybody must admit that in a Clause of this kind the construction of the meaning is very difficult.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILHear, hear!
§ Mr. McKENNAWe all admit that. It is inevitable in connection with the subject with which we are dealing. What is the process we propose? Had we merely struck out the coercive jurisdiction we should have, for the time being, the English Church in Wales beyond the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts. What we have done is this: We have abolished the existing jurisdiction of the Courts; we have then re-established the Courts, but with such changes and modifications, both as regards the law and the Courts, as the Disestablished Church may wish to have. If the Disestablished Church chooses to go on hereafter with precisely the same Courts, the same procedure, the same law, the same practice, and the same customs as the English Church in Wales has had during the past, it will be open to the Disestablished Church in Wales to do so. There is nothing to prevent them; on the contrary, I do not say they are invited, but the way is indicated to them in the Bill, which they may possibly choose to take. Why do we abolish the coercive jurisdiction, and why do we submit the Disestablished Church to the authority of the old Ecclesiastical Law under the conditions that members of the Church shall be supposed to be bound by contract to submit themselves to that law? The contractual relation we set up in this Bill has been quite misunderstood. What is done is this, members of the Church are supposed to have entered into an implied contract that they will submit themselves to the authority of that law.
§ Mr. DUKEWill the right hon. Gentleman say where the law is to be ascertained to which they agree to submit themselves? That is one great difficulty.
§ Mr. McKENNAWhatever law to which an existing member of the Church is subject, as being subject to an enactment of positive law now at this moment, after the date of Disestablishment a member of the Church of England in Wales will be deemed to have agreed to submit himself to.
§ Sir A. CRIPPSThat is not provided in the Sub-section.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILMay I explain the matter? One of my objections is—[HON. Members: "Order."] Those hon. Members who cry "Order" should try to remember what the rules of Order in this House are—that it is only binding on them in relation to property.
§ Mr. McKENNAThat is not quite right.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILThe Sub-section says—
"shall be capable of being enforced in the Temporal Courts in relation to any property."
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, that is all you can enforce now in Temporal Courts. It is only in relation to property that you can enforce it in the Temporal Courts.
§ Lord ROBERT CECILThat is not quite true.
§ Mr. McKENNAIn the Temporal Courts.
§ Sir A. CRIPPSYou can enforce a decision quite irrespective of any property.
§ Mr. McKENNAThe hon. and learned Gentleman's authority on the subject is supreme. There is no greater authority. We at any rate confine the authority of the Temporal Courts to questions of property. What will happen? Let us take a case presumed to be one of difficulty. We will suppose that the incumbent of a benefice of the Disestablished Church disobeys some ordinance of the Church of England. What remedy can you have against him? It is suggested that all that can be done will be to bring an action in spite of the order of the bishop or of the order of the Ecclesiastical Court.
§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSThere is no Court in the interregnum.
§ Mr. McKENNAI am not dealing with the interregnum. I am going to submit that there will be no interregnum. It was suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman that the only remedy would be to take that incumbent into a County Court and bring against him an action for trespass, and the County Court judge would then have to decide complicated questions of Ecclesiastical Law in matters in which ha has no experience.
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, I do.
§ Mr. DUKEI should like to hear some lawyer say so. I do not mean that in any disrespect. The right hon. Gentleman does not practise in the law and does not profess to be a practising lawyer. I should like one of the Law Officers or the Under-Secretary, who was more recently engaged in the law, to deal with this, which is a pure matter of the construction of the Sub-section.
§ Mr. McKENNAI can only give the hon. and learned Gentleman such information as I am advised by competent lawyers is sound. The incumbent who is in default is deemed to have submitted himself to the Ecclesiastical Law in existence at that time. That is to say he would be in the position of a person who had submitted himself to arbitration. The Bishop of the Court would hear the case in accordance with provisions of the Ecclesiastical Law and the Court would declare its judgment. The Court having no coercive jurisdiction, no immediate action would follow upon that judgment any more than any immediate action follows upon the award of an arbitrator. But the award having been given its provisions can then be enforced by process in the Courts.
§ Mr. DUKEWill the right hon. Gentleman put that into the Bill and make it quite clear. It is not here at present.
§ Mr. McKENNAThere is other advice which I have taken on the point besides that of the hon. and learned Member. I am advised that is the true construction of this Clause. The hon. and learned Member will agree with me that if that be the true construction his fears are groundless.
§ Mr. DUKEIf that matter is made clear I should agree that one of the apprehensions I have expressed is unfounded.
§ Mr. McKENNAI will take care that I am further advised upon this point, and I will certainly satisfy my own mind on the best advice I can obtain that the construction is as I have stated it to the Committee, that the Ecclesiastical Courts can give an award which would have precisely the same binding effect as the award of an arbitrator, the parties having agreed to subject themselves to the authority of the Court, which will proceed under the provisions of the existing Ecclesiastical Law. That is what we propose. The hon. Member says, "What about the interregnum?" We will suppose that the Bill passes on a given day. On the date of the passing of the Act the Church in Wales will know that it has got to get up a new governing body which will speak in the name of the whole Church. That body must represent the bishops, clergy, and laity. Hon. Members ask how we are to define the laity. Here, again, I will make an offer to hon. Members opposite. If they wish the laity to be defined, we are quite willing to define them. We make that promise. I would remind them that the Irish Church Act 2743 defined the members of the Disestablished Church in the phrase—
I. A. B., hereby solemnly declare that I am a member or the Church of Ireland, and a communicant of said Church.If hon. Members wish words similar to these put into this Bill, we are quite willing to put them in. I cannot conceive that there would be the slightest difficulty in hon. Members accepting those words. Hon. Members have sought to make a great point of the fact, first of all, that Nonconformists, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, might claim to be members of the Church of England, and interfere, and unwarrantably interfere, in the constitution of the new body. It is difficult to say what is the legal position of any Nonconformist in relation to the Church. I am charged with having boasted of being a member of the Church of England. A Nonconformist has extreme difficulty in defining what his actual legal position is. I am not a member of the Church of England in the ordinary acceptation of the term, and I certainly should not attend any general Synod of the accepted members of the Church of England, but if there is any real fear that the Nonconformists in Wales would swamp genuine Churchmen and seek to set up a constitution adverse to the wishes of Churchmen, we are willing to put in any safeguarding words acceptable to the Church in Wales. We have no desire whatever that the Church of England in Wales when Disestablished should be anything other than self-governing and absolutely free. T hope that with this explana-
§ tion, and the assurance that I will take the further advice I have promised, hon. Members will be satisfied with this Sub-section which seeks to provide freedom and relief.
§ Sir A. CRIPPSI can only call attention in a few moments, in view of Debate conditions under the Closure, to the position we are in when discussing one of the most complicated Clauses in the whole Bill—a Clause dealing with the dismemberment of the Church of England, which has never before been applied to any Church. We have not time to discuss it or to reply to what has been said by the Home Secretary. I would point out that under Sub-section (5) there is a provision which raises the whole question of compulsory dismemberment which we have never had a chance of discussing in this House. That is contained in this Clause, which is going to be guillotined after a most perfunctory discussion this afternoon. I disagree with every word the Home Secretary has said, and yet I am not allowed in this House to give expression to the real effect the Clause will have as to the dismemberment of the Church.
§ It being a quarter to Five of the Clock, the Chairman proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 28th November, to put forthwith the Question on the Amendment already proposed from the Chair.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 258; Noes. 146.
2747| Division No. 397.] | AYES. | [4.45 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Burke, E. Haviland- | De Forest, Baron |
| Acland, Francis | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Delany, William |
| Addison, Dr. C. | Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar) | Denman, Hon. R. D. |
| Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. | Byles, Sir William Pollard | Devlin, Joseph |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Dickinson, W. H. |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Cawley, H. T. (Heywood) | Dillon, John |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Chancellor, H. G. | Donelan, Captain A. |
| Arnold, Sydney | Chapple, Dr. William Allen | Doris, William |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Clancy, John Joseph | Duffy, William J. |
| Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A. | Clough, William | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) |
| Baker, Harold T. (Accrington) | Clynes, John R. | Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) |
| Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) |
| Barnes, George N. | Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. | Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary N.) |
| Barton, William | Condon, Thomas Joseph | Esmonde Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) |
| Beale, Sir William Phipson | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Essex, Richard Walter |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Cotton, William Francis | Esslemont, George Birnie |
| Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo.) | Crawshay-Williams, Eliot | Falconer, James |
| Black, Arthur w. | Crean, Eugene | Farrell, James Patrick |
| Boland, John Pius | Crooks, William | Ffrench, Peter |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Crumley, Patrick | Field, William |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) | Fitzgibbon, John |
| Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Flavin, Michael Joseph |
| Brady, P. J. | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) | George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd |
| Brocklehurst, William B. | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Gilhooly, James |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) | Gill, A. H. |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Dawes, J. A. | Ginnell, L |
| Gladstone, W. G. C. | Lynch, A. A. | Richards, Thomas |
| Glanville, H. J. | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) |
| Goldstone, Frank | McGhee, Richard | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) |
| Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Greig, Colonel J. W. | MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) |
| Griffith, Ellis Jones | M'Kean, John | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Guest, Major C. H. C. (Pembroke) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) | M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) | Robinson, Sidney |
| Guiney, Patrick | Manfield, Harry | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Marks, Sir George Croydon | Roche, Augustine (Louth) |
| Hackett, J. | Martin, J. | Rowlands, James |
| Hancock, John George | Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. | Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W. |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale) | Meagher, Michael | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | Menzies, Sir Walter | Scanlan, Thomas |
| Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.) | Millar, James Duncan | Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Molloy, Michael | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) |
| Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry | Molteno, Percy Alport | Sheehy, David |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Hayward, Evan | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Shortt, Edward |
| Hazleton, Richard | Mooney, John J. | Simon, Sir John Alisebrook |
| Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Morrell, Philip | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) |
| Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.) | Morison, Hector | Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton) |
| Helme, Sir Nerval Watson | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim) |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Muldoon, John | Snowden, Philip |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Munro, R. | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Higham, John Sharp | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) |
| Hinds, John | Nolan, Joseph | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Norton, Captain Cecil W. | Sutton, John E. |
| Hodge, John | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Holmes, Daniel Turner | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Tennant, Harold John |
| Home, C. Silvester (Ipswich) | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Thomas, James Henry |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | O'Doherty, Philip | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Hudson, Walter | O'Donnell, Thomas | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus | O'Grady, James | Toulmin, Sir George |
| Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh) | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| John, Edward Thomas | O'Malley, William | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D.Brynmor (Swansea) | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | O'Shee, James John | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) | Parker, James (Halifax) | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney) | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Webb, H. |
| Joyce, Michael | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston) |
| Keating, Matthew | Pointer, Joseph | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Kellaway, Frederick George | Pollard, Sir George H. | Whyte, A. F. (Perth) |
| Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | William, John (Glamorgan) |
| Kilbride, Denis | Power, Patrick Joseph | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| King, J. | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon,S.Molton) | Pringle, William M. R. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Radford, G. H. | Winfrey, Richard |
| Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Raffan, Peter Wilson | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.) |
| Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.) |
| Leach, Charles | Reddy, M. | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) | |
| Lundon, T. | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Rendall, Athelstan | Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Boyton, James | Craik, Sir Henry |
| Aitken, Sir William Max | Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian |
| Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R. | Bridgeman, W. Clive | Cripps, Sir C. A. |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major William | Burdett-Coutts, W. | Dalziel, D. (Brixton) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Burn, Colonel C. R. | Denniss, E. R. B. |
| Baird, J. L. | Campion, W. R. | Doughty, Sir George |
| Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.) | Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred | Duke, Henry Edward |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cassel, Felix | Faber, George Denison (Clapham) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Castlereagh, Viscount | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) |
| Barnston, Harry | Cator, John | Falle, B. G. |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Cave, George | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. |
| Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- | Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. | Fleming, Valentine |
| Beresford, Lord C. | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Fletcher, John Samuel |
| Bigland, Alfred A. | Chambers, James | Forster, Henry William |
| Bird, A. | Chaplin, Rt. Hon, Henry | Foster, Philip Staveley |
| Blair, Reginald | Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender | Gardner, Ernest |
| Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue | Cooper, Richard Ashmole | Gibbs, G. A. |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. |
| Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Goldman, C. S. |
| Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brightn) | Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) | Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen) |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Greene, W. R. | Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee | Sanders, Robert Arthur |
| Gretton, John | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) | Sanderson, Lancelot |
| Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Edmunds) | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo.,Han. S.) | Sassoon, Sir Philip |
| Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Macmaster, Donald | Smith, Harold (Warrington) |
| Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) | M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Hall, Fred (Dulwich) | Magnus, Sir Philip | Stanier, Beville |
| Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry) | Mallaby-Deeley, Harry | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Starkey, John Ralph |
| Harris, Henry Percy | Mount, William Arthur | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Newdegate, F. A. | Talbot, Lord E. |
| Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Newman, John R. P. | Terrell, Henry (Gloucester) |
| Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Newton, H. K. | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) |
| Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North) |
| Hill, Sir Clement L. | Nield, Herbert | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Hoare, S. J. G. | Norton-Griffiths, J. | Touche, George Alexander |
| Hohler, G. F. | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | Tryon, Captain George Clement |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Wills, Sir Gilbert |
| Hume-Williams, Wm. Ellis | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Hunt, Rowland | Perkins, Walter F. | Worthington-Evans, L. |
| Jessel, Captain H. M. | Pollock, Ernest Murray | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Joynson-Hicks, William | Pryce-Jones, Col E. | Yate, Colonel, C. E. |
| Kerry, Earl of | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Yerburgh, Robert A. |
| Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Rees, Sir J. D. | |
| Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) | Remnant, James Farquharson | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Lee, Arthur Hamilton | Ronaldshay, Earl of | Barlow and Viscount Wolmer. |
| Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury) | Rothschild, Lionel de |
§ The CHAIRMAN then proceeded to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at a quarter of an hour before Five of the Clock at this day's sitting.
2748§ Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 259; Noes, 145.
2751| Division No. 398.] | AYES. | [4.55 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Crawshay-Williams, Eliot | Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Crean, Eugene | Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) |
| Addison, Dr. C. | Crooks, William | Guiney, Patrick |
| Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. | Crumley, Patrick | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) | Hackett, J. |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Hancock, John George |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale) |
| Arnold, Sydney | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) | Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) |
| Atherley-Jones, Llewelyn A. | Dawes, J. A. | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.) |
| Baker, Harold T. (Accrington) | De Forest, Baron | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Delany, William | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry |
| Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) | Denman, Hon. R. D. | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Barnes, George N. | Devlin, Joseph | Hayward, Evan |
| Barton, William | Dickinson, W. H. | Hazleton, Richard |
| Beale, Sir William Phipson | Dillon, John | Healy, Maurice (Cork) |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Donelan, Captain A. | Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N. E.) |
| Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo). | Doris, William | Helme, Sir Norval Watson |
| Black, Arthur W. | Duffy, William J. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Boland, John Pius | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.) | Higham, John Sharp |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hinds, John |
| Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) | Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. |
| Brady, P. J. | Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Hodge, John |
| Brocklehurst, William B. | Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Holmes, Daniel Turner |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Essex, Richard Walter | Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Esslemont, George Birnie | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Falconer, James | Hudson, Walter |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Farrell, James Patrick | Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar) | French, Peter | Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh) |
| Byles, Sir William Pollard | Field, William | John, Edward Thomas |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Fitzgibbon, John | Jones, Rt.Hon.Sir D.Brynmor (Swansea) |
| Cawley, H. T. (Heywood) | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Chancellor, H. G. | George, Rt. Hon D. Lloyd | Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) |
| Chapple, Dr. William Allen | Gilhooly, James | Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Gill, A. H. | Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) |
| Clough, William | Ginnell, L. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) |
| Clynes, John R. | Gladstone, W. G. C. | Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney) |
| Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) | Glanville, H. J. | Joyce, Michael |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Goldstone, Frank | Keating, Matthew |
| Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. | Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) | Kellaway, Frederick George |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Greig, Colonel J. W. | Kennedy, Vincent Paul |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Kilbride, Denis |
| Cotton, William Francis | Griffith, Ellis Jones | King, J. |
| Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon,S. Molten) | O'Doherty, Philip | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) |
| Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | O'Donnell, Thomas | Sheehy, David |
| Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | O'Grady, James | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Shortt, Edward |
| Leach, Charles | O'Malley, William | Simon, Sir John Alisebrook |
| Lewis, John Herbert | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, s.) | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) |
| Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton) |
| Lundon, T. | O'Shee, James John | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim) |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Snowden, Philip |
| Lynch, A. A. | Parker, James (Halifax) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) |
| McGhee, Richard | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | Sutton, John E. |
| MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Pointer, Joseph | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Macpherson, James Ian | Pollard, Sir George H. | Tennant, Harold John |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Thomas, James Henry |
| M'Kean, John | Power, Patrick Joseph | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) | Pringle, William M. R. | Toulmin, Sir George |
| Manfield, Harry | Radford, G. H. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Marks, Sir George Croydon | Raffan, Peter Wilson | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Martin, J. | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. | Reddy, M. | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Meagher, Michael | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Manzies, Sir Walter | Rendall, Athelstan | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Millar, James Duncan | Richards, Thomas | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Melloy, Michael | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) | Webb, H. |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) | White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston) |
| Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Money, L. G. Chiozza | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Whyte, A. F. (Perth) |
| Mooney, J. J. | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) | William, John (Glamorgan) |
| Morrell, Philip | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Morison, Hector | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Robinson, Sidney | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Muldoon, John | Roch, Waiter F. (Pembroke) | Winfrey, Richard |
| Munro, R. | Roche, Augustine (Louth) | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.) |
| Nannetti, Joseph P. | Rowlands, James | Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.) |
| Nolan, Joseph | Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W. | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Norton, Captain Cecil W. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) | Yoxali, Sir James Henry |
| Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) | |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Scanlan, Thomas | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. | Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | Hoare, S. J. G. |
| Aitken, Sir William Max | Cooper, Richard Ashmole | Hohler, G. F. |
| Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R. | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major William | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Houston, Robert Paterson |
| Ashley, W. W. | Craik, Sir Henry | Hume-Williams, Win. Ellis |
| Baird, J. L. | Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian | Hunt, Rowland |
| Saker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.) | Cripps, Sir C. A. | Jessel, Captain H. M. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Dalziel, D. (Brixton) | Joynson-Hicks, William |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Denniss, E. R. B. | Kerry, Earl of |
| Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) | Doughty, Sir George | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement |
| Barnston, Harry | Duke, Henry Edward | Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Faber, George Denison (Clapham) | Lee, Arthur Hamilton |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.) | Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury) |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) |
| Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- | Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Beresford, Lord C. | Fitzroy, Hon, Edward A. | Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee |
| Bigland, Alfred | Fleming, Valentine | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) |
| Bird, A. | Fletcher, John Samuel | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.) |
| Blair, Reginald | Forster, Henry William | Mackinder, Halford J. |
| Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue | Foster, Philip Staveley | Macmaster, Donald |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Gardner, Ernest | M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) |
| Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) | Gibbs, G. A. | Magnus, Sir Philip |
| Beyton, James | Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. | Mallaby-Deeley, Harry |
| Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Goldman, C. S. | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) | Mount, William Arthur |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Newdegate, F. A. |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Greene, W. R. | Newman, John R. P. |
| Campion, W. R. | Gretton, John | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) |
| Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred | Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Newton, Harry Kottingham |
| Cassel, Felix | Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) | Nield, Herbert |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hall, Fred (Dulwich) | Norton-Griffiths, J. |
| Cator, John | Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry) | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) |
| Cave, George | Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Harris, Henry Percy | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
| Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Wore'r.) | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Perkins, Walter F. |
| Chambers, James | Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Hill, Sir Clement L. | Pryce-Jones, Col. E. |
| Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Stanier, Beville | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Rees, Sir J. D. | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) | Wills, Sir Gilbert |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Starkey, John Ralph | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Ronaldshay, Earl of | Steel-Maitland, A. D. | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Rothschild, Lionel de | Talbot, Lord E. | Worthington-Evans, L. |
| Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen) | Terrell, Henry (Gloucester) | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) | Yate, Colonel C. E. |
| Sanders, Robert Arthur | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North) | Yerburgh, Robert A. |
| Sanderson, Lancelot | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall | |
| Sassoon, Sir Philip | Touche, George Alexander | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Smith, Harold (Warrington) | Tryon, Captain George Clement | E. Cecil and Mr. Hewins. |
| Spear, Sir John Ward |
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again on Monday next (9th December).
§ The Orders for the remaining Government business were read and postponed.
§ Whereupon, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Order of the House of 14th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."