HC Deb 05 February 1913 vol 47 cc2231-337

Order for Third Heading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON

I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day three months."

Owing to the conditions under which we have discussed this Bill I have to claim some indulgence from the House. The House is aware that we only finished the proceedings on the Report stage late last night. There is, of course, when the Third Reading of a Bill is taken the very next day on a large and complicated subject such as this, difficulty in placing the proposals in the true perspective which one would desire to lay before the House. The existence of the Established Church in Wales is the visible expression of two great principles. The first is that the State recognises and proclaims its religious basis and its allegiance to the Christian faith. The second is that the Church accepts the national life as its special sphere of activity. For more than twelve centuries nations have been animated and fortified by those two great principles. For scarcely a shorter period the Church in Wales has been fortified and strengthened by her unity with the Church in England, and throughout those great spaces of time Churchmen have freely given of their possessions—freely given to the Church Endowments—in order that she might maintain and push her spiritual mission. These Endowments are unquestionably and admittedly of valid title. They are buttressed and underpinned, if I may so say, by centuries of prescription. This Bill is designed to obliterate and blot cut the first principle —I mean the recognition by the State of the Church. It dissolves the unity between the Church in Wales and the Church in England; and, lastly, it deprives the Church in Wales of her ancient Endowments and devotes them to secular purposes. For such a work of destruction and deprivation, I think the House will agree overwhelming reasons are necessary. But the really arresting fact as I look upon the controversy and the history of the matter, and upon the long debates which have taken place in this House, is that most of the principal arguments upon which, as I think, this narrow, and, I am afraid I must say, mean Bill, was formed, have been shattered. It is not unnatural that here in this House, and at the very core and heart of the controversy, we have heard one distinguished Minister assert, one great principle, and the Prime Minister and Solicitor-General repudiate it in terms.

We have had in this place what I venture to think is hopeless confusion of thought on the part of the supporters of the Bill. We have had misrepresentation of history, and, as I think, an utter misconception of the facts of the case. May I give a, few instances? It was freely said that the clergy were State paid, and that what Parliament gave Parliament could take away. We never hear anything of that now—not a word. These Debates have had the effect that that statement of fact has been absolutely abandoned. We have heard from one Cabinet Minister that there was a substantial breach of continuity in the Church of England at the time of the Reformation, and, as I said before, the Prime Minister and Solicitor-General have in terms repudiated that statement. We have had passionate invective against the pillage and confiscation of the monasteries, and we have at the same time had that very pillage and confiscation cited in this House as precedents for this Bill. I am not concerned myself for a moment to deny that Henry VIII. pillaged the Church, but I would point out, if that is agreed, that the proceedings of that Monarch are only relevant for a community of robbers and not for a community of respectable citizens. We have had arguments that the Disendowing of the Church is to do her good, and I was amazed only last night to hear the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. A. F. Whyte), whom we generally hear with great pleasure in this House, and whose high intelligence I recognise, deliberately say in justifying this measure that from his reading of history he found that Churches from which revenues had been taken away had improved in spiritual enthusiasm. That is a strange argument. It may be true, but, great as is my affection for the Church, I should have thought that greater enthusiasm would be dearly bought if it was bought by charging the rest of the country as pillagers. It is said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," but nobody has ever heard of an enthusiastic defence of those who persecute and put the martyrs to death.

The whole method of procedure with respect to this Bill has, I think been impeached by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. He will probably remember the incident at the time of the appointment of the Royal Commission, lie was justifying to a number of somewhat recalcitrant friends the appointment of that Royal Commission, and he stated—I think the same thing was stated by the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman before—that legislation had been embarrassed, that legislation had proved abortive on this subject, because of the absence of authentic facts. The Chancellor of the Exchequer added:— The evidence of facts collected and sifted carefully by the Royal Commission, they might depend upon it, would be accepted by English public opinion as more or less settling the dispute. 4.0 P.M.

In other words, the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that this Bill would not be introduced until the Royal Commission had reported and laid before Englishmen as well as Welshmen authentic facts. Upon those facts, I submit, they ought to be asked to pronounce. The Government have taken very good care, in the first place, by issuing this Bill before the Royal Commission reported at all, that these facts should not be before the nation, and they have, by the machinery of the Parliament Act, taken the very best possible precaution that the people of this country should never have an opportunity of pronouncing upon a full and proper statement of the facts. What else did the Royal Commission do? We used to hear much of an alien Church and dwindling minorities. What does the Royal Commission establish? It has established, by the verdict of a quasi-judicial body, that the English Church in Wales is first and foremost among the religious bodies. It has declared that it is the only body which can show in recent years a record of sustained progress. It has shown, also, that the Church is able, through and because of her Endowments, to do in certain spheres what no other Church can do; and the attempt to negative that proposition, which was undertaken by the Home Secretary at Cardiff, based as it was on gross misstatement of the facts for which he has never apologised, only marks how that material finding is ranked by the opponents of the Church. It has also established that the Endowments of the Church, when you come to compare them with the gifts of her sons, have not checked the liberality of her members. I admit freely the liberality, generosity, and faithfulness of the Nonconformist bodies in Wales. But applying even that high standard the Royal Commissioners found that the Church of England was equal to that high standard in the liberality and generosity of her sons. Lastly, in the important matter of spiritual vitality it is found that the spiritual vitality of the Church in Wales is raised and not lowered by a comparison.

In the forefront of the arguments used have been the thirty-one Members who come from Wales. It is said that there has been for many years substantial unanimity in Wales upon this point. Even if I were to concede that you yourselves are estopped from relying upon that fact, because in dealing contemporaneously with the Irish nation, as they are called, you put in the very forefront of your Bill that the Irish nation are not under Home Rule to have the opportunity of dealing with the question of Establishment under Home Rule, as that is not a local but an Imperial matter. Having said that, with what face or reason can you come before the House now and say that this is a question not affecting England or Scotland, but is a question solely affecting Wales, and one in which Wales only should be consulted? Many of the original reasons upon which this Bill was founded have been either shattered or abandoned. The sub-structure, the foundation, the principle has been visibly crumbling before our eyes, but the superstructure of the Bill reared on its remains stands almost untouched. I trust that I have said enough by way of preface to justify me even to the stalwarts, the hon. Members from Wales opposite, in saying I am entitled to pass in review the larger outlines of this Bill with a feeling of settled hostility. The first of those great outlines, as to which I wish to say a few words, is the question of Disestablishment. I mean the deliberate repudiation by this House and the State of the organic connection between the basis of national life and the Christian religion. It is said by our opponents that the State cannot have itself a religion, that the religion of the community consists of the religion of the individual lives, that religion is an intensely personal thing, and that you cannot clothe the State which is itself impersonal with that which is personal. I submit that the State is an entity, and that is something separate from the aggregate of individuals which compose it.

You have yourselves on both sides, but especially on the Liberal side, claimed of late years much more for the State than used to be claimed. You have brought the State into questions of education, insurance, public health, and the early care of children, and you ask for it many other functions than those which used to be asked for it. Is this the time, when you invite her to such far-spreading activity in matters of such enormous complexity and difficulty to banish from her the divine light and to divorce her from that wisdom whose Price is beyond rubies? You say, "Look at modern Wales. Look at the various and the versified gathering of opinions," and you ask us how can one religious organisation represent it all. My answer to that is this: unanimity is, of course, impossible. But take the case of the State. Do you imagine that the State, acting through a Government, commands unanimity? Yet you do not abandon representative Government. Representative Government is a rough working policy for obtaining the government of the State. Very often the Government representing the State cannot command the allegiance of more than a bare half of the people, yet you do not repudiate representative Government. You do not say it is an impossibility. I claim for the Church, in the first place, that she is in possession. She is there. You cannot substitute any other body for her. I ask with the very greatest respect whether the circumstances that there are those who dissent from her is really a substantial and true ground for divorcing this venerable institution from the State.

Again—I am endeavouring to summarise the best arguments that I have heard in the course of these Debates—you may say, "you are wrong in asserting that the State, in pursuing her functions and her national activities is against religion or irreligion. You claim that there is such a thing as religion of civic virtue that there are great qualities possessed even by those who have no religion at all, such as benevo- lence, compassion, and enthusiastic service. I quite recognise that those are sometimes characteristics of men even without religion. But are you sure that those qualities are not in reality the fruits of the Christian religion, that they are not the accumulated opinions and the long-inherited habit and custom of a Christian community which has grown up upon the Christian spirit, and which has been due to centuries of Christian teaching? Nothing has struck me more in life than that I have found generally that the men who have not possessed religious faith themselves have been content to allow their children to be educated in their faith, in the hope that they, at any rate, might receive from Christianity that support and comfort that they themselves have been unable to enjoy. My last word upon the point of Disestablishment is this. I do not wish, and it would be absurd of me to wish, to be dogmatic on the point. But are you quite sure that as the nation separates itself from religion—I mean from the public profession of and connection with religion—there will not be a gradual atrophy of the ideal and the spiritual in national life, some tendency towards a deterioration of character, some decay in that spirit which every one of us knows the nation needs?

I pass to the second consideration, and wish that I could feel the understanding of my opponent's case that I had in the matter of Disestablishment—I mean the severance of the Welsh community from the spiritual body of Convocation. This professes to be a movement of autonomy and not a movement of separation. You are going to deprive the Welsh of their historic place in Convocation, an assembly older than Parliament, an assembly which the Welsh people themselves have entered before they entered this Parliament at all. This is not merely to cashier the Welsh diocese; it is to deprive them of a perfectly legitimate and proper opportunity of obtaining mutual society, help, and comfort from their colleagues and brethren in this country. What a ridiculous position you have placed yourself in The Home Secretary invited the Welsh clergy and bishops to attend Convocation in the interval between the passage of this Act and the date of Disestablishment. He invited Convocation, with the Welsh bishops and clergy in it still, to frame the constitution of the new body in Wales. What will you do with your miserable Clause 5 if that body takes back your scheme and the Welsh Church still has representation in Convocation, and that that is confirmed by the Welsh Synod when it meets? You would be in a very ridiculous position. You would have a constitution framed, and then approved by the Synod, yet you are estopped by this Bill from permitting the very autonomy which you profess to give. You have said all along that this is a Bill to liberate the Church in Wales, yet you pursue what you call the liberated Church with fetters into the future in her freedom of action in spiritual things. On your own principle you are convicted of unauthorised and tyrannous interference with the body which you profess to free.

I cannot imagine any other reason, and I believe it to be a false reason, and I put it even to the most ardent of the Welsh Nationalists. This is said to be in the defence of Welsh nationalism. Is the Welsh nation the poorer because she has within her midst such institutions and glorious traditions of the past as those of the English Church? Disendowment claims to take the ancient Endowments from the Church in Wales. I venture to read, as bringing this matter before us in a graphic form, a paragraph from a letter written by the Bishop of St. Asaph's, about a month or so ago. Of course, it was written —as it expresses on the face of it—not with respect to this immediate time, but to the future, and what will happen?— I take my own diocese of St. Asaph, with a population of 313,233. What happens there if the Bill passes as it stands to-day? My successor will have only the bare walls of the Bishop's Palace, every stone of which was built and paid for since 1791 by two of my predecessors, who were men of large private means. The whole of the episcopal income will have been taken away. The Cathedral, founded in 580, and restored, indeed well-nigh rebuilt, by Churchmen within the last 100 years, will be left without one penny for dean or canons or choir. There are 209 parishes in the diocese, and of these parishes 112 will be left without one single penny of their ancient Endowments. And here is the meanest part of the Bill:— There are 300 clergy in the diocese; of these 100, being unbeneficed clergy, will be turned adrift at once without compensation. Our churchyards, the majority of which have been enlarged by the generosity of Churchmen, will, if unclosed, be wrested from us; Then the Bishop of St. Asaph's adds:— to many of us they are the most hallowed spots in the land. The old arguments, justifying expropriation are, I submit, gone. What has happened in this House? Your majority on the question of ancient Endowments, a subject raised, not by us, but your own side, has dwindled to fifty, and even to twenty-eight. I hear now some foolish cries about snap Divisions and the like, but do you do better on this question when you go to the fountain head? Two and a half millions of people have signed petitions against this Bill There were 9,000 petitions with two and a half million signatures, and I believe half a million of those signatures were from Wales itself. In favour of this miserable Bill there are two petitions, with two signatures each. You have had the industry, which I acknowledge would be worthy of a better cause, to devote months in an endeavour to impeach the validity of the petitions which have been presented to this House, and what has been the result of your strenuous labours? Out of all these 9,000 petitions you have been able to impeach the regularity of only one. That was a petition which came from one parish. There were one or two, or more, if you like, irregularities in it, but, after the cancellation of that petition, another petition has come from the same parish in which the number of the signatures exceeds that of the original. I quite agree that oftentimes petitions cannot be largely relied upon, but in such a case as this, where there has been great labour and industry expended in an endeavour to impeach those petitions, when there follows contemporaneously and concurrently a startling diminution of your majority in this House, I claim that it is proved as clear as daylight, and I challenge anybody to deny it, that this Bill is not demanded by the majority of the people of this country, or even of Wales. I said that the old arguments we once heard have disappeared and have been abandoned.

Of the hon. Gentlemen who have come from Wales I must specify with great respect the hon. Member for Pembrokeshire and the hon. Member, who is of a different type, for Carmarthen Boroughs. I have greatly admired the speeches they have made, although I regret that the Member for Carmarthen, imitating the unfortunate example of the Colonial Secretary, burnt the midnight oil while carefully preparing his impromptu sarcasms at the expense of his Friends. Those two hon. Members and others seem to have put the argument for Disendowrqent upon at any rate something like an argumentative basis, and I desire to treat their arguments with the greatest respect. They say that there was but the one Church in the Middle Ages, and that the Endowments were given to that Church, that the Church was the only representative of religion, and that therefore all the offerings of piety and all the bounties fell into the lap of that Church. They say that since that period, remote from now, there are several or many Churches in Wales, and that that which was originally destined for the whole community, or at any rate the parishioners of every parish as a whole, should be now divided among those who were the original—as they say— beneficiaries, and that that which was originally given to the Church should now go to the majority. Let me say that I deny fundamentally the soundness of their premises, for the reasons that have been stated, and were stated only last night again with such extraordinary power and eloquence by my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University. I associate myself with his arguments, and I will not spoil them by endeavouring to repeat them, but the House will, I know, acquit me of having abandoned that position.

I wish at this moment to assume the correctness of the proposition stated by the two hon. Members and by the Solicitor-General, and in my last observations I begin with the assumption of the truth of their proposition. Where does their proposition really lead to? Let me assume in their favour that the Church of England and the other denominations—I believe I am assuming against myself—are roughly half and half in Wales, the Church being on the one side and the denominations on the other. [An HON. MKMBER: "No."] Let me assume—I do not think it is very much to assume; it depends upon the number—in favour of my opponent, also, that the whole—which is notoriously against the facts—of Nonconformist opinion is against the Church of England in this respect. That section of opinion says, in the first place, "Give this property, which we say ought to belong to us in part, for secular uses." The Church says, on its side, "No, give it for religious purposes." That is the broad issue on which conflict has arisen. Why should these funds be given, dealing solely with the consciences of Nonconformity, and yielding nothing to the demands and request of the English Church? Why should all concessions be made to the Nonconformists? This Bill is presumed to be based, and is stated to be based, upon religious equality, upon no discrimination between parties, religions, and sections—religious equality, no preference, no discrimination. Why should you admit the conscientious demands of Nonconformists and deny the conscientious demands of the Church? She has as good a right to her share of this neutral property as the Nonconformists have. Why should you devote this money to secular uses which are against the consciences of Churchmen and deny the right to even use a part of it for religious uses? I wish to press the last argument I make most earnestly upon the attention of the House. It does seem to me absolutely contrary to all fairness, and profoundly unjust, that the whole of these funds, which I for this purpose consider to be neutral, should be devoted to purposes which you ask, while not a farthing is to be given to the purposes which we ask. Let me, in conclusion, strike, if I can, the same note as I did six months ago when I moved the rejection of the First Beading of this Bill. I ventured then, and I venture now, to appeal to the great and noble principle of toleration. Many of us may recall the vision of John Bunyan of the Celestial City, set among the hills, toward which all of us, or many of us, with very imperfect and faltering steps, and by innumerable and diverse routes, endeavour to attain. It is very sad that we cannot help each other in that ascent, but it is still sadder that we should obstruct one another in the attempt to make that ascent. On two occasions we have offered, I hope in terms that injured no one, to relieve Nonconformity of any odium or indeed from any delicacy in asking for those funds, and we have freely proffered a portion of them in order that they might be devoted to purposes of religion and not given to public officials for the administration of public affairs, however useful. To reject that offer in the manner in which it has been rejected, I do not mean to say discourteously, but sans phrase implies to me that those who have so lightly put it aside say, not that there are many aspects of Christianity in Wales, which is perfectly true, but that there is no common spirit of Christianity, which is wholly false. If this ground stood alone, I should myself urge this House, and urge it with most profound conviction, to reject this Bill. I beg to move.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)

The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken stated at the outset that he proposed to summarise the best arguments that had been advanced on his own side against this measure. He has done so with conspicuous ability and fairness, but I think the general feeling will be that if that is the best that can be said against this Bill there is no real ground for the Motion with which he concluded his speech. Let me take one example, and one which he put in the forefront of his objection to this Bill, namely, that we proposed by Disestablishment to banish the Divine light in Wales. Has it been banished from Canada? Has the Divine light been banished from Australia? Has it been banished altogether in our Colonies when they were Disestablished about forty or fifty years ago? This Disestablishment process is one to which we have to look for our inspiration in all our great Imperial policies. The United States of America is another example, and does the right hon. Gentleman seriously mean to say that the Divine light has been banished from the United States, from the moment when religions ceased to be Established in those States? On the contrary, their view of the matter is, and I think they have very good reason for their contention, that what they have done is to get rid of the artificial light and trust to the sunlight. Then the right hon. Gentleman gave us a denunciation of the conduct of Henry VIII. and his Disestablishment methods. If an ancestor of the right hon. Gentleman used that language at the time it would have carried him tonight to the Tower and to-morrow morning to Tower Hill. When the right hon. Gentleman attributes to me an attack, though I am not sure he is referring to me but to a Minister on this side, and a denunciation of the stripping of the monasteries, it is perfectly true, but the denunciation in which I and others indulged referred rather to the fact that the monasteries had been stripped, not with the view to restoring the property to the uses for which it "was originally given for the benefit of the poor, but in order to endow the courtiers of that particular day. The whole of my denunciation was confined to that criticism.

Mr. LYTTELTON

What had that to do with the Bill?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

It had everything in the world to do with the Bill. I went on to say that there were cases in which that Disestablishment process had ended in re-establishment of colleges and schools, and that some part of the property had been given for the purpose of almshouses, and I said that was in accordance with the original purposes. But the part which I denounced, and the part which has not yet been denounced by any supporter of the right hon. Gentleman in this House, or in the other at any rate—and I shall wait with a good deal of interest to see whether the denunciation will be carried—was to the more conspicuous and more flagrant part of the Disendowment proposals of Henry VIII. The right hon. Gentleman stated, although he has not been able to give very much reason for his contention, that the main principles on which the Bill is based have been completely shattered. There is one principle to which he did not allude, or to which he barely alluded, and that is that this represents a demand from a nationality for the adjustment of its own spiritual affairs, and surely when those primarily concerned, and when the people exclusively concerned—

Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

No, no.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

If the hon. Gentleman means to contend that the spiritual interests of the Welsh people do not exclusively concern themselves, then I am at a loss to know what he is really aiming at. What has happened? Here is no hasty legislation as far as the Welsh people are concerned. This represents a demand put forward by two successive generations. The first generation that put it forward has passed away, and it has been sustained by the second generation, and if it is not settled this year or in the course of the next few years, the next generation will carry on the appeal. I do not believe there is a case, with the exception of the demand for self-government for Ireland, which is comparable to the steadiness of the demand put forward by Wales for the principle of this measure. I think the Welsh people are entitled to say that when a nation, I will not say with unanimity, displays such preponderating opinion in favour of something which undoubtedly primarily concerns them, that at any rate it is entitled to an examination, a patient examination, a fair examination, and a favourable examination at the hands of the Imperial Parliament. That is what we have asked, and the House of Commons up to the present has supported the justice of the demand, and we invite them to do so finally by their vote to-night. I say it primarily concerns the Welsh people, and it certainly exclusively affects their spiritual interests. The right hon. Gentleman has drawn a very lurid, or rather a very dark picture of what the results of Disestablishment will be upon the people of Wales. He thinks it will have very disastrous effects upon the Welsh people. If the separation of the Church and State in Wales is a bad thing, it is something that exclusively affects the spiritual interests of the people dwelling in the Principality. The first question I would like to ask is this: Are they not the most competent people to judge of what is best for their own spiritual interests? No nation has made greater sacrifices for religion for the last hundred years than the Welsh people, and in no part of the United Kingdom will you find a people who have made more ample provision for their spiritual needs.

I am putting that forward as a proof that they are not a people indifferent to religion, that they are not a people who have not given thought to the best method of making religious provision for themselves. On the contrary, they are a race who have devoted their best energies to making the highest and most effective provision for their spiritual needs, and they are therefore competent judges to decide what is best for their spiritual interests. Take the case of London. The majority of the Members for London are against this Bill, I believe, and the lead against the Bill has been taken by a distinguished London Member, though not a word do I say as to the way in which he has conducted it, or as to the tone and temper. But at the same time he is a London Member, although he has not spoken as a London Member so much. In London, if you take all the churches and chapels and missions all together you have not got accommodation for one-fifth of the population, and I do not believe you will find one-tenth of the population who attend any place of worship. When you come to Wales with a population of 2,000,000, and I am taking the figures which the Noble Lord gave in his report, that 58 per cent, is all the accommodation you have a right to expect, so that accommodation for 1,200,000 is all you could reasonably expect. In Wales the Nonconformists alone have provided accommodation for 1,900,000 people, and the Church of England has 458,000 sittings. The communicants, taking church and chapel together, very nearly number one-half of the population of Wales, and the Sunday school scholars number a half of the population. I think, therefore, we are entitled to say to a London Member that the Welsh people, who have shown such energy and such distinct activity, and who have produced such results, are better entitled, with their first knowledge of their own conditions, to speak as to what would best suit their religious welfare than any London representative.

The Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) was last night very much alarmed, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman as to the eloquence of his appeal, and its fervour, and sincerity, about the effect Church Disestablishment would have on the teaching of the Christian doctrine in Wales. I should like to give the Noble Lord and those who take an interest in the matter two or three fundamental facts which they seem to me always to ignore. Most of the Endowments of the Church in Wales are in agricultural districts? That is the first fact which is always overlooked. In the agricultural districts the religious provision is overwhelming, both in regard to churches, chapels, and mission-rooms, and in regard to ministers. I could give no end of illustrations on that point. This is another fact: If the Noble Lord goes to the rural districts in Wales he will find very, very few people who do not attend either church or chapel of some denomination. The men who do not take advantage of the spiritual provision form a very small and inconspicuous minority. The reason for their non-attendance is not that there are no ministers provided for them; quite the reverse. There are other reasons. If you trebled the number of ministers and trebled the number of chapels, you could not get these men there. But the vast majority attend some place of worship, and are either members or adherents of the churches or members of the Sunday school. That is the case with regard to the tithe-producing parishes.

Let me put another point. The tithe-producing parishes are just the parishes in which the Church of England has the least influence, and were it attracts the smallest proportion of the population. If you eliminate Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport, and great towns of that kind, where the tithe is a very insignificant part of the emoluments of the Church, the proportion would be much nearer one-eighth than one-fourth. If the Noble Lord will look at the figures supplied by the Church itself, in the Appendix to the Report of the Welsh Church Commission, he will find that these are the districts where Church attendance is very small, and the number of Church adherents insignificant; therefore, practically the whole burden of making spiritual provision for these districts is cast upon the Nonconformist places of worship, and that duty is discharged by them. If to-morrow you were to deprive the Church of every penny of her Endowments in those districts, it would make no difference at all as far as spiritual provision is concerned. The only difference would be that people who have never been called upon to contribute as they ought would for the first time have the honour, as well as the duty, of contributing towards the maintenance of their own faith. After all, Welsh Members speak here with some sort of knowledge on this question. In most of these districts, I do not say all the rich, but, at any rate, most of the richest people are members of the Church of England; that is the case almost without exception, and it would be a very small burden to cast upon them the maintenance of their own church. Very often there are only thirty or forty or fifty adherents in a particular district; generally it is a small church, and it does not take a very large share in the spiritual life of the parish, because it does not command the support of anything beyond a small proportion of the rural population in these tithe-producing districts. When the Noble Lord talks about the difficulty of making adequate provision for spiritual work in Wales he is referring to a totally different kind of district; his mind is travelling to industrial districts. There he is perfectly right; it is difficult. But those are not the districts affected to any considerable extent by Disendowment. Take the Rhondda Valley: you have there, I suppose, a population of something like 150,000.

Mr. BRACE

Two hundred and fifty thousand.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

That is gigantic. The Rhondda Valley, before the discovery of coal there, was a barren, almost sterile waste. There was no tithe there. There are practically no ancient Endowments in that district. I shall be glad for the Noble Lord to correct me if that is wrong? I shall be very surprised if it is, because, after all, the Rhondda Valley did not produce the kind of agricultural yield which gives a rich tithe. The Noble Lord must know the Rhondda Valley; the moment you get outside the houses, it is practically a waste, and the tithe must be very small. It is, I believe, £20, and the Endowments out of Queen Anne's Bounty and from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are not touched by the Bill as it stands. Therefore, in so far as this Bill is concerned, the Rhondda Valley will be impoverished by only something like £20 in regard to a provision for a population of 250,000. I am taking my hon. Friend's statement as to the population. What is the state of things there? You have twenty-two churches and seventeen mission-rooms, and the church collects £8,287. Supposing this £20 was taken away, it means £20 out of £3,287. Does the Noble Lord really mean to say that that will cripple the spiritual work in a district with a population of 250,000? There are large colliery proprietors, rich royalty owners, agents and others, and £20 would be a mere nothing for the Church to collect in a single service. What is the provision made there by Nonconformists? There are between 150 and 200 chapels; they have no Endowments; they are all built by colliers and tradesmen; they maintain their own ministers. The Noble Lord will find about 150 ministers labouring in the neighbourhood. That is how the Nonconformists cope with a work which the Church with its Endowments found itself utterly unable even to touch. The figures I have given relate to a population of 113,000. My hon. Friend evidently takes a larger district. The Church has provided only twenty-two churches and seventeen mission-rooms. I am not criticising the Church. It is because the bulk of the population are Nonconformists. That is why the Church body has not done more there. I am only pointing out that if you Disestablish and Disendow the Church to-morrow in that district, about which the Noble Lord is most sincerely anxious, this Bill will not affect its work in the slightest degree. Take Cardiff: I find that under this Bill the Church in Cardiff will be deprived of £572. The total collected by the Church there is £15,702. Will it really be maintained that the work of the Church amongst the great population of Cardiff will be seriously crippled, and that there will be no preaching of the Gospel in Cardiff because £572 out of £15,000 is taken away by this Bill? The Noble Lord exaggerates the problem. Anxiety always does, and the more real and sincere the anxiety, the greater the exaggeration. The Noble Lord has evidently become a victim of his own earnestness in this matter.

Not merely last night, but in other speeches, the Noble Lord has spoken as if the preaching of the Gospel had been almost a monopoly of the Church in Wales. He really cannot possibly know the facts of Welsh religious life if he even suggests that as a possible explanation of "what has happened in Wales in the last 150 years. As a matter of fact, almost without exception—I know only one exception—all the great preachers who have been accountable for the religious life of Wales during the last 100 or 120 years, have been members of Nonconformist churches. That is true to-day. If the Noble Lord were to pursue his inquiries into Welsh spiritual life, he would find that most of the great preaching in Wales to-day is done by Nonconformist ministers. Take what is a conspicuous feature of Welsh religious life —the great preaching meetings—I do not know any other part of the country where they have those at the present time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Scotland."] I remember going down to my Constituents on the very day when the House adjourned. The whole population is 9.000 or 10,000. When I got to Carnarvon I found a crowd of some 10,000 people drawn from all the mountains round about to hear preachers. They listened to them from six o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night. I can assure the Noble Lord that we are not likely to suffer from too little preaching in Wales. I doubt whether in the whole world you would get a body of men to discharge their duties with more consummate art and power than the preachers to whom the people listened on that occasion. They held that great crowd for hours. I thought it was one of the most marvellous exhibitions of power, quite apart from the attraction of the message, that I have ever seen. The same thing happened at Pwllheli. I found there a great crowd of men drawn from every part of the district; thousands of people stood for hours listening to these preachers. When the Noble Lord is afraid lest the moment you take away the tithe and glebe there will be no preaching of the Gospel, I can assure him that the most cursory examination into the facts of Welsh religious life will relieve him of the slightest apprehension on the matter.

5.0 P.M.

After all, a nation under these conditions, which is going to be moved in spiritual matters, must always depend either upon great ritual or great preaching. In the old days, when the Welsh people belonged to the Church, they were held by a great ritual and the great traditions of the past; they are now depending much much more upon great preaching, and have been for 100 or 150 years. I do not know a case where a nation, after abandoning a great ritual, has ever returned to it; that is why I doubt whether Wales will ever return to the fold which it left about 200 years ago. I should like to say another thing in reply to what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square. He talked a good deal about the danger to the spiritual life of the people if we severed religion from the State. I am not going to argue the principle of Establishment. It is not necessary in this case. Establishment may be good or Establishment may be bad—1 am not going to dogmatise upon it. What I do say is this—and I would rather like the opinion of the Noble Lord opposite upon this point—I do not believe that the principle of Establishment has ever succeeded when it has been applied under the same conditions as it has been applied to the Welsh people—never! Establishment to be a success in any country must be the outward and visible expression of the inward and spiritual attitude of the people for the time being. The Noble Lord talked last night about Christianity as it is understood in the twentieth century, but in order to make Establishment a success you must have Christianity as it is interpreted by the people to whom you apply it. It is not interpreted in the same way by Welsh people as it is by the people whom the Noble Lord represents. The Noble Lord's interpretation may be a higher one, it may be a better one, it may be infinitely near the truth. That has nothing whatever to do with the success or failure of Establishment. The question is whether it is in conformity with the views, faith, creed, and attitude of mind of the people whom it is supposed to represent.

What happened in England? Whenever the English people changed their mind in matters of creed or ritual the Establishment changed. As to the views of my chief on the Reformation, I have an opinion upon the subject—which I am not free to express. At any rate there was some change at the time of the Reformation, and not an immaterial one. The change was so important that a man who preached a sort of doctrine which would be accepted at the end of the reign of Henry VIII. would have been burnt to death for preaching such a doctrine at the beginning. I do not know quite what you would call that. We will call it continuity of the Church. At any rate there was a very great change in doctrine. It represented the change that had taken place in the nation. It went on for a long time and fluctuated from one extreme to another, but it represented the fluctuation that had taken place in the mind of the nation. Wales was never consulted about it. Wales was Catholic to the very end. England became something which was half-way between Protestantism and Catholicism. At one moment she was violently Protestant, and at the next moment she was violently Catholic. So she fluctuated. But we were never consulted about the matter. We were Catholic in the reign of Henry VIII., but we were compelled to be Protestant. Queen Mary came in, and reverted to our views, and there was a lucid interval of about twelve years. Then came Elizabeth. There was a great conflict between our racial feelings and our religious feelings, and as usually happens in these cases, race beat religion. What followed? Wales was essentially Catholic in its temperament. It was never carried along by the Protestant Reformation, and the only reason why it ceased to be Catholic was because its priests died out. The Church of Rome committed the blunder of entrusting its fortunes to the Jesuits, who, for the moment, were much more concerned about the political side than they were about the spiritual.

Mr. T. M. HEALY

They were the only people who took the risk of death.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The hon. and learned Gentleman must not imagine that I am attacking the Jesuits. I am only giving the historical facts. The result was that the Welsh were not Jesuits, and therefore they declined to go to the Jesuit College. When the old priests died out we were without shepherds, and therefore we had to become Protestants. If the Noble Lord will examine some of the documents which are in his own library he will find some very interesting correspondence there which was discovered by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen. That correspondence was between an exiled Welsh bishop at Rome and one of the Noble Lord's ancestors. The minister, the ancestor of the Noble Lord, showed in the correspondence a conflict between his sentiments towards the Church of Rome and his attachment to the Tudor Dynasty. The exiled priest wrote letters to the Noble Lord's great ancestor, telling him about the conspiracy which was being hatched for the purpose of overthrowing the Tudor Dynasty in this country. That was the history of Wales at that time. The point I want to make is this: This was an Establishment that was forced upon us. England adopted it and because England adopted it we, perforce, had to adopt it to, although our religious sentiments were not carried along at all. They tried the same thing in Scotland. Scotland would not stand it. I wish some of my Scottish Friends who are apt to help the other side would bear that in mind. What happened then? England became Puritan. Wales loathed, detested, and scorned Puritanism at that time. Take the ancestor of the hon. Gentleman opposite. He was prepared to die rather than become a Puritan. So is the hon. Member I believe. Very well, we had to take it. England set up Presbyterianism and Independency. I should like the Noble Lord some day, when he has a few leisure moments, to study some of the old Welsh ballads of the Cromwellian days. He would get real Toryism there—the real, pure doctrine of Toryism. The old Welsh Tory who wrote against the Puritan would have scorned the sort of abject, miserable copy of Toryism which you have to-day. These were not the sort of people to set up principles and run away from them. Still, although Welshmen did not change at all, they had to change purely and simply because England happened to change.

England was first of all Catholic, then Protestant, then she became Puritan, and we had, perforce, to accept Establishment, otherwise the Divine Light would have been extinguished in our land. What was the result? Welshmen became absolutely indifferent to every form of religion. If the Noble Lord were to look at the "Welshman's Candle," by Vicar Pritchard, of Llandovery— he could not read the originals—he would find that the condition of Wales was reduced by a principle of Establishment which had never been established in any other country in the world, and Establishment where creed, faith" and forms of ritual made to suit one people were imposed upon another. No religious Establishment based upon that conception of a spiritual adoption by the nation of any religion could be anything but a curse to the land or the nation. Afterwards the Established Church of this country became Low Church and High Hanoverian. Wales detested both. It was Jacobite, and if anything the ritual would be high, for of course Catholic blood was still in the veins of most people. That was the only religious feeling that was left at that time. Then came the next move. Wales became Methodist and Puritan 150 years ago. England moved on, but which way. In the direction of being ritualistic and High Church. So we have always been at cross purposes and we have always had to accept as the national religion something which has been fashioned to meet the views of our neighbours. Can anyone be surprised at what has happened? It has been a failure. This is not the story of thirty or forty years. It is not the story of a hundred years. It is the story of hundreds of years of spiritual neglect, of spiritual degradation, from which generation after generation of Welshmen have suffered. What did they suffer for? They suffered purely and simply because of an Establishment which was imposed upon them.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite should know of the tenacity with which election after election, whatever the issue may be elsewhere, Welshmen have clung to this one purpose—to get rid of a system which has been a curse to their land. Exactly the same thing would apply if the Nonconformity of Wales had been directed from England. Every attempt to direct Welsh Nonconformity from England has always been a failure. The whole spirit and temper of Welsh Nonconformity is different from that which you very often will find in England. For that reason the nation must live its own spiritual life. That is all we are asking at the hands of this House The right hon. Gentleman opposite said in 1895—and I remember it perfectly well—and I also have had a letter from the hon. Baronet on the subject, "Just you wait a while, the Church is growing; it is strengthening, and Nonconformity is dwindling." Well, that has been said ever since the arrival of the Methodists in Wales. I was reading the other day George Borrow's "Wild Wales." He was writing of '54, that is sixty years ago. He came to a certain village, and put up at the White hon. George Borrow always got hold of the best hotel. He began to talk to someone about the religious condition of the people, and George Borrow's conversations led him to the conclusion that the days of Methodism were numbered. The reason he gave was that the parsons were beginning to learn how to preach now. He said:— We have a parson here who can outpreach the Methodist, and gradually the Methodists will disappear. That is sixty years ago, and if anyone here will take the trouble before the end of the Debate to look at the figures of the Church communicants and the adherents claimed by the Church, not merely in the town of Bala, but the surrounding parishes, you will find they are not one-eighth of the population at this moment in the district where George Borrow— a shrewd observer, though occasionally rather prejudiced—came to the conclusion that the clays of Nonconformity were at an end, and that the Church was going to recover all the lost ground. That was said ever since Methodism started. They said that Methodism was but a sort of temporary aberration. The Welsh bards thought so; it was not of their mind, and they loathed it, and thought it was a passing mania. Every generation of men who disliked it said the same thing, but there it remains. Let those who doubt it examine what happened, and they will find that there is nothing more deeply rooted in the life of the Welsh people, and for very good reason. It would be a shameful incident in the history of Wales if it forgot the faith that has done more for it than anything else that ever happened in the whole of its history. And that is the reason why it is a permanent factor which everybody has to reckon with who is dealing with the life of the Welsh people.

I should like to say a word with reference to what was said by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford last night and by the right hon. Gentleman opposite who has just spoken about Endowments. The Noble Lord said last night, "Disestablishment does not necessarily involve Disendowment," and that is also the contention of the right hon. Gentleman to-day; and the Noble Lord said last night these funds have been given—he used these words—"for devotional purposes." Well, if by devotional purposes he seeks to establish a distinction as against purposes of an eleemosynary character, then I ask him this: Are there any documents or decrees allocating the ancient Church Endowments to these purposes alone? If so, where are they? When the first appeal was made for tithe, I think by St. Augustine, it was for the poor, and for the benefit of the poor. That was the object which he mentioned in his appeal. The appeal was for the poor and for masses for the soul, and for these purposes they were much more frequently used than for any other purposes. So far as the poor are concerned, their interests have been taken away, and so far as masses for the soul are concerned, the Reformation did away with that as a purpose of the Endowments. The Noble Lord said it was given to the Church. True! But it was given to the Church not merely as trustees, but because the Church at that time was the only reliable corporation or body to do it. If you wanted to give property for any eleemosynary purpose there was no other body to do it. Supposing you wanted to help the poor or education, what other body could you give the money to except the Church? The Church was the guardian and the trustee for the time being for all these purposes. That is why the property was given to the Church. It was the only body at the time which concerned itself about any such services.

The Noble Lord said no mediaeval person would give a penny to the poor or education except through the Church. True! The Church was the only possible trustee at the time, but I might ask him, would any mediaeval person have given that property to the Church if he thought at the time it was to be given exclusively for the benefit of the clergy. There is every indication to the contrary, and that the donors had in their minds something beyond merely maintaining the clergy at that time. Who are the beneficiaries? The beneficiaries were not the Church or the clergy. They were the people for whom the Church ministered, and it is because of that that we ask for a reconsideration of the method of applying that trust money, and its appropriation to some uses which are more consonant with the original purposes of the donors so far as we can gather. The Noble Lord said, "Does anyone say it is better to spend money upon the poor and on the sick than in preaching the Gospel?" There was a great apostle who thought so, and his authority is good enough for me, but that is not the proposition. The proposition is that there is a mixture of purposes. Supposing you have two or three or more purposes mixed up in the gift, and you find that if you apply that gift for one purpose only you can only benefit a small section of the people, whereas if you administer the other three the whole of the people get the advantage; then I say there is good ground for saying, "Let us administer it in the way in which we will enable the whole of the beneficiaries to get benefit out of it, and not a section. That is my answer to the Noble Lord.

The Noble Lord is sincerely anxious to promote the highest interest in the Welsh people; I am sure he is. I hope he will not imagine I am saying that in a gibing spirit. I know he is thinking of their best spritual interest, and of their welfare in the highest and loftiest sense. Let me say this to him, and to others acting with him. Most of the men who during the past fifty years have worked for this measure in Wales, who created public opinion, and the demand that is now put forward in this House and incorporated in this Bill, are the men who devoted the whole of their lives to the prosecution of the great purposes which the Noble Lord has in view. They were not the politicians of Wales; they were the great religious leaders of Wales. They were convinced that for the true spiritual interest of the Welsh people the removal of this grievance was essential. To their views the Welsh people listen when they put forward this demand, and it is the appeal which they made to the Welsh people that we are making here to-day, to this great assembly, in the Billnow before the House.

Mr. DILLON

I should like to give a few reasons that induce me to seek an opportunity of intervening in this Debate for a few minutes. The first is a charge of a peculiarly offensive and unjust character which has been constantly made throughout the course of these Debates against the Irish party for the steady and effective support they have given to this Bill. That charge has been made both inside and outside the House of Commons, and I should like to say a few words upon it. And the second reason is the constant complaints which have been made throughout the whole course of these Debates of the unfair use which has been made of the procedure known as Guillotine Closure, and the protest which has been raised by defenders of the Church in Wales against the denial of what they are pleased to describe now as free speech in this House. The charge made against the Irish party has been this, that in supporting, as we have steadily supported, this Bill for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the English Church in Wales, we have been voting against our own principle, against our own consciences, and against the established and well-known principle of our Church, and that we have been doing this in pursuance of a more or less corrupt bargain, and because we have received the assurance of the effective support of the Welsh Members for Home Rule for Ireland. There never was a charge made against a political party more false or more absolutely devoid of any shred of foundation than that charge against the Irish party.

It is perfectly true, and I am proud here to acknowledge it, that we, the Nationalists of Ireland, do feel under a deep debt of gratitude to the Welsh people and to the representatives of Wales. For over thirty dark and terrible years in this House we were fighting the cause of an oppressed and tortured people. The Welsh Members stood by our side in days when we had few friends in this House, and in the happier days that are before us and before Ireland we can never forget that many many years ago Wales sent up to this House a delegation of Members solidly in support of Irish liberty, more solid than we could even return from Ireland itself. Therefore, it is of course to us a source of the deepest gratification, and I might say of national pride, that the opportunity has been afforded to us while we still remain in full strength in this House to repay in some measure the debt which we owe them. BUD when the charge is made against us that in repaying that debt and giving to this Bill in its passage through the House the effective support we have happily been able to give to it we are false to our own principles and traditions and beliefs on this great question of Establishment and Endowments, I hope to be able to show how preposterous and baseless that charge is.

Some Noble Lords have made themselves conspicuous night after night in the House, after each Division took place, by crying out, "Saved again by the Irish!" And why not? Why should we be ashamed to come to the rescue of Wales in her struggle for religious liberty? I hope hon. Members heard just now the arguments used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, in moving the rejection of this Bill. He said that this is an Imperial question and the Welsh people have no right to decide it for themselves. If that is so, have we not a good right to decide the question1! If you leave it to the Welsh people there will be very little doubt about it, and if the English come in and overbear the voice of Wales, why should the Irish Nationalists not come to their support? Therefore, from the right hon. Gentle-mau's own mouth, he stands condemned. It is quite unnecessary for me to quote from speeches in this House or outside the language in which this charge has been made against us. I have here one passage which I will read, because it is so characteristic and so disgraceful. It comes from no less a person than the Bishop of Manchester, and it is contained, not in a speech, where there might be some question of misreporting, but in a pastoral address to his own people published within the last two days. This is what the Bishop of Manchester says:— The past month has seen the Home Rule Bill carried through the House of Commons, and the Bill for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church of England in Wales advanced almost to its completion. Nonconformists have assisted to pass the former and Roman Catholics the latter of these two measures. But for this alliance neither measure could have found its way to the House of Lords. Time was when the Nonconformists refused toleration from James II. because it was coupled with toleration to the Roman Catholic. Then there were Protestants in Great Britain. More shameful language never proceeded from a minister of the Gospel. The bishop says, "Then there were Protestants in Great Britain." That is the bishop's idea of what true Protestants are, men who will be heroic enough to refuse liberty and freedom and toleration for themselves because it would carry with it toleration for Roman Catholics. I tell the Bishop of Manchester and all the other gentlemen who have hurled these charges against Catholics, if that be their idea of Christianity it is not ours, and we think it more honourable to take our stand with the Nonconformists of Wales in their fight for religious liberty than take our stand with the Protestants who refused toleration for themselves for fear that it would involve toleration for Roman Catholics. That is the Bishop of Manchester's language, and I say it is most disgraceful.

Lord HUGH CECIL

It is quite true.

Mr. DILLON

Does the Noble Lord stand in with the Bishop of Manchester in regard to that idea of Christianity?

Lord HUGH CECIL

What I say is that what the Bishop of Manchester says is perfectly accurate historically, and if the hon. Member does not know that, he is very ignorant.

Mr. DILLON

That is not the point of my quotation. My point is that the Bishop of Manchester recommends it to the Protestants of to-day as an ideal of true Protestantism, and he speaks of the Protestants of to-day as degenerate from their ancestors because they are willing to extend the hand of friendship to Irish Catholics and do not refuse liberty to themselves because it comes through the co-operation of Irish Catholics. I say that is base and disgraceful language, and even if it is true historically, it is very disgraceful, and it is doubly and trebly disgraceful for a bishop who calls himself a minister of Christ's gospel to recommend it to the Protestants of this country. I am proud to say if that be the idea of the Bishop of Manchester of true Christianity, it has no place in the minds and the hearts of the people of Ireland. When this charge is made against us for supporting the claim of the Welsh people for religious equality and the Disestablishment of the English Church in that country; when we are told that by doing this we are acting against our own beliefs and our own principles, I say it is absolutely false. By long experience, and I can prove it from our history, we Irish Catholics are free Churchmen to the tips of our fingers. We are free Churchmen in principle and we are against Establishment and State Endowment.

Reference was made to certain Clauses in the Home Rule Bill denying to us the right of legislation on the question of Establishment. It is quite true we are denied the right to establish a Church in Ireland, but if we had that right we should refuse it with contempt. I am not speaking without proof. An attempt was made at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the British Government to endow the Irish Catholic Church and to impose upon its liberty certain limitations. In those days our Church was desperately poor and unfurnished with ecclesiastical buildings. Its priests were living in a poverty unknown to any religious denomination of those days, and the temptation to accept Endowment was great. What happened? This Government came, early in the nineteenth century, and offered to endow our Church and provide our bishops with incomes on the condition that we should give the Crown a right of veto on the appointment of the Irish bishops. Our bishops were divided on this point. Some of them were in favour of accepting the allowance and others were strongly opposed to it, and even Rome itself was doubtful. But it was the priests and the Catholic laity of Ireland who rose up in revolt against this proposal, and our Church, without any Endowments, refused with scorn and contempt the proffered Endowments. What has been the result? Any man who has studied the history of Ireland knows what the result would have been. Would the Catholic Church in Ireland have been what it is to-day if she had accepted those Endowments? To-day the Catholic Church is one of the strongest and most powerful Churches in the world. It is a missionary Church and a Church spreading throughout the whole English-speaking world. Furthermore, her clergy are comfortably provided for. The whole country is covered with ecclesiastical edifices out of the voluntary gifts of our people and out of the life and zeal and vigour infused into our Church by our absolute refusal to touch Endowments or Establishment by the State. Therefore, when I say we Irish Catholics are opposed in principle to accepting Endowments or Establishment by the State, I am only saying what I can prove from Irish history, because, as I have pointed out, the experiment has been tried, and tried at a time when the temptation was extraordinarily great on account of the crushing state of poverty to which the Irish Church had been reduced by constant persecution. It will be manifest to every honest and fair-minded man that in giving the support which we are proud and glad to be able to give to the Welsh Bill, and in saving the Bill, as we have saved it often, we have done nothing of which we need be ashamed; and we have done nothing contrary to our own consciences or to the principle by which we are guided even in the affairs of our own Church. In supporting our friends in Wales, we are carrying out the very principles which, if the occasion arose to-morrow, would guide us in connection with the affairs of our own Church.

I have listened with mixed feelings to the complaints and bewails which have arisen from these Benches during the course of these discussions on the guillotine about the destruction of freedom of speech and the injury to this Parliament which that method of procedure has brought about. I quite agree. I think it has seriously injured Parliament. I read the other day with great interest a speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), describing the ruin brought about by the guillotine. Yes, but these men always forget how the guillotine came into operation. It was first proposed in this House in its most offensive form, much more offensive than it is now proposed, by Mr. W. H. Smith on the 10th of June, 1887, in order to put through a perpetual Coercion Act for Ireland. The Irish leaders of that time, in protesting against such a measure, warned the Tory leaders repeatedly that this method of procedure would be a method that would be used against themselves with fatal effect. We pointed out to the Tory leaders that it was an absolutely necessary logical and irresistible consequence that if a Tory Government used such a weapon as that a Radical Government, acting as they always did under much greater pressure of business, would inevitably use that weapon more frequently and with more vigour, and we were met with sneers and laughter and contempt, and our warnings were disregarded. That Act was placed on the neck of Ireland by the use of the guillotine for the first time., and the perpetual Coercion Act was passed, which still blots and disfigures the Statute Book of this country. In order to crush Ireland and impose upon it a perpetual Coercion Act you forged this weapon, and it has hung about the neck of this House ever since, and therefore these Gentlemen have no right to complain of the guillotine, because they are only getting what they gave us in contempt of our protests and complaints in those old days. I ask, Is it not a poetic and a just nemesis that a guillotine, originally invented for the purpose of coercing Ireland in a most cruel and shocking fashion, should now be used, after twenty-seven years, for the purpose of freeing Ireland. Let me quote a short passage from the speech of a really great man, who in some respects was the greatest master of Parliamentary procedure I have sat under in this House in all the thirty years I have been a Member—I mean the late Sir William Harcourt, who passed a great Budget Bill without the use of the Closure. He got up in the course of that Debate, and, protesting against the guillotine, he said:— I suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer a possible future when there may be a Liberal administration. Administration numbering say 310, and there might be a Conservative party of 330. There might be some great Constitutional measure—perliaps Home Rule—and there might be a Minister standing at the Table and saying, 'I shall introduce to-morrow a Home Rule Bill and I shall accompany it by a declaration that the Third Reading shall be taken this day fortnight; the subject has been discussed for many years; the amendments you have put down to the measure are frivolous; your resistance to it is obstructive; you are standing in the way of a great reform.' That prophecy was made twenty-seven years ago, and it was received on the crowded benches opposite with screams of laughter. Twenty-seven years have rolled over us and that prophecy has come true, and the weapon you forged then is now used not to coerce a people and oppress them, but to give to the people of Wales religious liberty and to the people of Ireland a Constitution.

Colonel WILLIAMS

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said this was a measure to be dealt with entirely according to the wishes of the Welsh people, but the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down justified his interference and that of the Irish party on the ground of their Imperial position in this Parliament, and said that from his point of view this is not a Welsh, but an Imperial policy. Where do we stand today with regard to this dividing and destructive Bill? We have come to the last stage of it in this present Session, at all events, and, if we hear of it again, perhaps before it becomes law some of the considerations which have been urged, and urged with force, on this side, and which have silenced the arguments with which the defence of this Bill began, will work outside this House in the political conscience of the people, and the Bill may not go so far as the promoters think at the present time. I have called it a dividing and destructive Bill; and I should like to ask what is the position of the nation, what is the position of Nonconformists, and what is the position of the Church under the Bill? What is the position of the nation as a whole? We are, by this Bill, being divided in that which is our highest possession, a national profession of religion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer devoted the greater portion of his extraordinarily able speech to the question of Disestablishment, and rather treated Disendowment as though it was the natural corollary of Disestablishment. Disestablishment and Disendowment are entirely different things. Disestablishment is the throwing away by a nation of one of its most, if not quite its most, cherished possessions, and Disendowment is the taking away by a nation of that which it never possessed at all, and therein lies all the difference.

The position of the nation after this Bill is passed will be that the nation as a whole has declared that the possession of an Established form of religion is really of not much account for the nation, because it is allowing it to be taken away from one part of it. The position of the Welsh nationality will be that they alone among the Protestant nations of the world are casting off in the eyes of the world their national profession of religion. There is no great and old nation in the world but which has got a national profession of religion. It is not easy for new nations to agree upon one form of religion which they shall establish in a young and growing community, but, if yon look even at those Anglo-Saxon communities which are trying to grow up without any national form of religion, is their internal and social conditions such as to make you think that their spiritual character is deepened, or that their moral conscience is heightened, by the fact that they have no national profession of religion? A nation, after all, is but an aggregate of individuals, and it used to be considered that a man was honouerd who made a personal profession of religion, and that a family was honoured and looked up to which had a family profession of religion and lived a religious life in face of their neighbours, but nowadays I fear such a profession is rather sneered at than other wise. Depend upon it, that which is true of individuals and of families is true of nations. Out in the world the nation is looked up to which has a national profession of religion, and, as we have proved, that nation which believes in its religion and which takes its national religion wherever it goes will fulfil its duty in the world rather than another nation which neglects to have such a profession of religion in the face of the world. There is at least one of the great nations which used to have a national religion. I listened just now to some of the eloquent sentences of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken—

Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found pre sent—

Colonel WILLIAMS

I was saying that I listened with interest to some of the eloquent sentences which came from the hon. Gentleman who preceded me in the Debate (Mr. Dillon), and I wondered what the attitude of Roman Catholics of Ireland and of England is towards the Republic of France having regard to the way they have treated the Roman Catholic religion there. I wondered whether they would have submitted as tamely to the spoliation of their Church, and whether they think the position of Republican France without a national church is as great in the world, is as happy itself, and speaks as strongly for morality as it used in the days when it was not ashamed to say it had a national religion? I say the nation will be decidedly the poorer for Disestablishment and for this doing away with the national profession of religion. That will be the state of the nation with regard to Disestablishment. I know it is a debate-able point whether Disestablishment is good or not, and that there are opinions to the contrary on the other side, and, though I do not agree with their arguments, still there is more to be said for that part of the Bill than for the other part. What will be the position of the Welsh nation after this Bill is passed with regard to Endowments? At the present moment the Welsh nation has some thousands a year which are spent for religious purposes. What is their attitude towards those thousands of pounds which are being spent for the propagation and the preaching of the Gospel? They have said, "We have got enough money for the preaching of the Gospel; we are good enough as we are. We do not want this money used for the preaching of the Gospel. We ourselves have benefited by this preaching in the past; our fathers benefited by it; our generation has benefited by it; never mind the next generation, we will deprive them of such opportunities of hearing the Gospel as the spending of this money gives them."

The money is there, and they claim it to be national money. Upon what do they propose to spend it? They say, "We have got great and growing educational needs which will have to be met out of our pockets; as we have met our educational needs in the past, we shall have to meet these educational needs in the future. We will take this money away from the preaching of the Gospel and use it to relieve our own pockets. That is the dilemma out of which they cannot possibly get. If these educational needs are necessities, it is quite certain the Welsh people will provide them, and they are therefore going, so far as these thousands are concerned, to take them out of the religious pocket and so save the secular pocket. That will be the position of part of the Welsh nation. What will be the position of Nonconformists after Disestablishment? They will cease to exist. The word "Nonconformist" will be done away with. It was invented purely to distinguish those who did not conform to the Established Church. There will be no Established Church; all the religious bodies in Wales will be on an equality, and, if they call themselves "Nonconformists" when they do not conform to one of those bodies, namely, to the Church of England, exactly the same thing will apply, for instance, to the Baptist body because they do not conform to the tenets of the Congregational body. Nonconformists will, therefore, be done away with. They have called themselves "Free Churches" because, they said, the Church of England was tied by Establishment, and they were free. They will no longer be able to call themselves "Free Churches," because by their action they have made the Church of England also free. Presumably, the Free Church Council will have to be abolished. Such a thing will be an entire misnomer, because they will be leaving out the biggest individual free church of them all. That will be the position of Nonconformists in Wales when this Bill is carried.

6.0 P.M.

What will be the position of the Church of England in Wales which they are trying to dismember, and to set up as a separate church by Act of Parliament? She will be left sore at the loss of valued privileges, which in an increasing degree she has tried to use for the benefit of all sections of the community of Wales. She will be sore at the loss of God-given means of carrying -her message and fulfilling her mission. When I say "God-given means," I mean means which were provided long before our time for these purposes, and which the present Church has inherited. They are in a sense "God-given" to those who inherit them, because they are given to be used for the purposes for which they were intended; they are given to be used to the best ability of those to whom they are entrusted. Therefore, I say, the Church may well be sore at the loss of her God-given means of carrying on her work and fulfilling her mission. She will be left to grieve that the nation to which she was sent has cut off its religious profession. She will be left sore in thinking that her fellow-Christians could rob her of the means which she was doing her best to use for Christian purposes. But she will be left more free to adapt herself more quickly to the changed needs of the nation's life. She will be able to attract to her own barrier of Establishment those who realise her unmistakable historical position, the purity of her doctrine, and the catholicity that has made her a meeting place, and will do so more and more, of religious men in Wales and elsewhere. That will give her a better chance still of appealing to the sceptic, the careless, and those who are out of the way. No one has ever doubted that the Church will be vastly improved in that way by what is done by this Bill. Still I say, as I began, that this is a Bill of destruction, and must be for a time a Bill of destruction, and until the dislocation of enormous funds has had time to settle down it will mean the destruction of a great deal of spiritual work in Wales. This Bill not only destroys but it divides. It divides the most ancient Church in Christendom into two parts. It divides the English people, the people of Wales and England, into two parts. It divides the people of Great Britain into two parts. It divides the Welsh nation from their national profession of religion, and it goes far to divide the present generation into two opposing camps instead of promoting that unity to which we ought all more and more aspire, and which the Gospel tells us is to be our chief end. These are some of the reasons why I shall vote against this Bill for Disestablishment and Disendowment. They are reasons which I believe will commend themselves to the English people and the Welsh people more and more. I believe the Welsh people will realise that what the Chancellor of the Exchequer calls the adjustment of their spiritual affairs, by which I suppose he means the adjustment of their spiritual affairs by Nonconformists, for I can hardly imagine that either he or the Nonconformists want to adjust the spiritual affairs of the Church of England, is against all their traditions, if that means crippling, robbing and hindering a fellow Church. If adjustment of their spiritual affairs means that they will cast off their national profession of religion, and go into the world as a nation with no form of religion as a whole, I think that such an adjustment will cost the Welsh nation dear, and that they will rue the day that they asked for this Bill and got the House of Commons to pass it.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES

In his very earnest speech the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down used a good many terms which provoked almost immediate criticism. He talked of the funds with which this Bill has to deal as "God-given funds." That idea is a new contribution to the terminology which has been developed during the arguments in Committee, He also referred to the funds as being "enormous" That again is something that is quite new to us, because one of the arguments which have been used, I know not with what force, against this Bill is that the total funds of the Church of England in Wales are so small that we are guilty of a kind of mean action in proposing to divert any of them in accordance with the principle of the Bill, however just and equitable that principle may be. But perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will forgive me if I do not follow him through the whole course of his speech, the earnestness of which I recognise and the general purpose of which is logically carried out in his opposition to the present measure. I only rise now not in order to try to cover the field of controversy upon this Bill but to make a few remarks which seem to me to be more specially appropriate to the present occasion, namely, the Third Beading of the Bill. First, as one of the Welsh Members who are specially concerned in this measure, I wish to say a word or two about the changes that have been made in the Bill during its passage through Committee and on the Report stage. Let me point out that all these changes are either changes that are favourable to the Church in Wales or to the interests connected with those who are adherents of the Church in Wales, or else are changes which have been made in order to meet the general feeling of the House or, as we conceive it, the general sentiment of the Welsh people in the application of these funds. The first important change has been the introduction of the commutation scheme. That scheme is embodied in the new Clause which has just been added at the instance of the hon. Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Gladstone). I wish to make our attitude in regard to this matter of commutation quite clear. There seems to be some misapprehension upon the point. We are not responsible for the form which the Bill originally took. We are not, and we never have been, specially enamoured of the gradual process of partial Disendowment which was provided for by the Bill in its original form. The difficulties of any such process, whether you look at the matter from the standpoint of the representative body of the Disestablished Church or from that of the University of Wales or the Welsh county councils, are considerable. We acquiesced in these proposals because we thought that they had been adopted by the Government in order to make the transitional period from an Established to a Disestablished Church more easy for the Church in Wales. We have therefore readily agreed to this principle of commutation.

Speaking for myself, I looked at the scheme put down by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in the light of two conditions or principles. First, I thought that the scheme should be so liberal as to make it safe for the representative body to exercise its option. The second condition, which I thought ought to be observed, was that it should not be so liberal as to disturb the adjustments of the property of the dissolved corporation between the adherents of the Church, on the one hand, and the Welsh people, on the other hand, to the material disadvantage of the latter from the financial standpoint. I am not going to discuss the details of the scheme. I wish to make our position clear. Having considered the matter, and having consulted with my hon. Friends who sit with me and with men of business in whom I have confidence, I think the scheme as it stands satisfies both these conditions, and for myself I hope that when this Bill becomes law the representative body may see their way to accept it. The other chief alteration that has taken place in the Bill has been the transfer in the account between the Welsh nation on the one hand and the representative body on the other of some part of the property of the dissolved corporation. The amount is something like £15,000 a year. I have already said what I thought and what the majority of my hon. Friends thought about that. We are not convinced by the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but we recognise that if he and his Friends are convinced, it suggests that there must be something in the matter. While we disclaim all responsibility for the concession, our general view is that we do not wish to say anything more about the matter. We have no desire to drive a hard bargain. We have no desire to haggle about small points of property, because the great and broad principle for which we are contending is the principle of religious equality in Wales. I am only speaking for myself and my Friends. There are, or there may be, one or two among the Members from Wales who take a different view. Mr. Burke, an eminent Member of this House, once described Welshmen—he was referring in his own day to a past generation—as "an intractable and restive race." I suppose my hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) is a type of the sort of Welshman that Mr. Burke had, or may have had, in view. My hon. and learned Friend was not born in those days, nor could he have been a Member of this House, but in these Debates he has always talked as if he were personally acquainted with the ancestors of the Noble Lord opposite (Lord Hugh Cecil), and as if other historical personages like King Stephen and the Empress Maud had the privilege of his acquaintance. He complained of the want of discipline in the Welsh Parliamentary party, but I suggest that he should first settle his own account in that matter. All I can say is that in what I said about the two main changes in this Bill I think I was expressing the general opinion of hon. Members on this side of the House from Wales.

With regard to the other alterations, they are of a different character. The Amendments of substance to Clause 18 which were put down by myself, and which were adopted by the Government, were alterations in regard to the application of the national or Welsh people's share of the property of the dissolved corporations. They were put down in order to meet the general views not only of that side of the House, but also on our own side of the House. They were designed to meet the view that all the funds of the Church which are not going to be handed over to the representative body should be given to purposes as nearly as possible which might be assumed and which I think were the purposes to which they were originally intended to be applied by the pious founders or by the authorities of the Church at the time when these Endowments came into being. I will say nothing more about that except that I think that if hon. Members opposite once admit the principle, argumenti causâ, that nothing wrong is being done by the application of these funds. I am not going to restate the arguments I attempted to make on the Committee stage, but I assert that the objects to which our national share of these funds is going to be applied are objects which were spiritual in the eyes of the Church at the time that these Endowments came into being. I could, if it were fair to the House, strengthen the arguments which I used on the Committee stage. After listening to the arguments from the other side of the House, more especially of the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps), I have gone a little further into the matter. The more I look into it, the more convinced I am that I was right in saying that in the early days, when the Church assumed its form as a Catholic Church under the Empire, the Endowments of the Church were not in the least intended to apply only to what would now be called devotional purposes. The distinction which the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Hoare) drew between the devotional objects and other Christian objects, which by the common consent of Churchmen of apostolic times were deemed to be spiritual, is a modern antithesis. It has only been brought about since the Reformation, since the multiplication of religious bodies, and the gradual change which has come over the system of law and of religious organisation in Western Europe.

I will give one instance which is a very celebrated one. Very soon after the Christian religion became recognised in the Roman Empire, and after it became an admissible religion and began to have rights conferred upon it, one of the great developments was that of hospitals. One of the first notable hospitals was the one founded by Fabiola, a friend of St. Jerome, which was deemed to be a spiritual foundation, in consequence of her having committed, unwittingly, without any attack upon her personal honour, some offence against the matrimonial law of the Church. I mention that as being the first instance of institutions specially designed for the sick. Throughout: the whole of the Middle Ages the example set by this lady, under the influence of St. Jerome, was followed, and if you will you can trace from the first Christian institution of that kind the spread of that idea throughout Western Europe. It is very interesting to find in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners—I can give details if it were sufficiently relevant for me to take up the time of the House in doing so—of 1835–6 that they found that there were hospitals which are still of spiritual promotion. When they came to deal with the matter in the legislation consequent upon their action, they actually applied the funds of those spiritual promotions which had been devoted to hospitals for sick people to the cure of souls. You have our case in that kind of alteration. If it were right for the Church of England to apply money which had been left to hospital fundations to the cure of souls, why is it so wrong for us now, in dealing with another part of the country, and in dealing with other funds, to apply the converse process, and to take away part of the money devoted to the cure of souls and apply it to education and other purposes which in other times have been regarded as spiritual promotions? That is all I want to say upon the changes made in the Bill. I think hon. Members will see that they have been changes all made, not in deference to any clamour from our side, but in deference to the arguments which have come from the other side.

I do not want to go over the whole ground, but I think it right to make a few general observations restating our position in regard to this Bill. Our first principle is that the ascertained facts and circumstances of the present time justify us in contending that Wales may, according to sound legislative and political principles, rightly claim to be treated in regard to many local and domestic affairs as a separate entity, like Ireland or like Scotland. Our claim is admitted by responsible statesmen belonging to both parties. The Prime Minister, in his speech on the Second Beading of this Bill, used language which so far as I could judge at the moment secured the approbation of the whole House. He said:— If there is any where in the British Empire a community which has all the indicia of a separate nation in history, language development, traditions and special needs, all that makes up domestic and civic life, surely that community is the Welsh nation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, l5th May, 1912, col. 1152, Vol. XXXVIII.] That being so, we have a right, with proper safeguards, to manage our local affairs, and if the principle is once granted it ought clearly to be applied in regard to matters affecting the right of private judgment and freedom of conscience in regard to religious questions. Such matters do not touch the stability of the Empire or the security of the Crown; they do not affect the Army or the Navy, general taxation or the economic interests of the country. Our demand in this regard is a national one, made in what we believe to be the general interests of the people of Wales. It is not based—and to this I attach some importance, having regard to the arguments used against us— on any particular theories as to religion. The question raised is not one between the Free Churches and the Established Church, not one between chapel and church, as is sometimes asserted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but between the majority of the people of Wales and the supporters of the existing legal ecclesiastical system. Nor is it based solely on the abstract principle of religious equality, or on the notion that the interests of religion are best served by freeing all religious bodies from the control of State or Government so far as their creeds, rites, and ceremonies are concerned. It is, I believe, true that most of my colleagues from Wales, and Liberals and Nonconformists in Wales, object to the principle involved in the Establishment of a particular kind of religion as the official religion of the State. I think we have shown throughout these Debates that we have no desire to dogmatise in regard to the question whether the existing connection between Church and State should be maintained in regard to England.

That leads me to make this further observation, that a good many of the arguments that have been used during the Committee or Report stages of this Bill seemed more relevant to the question whether the Church of England should be wholly Disestablished, than to the question whether the present ecclesiasical law should cease to operate in a particular part of England and Wales. We say that, founding ourselves upon historical, religious, and economic considerations, especially applicable to our area, it is desirable to sever the connection between the Church and State in this particular area. The central government of the Church until recently has been so anti-national, and the administration of Church property and the exercise of patronage so improper and occasionally so scandalous that, as a result, the Church can only claim about one-tenth of the population in Wales as being communicants. Our case is that it is owing to the failure of the Church of England that Nonconformity has arisen in Wales. The whole history has been generalised in a speech of singular eloquence by the Chancellor of the Exchequer already. I have made these general observations in order that there may be no mistake, so far as I am concerned at any rate, as to our general attitude upon the question.

I am much tempted to go over and try to answer some of the principal arguments which have been used by our opponents during the progress of this Bill through Committee and Report stage, but I will not do so, except as to one or two questions. The first is the argument which has been put, most forcibly, by the hon, and learned Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps). I remember his Second Reading speech, and though I was not convinced by it, I thought the strongest point made against the Bill was his suggestion that the Church of England was going to be dismembered. I have been considering that and trying to analyse it, and I submit that when the whole of the Bill is looked at, when the terms which have to be applied in the controversy—the Church, Establishment and Dismemberment—are rightly defined, it is not accurate to say that there is any dismemberment of the Church. I must assume that everyone has read Clauses 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill. Taking those Clauses in conjunction with the other consequential Clauses, I cannot see that there is anything in the Bill to justify the broad proposition so often put forward by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that this is a Bill for the dismemberment of the Church of England? What is the Church? I know that is a question which might lead to long controversy, but I will take the definition in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Commission, where I find that the Church is A spiritual society living or existing under the conditions of civil life. It is open to anyone to say that is not a true definition of the legal or the religious position of the Church, but supposing you take that, how on earth can it be asserted that the Church of England is dismembered by this Bill? The Church is a spiritual society. What does this Bill do? The ecclesiastical law, I submit, is that administered in the Courts Spiritual, consisting of such canons and constitutions as have been allowed by general consent and custom within the Realm as modified by Statute. Follow that out. There is absolutely nothing in the Bill to make any of these canons or constitutions unlawful in the sense that they may not be applied to the Church of England in Wales. The whole effect of the Bill, when rightly considered, is that the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Courts in Wales, derived from the Sovereigns of England and Wales, is put an end to, and that the King's Ecclesiastical Law, as administered in those Courts, ceases to exist in law, but there is nothing whatever in the Bill after the date of Disestablishment to prevent the representative Synod which is to be convened under Clause 13 from meeting and reaffirming all the canons, constitutions, and if need be the Statutes which together form the Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England. The only change is that what has hitherto been the positive law of the land, binding upon every one of the King's subjects, becomes law, adopted on a contractual basis, by the members of the Disestablished Church in Wales, and I submit that it is not fair, therefore, to say that there is any dismemberment of the Church. Any member of the Church of England in Wales, after this Bill, will have the same rights in England as he had before. There is no separation of orders, and there is no separation of communion. The Seventh Article on Ecclesiastical Law in Lord Halsbury's "Compendium of the Laws of England," says:— The civil power may, even when no division takes place in the territory subject to its jurisdiction, limit the recognition of the organisation of the Church to such portion of that territory as it thinks fit, and the Church organised in relation to such portion of the territory will retain its identity with that part of the Church which previously existed within that portion. I conceive that that is a true statement of what will be the law in regard to the Disestablished Church in Wales. In conclusion I wish to express, on behalf of all the Liberal Members from Wales, our gratitude to the Government for prosecuting this Bill, and to the Liberal party in general for their support. Especially I should like to thank the Home Secretary for his very able and admirable conduct of the measure throughout, and for the great consideration he has always shown to our representations in regard to the various matters connected with it. I listened, of course, with very great pleasure to the eloquent speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Dillon), a speech to which all Welshmen will respond with the utmost readiness. We feel very grateful to the Irish National party. We are not only grateful, but we feel proud. We are utterly unmoved by the sneers which are made in certain quarters, and I can only say that we feel that it is a singular and a providential occurrence that we, the Irish and the Welsh nations, who have suffered so long in common, should, in the Session of 1913, triumph. In appealing to the House to pass this Bill, I would remind it that we are the representatives of a very ancient people in this land, and that we have for many centuries progressed side by side with the English people, and that during all those centuries we have retained the consciousness of our national identity and also our common speech. We recognise, of course, that we have lost our independence as a political entity or nation for ever, but we cherish the recollection of our past days—the days in which, side by side with the English, we attained to no inconsiderable share of military glory. Of course, Norman baron and Cambrian chieftain have gone the way of all flesh, and after life's fitful fever we trust they sleep well. Their features are but faintly drawn on history's pictured page, but their names and the memory of their deeds are engraved in imperishable letters upon the hearts of all Welshmen. We dream no impossible dreams. We have learnt our lesson, for we have learnt that even as the individual must lose his life to claim it, so also may a nation upon occasion have to submit to the loss of the form of independence in order to gain the substance of freedom. All that we are asking by this Bill is full and ample liberty to develop in religious matters, according to the characteristic bent of our national genius, under the broad and equal sway of the Crown and Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I do not wish in any sense even to attempt to answer the peroration of the right hon. Gentleman, because I agree with much that he said, but there was one special point which the right hon. Gentleman asked me to answer. I have said often that one of the worst features of this Bill, unprecedented and entirely out of accord with all our notions of religious freedom or religious tolerance, is that it necessarily implies a principle of compulsory dismemberment of an existing religious community against the will of the members of that community. I do not wonder that the right hon. Gentleman desired, if possible, to get rid of a statement of that kind, because, if I am right, at no stage during our discussions on this Bill has any answer been given to what I have argued. If that statement is right, it is without precedent and nothing is to be said in its favour. Surely it is quite clear. I put it as a matter of fact, and also upon the technical ground. At the present time, as a matter of organisation, you have a Convocation which includes the bishops and the representatives of the clergy in Wales and the bishops and the representatives of the clergy in England. In fact, you have a Convocation which is called by the Archbishop of Canterbury the representative assembly of the whole clerical body of the United Kingdom. What does this Bill do? This Bill by the intrusion of Statute law outside the proper sphere of statutory action compulsorily excludes from that old religious body the body which is representative of the bishops and clergy of Wales. I want to put it to anyone whether you can imagine a more complete dismemberment in every way of a religious organisation than by compulsorily excluding the Welsh bishops and clergy from the ancient Convocation which has been their representative assembly for a long time past? Surely no special pleading of the right hon. Gentleman can possibly close his eyes to a clear statement of that kind.

I deny myself that this House ought to interfere to dismember compulsorily any existing religious organisation, but that it docs so cannot be denied. And more than that, I think it is the greatest blot on this so-called Welsh Disestablishment Bill, for this reason: I can quite understand arguments for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church as a whole in Wales and in England. Of course, I do not agree with those arguments, but I cannot understand any argument applicable to the Welsh dioceses alone and not equally applicable to English dioceses, and surely it is a mean and petty thing to attempt to dismember and break up compulsorily a great religious organisation of this kind by deliberately attacking it in those dioceses where you think it is weak in numbers and poor as regards resources. May I answer the right hon. Gentleman's second point? What have we been discussing several times in this House? The claim under this Bill is that in the future the portion of the Church in Wales should be governed by Welsh opinion—Welsh bishops, Welsh clergy, and Welsh laymen only. That claim is the basis on which this Bill is founded. How can you imagine more complete dismemberment of a religious organisation if you put that forward? At the present moment you have one Church consisting of members partly in Wales and partly in England, and the government of that religious organisation is in the hands of a united body. Churchmen in England and Churchmen in Wales are quite united in opinion.

What are we protesting against here? We are protesting against the dismemberment of the Church, and leaving the government of the segregated or separated portion in Wales, not under the Church as a whole, but only under that portion which hon. Members opposite associate with Welsh nationality. I do ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea (Sir D. Brynmor Jones), apart from special pleading and certain interpretations which appear to me to be very irrelevant—it appears from Lord Halsbury's book that if you break up the old Convocation in order that in the future the dismembered Church in Wales may be governed apart from the English portion—whether that is not compulsory dismemberment against the wishes of the religious community as it exists at present. I wish to say that that is a new precedent. Since the Toleration Act of 1688 there is no instance of the political life of this country through the House of Commons seeking to interfere with what I call the religious liberty which everyone ought to have as regards the organisation of the religious community to which he belongs. I say that the essence of this Bill is religious coercion of the worst kind, when you consider what is the effect on Churchmen in Wales who, at any rate, form a very large portion of the Welsh nationality and the Welsh community.

Having answered the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Swansea District, may I now refer to what was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer? It appeared to me that in some respects, at any rate, he has quite misinterpreted what I call the trend of religious history in Wales. My reading of history is quite inconsistent with what was put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. I understand the history of the Church in Wales is this: In the first place, monastic institutions were more developed in Wales than in any other part of the United Kingdom, and the result was that when you had the dissolution of the monasteries you left the Church in Wales poorer than the Church in any other part of the United Kingdom. I do not think anyone will dispute that proposition. At the same time, when you had the dissolution of the monasteries in Wales bringing the Church to a condition of extreme poverty, you had a Tudor Sovereign—that is a Welsh Sovereign—on the English Throne—I mean Henry VIII. The result was that not only under the Tudors but the Stuarts, there was no more loyal party in the United Kingdom than the Welsh. What was the result of that? It was that they were opposed to what I may call the Cromwellian party. When the Cromwellian party came into power what did you find? You found that owing to the fact that the Welsh party were opposed to them they wrought absolute ruin and destruction as regards the conditions of religion in Wales. After the Cromwellian period you find the Church in Wales practically in a condition of ruin as regards its churches, the homes of its clergy, and its resources. In other words, broadly, the history is this, that the Church in Wales has suffered through poverty. It suffered the same sort of deprivation as is going to be attempted under this Bill, with the result that it was unable to carry out its great religious duties because it had not sufficient resources and funds to do it.

What has happened since then? I challenge anyone who knows the history of Wales to find any fault with my statement of the history since that date. It is that the Church in Wales has gradually recovered its position. I will not say that it has been gradually Re-endowed or that it has had money given to it with a lavish hand. It has only at the present day got level with the enormous religious liabilities and responsibilities thrown upon it, and so much is that the case, as has been pointed out more than once in the course of the Debates, that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who deal with the common funds of the Church, are giving from English sources as much as £60,000 to Wales, because it is the poorest part of the English Church and requires more pecuniary assistance. More than that, a special obligation upon the Ecclesiastical Commissioners is that they are to provide for the religious necessities of our mining population. Everyone knows that that is a special obligation put upon them by Statute. They fulfil that duty to a very large extent in the Rhondda Valley. I cannot tell the exact amount involved. If my history is true, what can be worse than what you are doing now? The Church now partly from its own resources, partly from voluntary gifts, and partly from English resources, receives funds which, although insufficient for its religious needs and purposes, yet enables it to do a great and noble work in all parts of Wales. Are you going to impoverish the Church again and rob it of funds which are used for deeply religious purposes? I cannot understand how anyone who has read and appreciated the religious history of Wales can come to any other conclusion than that what Wales has suffered from is not a superabundance of Endowments, but the poverty of the Church, and if it had not been for that poverty you would not have the amount of Nonconformity you have in Wales at present. I am not attacking Nonconformity, but when you had the conditions of the Church in Wales reduced to what they were after the Cromwellian period, what could you expect? In another respect the Chancellor of the Exchequer was wholly inaccurate as regards history. The revival of Methodism in Wales took place contemporaneously with the revival in England. Wesley was the predominant force. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] In my opinion, as regards Methodism, he was the predominant force.

Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES indicated dissent.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I disagree from my right hon. and learned Friend. I read history in another way. [Cheers.] I do not know whether that is supposed to be a sympathetic cheer or not. As I read history, the revival in Wales took place contemporaneously with what we call the Methodist revival in this country.

Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL

No.

7.0 P.M.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I differ from the hon. Member. It does not necessarily follow that Wesley did it. That is another matter. If you take the time the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to—I think two centuries or so ago—you would not have found any large body of Nonconformists in Wales at all. The Nonconformist body in Wales has grown up since that date. The right hon. Gentleman knows it as well as I do. I say the Chancellor of the Exchequer was wrong in what he said as regards the history of this movement either in this country or in Wales. What is the result of all the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said? I understood him to say that in the result religious feeling in Wales has been developed to an exceptional degree. I agree with him. I think that is the result of the findings of the Royal Commission which was appointed to go into the Welsh question. But what is the moral from that? That the Church and Nonconformists have worked well together. You may have antagonism in one sense, but they have worked well together in this way, that each has given a measure of inspiration to the other. It is not as though the Church here had had a coercive power by which it repressed Nonconformity in Wales. Religious feeling in Wales has spread under the joint action of the Church and Nonconformity during the last century, and I appeal to hon. Members opposite to realise the advantages which they have got and not to use these advantages as a cause for attacking the Church. This attack upon the Church is coercive and reactionary in the highest degree. I am not going to discuss how many Churchmen there are in Wales, though I believe there are a great many more than right hon. Gentlemen state, but be they more or less, what I want to ask the advocates of religious freedom is: Why do you not allow Churchmen to carry out their own religious life, their national religious life, if you like, according to their own views and their own inspirations? We do not seek to interfere with Nonconformists in Wales Why should they seek to interfere with Churchmen in Wales? That is what they are doing. The Church has an organisation which all Churchmen love and for which they have a traditional affection. What right have you, in a spirit of coercive tyranny, to do what you are seeking to do in the teeth of what you know to be the opinion of the vast majority of Churchmen in Wales? I have never heard an answer to that question. Churchmen are not attacking Nonconformists. In the course of this Debate we have shown again and again that we have no jealousy of them. We wish them Godspeed in their work in every direction.

Mr. HUGH EDWARDS

We say the same to you.

Sir A. CRIPPS

Then why not leave us alone? We have our organisation. It may be different from yours, but it is the organisation which we believe can give the best expression of perfect religious feeling among the Welsh people who desire to remain members of the Church. What possible argument have you for coercion against the will and religious convictions that Churchmen who at present are doing great work as regards religious feeling and religious developments in Wales? There can be no answer. If, of course, you could allege that we were in some way in default, if you could indict us because we were not using our funds properly, or were seeking to interfere with Nonconformist developments I could understand it, but no allegation of that kind is made. The right hon. Gentleman put it as a matter of theory as regards Disestablishment and Disendowment, but what does that mean? What does it matter to us that his theory differs from ours? It is our theory that ought to be adopted as regards our Church and religious development and liberties. I agree, on the other hand, that it is his theory that ought to be adopted as regards the development of Nonconformity with which he is associated. Leave us the freedom that we do not seek to interfere with in your case. That is the answer we make as regards your attack on the Church in Wales. The Chancellor of the Exchequer appealed very strongly to national feeling. I do not want in any way to say anything that can affront the national feeling of the Welsh party or people, but among that national party you have Churchmen; why are yon to affront the feelings of national Churchmen?

The Churchman is as much a part of the nationality of Wales as Nonconformists. Leave the Churchman alone if you want nationality to have full play. If the nationality of Welshmen is to be recognised and considered you must pay at tention to that nationality in all its developments. In attacking Churchmen and breaking up their organisation you are really acting in the teeth of the very nationality to which you are appealing to support this Bill. We know we are dealing here with one Church of which the members are partly in Wales and partly in England. We have had this question raised, whether you are to have matters of this kind settled by the nationality interested or by the common opinion of the United Kingdom. I agree that those points of view are very arguable. But what the Chancellor of the Exchequer says and what is being put forward in support of this Bill is that you are to have this question decided on the nationality principle. There are two nationalities involved here. The nationality of England is as much involved in the maintenance of the old Church as the nationality of Wales. We have just the same feeling for our Welsh brethren as for ourselves. We are going to stand as staunchly with our Welsh brethren as if the Church in the English dioceses were being attacked; and if you take the test of the two nationalities, whether you take the test of public opinion or the test of Membership of this House, this Bill stands condemned. There is a large majority of the two nationalities against this compulsory interference with the Church in which we are equally interested, which is one Church, and of which we are common members.

The next point which the Chancellor of the Exchequer dealt with was the question of Endowments. If there was one thing proved in the course of this Debate, it is that we have disposed of the false historical archæological inaccuracies which were promulgated among the Welsh people and elsewhere as regards the origin of the Endowments of the Welsh Church. In substance these Endowments come from two sources. They come either from tithe rent-charge or through glebe. I was more than astonished to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer say, that although challenges had been made as regards the original documents dealing with the original dedication of tithe rent-charge, none such had been forthcoming. He has been a Rip van Winkle since this case has been going on. He has slept his time away instead of keeping up to date with the documentary developments which are open to everyone at the present moment. There are any number of documents to be found from Welsh sources dealing with this question of the origin of tithe rent-charge, and in all of them you find the same incidents, namely, the dedication of these funds to what we call devotional purposes; that is; in order to ensure that by a resident Christian ministry you may bring Christian ministrations within the reach of all parishioners. That is the greatest of all devotional purposes. We have heard about teaching religion and the use of the Sacraments. You cannot get any of those unless you have resident ministers to bring the truths home to various people, such, as we will say, those in the mountain parishes or in the slum parishes. I am perfectly certain, so far as a matter of this kind is really relevant, that every research—and a great deal of research has been going on even during the course of this Bill—confirms the views which Churchmen have put forward, in the first instance, that the funds were given to provide Christian ministrations, and given for that purpose only.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has gone back to the old doctrine of the quadripartite or tripartite division, but that never applied—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman who is going to speak by-and-by will give us an answer to this —to the parochial tithe at all. He can find no instance in this country. It is true that there is a controversy, though I think the notion is wrong, as to whether it applied to what was known as the general tithe before the parochial tithe. That is an historical matter which I am not going into, but what I challenge him to do is to give us an instance where after it became parochial any notion was ever entertained as regards its quadripartite or tripartite division. We have asked that several times. I know there can be no answer, because no illustration can be found, but in those circumstances I do repudiate bringing up again and again what must be looked on as nothing more than a matter of prejudice, because we have shown over and over again that as regards parochial tithes it is impossible that any such document has ever been held. With regard to glebe, the other source of these Endowments, it is established beyond all doubt, that glebe was given in order that the Church might be consecrated. It was the old doctrine that you could not consecrate a church unless sufficient glebe was attached to it. What possible basis is that for suggesting that either glebe or tithe rent-charge had any other origin than that they were dedicated for purely devotional purposes hundreds of years ago, and used for those purposes ever since?

For my part I think the user of 300 years is sufficient, and this historical disquisition has been introduced in order to obscure what is in itself sufficiently clear, because if you have funds dedicated on trusts for religious purposes, if they have been properly used and are needed for those purposes, then it is nothing but plunder and robbery to take them away in order that they may be alienated to secular purposes, and it is because that principle cannot be controverted, the principle which is applicable to the very foundation of proprietary trust funds, that we have this notion of deviating from that principle and introducing the complicated historical developments of the past. As regards what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said of the Reformation period, I am not going into any vexed question whatever. I am not going to attempt to decide whether he or the Prime Minister is right—I put my faith on the Prime Minister—as regards what happened in the. Reformation period. But what does it matter? Suppose we have held these trust funds for these religious purposes for the last 300 years; suppose during all that time you held that under an Established title; suppose at the present moment we are using that properly, and that is urgently needed for the religious uses of our Church, how can it be said on any principle, either of equity, law, or justice, that a fund of that kind ought to be taken out of the hands of the present trustees in order to be alienated and diverted to purely secular purposes? I think it is a pity in a case of this kind to make a simple position obscure by too much archaeological and historical disquisition. In no other case do you go into a matter of that kind.

For instance, I noticed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that we did not call attention to the money of the monasteries that has gone into lay hands. He is quite wrong. I know his other duties took him away, and that he has not had time to listen to these Debates. We have said again and again that if you are to have this confiscation you ought to begin gin with the lay impropriator; the clerical impropriator has undoubtedly great religious duties attached to the income from Endowments he is enjoying at the present time. I do not want to open a point of this kind now, but surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have informed himself before speaking as to what had been going on in Committee; and, if he had, I think he would have found that the most zealous Churchman here pointed out that, even if his doctrine was right—of course, we deny it—he ought not to attack the clergy, who are carrying out great duties in connection with these Endowments, but he ought to have attacked, in the first instance, the lay impropriator— whose title I am not attacking; I am taking their view—on the ground that his duties are not being carried out. I think there is only one other point on which I wish to join issue with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. I understood him to say—I have not the exact words, simply the purport—that in his view Disendowment and Disestablishment went together, and, in a sense, that Disestablishment implied Disendowment. Is it in any sense true that Disestablishment and Disendowment are so mixed together that if you have Disestablishment it implies Disendowment? I deny that altogether. Not only do I deny that altogether, but it is inconsistent with the first principle of Establishment, as I understand it. If anyone wants to appreciate the views which I hold upon this subject I wish he would read one of the most eloquent speeches ever made in either House of Parliament, that of the Bishop of Peterborough, on the occasion of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. There they will find that he said:— If I thought Establishment was based on privilege I would be the first to denounce it. It is nothing of the kind. I think the State ought to be associated with religion, and, if you once grant that, it is a necessary consequence that you must choose some religious body with which to be connected, and you have the same right as between State and that religious body as you have in any business concern where people find it to their interest to bargain one with the other. So far from Establishment being in the nature of a privilege, my view as a Churchman is that it is in the nature of a burden. I do not mind undertaking that burden; I think we ought to do so; I like the Church to undertake a burden for the good of the State and of the citizen. That she ought to do. But what has that to do with Disendowment? I put it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, suppose he was satisfied that the funds belonging to the Church were held by her under a title which no one could question, would he under the circumstances say, "Because I wish to Disestablish the Church I am entitled to rob and plunder her of her funds, being used for religious purposes at the present time"? I do not want the two issues to be confused. At one time we are told that Endowments are taken because of Disestablishment, and at another time because they are held under an uncertain title. Disestablishment in that sense has nothing to do with Disendowment at all, and as long as we are using our funds in the way we have used them in the past, for the good of religion and for the good of Churchmen in Wales, we are entitled, whether Established or not, to have the benefit of those funds in the same sense as any other Nonconformist community has in regard to the funds at its disposal as a religious community. I may state once more that in my view Disestablishment is far more important than Disendowment. I think, of the two principles, Establishment is far more important as regards our religious future and religious life than Endowment. But I do say, if we are to Disestablish the Church in Wales, that it is no argument whatever for Disendowment, unless you can show either that we have no title to our funds or that we are not using them properly. One other matter was referred to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that was the use of the funds after Disendowment. As I understood him, he said, "the use we are going to put the funds to after Disendowment is in accordance with the use to which they might have been put under their trusts." I will not go back on the origin of tithe and of glebes, but we deny that wholly. We put forward our view that these were funds originally given in what we call the devotional spirit, in order to encourage Christianity and a Christian life. That is our view, and we say that is a much greater object and a much greater duty than all those social matters to which those funds would be alienated under the terms of the Bill. We feel as keenly as the hon. Gentleman who spoke last on this question of religious life and religious development. We are as anxious as he is that this development shall go on in Wales as fully as in all the other parts of the United Kingdom; but we believe that what he is supporting is not likely to develop that religious life in the future; we believe that he is not acting in the spirit of freedom, but in the spirit of reactionary religious coercion, and we believe that this measure will bring, not reunion and co-operation between Christians, but antagonism and differences. On these grounds, at every stage and every step, we intend to give a determined opposition to this Bill.

Sir J. COMPTON-RICKETT

I do not propose to follow the hon. and learned Member in traversing the whole of the Bill, as he has recently done. I want to say a word as to one or two of his last remarks. He said that there is no reason for Disendowing because of Disestablishment, but surely funds that have been left to the Established Church have been left on conditions quite of a different kind from the funds that are left to a Free Church. The nation has the determination of the course of the Established Church. The nation has power to restrain her and can prevent her from going forward or backward. The Church cannot change her ritual or her doctrine unless she has the consent of Parliament; and, therefore, clearly on that ground there would be a very great distinction between money which is left to the Church under the control of Parliament and money proposed to be used under regulations and trusts allowing her far greater freedom. We have never said that particular funds have been earmarked; we have said that the Church 200 years ago, or 150 or 100 years ago, if you like, having the assistance of that ministry, performed duties both to the poor and to education. It must have been in the minds of those who left money to the Church that those parochial funds would be applied to more than the maintenance of worship and the preaching of doctrine. But I wish to call the attention of the House, if I may, and particularly the opponents of this Bill, to certain advantages in Disestablishment that they appear to have overlooked, or perhaps they have never experienced, and are, therefore, about to make that experience—advantages which are so great that, sooner than come tinder the control of the State in any sense by accepting State funds, the Nonconformists of Wales, who are poor, have declined the offer, and a generous offer, on the part of Churchmen in Wales to divide the funds which the Church is relinquishing under this Bill, because they know the danger of accepting State funds to the freedom and independence which they value.

What is the secret of the difference between the two Churches—one group of Churches and the Church in Wales to-day? Why is the one complaining of the loss of funds, and doubting and fearing the possibility of replacing them? Why, on the other hand, have the Free Churches declined any subvention? Why is it that they have no sort of difficulty in raising thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of pounds in a short time to make good any deficiency? There must be some reason. All people are the same; they are not illiberal. There must be on one side confidence and enthusiasm, and, on the other, a sense of responsibility to the Church of their fathers, and the Church which still holds their love and respect. That same feeling will be shown by the supporters of the Church of England the moment the reason for it calls upon them to make the sacrifice. But Nonconformists are interested, quite apart from the fact of satisfying the national claim of Wales, in seeing the work of a free episcopal Church. We believe it will be found that the experiment will prove so successful and so encouraging that when it is necessary to take another step, and when the Church of England herself claims her liberty, when we have the increasing power of that Church demanding freedom with an emphasis inconsistent with submitting any change of opinion or development of feeling to Parliament—when the demand of the Church is so great that it cannot be denied, then the instance of the Welsh Church will be cited in favour of her Disestablishment. That is an ideal which is really inconsistent with the realisation of privilege. It is no part of the Church to evangelise the State, so to speak to shepherd every one in the State, and claim each one as a member of the Church. They know that such a membership in many cases means only lip-service; there is no reality in it; and the Church itself is weakened at the present moment, may I say with a great deal of respect, because she is unable to concentrate her spiritual membership upon the work which she desires to undertake for the nation. She has to listen, to the claims of adherents who are only adherents in name; she has to allow their membership and their claims upon her services. If she desires a bishopric to be established, or some small change in her economy, she must come to this House. I say it with all respect that this House is no longer a Christian House. Here is a body of non-Christians who are as rightly here, and as worthy of our consideration, as any others who hold the doctrine of Christ. It is a matter of inconvenience and of pain to some of us to hear, as I have heard in former years, questions of doctrine and of the functions and mission of members of the Church of England treated as a football and kicked across this House from one side to the other in the presence of those who were non-Christians, and of those who might belong to other forms of the faith, or of those who have no sort of faith at all. It is not the place for such discussion, yet the Established Church can neither move hand nor foot unless she comes here for relief.

Therefore her ideal is an impossible one to-day. There was a time when perhaps she might have Christianised the State completely. Even if the proportion of those who care for its work and who attend its services were very much larger, and even if they exceeded the two-fifths of the population mentioned to-day, still the differences amongst them of expressing their common views in forms and methods and ceremonials is so great, and those differences reach so far down, that it is impossible to represent the Church in the State in a way that would command the assent of all. It is becoming more and more unjust, particularly in the case of Wales, to select one denomination for representation. There is a State religion, and a very powerful State religion, which has its marytrs and confessors, and that is patriotism. It is that instinct in men that makes them die for the State and die for their flag, because in its folds have been caught and held the history of a proud race. That is the religion of the State, a religion that we have seen in Japan, and that we are now seeing on the plains of Macedonia. The Jews and the Romans of old had it. Its standards of morality are not the same as those of the Christian faith, yet it belongs to the development of society and the evolution of the world, and we must accept it and we have to construe it with the religions that stand side by side. Hence, a religion established by law can only be so in name.

What is the Church to gain by the liberty she will have conferred upon her through this Bill? She will be more free than many of the so-called churches of Nonconformists, because she is beginning from the beginning; she has a clean sheet of paper on which to write her creeds, desires, rules and wishes; and in the spirit of the ago she will probably take care not to tie herself up too tightly. Many a Nonconformist Church is still tied in the name of ancient creeds of two or three hundred years ago creeds that are outworn, and that are not taught and not observed, but that no one cares to operate against the congregation. But the new Church of Wales will be able to make her own rules and establish her own organisation, and that is of infinite importance at present, in the conditions of flux and change in religious thought and scientific thought, when there are points on which religion and science may learn to agree, and when, as some of us believe, confirmation of religion is coming from the side of science. You may have a Church which is bound by historical creeds, and a condition of things that has passed away, like sea beaches on which the storm had broken years ago, and which are now far inland, and which no one cares about save as historical things. To those things the Church of England is to some extent historically bound. The new Church in Wales will be able, at any rate, to treat them with respect and preserve tradition, but with more room for life. We are told that the Light, the Divine Shining, will depart from Wales because the Church is Disestablished. It is not that the Light does not shine, but that the Church stands still. The Divine Light would never forsake a Church on the march, faithful to God and to humanity; the Light would march in front of her, a cloud by day and a flame by night. We may depend upon it, with organisation, the Church will respond successfully to the great movements of the day; and the spirit of the age, if you like to call it so, or as I would call it the spirit that blows where it listeth, and that the Church will be a real live Church not resting in the centuries ago.

Lord HUGH CECIL

The speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, deals with the general question of Establishment as to which I shall have to say a word presently, in relation to the very striking speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I want, first of all, to say a word about what fell from the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. J. Dillon). The hon. Member for East Mayo was anxious to maintain that the essentially valuable support of the Nationalist party during these Debates, or on the Divisions that followed, on this Bill, was given from, as I understood him, a single-minded approbation of the principles of Disestablishment, and that it was zeal to sever the tie between Church and State, and to Disendow a religious body that induced those telegraphic Whips and induced hon. Members from Ireland to attend with extra ordinary regularity during discussion in which they do not appear to be very much interested. The hon. Member drew a touching picture of Ireland coming to the rescue of Wales against the tyrannical in fluence of England. I cannot help but feeling that the English electorate, when they come to study the subject, will take a rather different view of that picture. The prime mistake King James made was the bringing over of Irish troops to suppress the English people. If the hon. Member for East Mayo will read that most delightful narrative, Lord Macaulay's History, he will learn—

Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL

made an observation which was inaudible.

Lord HUGH CECIL

The hon. Member for South Donegal, not only thinks he knows history, but will not allow that anyone else knows it. He has made a corner in historical facts which enables him to resist all arguments, and enables his colleagues under his aegis to issue a good deal of what we would call fiction. If the hon. Member will read Lord Macaulay's History, he will learn that the Bishop of Manchester made his parallel, which has not in the least the meaning he attributes to it, between the attitude of Nonconformists in the time of James II., and the attitude of Nonconformists now. He will also see how very imprudent it is for other parts of the United Kingdom to league themselves together and try and force upon England a measure affecting the religious convictions of England, which is profoundly distasteful. I can quite appreciate the hon. Member as a democrat and a nationalist, but I cannot accept him as a typical Roman Catholic. I know very well that the principle of Disendowment has been disavowed by Roman Catholic authorities much greater than the hon. Member, like Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Manning, and I am confident that the great mass of English Roman Catholics at the present time, and I believe Welsh Roman Catholics are opposed to and dislike the present measure for the Disendowment of the Church in Wales. The truth is that Roman Catholicism is able to look on this matter from a wider aspect. They see and know how much harm has been done to Christianity all over Europe by attacks upon Establishment and Endowment. They are therefore not deceived by plausible appeals; they see the reality of the thing, and they reject it for what they know it to be as a blow to Christian religion.

On this general question of Establishment let me say I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer's views, in his very interesting, vivacious, historical survey, have nothing whatever to do with Establishment. I do not assent altogether to his historical survey, but it is quite true, of course, that the Church of England in Wales did sink into a state of great apathy and inefficiency towards the latter part of the seventeenth century, and that that apathy and inefficiency continued until the Methodist movement awoke the religious life of Wales, and that same Methodist movement in turn strengthened other Nonconformist bodies, which up to that time were not very strong. So that we have a situation which we are familiar with, and which was even more marked in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, but that really had no bearing on Establishment. It was not Establishment that made the Church in Wales indifferent or apathetic or inefficient. It was the circumstances of the time. That was a period in which there was great religious depression, not only in England, but all over Europe. You had just the same thing in France and in Italy, and you find at that time a great decay of religious life going on all over. The Methodist movement happened to strike into Wales with tremendous effect. No doubt want of judgment and charity of dealing with the Methodist movement prevented its being what it began by being, a movement within the Church, and allowed it to go forth and to become a movement quite hostile to the Church though in it at first. All that has no bearing on whether we ought now to Disestablish the Church. Let us look at what Establishment really is. It is not really essentially either a system of bondage, or a system of privilege. It is quite true there have been particular Establishments-that have been both. We should be perfectly prepared to deal with Establishment in England or in Wales with a view to removing every scrap of privilege, and we are still more willing and anxious to remove anything like deadening control which this House exercises.

I quite agree with what the hon. Member said just now, that it is desirable that the Church should have more freedom than the Church to-day has. I certainly think she ought to have as much freedom as the Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland has considerable freedom in spiritual affairs. She has absolute freedom to do anything except alter the fundamental formularies of her faith. That cannot be done without the consent of Parliament, but the whole of the internal administration, which in regard to the Church of England is largely controlled by the State, is quite free in the case of Scotland. I should thoroughly sympathise with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the hon. Member in their resentment against the system of Establishment in Wales if Establishment meant anything distressing or obnoxious to Nonconformists. If it were a system by which it was sought to impose the Church of England upon those who did not agree with her teaching, I should strongly agree that such a system was tyrannical. It would be especially tyrannical in a case where the majority of the population did not agree with the Church, although it would be tyrannical if it were imposed upon even a small minority. But the Establishment is nothing of the kind. It is really an act of national recognition. Take away from the Establishment everything except the Coronation of the Sovereign, and you still will have the reality. Will anyone really say that the Coronation of the Sovereign according to the rites of the Church of England injures or wounds any Nonconformist in the country? I do not believe that any Nonconformists resent that the Sovereign should be anointed or crowned by a solemn religious rite. It is consonant with their own religious ideas. It consecrates the nation in their view. That is all we contend for.

That brings me to a point which is constantly overlooked. Hon. Members speak of the Welsh nation. They say that the Welsh nation ought to settle these matters. But the Welsh nation, as such, is not a party to the Establishment. I am a little sceptical about the Welsh nation, but I am quite willing to accept it for the purposes of argument. The Welsh nation is not the body which establishes the Church. The body which establishes the Church is the State—the State of the United Kingdom. The Welsh nation, as a nation, gives no special privilege, not even any special recognition, to the Church in Wales. I do not know what would properly be said to be the organ of the Welsh nation. However that difficult question might be answered, it remains certainly true that Establishment is a relation between the Church and the State, and as there is not a Welsh State, the whole theory breaks down ab initio. There is nothing in the argument from the beginning that Disestablishment must follow in Wales because the majority of the Welsh people are opposed to it. On what ground is the argument as to the objection of the Welsh people based? It is based on elections. We get back to the Parliamentary doctrine of the mandate. I have never believed in mandates. I do not say that you cannot find in history any cases where you may say there was such a thing as an electoral mandate; but in the vast majority of cases it is all nonsense, for the obvious reason that the party system elaborately corrupts and perverts the nature of the mandate. As we have pointed out in a recent controversy of a very different kind, all the voter does is to choose between two candidates. He votes either one way or the other. Therefore all that you really prove by saying that Welsh people have for thirty or forty years voted in favour of Welsh Disestablishment is that Welsh Liberalism has been in favour of Welsh Disestablishment, and that the electors of Wales prefer Welsh Liberalism to Welsh Conservatism. Therefore all that you are really certain of is that Disestablishment is the view of a majority of the majority, not of the majority as a whole.

It would be easy to give instances which no one could dispute. Suppose there was a constituency in which three-fifths of the electors were Liberal and two-fifths Conservative. Supposing that of those three-fifths, three-fifths were in favour of Disestablishment and were also the most active and most influential wire-pullers in the Division. Of course the Liberal party would adopt the Disestablishment view, and when they ran a candidate they would return him. But that does not constitute a mandate from the Welsh people. I am told, for example, that only 51 per cent, of the electors who voted in the constituencies that were contested at the last election voted in favour of the Liberal candidates. That is a little more than a bare majority of the whole electorate. How can you call that a mandate from the whole Welsh people? Clearly one must keep within reason in these things. There is a balance of opinion, and the balance of opinion as expressed by the electoral machinery has declared for Disestablishment. A majority of the majority are of that way of thinking. What the people as a whole think we cannot say. We never shall be able to tell unless you have a Referendum, and that is constantly refused. [An HON. MEMBER: "Your party object to the Referendum."] No, we do not on this question. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could say that the Welsh people much prefers some religious denomination other than the Church of England, I should be in favour then of changing the character of the Establishment, but not of abolishing it. I think it is for the State to decide whether there shall be an Establishment or not; but supposing there is to be an Establishment, I think the Establishment should conform to the wishes of the preponderating majority of the people in the part of the Kingdom concerned. That is the principle upon which we go in Scotland; that is the principle upon which we go in England; and I should have no objection to applying the same principle in Wales. But to abandon the Establishment altogether is to say that the whole State, not Wales only, is to recede from the position of recognising the truth of religion, and that I think is an injury to the religious life of the whole community.

I pass next to Disendowment. The argument with regard to Disendowment has been so fully dealt with by my hon. Friend that I shall deal with it comparatively briefly. It is notable that there seems to be a comparative modification in the case put before us at this stage of the Bill as contrasted with what we used to hear from time to time. We have heard much less about national property in this discussion. Apparently the case rests now en the original donor. We have got back to him. Of the many different theories, the theory now adopted is that the original donor gave for the sake of the community, and that he gave in a threefold spirit—partly for the State, partly for the poor, and partly for the Church. That is the first argument. There is no ground whatever for saying that that tripartite arrangement applied to parochial tithes. You are gleaning after Henry VIII., and that is a very difficult thing to do. It is quite true, as the right hon. Member (Sir J. Compton-Rickett) said, that at the beginning of Christianity there was a great disposition always to endow religious foundations for the purposes of education and for helping the sick and the poor. Those distinctively religious bodies were no doubt endowed with what we should call Christian Endowments. But that stream of benevolence went to the monasteries. They, in the main, undertook that work in England and Wales. I do not say that there are no exceptions, but on the whole that was monastic work. Those Endowments were confiscated by the State under Henry VIII. I cannot accept Henry VIII. as an eligible precedent. To take him as a precedent for confiscation would be like taking Nero as a precedent for cruelty, or Judas Iscariot as a precedent for treachery. You cannot base any argument upon what he did. He undoubtedly did away with educational Endowments which were of a distinctively religious character. Some of them he gave back in other forms, but the greater quantity he disposed of for the various purposes he had in view.

What was left in the parishes—the parochial tithe—was what had always been intended for the services of the Church. I should have thought that no one who had given the matter a moment's reflection could doubt that when you have Endowments which are, as a matter of fact, only barely sufficient, and in a number of cases are insufficient, for the purpose of keeping up religious services, to say that those Endowments were intended partly for other purposes, which no one suggests are anything but subordinate and secondary, was contradictory on the face of it. It is manifest that where Endowments are only just sufficient the pious donor must have intended that the cost of the primary purpose of the religious services of the Church should be defrayed, and that if he ever contemplated that parochial tithe should be used at all for other purposes, it would only be when there were any surplus funds which could be disposed of for any other good object. There was no tripartite division. Where there was a tripartite division it had reference really to the monastic Endowments. If there had been a tripartite division, the first charge on the tithes would still always have been the religious services to be done by the Church. But none of that justification can possibly be made to apply to the glebes, which, in fact, are being withheld from the Church to which they belong. The whole argument breaks down.

Another argument is that the religious character of the Church was so changed at the Reformation that she forfeited her title to her property. I think that that argument put forward in a contention between Church and State is really almost a shameful one. What is the history of the Reformation? This is a controversy between the Church and the State. The State is gaining, the Church is losing. If I may personify the parties, the State says to the Church of England, "Three hundred years ago you changed your religious teaching; therefore I am entitled now to take your funds from you" The answer of the Church is, "If I changed my religious teaching, and in so far as I did so, I did it with your consent, and, indeed, at your suggestion." [An HON. MEMBER: "Pressure."] Pressure, if you like. That makes it all the stronger. The Church carried through the Reformation in conjunction with the State. To every part of the Reformation the State was a consenting party, and something more than a consenting party. What right, then, has the State to turn round to the Church now and say, "Because you did what I told you to do 300 years ago you have forfeited your title to your property, and it belongs to me." That is most absurd. The truth is that, according to the view of the time, and as I think according to reason, the character of the Reformation was merely the removal of certain corruptions which had grown up. It was not thought at the time, and was not intended to be a destruction of the life of the Church and the settlement of a new Church. If it had been so, all that you would have been able to say is that the State presented to the new Church as a free gift the Endowments of the old. What a good title that would be. It was freely given by the State. What better title do you want? Do you not recognise it as a good title when you come to the gifts made by the State to the Church in the course of the nineteenth century? Whoever dreamt of overthrowing, in any other connection whatever, an unbroken title of 300 years? Whoever maintained, for any other purpose, that a property which has been held for 300 years without dispute really belonged to the nation and not to the body which had enjoyed it during that period? You could not have a more inequitable way of dealing with the matter.

8.0 P.M.

Finally, is the money not being well used? The only ground you normally have for interfering with Endowments is that they are not being well used. Henry VIIL, who is your great exemplar, acted more oppressively but far more regularly in form. He made a separate inquiry into every monastery. No doubt the inquiry was a disreputable one, yet there was an inquiry. If you followed Henry VIII.'s example you would send down a Commission to inquire into the cases of the Bishop of St. David's and the Bishop of St. Asaph. Having convicted them, you would say that the claims of the diocese were forfeited. You would probably so frighten them that they would be induced to surrender them, and afterwards you would get an Act of Parliament to confirm what you had done. That is what Henry VIII. would have done. It is significant that all his actions, while being greatly oppressive, were clothed in the form of law and reason. That showed that even so arbitrary a man as he, recognised that you could not take away property on a great scale unless you could prove some defect in the trustee of that property, and some failure in the trust. Nothing of the kind is alleged here. The Church is doing a good work, and going on with it. We come to the last point. I urged last night, and I again urge that over a great part of Wales and Monmouthshire what you are doing will seriously injure and hinder the good cause of religion. To that the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied this afternoon that abundant provision is made by the Nonconformists in the North, and that in the South very little money will be lost. No doubt it is true that in rural Wales the Nonconformist bodies have provided a great amount, indeed, an excessive amount of accommodation for the religious needs of the districts. What the explanation of that excessive accommodation is I do not know, but no doubt there is a very considerable accommodation. Nevertheless in the best provided rural districts it cannot do anything but mischief to take away all the funds—as you will in some cases; and a very large part of the funds —as you will in other cases, from one of the denominations of the country.

It is all very well to say that money can be raised in other ways. No doubt it can; but all the religious bodies in Wales are always raising money. The Nonconformist bodies are often driven to go deeply into debt in their endeavour to raise money. How then can it be argued that money is of no importance, and that the loss of money will inflict no injury? If that be true in the rural parts of Wales, how vastly more will it be true in the industrial districts of Monmouthshire and Glamorgan The Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out that we did not always understand the character of Wales. He himself falls into a very serious mistake about the character of Wales. He seems to forget that more than half the population of Wales—considerably more than half the population—is in the two counties of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire, which are enormously and disproportionately the most important counties in Wales. If you add to the counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth the industrial parts of Carmarthenshire, North Wales, and Denbigh, you get an industrial population which, counting heads, is immensely the most important part of Wales. What is going to happen? What is happening to them now? The evidence was abundant before the Commission that we want more money. It was stated that the Nonconformists were also in need of money, that similar efforts to raise money were being made by the Churches, that the battle was a hard one, and it was difficult to get enough. How can you reasonably expect the Church to find it easier to raise more money when you are taking all you can now? You have now in Wales the pressure and the stimulus, the strain, the difficulty, and the struggling against great difficulties.

The bon. Member for Perth, speaking last night from the opposite benches, spoke of the stimulating effect of Disendowment. It is like people who say that flogging is good for the circulation. That is no consolation to the person who suffers. It really is a fact that all forms of cruelty and oppression produce a reaction. Persecution always produces such a reaction. Undoubtedly it will be the case if you treat the Church harshly, that you will "liven up" Churchmen as the clown used to liven up the pantaloon with the red-hot poker. You will stimulate them to exertion, but you will also bring about a great access of Church feeling. Let it be observed that though this stimulus and zeal has a good side, that it often has a bad side. It produces an uncharitable spirit. It produces the result that people feel that they have been hardly treated; therefore they are disposed to retaliate whenever they get the chance. Nothing is more striking in the history of the early centuries that followed the persecutions, than that after all the heroic endurance of Churchmen, how low they sunk in point of charity, reason, calmness and surrender. It is melancholy with what vehemence they conducted all their disputes. Yet it is very natural that those who have to suffer acute pain, and go in danger of their lives, should be precisely the people who are the least reasonable when it comes to exercising charity and reason. In a minor degree probably Disestablishment leads that way. But if you inflict what people believe to be unjust you provoke a spirit of bitterness and animosity, along with the growth of zeal and energy, and you have a much less simple spirit and a much less worthy spirit in it all.

I have said enough. We shall presently conic to the vote. As the phrase goes, "The House will divide." It will divide; we shall take different paths as well as different lobbies; paths differing not in wisdom and statesmanship only, but, as I presume to think, in moral rectitude itself. You will choose to hinder religion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] We shall choose to leave the religious life of what is, after all, against religious denomination in conformity with what it is to-day. You will choose to sow bitterness among the people of Wales; we shall choose to maintain the state of things which was, I think, really tending to a better feeling in the relations of Church and Nonconformists. You will choose to repudiate forms of Christianity so far as the formal recognition of the State goes in respect of Wales. Doubtless greater evils might happen. I do not at all want to suggest, of course, that the great Nonconformist bodies do not do much to propagate and teach the Gospel, so enabling the people at large to maintain the spiritual life. Their work is excellent. Still, so far as this Bill goes, it is stepping down hill. You will choose these things. What have you to console yourself with, that you are a majority? A majority raked in from Scotland, and Ireland, and all ends of the earth.

Mr. PRINGLE

This is an Imperial matter.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Yes, certainly, it is an Imperial matter, and the State itself is most deeply interested in the matter. The speech that the hon. Member opposite has made does not show that he realises how profoundly and keenly interested the English people and the English representatives here are in this matter. It is our Church that you are hindering. It is the spiritual body to which we belong that is in danger, and whose good work you are hampered. We claim to be concerned and interested in this great matter as much as anybody else in this House. However, you are in the majority—that is your consolation. We are a minority. You will have the victory, the wrong, and the shame. We shall have the defeat, the right, and the honour!

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR

It is with some diffidence as a Scottish Member that I rise to intervene briefly in this Debate. I do not propose to follow the Noble Lord into the arguments he has brought forward, but the most important point to my mind to which he has directed the attention of the House is in his closing references. According to his view, the question which the House will have to vote upon this evening is one which ought to be decided by the votes of those who have the chief interest in it—in other words, they should have the prevailing voice in the settlement of it. I am quite sure that that is an argument which will appeal to all hon. Members who realise that, so far as the views of Wales are concerned, they have been stated with no uncertain sound. I desire to voice in this Debate the strong feeling of sympathy which exists in Scotland with the people of Wales in the opportunity which is now being afforded to them by means of this Bill to secure redress of a long-standing national grievance. I venture to say that the situation in Scotland has been very much misrepresented by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition referred in one of his speeches to the fact—according to his view—that the feeling in Scotland was that the Bill was being pushed forward from a mean motive against the best interests of religion. I venture to protest emphatically against that statement. It is a libel upon the Scottish nation, because there is no nation more tenacious of the principle of religious equality, and there is no nation more sensitive to any form of injustice. I believe that to-day the Scottish nation realises that in this matter the Government is seeking to do justice, and long-delayed justice, to the people of Wales. I cannot see how the word "mean" can be applied in any sense to action which is intended and which will have the result of applying national funds to national purposes, and of preventing the Church—in a degree alien to the people of Wales—from assuming and maintaining a position of privilege to which she has no claim whatever. It is desirable, I agree, that everything should be done to avoid unnecessary friction in carrying out these proposals. I do feel that the Government have carried their policy of concession and compromise to the furthest possible limits. I think the Bill was generous as introduced—far more generous than the Bills of 1895 and 1909. As it is going to pass through this House to-night it will be in a much greater degree generous. On the score of lack of generosity there can be no argument adduced against the proposals which will be submitted for Third Beading. I confess that while I admit that there have been a number of hon. Members who have pressed the Government to make concessions, many of them with the highest possible motives— all of them, indeed, with the highest possible motives—some of them speaking with a special title to express the views of the Church which I do not possess—and I do not suggest that the Member for Kilmarnock Burghs, who, we all agree, has stated his views in the clearest possible way, and with a deep sense of conviction, does not possess that title—I should not like it to go forth that the views thus expressed were the views of the people of Scotland.

I should like to dissociate myself from the policy of certain Liberal Churchmen and Nonconformists sitting on these benches who have sought to be generous at the expense of other people. I believe that you have got to be just before you are generous. The Bill which was intro- duced by the Government was founded upon principles of justice, and has proceeded upon principles of justice, and the Government would have been entitled to retain the Bill in the shape in which it was originally introduced. I also feel very strongly that this is entirely a matter which ought to be dealt with by the Welsh Members themselves. I should never seek to put any pressure upon them in a matter in which they are responsible to their own constituents and where they have for so many years laboured with great exertions in order to-secure the success of this cause. What is the position in Scotland? I do not propose to go into any matters which would be out of order at this stage, but I would say this: In Scotland there has been a feeling that there is every reason to give the Government strong support in the policy which the Government has adopted. I should like to call attention to the fact that the hon. Member for Perth in pleading for generous treatment, referred to the fact that he had been in correspondence with the leaders of Disestablishment in Scotland, and that according to their view the Church in Wales should be treated with generosity in regard to this measure. Now I happen to know there were some vigorous disclaimers issued almost immediately afterwards by the Disestablishment Council of Scotland, a body which has every reason to claim that it represents the leaders of the Disestablishment movement in Scotland, and a body amongst the membership of which you will find the names of a great many distinguished and earnest Scotchmen, and of those who have studied this question of Disestablishment, and who are entitled to speak for Scottish opinion. There was a resolution passed by the Scottish Disestablishment Council supporting this Bill and not only so, but hoping —and I am quoting the words of the resolution— that the Government will not yield any further than it has done to the demand that the Disestablished Church in Wales should have a larger share of the Endowments, and urging upon Scottish liberal Members to give the Government, their full support in carrying the Bill through the House of Commons. I am glad to put on record so far as the Scottish Disestablishment Council is concerned, that they are in hearty support of the Government on this Bill. Reference has been made in these Debates to the fact that in Scotland negotiations are proceeding at the present moment between the United Free Church and the Church of Scotland. I do not desire to say a single word to prejudice in any way the situation that exists at the present moment. But I think this illustration has been somewhat unfairly used in the course of our Debates. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, said in one of his speeches that the object was to unite again in one Established Church, and the hon. Member for South Salford (Mr. Montague Barlow) made a somewhat similar reference as if there was at this moment proposals for union between those two Churches being carried through. That is not the situation. The facts are that there have been—and I desire to give the greatest credit to the Church of Scotland for the approach that Church made to the other body—there have been negotiations proceeding with a view to considering the obstacles which at present separate the Churches in Scotland. But it is a matter preliminary which is being discussed. The question the Churches desire to discuss in the most dispassionate fashion and to satisfy themselves on is "whether the road may be made clear in the future for these proposals. I should like to make it perfectly clear that, so far as the United Free Church is concerned, there has been no indication that that Church is prepared to unite with the Church of Scotland as an Established Church in that sense. The United Free Church is tenacious of her principles, but she is prepared, and is at the present moment engaged in considering along with her sister Church, which is withdrawing from her position of privilege, matters with a view to the removal of these obstacles. That is a very different question. Hon. Members opposite appeal to us to consider the spirit of union prevailing in Scotland. The union negotiations are not an argument against Disestablishment, but an argument to remove by voluntary consent the causes which stand in the way at the present moment of union between the Churches in Scotland and which make the claim for Disestablishment so strong.

What we desire to see in Scotland is that every encouragement should be given to the Church in Scotland to withdraw from a position of privilege and to come down rather to the position of other denominations in Scotland — the Free Churches. That is not the case in connection with the Church in Wales at all. The Church of Wales maintains a position of privilege. She is not entitled to appeal to the position in Scotland so long as she herself is not prepared to take the first step towards negotiation and towards a settlement of this question by consent to which she herself is a voluntary party, and the situation in that respect has got to be distinguished entirely from the situation in Scotland. I believe that in Scotland we have never had anything approaching the same bitterness which exists between the Churches in Wales. I rejoice to think there has never been the same degree of friction which necessarily exists in the Establishment in Wales, but there is a very strong feeling that there are restrictions necessary to a State connection, and the Church of Scotland has been the first to recognise that herself. The Churches Act of 1905 showed, as the Noble Lord indicated, a certian desire for freedom, and secured that—

"the formula of subscription to the confession of faith required from ministers and preachers of the Church of Scotland… shall be such as may be prescribed by act of the General Assembly of the said Church with the consent of the majority of the Presbyteries thereof."

That was a step in the direction of greater freedom. I believe that the spirit of freedom is abroad in Scotland because of the success attending the efforts of the voluntary Churches and of the United Free Church of Scotland, and because the Church of Scotland herself is willing to-day to recognise that she can come a step nearer and seek to deliver herself from the restrictions imposed upon her by her State connection. I do not desire to elaborate that point, but I would like to say that the outlook in Scotland is hopeful to-day just because of the action taken by the Church in Scotland, and we believe, and we desire that these negotiations should bring forth fruit. Whatever the result, the outcome will be good. We desire that every opportunity should be given to the Churches to consider their position, and I feel quite satisfied that you will find that if a similar spirit had prevailed in the past in Wales the situation there would have been simplified to a very considerable extent.

The argument against Disestablishment in Scotland is suspended owing to the spirit which the Churches are exhibiting towards one another, but it has not disappeared. It remains in this sense: The argument will always be bound up with the question of a privileged Church in Scotland which you cannot dissociate from State connection. I am glad to have an opportunity of simply stating the nature of the position of Scotland with regard to this Bill. We are heartily in sympathy with our brethren in Wales; we desire to see no injury done to the Church in Wales. Disestablishment to my mind will be a blessing to the Church in Wales in securing to her increased spirituality and Christian activity, and she will find, we believe, the result to be the same in her case as in the case of every other Church which has realised that Disestablishment was one of the best steps ever taken in the whole of its history.

Mr. WHELER

I do not propose to follow the hon. Member who has just sat down in regard to the questions that he has raised affecting the Scotch Church. I admit that I do not know much about that Church myself, and I do not think it is very relevant to this discussion. The hon. Member said he was voicing Scotch opinion, which is in sympathy with the Welsh people on this question. I think I can equally say that, in common with hon. Members on this side, I am voicing, at any rate, a very strong public opinion in sympathy with the Welsh Church, to be found not only among the Churchmen of England, but among a very large section of right and careful thinking Nonconformists. My reason for saying this is very much fortified, because a night or two ago in my own Division we had a debate upon this question, and two men who have always been strong political opponents of mine, and strong supporters of Nonconformist views, both got up and openly said that while they considered there was a good deal to be said for Disestablishment, they were entirely averse to taking away any money from any religious denomination, when they were satisfied that that denomination was using that money rightly and well. If there were two who spoke of that opinion, how many more were there likely to be who did not get a chance of speaking, who were of the same opinion? That is an instance of what I believe is the feeling of many religious Nonconformists throughout the length and breadth of the South of England.

This Debate still more shows the great difference that exists between Churchmen and Nonconformists on this question. The suggestion has been made that if these funds, which we consider religious funds, were taken away from the Church in Wales, they should be used for religious purposes in Wales, and allotted to various religious objects in Wales. We advanced that suggestion because we realised, although we wished to keep our own funds for our own purposes, that if this money has got to go, it is far better to devote it to religious than to secular purposes. We cannot understand the mind of those who refuse to accept that suggestion; we cannot understand why that suggestion should be overthrown when we realise that its one motive is to further religion in the Principality of Wales. When that suggestion has been cast on one side, it shows that there is a great gulf existing between us on this side, and hon. Members opposite with reference to the great principle which underlies the whole of this Bill. Hon. Members opposite have been talking about the Government being generous. It is very easy to be generous with other people's money, and we do not admit that it is any concession at all. What right has any hon. Member opposite to assert that these ancient Endowments were given for any other purpose except the religious purposes of the Church? All this talk of concession is entirely wrong. It is true you are not taking away quite so much as you previously arranged to take—I think the figures are now something like 8s. in the £ as against 6s. 8d. in the £. We do not admit that you have any right to take a single penny of that which was always Church money devoted to Church purposes, and which nobody denies has been very well spent.

I should have thought that the promoters of this Bill would have tried to establish two points if they wished this Bill to be a sincere and honest attempt to solve the difficulty of religious inequality in Wales. In the first place, they ought to establish without contradiction the origin of these ancient Endowments, and the purposes for which they were left. The Debate to-night has shown that hon. Gentlemen opposite are not at all settled in their minds as to the original purposes of these ancient Endowments. I do not think in the lengthy speech we heard from the leader of the Welsh party, that there was any real endeavour or depth of argument to show that he was fully convinced in his own mind as to the origin or the purpose for which these Endowments were originally granted. It has never been denied in this House that the money of the Church has been well spent; it has been admitted from the Prime Minister downwards that the Church of England in Wales is a living organisation, doing good and increasing in spiritual power. That fact can be proved by the improved Sunday schools and the increase in the number of communicants throughout the Principality. I think that, coupled with the point I first mentioned, and the difficulties that hon. Members have in proving the origin and the original intention of ancient Endowments, are points which, if hon. Members ever hope to establish this Bill on a firm foundation, they ought to have shown in a different light to that which they have shown in these Debates. The hon. Member for Perth last night argued that in the past, when you took away Endowments you thereby did good to that body and enabled it to carry on its work and improve its spiritual undertakings. Surely the history of the Nonconformist endeavours to raise Endowments for the benefit of their own pastors and ministers shows plainly that they realise how absolutely essential it is for their own welfare and the support of those who administer their churches and chapels and how necessary it is that they should have Endowments to supply the men doing that work with suitable stipends year by year.

In face of those facts, which nobody can deny, I think it is childish of any hon. Member opposite to try and advance an argument that it would be good for any religious body to have its Endowments taken away because that would be a spur to increased spiritual efforts. I think that argument can be brushed aside as futile and childish, and I was surprised that any argument of that sort should have been advanced by anybody sitting on the benches opposite. The truth of the matter is that the attack is not coming from those who are truly religious on this question, but it is being brought forward largely as a matter of party expediency. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I believe this measure has been brought forward in order to carry out a programme which may be dear to politicians, but is not equally dear to the religious-minded followers of the churches to which hon. Members belong. I do not believe that many of those who voted for hon. Members opposite who come from Wales thoroughly understand the proposals enumerated in this Bill. I am certain they did not understand the Disendowment pro- posals, and on this point I am fortified by the evidence of many people in Wales, who voted for this Bill because they thought they were going to be free from the obligation of having to pay tithes. Human nature being such as it is, it is perfectly certain unless it were very clearly explained to the voter that he would still have to pay tithes—and I do not believe that was explained—it would rather suggest itself to him that he would be put in a position of being freed from a burden to which possibly he objected, and that no doubt had a great influence in securing votes at the last election. I, in common with the vast majority of people, do not like this Bill, and all we ask is that it should be submitted to the tribunal of the votes of the people of this country. We are quite certain, now that they understand the Bill and the meanness of the Bill, they would, if they got the chance of exercising their votes, say there is no demand for the Bill, and treat it with the contempt which a proposal of this sort rightly deserves.

Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL

I would ask the attention of the House to one salient point on which perhaps I may be able to throw as great light as any person in the House. I am a very sincere and ardent member of the Anglican Church, and I agree with my hon. Friends here in their devotion to their Church, but from my experiences in Ireland I agree with my hon. Friends opposite in considering that the severance of that Church from the State will be useful, not only to the people at large, but also to the Church itself. Perhaps I have been so long a Member of this House that it will be considered scarcely impertinent of me to speak of a personal incident. Though I was very young at the time, I have a perfect recollection of the Established Irish Church as it then was. It could not be otherwise, having regard to the antecedents in connection with that Church I have the honour to have. I was as a boy of eighteen of course cordially opposed to the Disestablishment of the Church, as every clergyman's son ought to be, but I have completely altered my views, and I will show why. In history one rarely finds an exact parallel, but the Welsh Church and the Irish Church are almost exact parallels in parity of circumstance. Let me say something which so far as I know has not been mentioned in this Debate and which perhaps may interest the House. We Irishmen who are glad of the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church owe a considerable debt to Welsh Members. In my young days here I first met a dear old gentleman, Mr. Dillwyn. He was the Member for a Welsh constituency and he was the first British Member who began to hammer at the Established Church in Ireland as a State institution. We know very well the attitude of the four Welsh bishops of the day. Will it surprise the House to hear that one of the ablest speeches for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church was made by a Welsh bishop, Dr. Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's. At that time as at the present time the reproach of robbery of God and sacrilege was bandied about. Dr. Thirlwall, whom Mr. Gladstone said had the ablest and the most workmanlike intellect of his time, made the speech in the House of Lords in favour of Disestablishment of the Irish Church, and he repudiated the doctrine of public robbery. He said public robbery or the robbery of God should not be applied to such a thing as this. It was not a Christian, it was a heathenish, conception. The transference of public property from one object to another should be guided by the benefits it would confer on the greatest number, and that was the way in which trustees should regard even Church property—as dedicated to public uses and to be applied to them.

May I, dealing with it completely in the cold light of history, show the parity of circumstance between the Welsh Church and the Irish Church, and, though I hate to be a political prophet, I think I may say a few words just at the end to show that men, however ardently devoted to the Anglican Church, need fear nothing from Disestablishment and Disendowment with the parallel of the Irish Church before them. They are parallels; they are more than strong analogies. First of all, the Irish Church like the Welsh Church was the Church of a minority; secondly, it was the Church of the rich as distinct from the poor; thirdly, it was paid for by the poor; fourthly, it had much property given before the Reformation, when that property was given to the State alone; and, fifthly, it had not autonomy. It had not the power of legislating for itself and its bishops were appointed, not as they are to-day, thank God, by the clergy and the laity of the diocese, but by a Government power. Then it had this which is distinctly the character of an Established Church: there was, however much the clerics of that Church, and they were admirable men, might try to avoid it, a feeling of caste, a feeling of respectability attaching to the Establishment. We sometimes see it in England when people of the middle classes gradually leave the bethel for the Established Church. That was largely the case in Ireland, and it is very considerably the case with reference to the Established Church in Wales to-day. The Irish Church was opposed to the national aspirations of the people. It set itself against them, and the Irish Church, like the Welsh Church, had for two centuries what I can only call the curse and bane of being managed as a political institution in the interests of politicians by ecclesiastics who were pitchforked into the bishoprics. Therefore prejudice still attaches, and must attach, to an institution with such horrible unsavoury memories.

I can assure the House that the opposition to the Disestablishment of the Irish Church was immensely stronger and more vehement than the opposition is now to the Disestablishment and Disendowment Bill of the Welsh Church. When I heard the Noble Lord in front of me (Lord Hugh Cecil) making that admirable speech about the Disendowment of the Welsh Church, which he described as "the robbery of God," I thought that if he had read the biography of his father, the late Lord Salisbury, he would have found that that Noble Lord took very good care to vote in-the House of Lords for the Second Reading of the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill. The question of Disestablishment and Disendowment has been settled by the precedent of the Irish Church, and I was amused at hearing all the old stale arguments known to historians in connection with the Disestablishment of the Irish Church trotted out as if they were new discoveries and new doctrines in the case of the Welsh Church. The Church of Ireland was Disestablished, and there was at the time the greatest horror and fear as to what would happen. That Church today is in a better position even financially than it was at the time it was Disestablished. At that time a bishop might have £10,000 and another man £75. There was a gross disproportion of that kind in the appropriation of its revenue. Now the temporalities, such as they are, are fairly distributed, the Church is the Church of the people, and all the old feelings of jealousy or animosity between Churchmen, Dissenters, or Catholics have entirely vanished. One bishop of the Disestablished Church, Dr. Knox, Bishop of Down, said at that time, as the Bishops of Oxford and Hereford are saying now with regard to Wales, that Disestablishment was good in the interests of the Irish Church. He was insulted in the streets of Belfast. They held an indignation meeting on the 31st March, 1869, in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, and a resolution was passed, which was seconded by the late Mr. William Johnson, of Ballikilbeg, the celebrated Orangeman, saying that the Union was virtually at an end.

What happened to that very bishop who was then called "Traitor" and "Judas?" The first time after Disestablishment when there was an opportunity of electing a Lord Primate as head of the Irish Protestant Church, fifteen years afterwards, who did they elect? They elected Dr. Knox, the only one among the Irish bishops who had the courage and statesmanship to say that an Irish Independent Home Rule Church is better than a Church managed by State-made bishops, nominees of a Prime Minister. Let us take the case too of the respected hard-working parish clergyman who was made Bishop of Killaloe. He was a Conservative of Conservatives. He came back after his election as a popular bishop, and the Nationalist band turned out, and he was led in great triumph to his vicarage. I could give you many extracts showing what Irish bishops have said upon the result of Disestablishment in Ireland. Dr. Plunkett, Archbishop of Dublin, stated in 1382 that Disestablishment had been a benefit to the Irish Church. In 1892 he said, that looking at all the circumstances and balancing losses and gains, that after all Disestablishment had been in the interests of the Irish Church. Undoubtedly it will be the same in Wales. It is absolutely essential in my humble judgment that there should be no distinction, no State recognition of one religious belief more than another. Not that I am at all opposed to the recognition of religious belief, but because I believe that the blessed mysteries of religion ought, not to be associated with State performances one way or the other. I give my hearty concurrence to this Bill. I was of all places in the world, on Sunday morning, worshipping in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, and the cleric was a very distinguished and gentle scholar who read the prayers. He read the State prayer for Parliament in which he hoped that all things would come for the good of the Church. Of course, the thought came over me, was it for the good of the Church that I was crossing the channel that night to vote through thick and through thin for Welsh Disestablishment and Disendowment. I say it is for the good of the Church, for the spiritual Church as distinct from the political Church. If it was the last vote I could ever give I would be proud to give it in this Division.

Mr. JOHN

I desire to give my warm approval to this Bill4 but before doing so I should like to thank the Member for North-Last Lanarkshire (Mr. Millar) and the Member for Donegal (Mr. MacNeill), one speaking on behalf of the Scottish Members and the other for the Protestant section of the Irish people. We are very much indebted to the Member for North-East Lanarkshire for stating the views of Scotland. It was somewhat needed, for we have not received the support from certain sections of Scotch opinion that we should have looked for. I am sure the House is always ready to appreciate the Member for Donegal, particularly when in reminiscent mood. Perhaps, as a comparatively new Member, who intervenes rarely in Debate, I may be forgiven for recalling to the recollection of the Member for Donegal an early instance of cooperation between Welshmen and Irishmen. Twenty-seven years back I had the privilege in the town of Middlesbrough of presiding over a meeting at which the Member for Donegal addressed the people there in favour of Homo Rule for Ireland. It is a curious coincidence that I should have been privileged to follow him here to-night. I have not intervened earlier in these Debates because I have been content to leave the views of Wales in the capable hands of my colleagues, and I desire to make a special acknowledgment of the very admirable fashion in which the Member for Swansea District (Sir D. Brynmor Jones) has expressed the views of the representatives of Wales. He has done so with courtesy and dignity, and I am sure his arguments have been cogent and convincing. He has possibly not filled the part of that truculent bandit who has figured so much on Church defence platforms. I suppose that particular character has been left to my hon. and learned Friend and colleague the Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams), but again I am sure he must have been very much more at home in the congenial atmosphere of historical research rather than in dealing with commutation, sinking funds, and matters of that sort.

I occupy a position of some detachment among Welsh representatives, in the fact that I have lived for many years out of Wales. But during the forty years I have resided in England I have been acting in constant association and closest co-operation with English Nonconformists, and I feel I am entitled to speak for them as emphatically as for my countrymen in the Principality. These discussions have been marked by much erudition, and as I am neither a lawyer nor an antiquarian I do not propose to go into matters of that kind. I am very much disposed to think that those questions have not a very direct bearing upon the matter the House has to decide. A demand which has been put forward by a nation for forty years, and has been maintained by them for that protracted period, must have originated in some consideration of simple equity. The position has been that in Wales we have always felt with regard to the precedence and preference given to the Church that, as one English writer has put it, preference however slight is persecution, and has constituted a flagrant injustice peculiarly intolerable when associated with the religious life of the nation. That has been demonstrated in the case of Ireland and of Wales. Although the land system of Ireland was correctly described as the very worst in Europe the Irish people first claimed religious equality in the Roman Catholic emancipation and subsequently in the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. The precedent established by Ireland in that matter has been followed by Wales, and the warm acknowledgment made by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) of the services rendered by the Welsh people to Ireland in connection with Irish Disestablishment is very fully deserved. The right hon. Gentleman, the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square (Mr. A. Lyttelton), has claimed to-day that the opposition to State intervention in matters of religion is a decreasing one. I am here to claim that the unbelief of the Welsh people in the Erastian system is profound, abiding, and increasing. We hold very strongly that connection with the State is necessarily harmful to religion. We hold that view not only theoretically, but we claim it to be demonstrably accurate. We claim, above all else, that the religious history of Wales proves that the voluntary principle is efficient and sufficient.

9.0 P.M.

Take, very briefly, the religious history of Wales for the last 150 years. Nonconformity in Wales 150 years ago was numerically insignificant, if not negligible. What is the position to-day? Nonconformity in Wales provides to-day sittings for 1,550,000 people, or 77 per cent, of the total accommodation. Striking admissions were made by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) on the Welsh Commission. He stated in his memorandum that in every county except Monmouthshire the number of Nonconformist sittings largely exceeded the maximum accommodation required for the total population, inclusive of those who never attended any place of worship, and without taking any account of the accommodation provided by the Church of England and Roman Catholics. That demonstrates that there is no fear of lack of religious accommodation as a result of Disestablishment. We have demonstrated in our history that the people of Wales, without the assistance of the owners of land, have provided abundantly for the religious requirements of the people. Nothing has struck me more in this House than the lack of knowledge of the conditions of Wales, even among the fairest and most temperate of the champions of the Church. I include in that description the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square. The Church communicants of Wales are 25 per cent.; the voluntary contributions are 26 per cent, of the whole. The seating accommodation in Wales provided by the Church is 23 per cent., and the number of the Sunday School scholars is less than 22 per cent. That demonstrates how relatively unfruitful the work of the Church has been if, as claimed by the right hon. and learned Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, the Church adherents amounted to approximately half the population. By all these tests of religious activity it is proved that Nonconformity in Wales stands substantially for three-fourths of the work done. This feeling of ours is shared and confirmed by English Churchmen whenever they have taken the trouble to study dispassionately and master the conditions of religious life in Wales. Let me quote Canon Hobhouse on this question. He says:— There is a want of discipline and cohesion amongst Church members. They have little power and too often little interest. This is reflected in the paucity of lay readers, and in the small number of Sunday school teachers as compared with Nonconformists. Nonconformists can command greater enthusiasm and more lay workers. They are accustomed to rely, not on Endowments, but on voluntary support, They can follow up their work where it is most needed. They are more coherent, and they adapt themselves more readily to the natural sympathies of the Welsh. That is the testimony of a Churchman to the operation of the voluntary principle in Wales. That being so, you cannot be surprised that we regard that principle as more efficient for the evangelisation of the people. As compared with England, the voluntary system in Wales has worked incomparably better than the Erastian system in England. Anglican communicants in Wales are 8 per cent., and the Free Church communicants are over 22 per cent. Thirty per cent, of the people of Wales are closely associated with religious life. In England the Anglican community, in spite of great wealth and of the learning, devotion and piety of its leaders, has in communicants only 6 per cent, of the population, while the Free Churches have 4¾ per cent. The result is that in England one out of every ten of the population is associated with religious life. We can claim therefore that the voluntary system in Wales has proved a brilliant and unqualified success, and that the Erastian system in England is a great and a disappointing failure. Take the great county of Durham, in the immediate vicinity of which I live. You have there a population of 1,369,000, and the number of communicants is only some 50,000—a proportion of 3.66 per cent. Take the county of Carnarvon. There you have a population of 125,000, and the Calvinistic Methodists, one denomination alone, have some 27,000 members—a proportion of 22 per cent. In this county the voluntary principle has proved fully six times more effective than the Episcopal State Church system has proved in the great county of Durham. Under these circumstances the gloomy forebodings which have been given us as to the results of Disestablishment leave us absolutely unmoved. What strikes one most is the weight that is given by the Opposition to the element of finance in religious activity. We claim, further, that not only does the Erastian system hamper the spiritual efficiency of the Church, but that it is demoralising to the national life. It is to this connection between Church and State that we attribute the hesitant position of the Established Church on such great issues as the licensing question, the question of national rectitude, and the issues of peace and war. As a matter of fact, these deplorable moral effects of the connection between Church and State were admirably put by a countryman of ours, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer—Sir George Cornewall Lewis—when he said, "All experience shows that where this intimate union of Church and State exists, instead of the Church spiritualising the State, the State secularises the Church." I will read to the House a communication I have received from a Welsh clergyman. My acquaintance with Welsh clergymen is not very extensive, and this communication has come to me wholly unsolicited. He says:— As a Welshman I am very glad the House resisted the proposal that our fossilised Convocation in London should prepare the new constitution of the Welsh Church. Whatever happens, I hope that things will be done in such a manner as to guarantee that our Welsh Church democracy will have their say in the reconstitution of the Church. I believe you are going to give the power to the bishops. That in my opinion means giving it, in the long run, to the hereditary enemies of our common Welsh nationalism, the Anglicised squirearchy of Wales. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps) has in anguished terms inflicted on the House many pained perorations upon the wickedness of dismembering his Church. An exalted dignitary of the English Church had told my clerical friend that "the four dioceses of the Province of Canterbury argument" was the very last that he should use if he lived and worked in Wales. My friend adds:— It is all nonsense representing the Welsh Churchmen as being indignant at dismemberment. Most or us care not two straws for it, and, if you notice, it is not genuine Welshmen who use this argument, with rare exceptions, but the English Church defenders in Wales.

Colonel PRYCE-JONES

I do not think the Welsh clergyman whom the hon. Member has quoted is representative of the Welsh clergy or of Welsh Churchmen, or even of Nonconformists. I do not propose to take up isolated cases, but it is a very remarkable fact that a Gentleman who was a Member of this House for two or three Parliaments, and was returned for Wales to damage the Welsh Church, was recently in the third row on the front of the platform at a Church Defence meeting at Carnarvon. It shows that representatives on the other side of the House from Wales do not really represent the feeling of Wales in this matter. I listened, of course, with the utmost pleasure to the eloquent and passionate speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As a Welshman I think there are few in the House or outside it who can tickle up an audience better than he can. If I had noticed in time that no one got up on this side to follow him I would not have shrunk from the task, because he had to go back hundreds of years, far beyond the Middle Ages, in order to make out a case for this drastic Bill. It is perfectly true that in my lifetime there was in Wales a strong feeling against the Church, and in favour of Disestablishment, and perhaps in those days to a greater extent than now, in favour of the Disendowment of the Church. Those were the days when it was extremely difficult to get up meetings against the proposal to Disestablish and Disendow our Church, but I am glad to say that things have altered in recent years. There is a very different feeling now, and the difficulty is for our opponents to get up meetings in favour of this Disestablishment and Disendowment Bill. Take the recent Flint election. The champions of the Church in that constituency challenged our opponent to make the Welsh Church an issue, but he refused to accept this challenge. It has been stated this evening—I will not press it—that the farmers, who represent an important part of the population, had gone against the Church in Wales because they thought that if tithes were taken away it would put so much money into their pockets. Now they found under the Bill they would pay tithe just the same they were not so keen for the Church Bill. I can assure the House that the meetings we have had in all parts of Wales, big and enthusiastic, attended by Churchmen and Nonconformists, and all interested in the Principality, have been such as Wales has not had for generations. I ask the House: Why is it that the situation has changed? It is because there is a better feeling among Nonconformists and people who belong to the Church in Wales. The people who attend chapels are coming nearer to the Church. Their buildings are getting like those of the Church, and when you enter a place of worship, you do not know whether you are in a church or a chapel. The services of the Nonconformist bodies are becoming similar to those of the Church. I remember in my younger days it was thought that an organ in a church or a chapel was a very improper thing. I have no doubt that in a few years hence there will be practically no difference between the two bodies.

Another fact to be remembered is that the Royal Commission, which was appointed by the present Government to inquire into Church matters in Wales, heard evidence which shows that the Church has well earned her Endowments, and that she is making use of them in doing excellent work. An hon. Member from Wales has been taunting right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, and also some hon. Members behind them, for supporting my hon. Friends on this side when they have asked fair play for the Church in Wales. I would remind the hon. Member that when he finds fault with his own friends in this respect, his argument is in favour of our side. He ought to see that we must be right when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on his own side agree with us. I think that speaks volumes for our case. When proposals have been made on this side, they have in some instances been accepted by the Government, but the hon. Member has found fault with the Government for making those concessions. If the Bill has been altered since it was introduced, it has been altered with the view to our satisfaction. We say it has not been altered nearly enough to satisfy the supporters of the Church. In order to make my position clear to the House and friends outside, I would say I only wish that, instead of having been brought up a Churchman, I had been a Nonconformist. If I were a Nonconformist, I can assure the Government and my hon. Friends opposite that I would never vote for the Disendowment Clauses of this Bill.

Parliament has done much for children by giving them free education. This Government has given pensions to old people, and it has given others insurance money during sickness. Surely, if the State is right in these matters, it cannot be wrong for the State to provide something for a religious organisation such as the Church of England in Wales. This is not a case where we ask for additional Endowments. What we ask is that the Endowments we already possess may remain with us. We have proposed that if the Nonconformist bodies in Wales would agree, we are willing to share the Endowments with them. If this Bill should ultimately become law, those who have supported it will know that they have done damage to the Principality by taking away money from the Welsh Church, which is the poorest Established Church that we know of. [Laughter.] Yes, the poorest Church that we know of. It will be a precedent, and Nonconformist bodies which have property might be treated in a similar manner. There are Nonconformist corporations in Wales which, if their trust deeds were looked at, and if the doctrines they preach now were examined, would be turned out of their chapels. It would be for Parliament then—I hope this will not happen—to attack these Nonconformist bodies in a way similar to that in which this Government is attacking the Church in Wales. I thank hon. Members from England who have stood by the Welsh Church so gallantly. We Welsh Church members are a party of only three, and we can never forget the services which have been rendered by hon. Members to our Church.

Mr. BONAR LAW

I am sure that hon. Members on all sides of the House appreciate the speech of my hon. Friend who has just sat down. He made, however, one remark with which I cannot admit complete agreement. He said that if the Front Bench opposite and we were agreed we were sure to be right. I happened to read the other day the remark of a distinguished lawyer who had been in the House of Commons, and who said that the House of Commons was never unanimous except that when it was wrong. I do not think that that is likely to arise in this Parliament, but if it ever happened that we were in agreement with the right hon. Gentlemen opposite I should begin to have a, strong suspicion that we were probably not in the right. We have now reached nearly the end of the stage in the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer described the other day as one of the stones remaining in the Gladstone quarry; and a thing not uninteresting to remember is that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs has shown throughout these Debates in the most unmistakable way that he was entirely out of sympathy with many of the provisions of this Bill and with the spirit in which this Bill has been pressed. That hon. Gentleman also comes from the Gladstone quarry, and I am sure no one will question that in his view he has more nearly expressed than the Government have done by their action what would have been the attitude of Mr. Gladstone himself towards this question. The discussion which has gone on with regard to this Bill, both in the House of Commons and in the country, has proved conclusively to anyone who is not blinded absolutely with party prejudices the fact that this Bill would not have the smallest chance of becoming law if our Constitution were not suspended, and if there were any possibility of referring it to the opinion of the electors.

I know of no proposal of any Government in my time where the expression of public opinion has been so clearly on one side. In this country, in support of this Bill, there has been nothing but apology. In Scotland the same thing is true, and I was greatly struck by what happened last year at the general assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland, which is, of course, the largest Free Church in Scotland. On that occasion a proposal was brought forward to get that assembly to adopt the motion in support of this Bill. It was refused. Such a thing, even ten years ago, would have been absolutely impossible. It proves exactly what my hon. Friend has just shown, that there has been a great change of feeling in regard to this matter. It is a proof, in fact, that this cause, however in earnest some hon. Members are in regard to it, is, as my hon. Friend the Member for the City said in an earlier Debate, not a cause which is coining in, but a cause which is going out. The truth of what I said is shown by positive action outside as well as by negative action. My right hon. Friend the Member for St. George's referred to the petitions which had been presented against this Bill. I do not exaggerate the significance of petitions. I know that it is easy to get petitions, but it is not easy to get them on the scale on which they have come in regard to this Bill, and if it be anything like the truth, as suggested by my right hon. Friend, that over half a million of the male population of Wales have actually signed these petitions, it is a fact of importance which no one in the House would underestimate.

Equally important, there have been no petitions on the other side. I do not mean to say that they could not have got more than two petitions if they had tried, but I am perfectly sure that the Committee over which I understand the hon. Baronet below the Gangway presides, and which probably is not destitute of funds in addition to the funds which the hon. Member has special means of securing, has been considering the subject and not with much success, for I have not the smallest doubt that if they had thought there was the least chance of getting petitions which would in any way rival those against the Bill, such petitions would have been got. The same thing is shown by meetings all over the country. The country has really been roused about the matter, and in many cases it has broken down the ordinary party division. The same thing is true of the history of the Bill in this House as well. That it has reached even the present stage is not due to the Government. The credit for it, if credit it be, is due to the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, who alone have made it possible that we are now discussing the Third Reading of the Bill. I think on seven or eight separate occasions the Bill would have been dead but for the fact that it received the support of Nationalist Members to a larger extent than the amount of the majority in its favour. That Bill is being pushed forward under these conditions by a Government, the head of which told the country some years ago that his party ought not to take office unless they had an independent majority, and he told us in this House, only this Session, that he still adhered to that declaration in the letter and in the spirit. That is the history of the Bill up to this date. I know that the hon. Member for Mayo refused to accept the suggestion that the saviours of the Bill did not vote in accordance with their convictions.

Mr. DILLON

I said we had voted in accordance with our convictions.

Mr. BONAR LAW

Refused to accept the suggestion that they had not, which is very much the same thing. But in the same speech in which he made that interesting declaration he said that we owed a good debt of gratitude to Welsh Members, and he was proud of the opportunity of paying that debt. The hon. and learned Gentleman, the Leader of the party, at a meeting in Wales, made the obvious and open avowal that if he got the support of Welsh Members for Home Rule they would have the support of Nationalist Members for Welsh Disestablishment. There is no doubt upon the point. I will read words which were actually spoken in this House by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford in regard to his attitude to all English questions. He said:— Your English politics do not concern us. Our votes will, in this Parliament, as in past Parliaments, be directed by one sole consideration—by what we regard to be the interests for the time being of Ireland. To those who feel strongly on this question it is an additional and intolerable injustice that such a question should be settled absolutely by the votes of hon. Members who avow that those votes are given without any regard to the merits of the question. The truth of the statement I have made that the success of this depends on our Parliamentary constitution is shown by the attitude of the stalwarts themselves below the Gangway opposite. The real protagonist of this Bill is not any right hon. Gentleman sitting on that bench, not even the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. The real protagonist is the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, the Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams). To his great gifts of speech I would like to join my right hon. Friend in paying a well-deserved compliment. I do not make the qualification which my right hon. Friend made. It was his invective and his sarcasm which I admired, and if it was, as my right hon. Friend suggested, the result of midnight oil, it did not at all events smell of that oil, and that is all that any of us has a right to ask. The hon. Member gave us a picture the other night, a picture that seemed to me pathetic, of the backsliding not only of English and Scotch Radicalism, but of that chosen band who, for reasons which we all understand, and which the hon. Gentleman carefully explained, was inadequately representing Welsh national sentiment. "Among the faithless, faithful only he." And what will happen to the Bill when his own transformation comes, and I venture to say that his Euthenasia will not be long delayed.

There is one thing that right hon. Gentlemen on that Bench do understand. The hon. Member is something of a tornado, and on that Bench they do not like tornadoes. They have learned how to chain even the winds; and when the time comes that, to use the words of the hon. Member himself, he is "browsing peacefully in the Ministerial pastures," it will be at least a negative gain to the Government, but it will be a distinct loss to the House of Commons. I feel that one is under the common disadvantage on an occasion like this, because the whole subject has been covered so very fully. I am oppressed with the multitude and abundance of my material, I must make the best of it. Fortunately, my time is limited, and my speech will, at least, have the merit of brevity. The discussions which has so far taken place have not in my opinion been to the disadvantage of those who defend the present position of the Church. Take, for instance, the question of Disestablishment pure and simple. I am quite sure that the Debates which we have had have removed from the minds of many people, both in this House and in the country, the false idea that there was something in the existence of an Established Church in Wales which was invidious and oppressive to the Free Churches in the Principality. That can no longer be claimed. I believe, as a matter of fact, and I believe strongly, that it is in the National interests that there should be State recognition of religion, and whatever may be in doubt as to the figures, and in regard to this Bill, I have found most things to be in doubt, it is not questioned that the Church in Wales is the largest single religious body, and therefore if there is to be a State recognition of religion the Church has a claim not only on account of her history but of her numbers, and it is the body to which that recognition should be given.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admitted in one of our earlier Debates that the Church had no invidious privileges as an Establishment, and whatever privileges she had, she had used them so moderately that things are exactly the same as if the Church had been Disestablished years ago. Neither he nor anyone else has been able to find out a single grievance which affects any individual or Church in the Principality of Wales. The Debates on the Disestablishment side of this Bill have shown clearly the fact that the Disestablishment of the Church does not only mean privileges, as my hon. and learned Friend behind me said, but it means obligations; and if you carry this Bill you will not only remove privileges which do not affect you, but you will remove or diminish obligations which are certainly not immediately to the disadvantage of the people of Wales at the present time. It is the question of the Disendowment of the Church which has caused us greatest interest in this House, and which, I think, has roused the conscience of the people of this country. What is the position? The Church has admittedly enjoyed these Endowments for at least three hundred years on the lowest estimate. In every country in the world at any time in the world's history prescription has been recognised as the best of all titles to property, and the very arguments by which this proposal is defended are arguments which if they were carried out in other directions would destroy absolutely the title to property of any kind on which the whole basis of society in my opinion rests. That is the position which rests upon those who recommend this Bill. The burden rests upon them of showing why this undoubted title to property should be disregarded. What are the arguments by which they attempt to justify it? The Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon, in referring to the speech of my right hon. Friend, said that he had left out the most important argument. What was that argument? It was that the Welsh people still demand, and have for generations demanded that this Bill should 'be carried through. I do not admit that claim. There is no evidence whatever that the people of Wales are in favour of the Disendowment provisions of this Bill. In the first place, it must be remembered that the people who are pressing this Bill most strongly are the very people who have always refused to take in Wales the course which was taken in Ireland, that is to have a religious census so that the numbers of the people could be ascertained. It is the fact also that on the one occasion in recent times when this question was more distinctly an issue at an election than at any-other election, namely 1895, was the one occasion when the Radical party returned a smaller number of Members to this House than they ever returned before or since. Only the other day, while this Bill was going through this House, the representatives of the party opposite refused to make this the issue at the Flint election, while we tried to make it the issue. The result of that election was that at this moment when the Bill is before the House of Commons the majority in favour of the Radical party was smaller than it has been since, I think, 1895.

Even if it were true that the great majority of the people of Wales desired it, that would be an argument in favour of Disestablishment, but not in favour of Disendowment. After all that is a question of right and wrong. The question of whether or not you can justly deprive a religious body of its property is a question which we have no right to decide by the opinion of any section of the community however unanimous. That is a question for which the House of Commons as a whole must be responsible, and in regard to which the Welsh Members have no more right to speak than other Members. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who I am sorry to see is not present, made a very interesting speech this afternoon. My hon. Friend who spoke last paid due tribute to his power of tickling up an-audience, but I was sorry that he did not exercise that power to his usual extent this afternoon. I like his other manner better, and I hope with the Celtic temperament, or whatever it is, that he will not often in future address either the House or the country in the way which he addressed it this afternoon. That is an inverted compliment from the point of view of an opponent, for I think that kind of speech is much more dangerous than the other. The right hon. Gentleman gave us a very interesting disquisition upon the history of Wales. It was new to me, quite new to me, and if it is true, and if it is a correct description, if I were a Welshman, there is nothing I should resent so much as the character which he gave of the Welsh people. What was the picture he held out to us. It was that for centuries on this question of religion the people of Wales had no convictions. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] They moved about from one side to the other. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] That was his picture. Of course I see the point of the hon. Gentleman, and it was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was all the fault of the people of England. The right hon. Gentleman forgot two facts. At those times in all parts of the world men of other nationalities were willing, even though they had not power, to become martyrs for the cause they believed in.

As regards Scotland to which the right hon. Gentleman referred he had for the moment a complete lapse of memory. He seemed to suggest that Scotland had escaped the English Establishment because of her strength. Bannockburn was fought long before that, and from the time this question arose Scotland was never able to stand up against England, and the only time she tried to do it in an effective way, was against a man of Welsh descent at Dunbar, and she did not come well out of it. She, just as much as Wales, was, as far as power is concerned, at the mercy of England, and if the Scottish people secured their own views it was because they believed in them and were ready to suffer for them, and to suggest that the Welsh were not moved by the same influences is, I fear, one of the worst tributes a Welshman could pay to the character of the people. In this connection the right hon. Gentleman could not avoid making a very obvious point. He said still he does not give up his convictions before an election. We quite understood the reference. There is room I admit for legitimate taunt, but there is no room for such a taunt from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is and still professes, as they all do opposite, that they have been devoted to Home Rule for I do not know how many generations, yet they did precisely what he is blaming us for doing. In 1906 the one time they were sure of winning an election and carrying it, they postponed the subject on which they were so unanimous. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Lords Veto."] Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman was right. There may be no analogy. We do attach value to our cause. They attach none to theirs, and they have only adopted it from the same causes from which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the Welsh people adopted their religion; from compulsion inflicted upon them from the outside.

The next argument to which I wish to refer in favour of Disendowment was that of the Prime Minister. Ho told us this question was not open to argument, that it had been decided by the precedent of the Irish Church. Xo contention was ever less justified. The man who could best speak as to the grounds on which the Irish Church was Disestablished was Mr. Gladstone. He never used an argument which would apply to the Welsh Church from beginning to end. He justified what he was doing on this ground, a ground on which Parliament has over and over again interfered with trusts, that the body which exercised this trust was not able usefully to employ the money with which it was entrusted. If the right hon. Gentleman doubts that, I will read what Mr. Gladstone said.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)

I quite agree.

Mr. BONAR LAW

Then the argument obviously falls to the ground. There would be justification for the same course if it could be said that the Church was not properly exercising the trust, but the Prime Minister has said that it is. Then we have the argument which the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward very gingerly to-day about the Church having changed its constitution. He said he was debarred from pressing it on account of the presence of his Chief. I do not know whether anything has happened since the Second Reading to alter his attitude. The views of his Chief were known then, but he spent half an hour in proving the very point which the right hon. Gentleman said was incapable of proof. In the very speech in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer made that long digression he him self proved the worthlessness of the argument by showing that in his own denomination, in his own lifetime, the doctrine had changed; yet he never suggested that that fact deprived that body of the right to the exercise of any Endowments which it possessed. What is more, if one thing has been made clearer than another by Parliament, it is that the Church has a right to grow, to develop, and to change its doctrine, without losing the right to continue to enjoy its funds. What happened in the Free Church case in Scotland? That case is in every way of value in the discussion of the Bill now before the House. What was the fact? The Free Church joined a voluntary Church. The Courts of Law held that by so doing it had lost its right to its Endowments. What happened? Parliament stepped in and laid down two principles, either of which would be fatal to the Bill before the House. It laid down, first of all, that the Free Church, which had a legal title, had a right to all the funds which it could usefully employ. What you are doing is to take away from a Church which has a legal title at least as good funds which it is employing and admittedly employing to the best possible advantage. Parliament laid down another principle. The funds which the Free Church could not usefully employ were not taken and given to the State, but they were given to the other denomination, although they had no legal title to them, on the sole ground that they were using them well, and for the advantage of religion.

10.0 P.M.

I am sorry I have not time to go further into this question of Endowment. The whole strength of the case is proved by this, and it has been said over and over again. All the arguments that we have heard to-day are based on the origin of these funds. Is it not obvious, if that is a just ground for interfering with them, that you ought to interfere just as much with the laymen who hold them, much more than the Church? But you are not doing that. Why? Because you know that it would sap the whole foundations of society, and destroy the basis of property on which society rests. If it is not right to do it in the one case, it is robbery and nothing else to do it in the other. Even if the Government had the legal title or the shadow of a legal title for what they are doing, is it wise? What are they going to gain? The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a very moderate speech, with a great deal of which I sympathised, because of the religious life of Wales. That had a practical bearing on the question of religious equality, but what in the world had it to do with depriving the Church of funds which it is using well in the cause of religion? No speeches in these Debates have been to me so unpleasant as those unctuous speeches which have implied that the Church would be benefited by this Bill. Such speeches might have been made with sincerity at a time when people believed in voluntarism. But they do not now. The Free Churches do not, any more than the Established Church. They are all trying to got Endowments. Under such circumstances, is it not hypocrisy to say that the Church will be better without them?

I do not deny that the purposes to which these funds will be applied may be useful. But unless the House accepts the principle that religious service as religious service is bad, is it not true that the funds for these purposes which the State thinks are necessary could easily be supplied from other sources? Is it not true that every Christian denomination finds it increasingly difficult to get the funds necessary to carry on Christian work? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They all do. Let those hon. Members who speak for Wales and who deny that, look at the salaries paid to their Ministers. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Church curates?"] There has been a good deal of talk, and I have heard some sermons on the question whether or not the uses to which these funds are to be applied are religious. The Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon told us that the Apostle James was good enough for him. I was brought up in a very strict Calvinistic atmosphere, and in my young days, although it was' hardly possible to treat James as heretical, anybody who chose his writings as a text for his sermon was regarded with suspicion. I do not take that view. If that is not religion, it is very like it; it is the best expression of religion. But we need both. That can be got in other ways, but the spiritual needs can only be supplied in one way, and the money for them is short. Is it not in the highest degree against the interests of society to take away these small funds from a Church which is relatively poor and devote them to secular objects for which money could be supplied in other ways?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)

This is the twenty-sixth day of our discussions on this Bill. During most of that time the attendance has been extremely small; but, if I might, I would like to pay a tribute to those hon. Members on both sides of the House who, throughout the whole of that time, have conducted the discussions with such ability, learning, and sincerity. Hon. Members opposite, whose faces I recognise well, will not refuse me this chance of complimenting them upon the skill and obvious sincerity with which they have argued their case. We began our discussions on the First Reading Debate with a certain amount of heat. That heat through the long days has evaporated entirely into the atmosphere, and I hope on both sides that the language and temper has been suitable to a subject in which on both sides we have endeavoured to direct ourselves to argument and reason. In the quarter of an hour that remains I sincerely hope that we shall still maintain the calm atmosphere which has so long been maintained. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down was not, I think, quite accurate in his recent history. He stated that in England there had been nothing but apology for this Bill. As recently as 26th November, we had an election at which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton put forward Welsh Disestablishment as a leading plank in his programme. He won that election with a triumphant majority.

While this Bill was under discussion in this House we had an election in North Wales and one in South Wales. Those concerned had the precise terms of the Bill before them in both cases, and the supporters of the Bill returned their candidates to Parliament. We have never shrunk from the issue. [HON. MEMBERS: "Reduced majorities."] I quite agree that the majorities were reduced, but it was owing to the use made of the temporary unpopularity of the Insurance Act. At both these elections, and in Bolton, the Welsh Bill was made a prominent feature, and in all three elections hon. Members now sit on this side of the House to represent the views of the electors. The right hon. Gentleman was also a little inaccurate in his history not quite so recent. He stated, with perfect truth, as my right hon. Friend has admitted, that Mr. Gladstone in arguing upon the.Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church founded himself upon, the fact that the Irish Endowments were excessive and were not being properly used. But Mr. Gladstone also made a speech in 1891 on Welsh Disestablishment, and speaking of it in relation to the Disestablishment of the Irish Church he used these words:— In two vital and determining points I cannot deny that the case of the Welsh corresponds with that of the Church of Ireland. In the first place, it is the Church of the few against the Church of the many. In the second place, it is the Church of the rich against the Church of the comparatively poor. These broad features are so stamped upon the case that, in my opinion, it is impossible to deny it. It is idle to-day to quote Mr. Gladstone as an authority in opposition to the Welsh Church Bill. It is not enough to quote even my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock Burghs as an opponent. He voted for the Second Reading of the Bill. He accepts the principle of the Bill, and though he differs from us in regard to certain details of the measure, I sincerely hope we may see him in the Lobby in support of the Third Reading. On one point I agree with the Noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman. The subject has been discussed for so long that there is very little new to be said. In the few minutes that remain to me I propose only to state quite shortly the principles upon which we have acted, and principles which, with us, are the foundations beliefs in dealing with this measure. We believe—and I am sure in what I say I speak for all my hon. Friends—that it is not right to Establish a Church to which the majority of the nation do not belong, when the majority of the nation are devoted in their adherence to other Churches, and when the majority of the nation strongly protest against Establishment.

The Noble Lord says that Establishment is necessary as an act of the national recognition of religion. If an act of the national recognition of religion be required, let it take some other form than the Establishment of a Church which, with the majority of the people amongst whom the Church is Established, is morally indefensible. That can be no act of national recognition which is contrary to the consciences of the majority of the people! There are other ways, if it be needed, to establish the national recognition of religion. We believe in Wales that Establishments are wrong in principle, and it is no compensation to us to offer us the Establishment of any other Church. We wish to Establish no Church. The Churches are Established on the only true foundation when they rely for their firmness and strength upon the consciences of the individual. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who opened this Debate, stated that the Disestablishment of the Church would be a national repudiation of religion. With every respect for the authority of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I will go to a greater authority, and one who is perhaps the greatest opponent of Disestablishment in this country. Lord Selborne, speaking upon this point, declared:— There is no such thing as national religion. The religion of the nation consists in the religion of the men and women who compose the nation. It is no national repudiation of religion to Disestablish a Church when every member of that Church will tell you with unshaken confidence that the Disestablishment of the Church will not affect in the smallest iota the influence, belief, or devotion to their Church of a single member of that Church. That is my first point—that we regard Establishment as morally wrong.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Why not abolish it in England?

Mr. McKENNA

We have not the power. We are speaking for ourselves. My second point is that we believe that in this respect—I will not put the matter very largely now; I will not take a wider ground than that—having in view Welsh history, tradition, race, and religious belief, the Welsh people are entitled to be regarded as a nation separate from the English. That is our view; that is the view of the Welsh people; that is the view which has been accepted by their sympathisers in England. We look upon it as one of the great glories of England that she has ever been sympathetic—it has taken time—that England alone of all the nations, after experience and after a lapse of long years, has known how to become sympathetic with the smaller races in her midst. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ulster." Other HON. MEMBERS: "Derry."] I would remind hon. Members that so far as Ulster is represented in this House the majority are in favour of this Bill. And, Sir, England, not perhaps the England which calls itself "Imperial England," but the true England which by its policy has been able to maintain the Empire, the England which recognised in time past the claims of every one of our Dominions, and has extended self-government all over the world, that England has recognised the claims of Wales, and I, on behalf of Wales, thank my hon. Friends who represent English constituencies for the consistent support they have given us.

Holding these views, and having had the task before me of introducing a Bill to Disestablish the Church, it was my sincere desire that the transition from Establishment to Disestablishment should be conducted with as little friction, difficulty, or trouble to the Church of England as was possible in the circumstances. I and my colleagues, who have been so helpful to me, have done our utmost to frame this Bill in such a way as to inconvenience the Church to the smallest possible degree. So far as Disestablishment in concerned, throughout the whole Debates, I do not recollect that there is any one real outstanding point of difference between us, once the principle of Disestablishment is accepted, except the retention of the Welsh bishops and clergy in Convocation. That I believe is a still outstanding difficulty, and upon that I have this to say: We should have been most glad if we could have met the views of hon. Members opposite, but when we remember that Convocation is a common law body, that it is set in motion only by the issue by the Writ of the Crown, of Letters of Business, and that its character and functions, particularly in subjection to the authority of Parliament, are one of the very incidents of Establishment which we wish to get rid of in Wales, it was impossible for us in that respect to meet the views of hon. Members opposite. With that exception, in all the matters appertaining to the Church I believe we have met all the arguments upon the other side.

Now what remains? Only the question of Disendowment. The total Endowments of the Church in 1906—I will keep to the figures of those years for which we have authority—amounted to £260,000 a year. The Church is bound to spend that money in certain ways. She cannot use her £260,000 a year as a flexible instrument for the better advancement of religion in Wales. She is limited under her parochial system. The Endowments are attached to particular benefices, and the Church, whether she wishes it or not, has to maintain a large number of incumbents in parishes where there is little or no work to be done. We have never made this a point of attack against the Church. We have never said that the Church is spending her money ill. I do not think she is spending her money well, but it is not her fault. I make no charge against the Church on that ground, but when the right hon. Gentleman claims it as a merit that the money is being well and wisely spent, that is no where near an approach to the actual fact. I have taken out the figures of two dioceses only—Bangor and Llandaff—which are the least strong in support of my argument. I find in those dioceses there are no less than 106 parishes with an average of thirty communicants only in the whole parish, while the total Endowments of those 106 parishes amount to £25,000 a year, or £8 per communicant. One-tenth of the whole of the Endowments of the Church in Wales are spent in ministering to the needs of 3,000 communicants. Is that money being well spent? I could show to the House, if time permitted, that in regard to these Endowments the Church could easily save far more than is being taken from her, and yet be able to do as good and even better work than she is doing now in ministering to her own members. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated to-day, these Endowments are all spread over parishes where you have rich congregations, and in the poor parts of Wales where there is a great work to be done there are no Endowments.

How do we treat the Church with those Endowments amounting to £260,000 a year? Of that sum £102,000 a year is left to the Church without any qualification whatever. There remains £158,000 a year. It is roughly estimated that under commutation the Church will receive £2,000,000 to represent life interests. Of course, the Church will have to take over the life interest of the existing incumbents, but the Church will have the services of those incumbents for the remainder of their lives. If you reckon 3¾ per cent, on that £2,000,000 the Church will have an income of £75,000 a year from that source. Add that to the £102,000 and you have a total of £177,000 a year. We have had an assurance from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty that "What has hitherto been appropriated may be in the future appropriated as annual income, by which means the Church will receive annually after Disendowment an

additional sum by way of income which it has not hitherto enjoyed of £31,000 a year. I add all these figures together, £102,000, £75,000, and £31,000—

Lord HUGH CECIL

It is a very absurd sum of addition.

Mr. McKENNA

And I get a total of £208,000.

Lord HUGH CECIL

It is quite irrelevant.

Mr. McKENNA

No, it is not so irrelevant as the Noble Lord thinks. The income is subject to life interests of £158,000 a year. I have stated that fully. What does it mean? It only means that if Churchmen in Wales will give additional subscriptions amounting to hardly; more than a penny per week per communicant the Church will be as rich after Disestablishment as before. The whole of this clamour about our ruining the Church in Wales and about our robbery of God is all based upon a refusal to admit the need that members of the Church of England in Wales should show something like the same generosity in support of their Church that Nonconformists show in support of their's. We base our claim to alienate these ancient Endowments from the Church on the ground that they are national funds. We believe they were given at a time when there was no distinction between Church and State, and that they were devoted to the purposes of the whole nation. We believe they ought never to have lost that character, and the only way by which we can restore to the Welsh people what belongs to them as a whole is that we shall devote the funds to purposes, quite truly secular in one aspect, but in the truest sense of the word I believe genuinely religious.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 347; Noes, 240.

Division No. 576.] AYES. [10.30 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) Arnold, Sydney Beck, Arthur Cecil
Abraham, Rt. Hon. William (Rhondda) Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. Geo.)
Acland, Francis Dyke Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A. Bentham, G. J.
Adamson, William Baker, H. T. (Accrington) Bethell, Sir J. H.
Addison, Dr. Christopher Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) Black, Arthur W.
Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) Boland, John Pius
Agnew, Sir George Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) Booth. Frederick Handel
Ainsworth, John Stirling Barnes, George N. Bowerman, C. W.
Alden, Percy Barran, Sir J. (Hawick Burghs) Boyle, D. (Mayo, N.)
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire) Barton, W. Brace, William
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) Beale, Sir William Phipson Brady, P. J.
Brocklehurst, W. B. Harcourt, Robert v. (Montrose) Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Brunner, John F. L. Hardie, J. Keir Middlebrook, William
Bryce, J. Annan Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) Millar, James Duncan
Buckmaster, Stanley O. Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) Molloy, M.
Burke, E. Haviland- Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) Molteno, Percy Alport
Burns, Rt. Hon. John Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) Money, L. G. Chiozza
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North) Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry Mooney, J.J.
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar) Hayden, John Patrick Morgan, George Hay
Byles, Sir William Pollard Hayward, Evan Morrell, Philip
Cameron, Robert Hazleton, Richard Morison, Hector
Carr-Gomm, H. W. Healy, Maurice (Cork) Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich) Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.) Muldoon, John
Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood) Helme. Sir Norval Watson Munro, R.
Chancellor, H. G. Hemmerde, Edward George Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.
Chapple, Dr. William Allen Henderson, Arthur (Durham) Murray. Capt. Hon. A. C.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) Nannetti, Joseph P.
Clancy, John Joseph Henry, Sir Charles Needham, Christopher T.
Clough, William Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) Nicholson, Sir C. N. (Doncaster)
Clynes, John R. Higham, John Sharp Nolan, Joseph
Collins, G. P. (Greenock) Hinds, John Norman, Sir Henry
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. Norton, Captain Cecil
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Hodge, John Nugent, Sir Walter Richard
Condon, Thomas Joseph Hogg, David C. Nuttall, Harry
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. Hogge, James Myles O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Cory, Sir Clifford John Holmes, Daniel Turner O'Brien. William (Cork)
Cotton, William Francis Holt, Richard Durning O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) Hope, John Deans (Haddington) O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot Home, C. Silvester (Ipswich) O'Doherty, Philip
Crean, Eugene Howard, Hon. Geoffrey O'Donnell, Thomas
Crooks, William Hudson, Walter O'Dowd, John
Crumley, Patrick Hughes, S. L. Ogden, Fred
Cullinan, J. Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus O'Grady, James
Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh) O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)
Davies, David (Montgomery Co.) John, Edward Thomas O'Ketly, James (Roscommon, N.)
Davies, E. William (Eifion) Johnson, W. O'Mallcy, William
Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth) Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D.Brynmor (Sw'nsea) O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) O Shaughnessy, P. J,
Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) O'Shee, James John
Dawes, James Arthur Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) O'Sullivan, Timothy
De Forest, Baron Jones, Leif Stratten (Rushcliffe) Outhwaite, R. L.
Delany, William Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney) Palmer, Godfrey Mark
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas Joyce, Michael Parker, James (Halifax)
Dewar, Sir J. A. Keating, Matthew Parry, Thomas H.
Dickinson, W. H. Kellaway, Frederick George Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)
Dillon, John Kelly, Edward Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Donelan, Captain A. Kennedy, Vincent Paul Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M.
Doris, W. Kilbride, Denis Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)
Duffy, William J. King, J. Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S.Molton) Pointer, Joseph
Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) Pollard, Sir George H.
Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.) Lardner, James Carrige Rushe Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West) Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) Lawson. Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)
Elverston, Sir Harold Leach, Charles Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)
Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) Levy, Sir Maurice Primrose, Hon. Nell James
Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) Lewis, John Herbert Pringle, William M. R.
Essex, Sir Richard Walter Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas Radford, G. H.
Esslemont, George Birnie Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich) Raffan, Peter Wilson
Falconer, J. Lundon, Thomas Raphael, Sir Herbert H.
Farrell, James Patrick Lyell, Charles Henry Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)
Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson Lynch, A. A. Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Ffrench, Peter Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) Reddy, M.
Field, William McGhee, Richard Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Fitzgibbon, John Maclean, Donald Redmond, William (Clare, E.)
Flavin, Michael Joseph Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) Rendall, Athelstan
Ginnell, L. Macpherson, James Ian Richards, Thomas
Glanville, Harold James MacVeagh, Jeremiah Richardson, Albion (Peckham)
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford M'Callum, Sir John M. Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Goldstone, Frank M'Curdy, Charles Albert Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) M'Kean, John Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)
Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland) McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)
Greig, Colonel J. W. M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)
Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lines., Spalding) Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
Griffith, Ellis J. M'Micking, Major Gilbert Robinson, Sidney
Guest, Major, Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke) Manfield, Harry Roch, Walter F.
Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) Markham, Sir Arthur Basil Roche, Augustine. (Louth)
Gulland, John William Marks, Sir George Croydon Roche, John (Galway, E.)
Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) Marshall, Arthur Harold Roe, Sir Thomas
Hackett, J. Martin, Joseph Rose, Sir Charles Day
Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton) Mason, David M. (Coventry) Rowlands, James
Hancock, John George Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. Rowntree, Arnold
Harcourt, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Rossendale) Meagher, Michael Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W. Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) Wedgwood, Josiah C.
Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) Tennant, Harold John White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Scanlan, Thomas Thomas, J. H. Whitehouse, John Howard
Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas
Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) Thome, William (West Ham) Whyte, A. F. (Perth)
Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B. Toulmin. Sir George Wiles, Thomas
Sheehy, David Trevelyan, Charles Philips Wilkie, Alexander
Sherwell, Arthur James Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Shortt, Edward Verney, Sir Harry Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook Wadsworth, J. Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)
Smith, Albert (Lanes., Clitheroe) Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince) Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs, N.W.)
Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton) Walters. Sir John Tudor Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Smyth, Thomas F. Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) Winfrey, Richard
Snowden, Philip Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)
Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert Wardle, George J. Young, W. (Perth, E.)
Stanley, Albert (Staffs., N.) Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) Wason, Rt. Hon, E. (Clackmannan)
Sutherland, J. E. Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. W. Jones.
Sutton, John E. Watt, Henry A.
Taylor, John W. (Durham) Webb, H.
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet) Ingleby, Holcombe
Aitken, Sir William Max Craik, Sir Henry Jackson, Sir John
Amery, L. C. M. S. Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)
Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R. Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred Jessel, Captain H. M.
Anstruther-Gray, Major William Dalrymple, Viscount Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr
Archer-Shee, Major Martin Dalziel, Davison (Brixton) Kerry, Earl of
Ashley, W. W. Doughty, Sir George Keswick, Henry
Astor, Waldorf Du Cros, Arthur Philip Kimber, Sir Henry
Baird, J. L. Duke, Henry Edward Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.) Eyres-Monsell, B. M. Knight. Captain E. A.
Balfour. Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) Faber, George Denison (Clapham) Kyffin-Taylor, G.
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Falle, Bertram Godfray Lane-Fox, G. R.
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester) Fell, Arthur Larmor, Sir J.
Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)
Barnston, Harry Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)
Barrie, H. T. Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. Lee, Arthur H.
Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc, E.) Fleming, Valentine Lewisham, Viscount
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) Fletcher, John Samuel Lloyd, G. A.
Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks Forster, Henry William Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)
Beauchamp, Sir Edward Gardner, Ernest Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)
Beckett, Hon. Gervase Gibbs, G. A. Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) Gilmour, Captain John Long, Rt. Hon. Walter
Bennett-Goldney, Francis Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- Goldman, C. S. Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)
Berestord, Lord C. Goldsmith, Frank Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.)
Bigland, Alfred Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)
Bird, A. Goulding, Edward Alfred MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh
Blair, Reginald Grant, J. A. Mackinder, H. J.
Boles, Lieut-Col. Dennis Fortescue Greene, W. R. Macmaster, Donald
Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- Gretton, John M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)
Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.) Magnus, Sir Philip
Boyton, James Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds) Mallaby-Deeley, Harry
Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell Gwynne. R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) Mason, James F. (Windsor)
Bull, Sir William James Haddock, George Bahr Meysey-Thompson, E. C.
Burdett-Coutts, W. Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) Middlemore, John Throgmorton
Burn, Colonel, C. R. Hall, Frederick (Dulwich) Mildmay, Francis Bingham
Butcher, J. G. Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth) Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas
Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) Hamersley, Alfred St. George Morrison-Bell. Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)
Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. (Dublin Univ.) Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.) Mount, William Arthur
Campion, W. R. Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence Neville, Reginald J. N.
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred Harris, Henry Percy Newdegate, F. A.
Cassel, Felix Harrison-Broadley, H. B. Newman, John R. P.
Castlereagh, Viscount Helmsley, Viscount Newton, Harry Kottingham
Cator, John Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Cautley, H. S. Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.) Nield, Herbert
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Hewins, William Albert Samuel Norton-Griffiths, John
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) Hickman, Colonel T. E. O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)
Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) Hill, Sir Clement L. Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.
Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. Hills, John Waller Ormsby-Gore. Hon. William
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) Hill-Wood, Samuel Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender Hoare, Samuel John Gurney Parkes, Ebenezer
Clive, Captain Percy Archer Hohler. Gerald Fitzroy Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)
Clyde, J. Avon Hope, Harry (Bute) Peel, Captain R. F.
Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) Perkins, Walter
Collings, Rt. Hon. J. (Birmingham) Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) Peto, Basil Edward
Cooper, Richard Ashmole Home, E. (Surrey, Guildford) Pole-Carew, Sir R.
Courthope, G. Loyd Houston, Robert Paterson Pollock, Ernest Murray
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) Hume-Williams, William Ellis Pretyman, Ernest George
Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) Hunt, Rowland Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.
Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) Hunter, Sir C. R. Quilter, Sir William Eley C.
Randies, Sir John S. Smith, Harold (Warrington) Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Ratcliff, R. F. Spear, Sir John Ward Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)
Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel Stanier, Beville Warde, Colonel C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Rawson, Col R. H. Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) Wheler, Granville C. H.
Rees, Sir J. D. Starkey, John R. White, Major G. D. (Lanes., Southport)
Remnant, James Farquharson Staveley-Hill, Henry Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) Steel-Maitland, A. D. Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud
Rolleston, Sir John Stewart, Gershom Wills, Sir Gilbert
Rothschild, Lionel de Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North) Winterton, Earl
Royds, Edmund Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford) Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Ripon)
Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen) Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central) Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby) Terrell, G. (Wilts, N.W.) Worthington-Evans, L.
Salter, Arthur Clavell Terrell, H. (Gloucester) Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.) Wright, Henry Fitzherbert
Sanders, Robert Arthur Thynne, Lord Alexander Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Sanderson, Lancelot Tobin, Alfred Aspinall Yate, Col. Charles Edward
Sandys, G. J. Touche, George Alexander Yerburgh, Robert A.
Sassoon, Sir Philip Tryon, Captain George Clement Younger, Sir George
Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange) Tullibardine, Marquess of
Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) Valentia, Viscount TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord E. Talbot and Mr. Bridgeman.
Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l., Walton) Walker, Col. William Hall

Bill read the third time, and passed.

It being after Half-past Ten of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of 28th November, 1912, to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the Third Reading of the Bill.