Commons Sitting of 8 July 1913

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Dover Harbour Bill,
As amended, considered:—
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
King's Consent signified.
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.
Greenock Port and Harbours Bill [Lords],
As amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Llantrisant Gas Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Midland Railway (Superannuation Fund) Bill [Lords],
Not amended, considered; to be read the third time.
United District Gas Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Arundell Estate (Closing of Arundell Street and Panton Square) Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
Edinburgh Corporation Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.
North British Railway Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.

SECONDARY TEACHERS (IRELAND).
Copy presented of Correspondence between the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Catholic Headmasters' Association in reference to the proposed Grant of £40,000 per annum for the improvement of the position of Secondary Teachers in Ireland [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
LILIAN LENTON'S CASE.
Return presented relative thereto [Address 7th July; Mr. Fred Hall (Dulwich)]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 190.]
BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Copy presented of Regulations for Technical Schools, Schools of Art, and other Forms of Provision of further Education in England and Wales (in force from 1st August, 1913) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Report, No. 758 (Ceylon, Report for 1911–12) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
LUNACY.
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House:—Copy of Return to the Lord Chancellor of the number of Visits made and the number of Patients seen by the several Commissioners in Lunacy during the six months ending on the 30th June, 1913 [by Act].
HALKYN DISTRICT MINES DRAINAGE BILL [Lords].
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Westgate and Birchington Gas and Electricity Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to—
Redcar, Coatham, Marske, and Salt-burn Gas Bill [Lords], without Amendmeat.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the provisions of The Companies (Consolidation) Act, 1908, with respect to private companies." [Companies (Consolidation) Act, 1908, Amendment Bill [Lords].
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Metropolitan Water Board to make waterworks and other works and to acquire lands; and for other purposes." [Metropolitan Water Board Bill [Lords. ]
And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Leicester to construct additional tramways and street improvements in the borough; and for other purposes." [Leicester Corporation Bill [Lords. ]
Metropolitan Water Board Bill [Lords],
Leicester Corporation Bill [Lords].
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 191.]
Minutes of Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 241.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Portugal (Duty on Dried Salted Fish).
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the fact that the duty on dried salted fish imported into Portugal from the United Kingdom is higher by Is. per cwt. than on similar imports from Norway, Denmark, and Germany; whether any representations have been made to the Portuguese Government with a view to securing more favourable treatment for British traders; and, if so, with what result?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. Grey): My attention has been directed for some time past to the differential treatment of British dried salted fish in Portugal. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative. Negotiations for a treaty are still proceeding and His Majesty's Government hope soon to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion.
  Mr. HUNT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long these negotiations have been going on and also whether America
  196
  or any of the other countries have given up the full benefit of the Most-favoured-Nation Clause?
  Sir E. GREY: I must have notice of the last part of that question. With regard to the first part, negotiations have been proceeding for a considerable time.
  Mr. HUNT: How long?
  Sir E. GREY: One or two years probably. The difficulty has been to differentiate the Portuguese case from all the others. The Portuguese Government complain that we impose differential duties upon their wines.

  Persia.
  Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs what were approximately the numbers of Russian troops in Persia on 6th February and on 29th April; respectively; and whether there has been any substantial alteration in numbers during the last three months?
  Sir E. GREY: As regards the first part of the question, the figures on both dates should have been 17,500 (approximate). I regret that on 6th February the number was given as 13,400—an error due to ignorance of the dispatch of 4,000 men to Khoi. As regards the second part, there has been a reduction of about 900 men within the last six weeks.
  Mr. MORRELL: Can my right hon. Friend say whether a further reduction has just been made?
  Sir E. GREY: That is covered by the next question.
  Mr. MORRELLasked whether any serious disorder has occurred in Northern Persia since the formation of the Cabinet of Ala-es-Sultaneh on 11th January of this year; and whether, in the event of no serious disorder having occurred, and in view of the definite assurance given by the Government of Russia at that time as to their desire to recall their troops from Northern Persia whenever order was reestablished, His Majesty's Government will again urge the Russian Government to proceed to carry out their expressed?desire by withdrawing from Persian soil some portion at least of the Russian troops?
  Sir E. GREY: Serious disturbances have but recently taken place in Northern Persia, and I am not prepared to make any

  197
  representations at present to the Russian Government, who have recently withdrawn 900 men.
  Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs if he can yet say what result, if any, there has been from the recent visits of the Regent of Persia to London and St. Petersburg; whether any further progress has been made with the negotiations for the proposed loan which His Majesty's Government desire to facilitate; and whether there is any definite prospect of the summoning of the Medjliss as required by the Constitution?
  Sir E. GREY: I understand that the Regent was satisfied with his conversations, and will soon return to Persia. As regards the second part of the question, no progress has been made as regards a large loan. With regard to the last part, it would obviously not be proper to make any statement until His Highness has consulted his Ministers on the subject.

  Delhi.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether Parliament can with advantage and in accordance With precedents interfere with the discretion of the Government of India as regards the building of New Delhi; and, if not, whether the Secretary of State will abstain from making references to that Government which give an impression that public opinion in this country concerns itself in any way with the style of architecture to be adopted?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The House is the best judge of the limits of profitable action on its part as regards the building of New Delhi and as regards other matters. The Secretary of State is not aware of any act of his which might rise to the impression suggested in the last part of the question.
  Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will place in the Library a copy of the last annual Report of the consulting architect to the Government of India?
  Mr. MONTAGU: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India for the exact position and powers of Sir Swinton Jacob as architectural adviser for the 'New Delhi; whether the letter of his appointment can
  198
  be made public; and whether he is furnishing any of the designs or plans for any new buildings?
  Mr. MONTAGU: Sir S. Jacob has been associated with the architects as adviser on questions of Indian architecture. materials, and the like. He will not furnish designs or plans. It is not proposed to publish the letter of his appointment.
  Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will consult those architects and officials of the Public Works Department who have been engaged in the repair and maintenance of historic Indian buildings, so that their experience may be made available in the construction and style of building the New Delhi?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State considers that in the association of Sir Swinton Jacob with the architects sufficient provision has been made for making Indian experiences available.
  Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he can state, regarding the proposed terminal station at the New Delhi, what will be the cost of the work; whether the proposal for a non-terminal station, as suggested by other authorities, was laid before the Committee; and whether it is intended to make an early start to carry out the recommended terminus?
  Mr.MONTAGU: The scheme recommended by the Committee was suggested by the Railway Board, the highest authority on railway arrangements in India. The Secretary of State has no information as to the probable cost of the work or as to when it will be commenced.
  Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India for the comparative length, either in folio pages or number of words, of the Reports on subjects submitted to them of the Delhi Town-Planning Committee and Mr. H. V. Lanchester, respectively; and whether, in view of the unexpected brevity of the three Reports of the committee, Mr. Lanchester's Reports will now be published?
  Mr. MONTAGU: As I have stated in reply to previous questions, the Secretary of State understands that Mr. Lanchester submitted no Reports to the Government of India of a nature suitable for publication. But he will consult the Viceroy.
  Mr. KING: Will the hon. Gentleman allow Mr. Lanchester to publish any part of his notes he thinks fit if he desires to do so?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I think the matter had better rest with the promise I have given on behalf of the Secretary of State that he will consult the Viceroy.
  Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether any notice has been, or will be taken, of the expressed view of the Government of India, in transmitting the Report of the Town-planning Committee, that very careful examination will be required before the execution of work contemplated; whether inquiry has been made as to the subjects to which this qualification applies; and whether, in view of this warning, the Secretary of State will delay the final appointment of architects and the final approval of plans now being designed?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State has taken note of the conclusion of the Government of India that the town-planning report will be a very useful guide to them in their further operations, but that many details will require careful examination. He does not consider that any useful object would be served by delaying the appointment of the architects.

  Sitapur Executions.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILLasked how many appeals have been taken in India against the acquittal of persons who have been tried for wilful murder since the law which made the plea of a previous acquittal on the same charge a bar to a new trial was altered under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code in 1872; how many of these appeals have been allowed; and in how many cases of acquittal in which appeals have been allowed have there been subsequently convictions for murder?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Government of India have been asked for the information. It may take some little time to collect from the local Governments and the High Courts, and if it should necessitate a laborious examination of records, the hon. Member will, I trust, be content with figures for a briefer period than he has suggested.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: If he gives us the records of murder cases I shall be satisfied.
  Mr. MONTAGU: We have telegraphed for it.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILLasked what is the reason that, while the plea autrefois acquit is a bar to the trial of European British subjects in India for murder, natives of India who have been tried for murder and acquitted are liable to be tried afresh for murder on the same charge; and whether, having regard to the circumstances of the Sitapur (Oudh) trial for murder, conviction and execution of natives previously acquitted, it is contemplated to assimilate the precedure in the trials on capital charges of Europeans and natives in India?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The reason lies in the provision of the Code that when an European British subject is accused of an offence punishable with death or with transportation for life, the commitment must be to the High Court and not to the Court of Sessions. In any case in which a European subject is tried for an offence and acquitted by a Court of Session, an appeal to the High Court may be preferred. It would not be possible to assimilate the procedure by making all capital offences in India triable by High Courts only. There exists substantial equality of justice, in that no convicted person can suffer death unless the sentence has either been passed by the High Court or has been confirmed by it.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILLasked the Under-Secretary for India whether he can explain the cause of the oversight by which the substance of the Report by the Government of India on the Sitapur (Oudh) murder trial case, which reached the India Office on the 5th April, was not communicated to Sir Henry Cotton till the 9th June, and then only in reply to a letter from Sir Henry Cotton on the 4th June asking whether the Report had been received; when were the contents of the Report of the Indian Government on the Sitapur murder case communicated to Sir John Hewitt, G.C.S.I., the late Lieutenant-Governor of Agra and of Oudh, in whose term of office the Sitapur murder trials, acquittals, and convictions took place; and whether Sir John Hewitt has made any, and, if so, what communication to the India Office in reference to this transaction?
  Mr. MONTAGU: Lord Crewe communicated to Sir Henry Cotton the substance of the Report he received from India on

  201
  the 5th April as soon as Sir Henry Cotton wrote in June to remind him of the matter. Lord Crewe regrets the delay, but I am sure the House will understand the circumstances in which such an incident can well occur in a busy Department. I discussed the matter personally with Sir John Hewitt on 25th June, and this was the first occasion on which Sir John learned that the case was being discussed. Sir J. Hewitt is anxious to make a statement to the Secretary of State as soon as the full official record is received from India.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Is it possible that from 5th April, when this Report was received, until the 9th June, no action was taken in the India. Office; further, the hon. Gentleman was in India at the time, did Lord Crewe not communicate with him about it; there is a Legal Assistant to the Indian Government, was that document ever placed before Mr. Scales, the Legal Assistant in India?
  Mr. MONTAGU: No action was taken between 5th April, when that Report was received from India, and 9th June, when Sir Henry Cotton's letter was received. No action at all. This occurrence, for which Lord Crewe has expressed regret, was due to an oversight; the papers were put by and no action was taken. As soon as Sir Henry Cotton reminded us of the delay, immediate action was taken.
  Mr. MORRELL: Can the hon. Gentleman say how it was that neither on 24th January, nor on 4th April, did the India Office apparently ask for any explanation of the facts; did they not think these facts required explanation?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The first step to be taken was to get confirmation of the facts from India. Obviously, as soon as the facts were received and attended to, further correspondence with India and with Sir Henry Cotton was necessary. That was done immediately Sir Henry Cotton's reminder was received. The delay from 4th April to 9th June is explicable on the basis that the papers were put to one side inadvertently and no action was taken.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for India what action the India Office took on receipt from the Government of India, on the 4th April, 1912, of the Report on facts submitted to Lord Crewe by Sir Henry Cotton, on 24th January, with reference to the trials, acquittals, re-trails, convictions, and executions of the Singhs at Sitapur, whose
  202
  accuracy was admitted by that Report; when did the India Office communicate with the Government of India on the Sitapur executions after the receipt of the Report; and what was the date of that communication?
  Mr. MONTAGU: As I have already said, the Report on the facts was not dealt with in any way until Sir Henry Cotton's reminder and the question and Debate in this House brought the matter to the notice of the Secretary of State. But the general question of the provisions of the rules governing the transmission of petitions in capital and in other cases from local governments to the Government of India has been under consideration for some months. As I stated in answer to a question last week, a telegram was sent asking for further information. A request for the papers was made; the Debate in this House was sent to India, and a dispatch on the general question of appeal rules went to India by last mail.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for India why the Secretary of State for India did not accept the offer made to him by Sir Henry Cotton in his first letter in reference to the Sitapur executions to place the records of the trials and copies of the two judgments which are in his possession at the disposal of the Secretary of State; why was no notice taken of this offer; and whether the Secretary of State will now accept it in order to save the time which must elapse before the receipt of copies of these documents from India?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State was not aware that these documents were in Sir Henry Cotton's possession. Sir Henry Cotton merely said that he had received a large packet of original Papers, with which he did not propose, unless asked, to trouble the Secretary of State. If Sir Henry Cotton should now be pleased to forward these Papers, the Secretary of State will be glad to receive them, but it may be found necessary to await the complete record which has been called for from India.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: I beg to give notice that I shall direct attention to this matter when the Indian Budget comes on.
  Mr. MORRELL: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether he thinks these Papers will arrive in time for us to have the explanation when the Indian Budget comes on?
  Mr. MONTAGU: They were telegraphed for as soon as this matter arose. I cannot promise them by any date, but, I think, they will arrive without any delay.

  Lord Hardinge (Attempted Assassination).
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the authorities in India have had any success in their endeavours to trace the conspiracy which led to the attempt against the life of Lord Hardinge; and whether any arrests have been made?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I cannot say more than that so far as I am aware, no arrests have been made.

  Opium Traffic (China).
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether His Majesty's Government has decided not to agree to China's request that the opium accumulated at Chinese ports should be reshipped at her expense to India or to other non-Chinese ports in the Far East; and if so, what steps it is proposed to take for the protection of the opium owners whose action throughout has been legitimate and lawful, and who have acted in the faith that the treaty engagements of the British Government are inviolable?
  Sir E. GREY: The Chinese Government requested that the opium accumulated at Chinese ports should be reshipped to non-Chinese markets, and they offered to pay the freight. No final decision has been come to in the matter, and I am unable at this stage to make any announcement on the subject.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Secretary of State has information to the effect that the Chinese Prefect of Tenguyeh, finding certain fields under poppy at Hsin-Chai, in Yunnan, set fire to that village and shot down some 150 inhabitants as they attempted to escape; and, if so, whether his Majesty's Government will intimate to the Chinese Government that, in so far as such an act as this takes place in furtherance of the British.anti-opium policy, it may be regarded as an over drastic suppression of the growth and supply of a medicine and stimulant of immemorial use in the East?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Government have received no information as to the incident in question.

  India (Revenue Rules for Country Liqour Shops).
  Sir HERBERT ROBERTSasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has seen the circular, dated 29th October, 1912, issued by the Board of Revenue of Behar and Orissa with reference to the rules for the settlement of country liquor shops; whether the circular withdraws the restriction on the auction system allowed in paragraphs 26 and 27 of chapter III. of the Bengal Excise Manual, 1910, Vol. II., which provided that in the settlement of country liquor shops, when the bid reached a figure beyond which no profit could be made, the presiding officer should stop the auction and exercise his discretion as to the person to whom the settlement should be given; and whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the subject?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The reply to the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. The discretionary power created by the rule was considered to open the door to fraud by subordinate Excise officers. And its retention was unnecessary in view of the power vested in the presiding officer to reject obviously speculative bids. The Government of India, after full consideration of the Local Government's views, have approved its action.

  Indian Army (Regimental Schools).
  Colonel YATEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India how much money out of the increased Grants allotted during the past year on account of education in India has been granted to the regimental schools of the various units of the Indian Army?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The increased Grants for education in India referred to by the hon. Member are civil Grants, and have nothing to do with regimental schools of units of the Indian Army, which are paid for from Military Estimates.
  Colonel YATE: In view of the importance of these schools, will the hon. Member give the figures I have asked for?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I will try and get the figures for the hon. and gallant Gentleman. They are not available at present because they are not shown separately.

  Punjab Commission (Grievances of Junior Members).
  Sir J. D. REESasked the "Under-Secretary of State for India what steps the Governments of the Punjab and of India propose to take to abate the grievances of the junior members of the Punjab Commission?
  Mr. MONTAGU: A scale of minimum salaries, graduated according to the length of the officers' service, has been sanctioned for three years with retrospective effect from the 1st October, 1912. It supplements, but is not a substitute for, the ordinary system of salaries attached to specific offices: and it is a temporary measure of relief pending the Report of the Royal Commission.

  AIRCRAFT.

    CODY BIPLANE.
    Captain FABERasked the Secretary of State for War whether the Cody biplane, from which Mr. Harrison was killed, had been ordered to be overhauled and recovered; whether, owing to a review taking place, the machine was wanted before the repairs had been executed; and whether its condition had been reported as precarious previous to the review?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): The biplane had been overhauled by the maker shortly before the accident took place. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. The accident had no connection whatever with any review.
    Captain FABER: Is it not a fact that this machine had been ordered to be again recovered and repaired?
    Colonel SEELY: I have no information of that. If the hon. and gallant Member will put down a question, I will inquire.

    AEROPLANES (SPEED AND HEIGHT OF FLYING).
    Mr. WINGasked the Secretary of State for War if his Department is in possession of eighty aeroplanes capable of flying 50 miles per hour at a height of 3,000 feet; and will he say whether any Member of this House has had the opportunity of verifying the above number of aeroplanes, their speed, and height of flying?
    Colonel SEELY: The answer to this question is in the affirmative.
    Mr. HUNT: Is it not a fact that aeroplanes which are only capable of flying fifty miles an hour would be very little use in time of war?
    Mr. WING: Has any Member of this House been invited to see these aeroplanes, and, if so, whom?
    Colonel SEELY: I invited two hon. Members, and I invite all hon. Members of this House to see them if they can be seen without detriment to the public interest. I have not yet seen the report. With regard to the other question that does not arise out of the question on the Paper, which has reference to the number.
    Mr. HUNT: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman told us that some of the aeroplanes are too slow to be of use in time of war?
    Colonel SEELY: That has nothing to do with the question of the number.
    Mr. WING: Has the hon. Member for Brentford (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) seen these aeroplanes?
    Colonel SEELY: I understand that the hon. Member has seen some of them, but I do not know whether he has yet completed his tour.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    PULLING OF HORSES' TAILS (REGULATIONS).
    Sir MARK SYKESasked the Secretary of State for War what regulations are in force with regard to the pulling of horses' tails in the Regular Army and Territorial Force?
    Colonel SEELY: The regulations are set forth on pages 63 and 64 of the Manual of Animal Management, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Gentleman.

    CROMARTY FORTIFICATIONS.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Secretary of State for War why and under what circumstances the War Office have ceased to construct the fortification and other works at Cromarty; whether the original plans approved by the War Office are being carried out by the Admiralty; and what has happened the money voted for the purpose to the War Office?
    Colonel SEELY: No plans for the defences of Cromarty were ever approved by the War Office and no money for this purpose was voted in Army Estimates.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Why is the Admiralty doing Army work?
    Colonel SEELY: I do not think the Admiralty are doing Army work. They are doing Admiralty work.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Is this not the first time the Admiralty are looking after the land fortifications of this country and were not the Army dealing with the fortifications at Cromarty?
    Colonel SEELY: This is a question for Debate, and I cannot reply to a matter of policy at Question Time.

    TERRITORIAL FORCE.
    Mr. PETOasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Territorial battalion of the Wiltshire regiment was called out for training on the 23rd June; whether he is aware that this date in a rural district, where saving the hay crop is of importance, is inconvenient to farmers, and tends to make them discourage young farm hands from joining the Territorial Force, and acts as a hardship to those who are patriotic enough to do all they can to assist the Territorial Force; and whether he will take steps to see that training for Territorial battalions, as far as possible, in rural districts is arranged for dates which avoid the usual periods of hay and corn harvest?
    Colonel SEELY: The dates of training of units of the Territorial Force are arranged by divisional, mounted brigades or coast defence commanders in consultation with the county association concerned. Every effort is made by those concerned to arrange for dates suitable to local conditions in so far as military exigencies permit.
    Mr. PETO: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the date named in the question is obviously one which must be extremely inconvenient in agricultural districts?
    Colonel SEELY: In these matters consultation always takes place with the county associations, who have the best means of knowing what is and what is not convenient.

    YEOMANRY (SWORDS).
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Secretary of State for War
    208
    whether it is the intention of the War Office to arm the Yeomanry with cast Cavalry swords on mobilisation, and not till then; and whether he will consider the issue of bayonets now to those regiments that prefer this weapon?
    Colonel SEELY: It has been decided to issue swords to the Yeomanry on mobilisation, but a percentage of practice swords will be issued during peace. The bayonet will not form part of the equipment of the Yeomanry.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: What is the good of issuing weapons on mobilisation which the men will not know how to use? Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question as to whether these swords he intends to use are not swords which have been found useless in the Cavalry?
    Colonel SEELY: No, Sir. The answer is in the negative.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: What swords are they going to use on mobilisation, and what pattern?
    Colonel SEELY: They will be very good swords, and I have no doubt they would be used with great effect.
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Will they be the old or the new pattern?
    Colonel SEELY: In the first place, they will be the old pattern Cavalry sword, which, as the hon. and gallant. Member knows, is a very good sword indeed. As time goes on no doubt they will be supplied with the present weapon.
    Mr. MOUNT: Will they be made specially for the Yeomanry or will they be the old swords?
    Colonel SEELY: They were made specially for the Cavalry.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Does it not need a perfectly different training for the old sword and the new sword?
    Colonel SEELY: That is a large question, which I cannot debate at Question Time. I am sure hon. Members do not expect to discuss the relative merits of the sword at Question Time.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I asked for the percentages.

    NATIONAL RESERVE.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked in what manner it is proposed to utilise members of the National Reserve who do not give the required undertaking in Class I. or Class II. of the new Regulations?
    Colonel SEELY: I shall not be in a position to answer this question until there has been time to ascertain the numbers available in Classes I. and II.
    Mr. TOUCHE: I understand that it has not been determined what their duties are to be?
    Colonel SEELY: I have said that I cannot answer this question until the numbers have been obtained, and they have not been obtained.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked (1) how many of the men enrolled in the National Reserve have undertaken service in Class II. of the new Regulations as being willing to serve at Home with specific Territorial units in the event of imminent national danger, either in the field or fixed positions, or to carry out administrative work, as may be required; (2) how many of the men enrolled in the National Reserve have undertaken service in Class I. of the new Regulations as being willing to serve in the field at Home or abroad in the event of imminent national danger; and (3) how many men are now enrolled in the National Reserve?
    Colonel SEELY: There has not yet been sufficient time to complete the classification under the new system, and the bulk of the men shown in the returns recently rendered are unclassified. The total number in the Reserve amounted on 1st June to 207,384.
    Colonel YATE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the classification will be completed?
    Colonel SEELY: No, Sir, I cannot give a date, but it, is proceeding.

    MILITARY STATIONS (UNSKILLED LABOURERS).
    Mr. FREDERICK HALL (Dulwich)asked if there are any unskilled labourers or other workers employed under the War Office receiving less than 20s. a week; if so, the number of such persons; and the cost of raising the minimum rate of pay in all such cases to 20s. a week?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Harold Baker): At some military stations the minimum wage of unskilled labourers is below 20s. It is fixed from time to time in accordance with the Fair-Wages Resolution of this House, and I cannot undertake to depart from the approved policy in these matters.
    Mr. HALL: May I ask whether it is not the fact that the unskilled labourers in the Eastern Command are in receipt of wages of 18s. 2d. per week, raised by 8d. during the last nine years, and does the hon. Gentleman think that constitutes "a. model employer of labour," to which he recently referred?
    Mr. BAKER: If the hon. Member will give me any instances where we are not observing the Fair-Wages Resolution, I. will inquire into them at once.

    Land Valuation.
    Mr. STANIERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the official valuers under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, can send out lists of questions to, owners of property on their own responsibility, not having previously got them sanctioned by Somerset House; and whether this has been going on since the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, came into operation with the knowledge of Somerset House?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): District valuers on their own initiative frequently invite individual owners to supply information required for the correct valuation of their property, and this practice has the, approval of the authorities at Somerset House. Where a request for similar information has to be made in numerous cases throughout the Kingdom, it is usually reduced to common form at Somerset House.
    Mr. MOUNTasked whether an owner of land is obliged to furnish the district valuer with plans showing the boundaries of each holding on his estate as they were on the 30th April, 1909, even though he has no such plans in his possession?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The answer is in the negative.

    Glasgow Prosecution (Jessie Brown).
    Mr. BARNESasked the Secretary for Scotland if he has any power to have inquiry made openly into the case of Jessie

    211
    Brown, so that the allegations made for and against her may be threshed out in the presence of both sides and evidence taken on oath subject to cross examination?
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure, for the Secretary for Scotland): No, Sir, I know of no power under which I could order such an inquiry as is suggested by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. BARNES: Has any representation been made to the Glasgow authorities that they might make special inquiry?
    Mr. URE: Yes, more than once.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Do they refuse to hold any public inquiry whatever?
    Mr. URE: There has been a private inquiry, hut there is no power to have a public inquiry as desired.
    Mr. HUNT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the conviction against this woman was reversed on appeal, and the two policemen who secured the conviction have since been convicted of serious offences, and that Miss Brown is totally unable to get the conviction erased from the record; and is it the right hon. Gentleman's idea of justice to women?
    Mr. URE: It was not a conviction but an admonition, and there are no allegations now against the lady.
    Mr. HUNT: Is not the record there still, and should it not be removed? Is not that what Miss Brown is trying to get done?
    Mr. URE: No; she desired to have the conviction quashed, and it was quashed.
    Mr. BARNES: Will the Lord Advocate see that the further allegations made against this woman which have arisen from the secret inquiry is made known to her and her friends?
    Mr. URE: I know of no allegations made against the woman.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Was she called at the secret inquiry at all?
    Mr. URE: No.
    Mr. G. GREENWOOD: May I ask whether some procedure could not be adopted to allay the anxiety—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members had better give notice of any further questions.

    Hospital and Poor Law Statistics (Glasgow).
    Mr. BARNESasked the average cost of inmates at Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, including children, and including all charges for debt, etc., and the same information for Barnhill; the number of eases sent to Lock Hospital, and the cost per head of the same to the parish council; the cost per week of boarded-out children, including clothing, etc.; the average cost per head of out-door poor in Glasgow; the average allowance per week per child at school; the average allowance per week to parents who are keeping children learning a trade; the cost per head of inmates at Duke Street Hospital, including all charges; and the cost per head of inmates at Oak Bank Hospital, including all charges?
    Mr. URE: I have no information on these subjects beyond what is contained in the last Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Scotland, Command Paper 6720, see particularly pages 262–5. I understand that further particulars are given in the Annual Abstract of Accounts of the Glasgow parish council.
    Mr. BARNES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the information sought for is not given in this form in the Return, and that the local authorities have refused to give it in this form?

    State Loans to Fishermen.
    Mr. MORTONasked the Secretary for Scotland when the Report of the Departmental Committee on State loans to fishermen, etc., will be presented; and whether he is aware that Members representing constituencies interested in the Scottish fisheries are anxious to have an opportunity of discussing this question in the House during this Session?
    Mr. MUNROasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware of the disappointment which prevails in fishing circles in Scotland with regard to the delay of the Commission which is considering the question of State loans to fishermen in issuing their Report; whether he can now make a definite statement with regard to the date of its issue and whether, in particular, he will endeavour to secure that it shall be issued in time to admit of its discussion on the second day to be devoted to the Scottish Estimates?
    Mr. URE: In answer to this question and the next, I cannot add anything to the answers which I gave to my hon. Friends on this subject last month.

    Hong Kong (Patrol Launch).
    Sir J. REESasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the police patrol launch No. 2 at Hong Kong is in a seaworthy condition, or whether she was condemned by the marine Surveyor, but is still in use?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): I have no information on the subject, but I will inquire.

    East India Revenue Accounts.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Prime Minister when the East India Revenue, Accounts will be taken?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE:I cannot yet fix a date.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will fix an early date for the discussion of the Army Estimates so that we can raise the question of the strike on the Rand?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

    Gold Coast Colony (Palm Oil Bill).
    Mr. TOUCHEasked on what date the Palm Oil Bill for the Gold Coast Colony passed the Committee stage; if it has yet received a Third Reading; if so, on what date and by what majority; and how did the unofficial members of the Legislative Council vote on the Third Reading?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am not aware on what date the Bill passed through Committee—but it received a Third Reading on the 4th instant. I have not yet received the particulars of the voting.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked if at the meeting of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast Colony on 26th March, 1913, on the Motion that the council do resolve itself into Committee to consider the Palm Oil bill Clause by Clause, it was moved by the senior unofficial member that the Bill be not read in Committee but be withdrawn; that all the unofficial members voted in support of the Motion to withdraw the Bill, which was defeated by a majority of one; and, in view of the fact
    214
    that the Bill introduces and legalises the principle of monopoly, and of its lack of support except from official members of the council, will the Government reconsider their policy of granting the protection from competition provided in the Bill?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The facts as to the proceedings in the Legislative Council are as stated by the hon. Member. The Government do not propose to reconsider the policy of the Ordinance. It is hardly correct to say that it introduces the principle of monopoly—as it does not confer the sole right to buy or sell any product, and the protection from competition afforded is of a strictly limited character.

    Southern Nigeria.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked whether it is intended to proceed with a Palm Oil Ordinance for Southern Nigeria similar in character to the Palm Oil Bill which has been under the consideration of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast Colony?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The necessity for such legislation in Southern Nigeria has not, yet been established.
    Mr. TOUCHE: Has it been decided not to apply for an Ordinance of this sort for Southern Nigeria?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The question has not yet arisen.

    South Africa (Strike of Miners).
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has official information to the effect that the local Government at Johannesburg intends to take most rigorous action if the strikers resort to violence; and can he state if Imperial troops are to be utilised for this purpose?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I would refer the hon. Member to the information which I gave the House yesterday, which showed that it was necessary to employ the troops, but that the strike has been settled. Perhaps I may be permitted to read to the House two telegrams which I have received, one last night and the other half an hour ago:
    "The Governor-General of the Union of South Africa to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
    (Received Colonial Office, 9.23 p.m., 7th July. 1913.)
    Large number of men resumed work to-day and some mills restarted: rest of men expected to resume tomorrow. Funeral this afternoon of persons killed passed off without disturbance, and all quiet in Johannesburg now, 9 p.m."

    215
    "The Governor-General of the Union of South Africa to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
    (Received Colonial Office, 1.30 p.m., 8th July, 1913.)
    General resumption of work along reef. It is to be noted that along whole fifty miles of reef no serious collision between troops and strikers. Away from Johannesburg, which was main centre of disorder, no case has been reported to me of troops firing on people. In Johannesburg itself am informed that troops did not fire except where disorder was most serious. There is reason to believe some deaths were due to indiscriminate shooting by rioters themselves, but am making close inquiry into this.—GLADSTONE."
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any official information yet as to the cause of the contact between the troops and the people which is stated in the cablegrams received to have been due to the breaking up of public meetings in Johannesburg?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have no information on that matter.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Were the men in question buried at the cost of the Colony or of the parents?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many men and women have been killed
    Mr. HARCOURT: I telegraphed yesterday for particulars, but I have not yet received them.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information as to the cause of this shooting?
    Mr. HARCOURT: No, Sir. I have asked for all those particulars and shall no doubt receive them in due course.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    H.M.S. "VENERABLE" (PETTY OFFICER HAMPER).
    Mr. BARNESasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Petty Officer Frederick Hamper, of His Majesty's ship "Venerable," who was tried by court martial on a charge of being drunk whilst on duty, and sentenced to be disrated from petty officer to leading seaman and deprived of three good conduct badges; whether he is aware that this punishment amounts to a reduction in remuneration of 9s. 11d. per week and a reduction in pension of 2s. 7½d. per week; whether be is also aware that the evidence given at the trial showed that if Hamper was under the
    216
    influence of drink it could only have been to a slight extent; whether he is also aware that this is the first case where the Admiralty Order of 27th September, 1912, allowing a person to claim to be tried by court martial in a case where he is liable to be disrated, has been put into operation, and that this sentence is calculated to discourage the men from availing themselves of the Order; and whether, in view of all the circumstances of the case he will have the matter reconsidered with a view to dealing with this man more leniently?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): My attention has been drawn to this case. I am informed that the reduction in pay is 7s. a week, and that the probable reduction in pension will be about 2s. a week. With regard to the third part of the question I am advised that the evidence was conclusive. The statement contained in the fourth part of the question is incorrect, and I may add that a recent case resulted in the acquittal of the accused. It is not considered by the Board of Admiralty that a more lenient punishment would meet this case, as there was a. serious offence recorded against this petty officer in 1911, and the present offence reflected both on his fitness for the rating of petty officer and on his general conduct.

    AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN "DREADNOUGHTS."
    Captain FABERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the first unit of the second Austro-Hungarian "Dreadnought" division was laid down at Trieste during the spring; whether its construction is being rapidly pushed forward; whether, in 1916, Austria intends to have seven "Dreadnoughts" and super "Dreadnoughts "; and whether Italy will at the same date possess ten?
    Mr. BURGOYNEalso asked whether a start has been made with any vessels of the new Austrian programme; and, if so, on what date?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: As I stated in the House yesterday, I am not yet in a position to make any definite statement to Parliament on this subject.
    Captain FABER: Can the right lion. Gentleman say when lie will be in a position to make a statement?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, I cannot.

    SHIPBUILDING, REPAIRS, AND MAINTENANCE (VOTE 8).
    Mr. BURGOYNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty when it is proposed to discuss Vote 8 of the Navy Estimates; and whether, in view of the developments in Canada since his last statement, he could issue to the Members of this House a Paper foreshadowing international naval strength at various periods between now and the spring of 1917?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: It is not part of my duty to answer questions as to the Order of Business, but I understand that this Vote will be put down for Thursday, 17th instant. I do not consider it necessary, as at present advised, to supplement the very full information of the Dickinson Return.
    Captain FABER: Will the right bon. Gentleman be able to state on the 17th what he knows as to the Austro-Hungarian battleships?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am afraid I cannot. Of course, these are matters which are watched with great care and attention by the Admiralty, but I cannot say at what period I shall be able to make a definite statement.
    Earl WINTERTON: May we expect then a full statement on the subject of oil?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am looking forward to hearing something as to that.
    Mr. R. HARCOURT: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that any information should be added to the Dickinson Return?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot quite see in what way it is necessary to supplement the Dickinson Return. I think it gives all the information necessary for a comprehensive view of the European situation as far as the Navy is concerned.

    PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD (RIVETERS' PAY).
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that the thirty-two men entered as drillers and riveters at Portsmouth dockyard during the week ending 21st June, are being paid from 7s. to 15s. per week less than the district rate; and whether he will take steps with the object of paying these men at the same rate they would be paid at if working for a private employer?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): Drilling and riveting in the dockyards, as my hon. Friend is aware, is performed by skilled labourers. The probationary minimum for these men is 23s. a week, the ordinary minimum 24s., and the ordinary maximum 28s. There are special rates above this up to 31s. a week. The execution of this class of work by skilled labourers gives an opening for advancement to the ordinary labourer and ensures a greater measure of continuity of employment than would otherwise be possible.
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: If a man reaches his maximum and then is discharged and is taken on again a few months later and put on the same work, is he not put back to the minimum?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: If my hon. Friend will give me a case where that has occurred, I will look into it.
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: Do private firms employ skilled labour at unskilled rates?
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman see his way to adopt the practice which prevails in private yards in this respect, and engage these men as drillers and riveters?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No. The present plan is more beneficial both to the men and the Department. It secures more regularity of employment.

    NAVAL SHIPWRIGHTS.
    Mr. FALLE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether it is the case that apprentice shipwrights at Devonport and Chatham are being given a year in which to make up their minds whether they will accept the new scheme for shipwrights or remain under the old, and whether the apprentices at Portsmouth are required to decide by to-morrow; and if he will grant the same concession to Portsmouth as to Devonport and Chatham?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: All the boy shipwrights were required to make their choice between the old and new systems last April, but any boy shipwright then serving who wishes to change the decision which he has notified in the first instance, will be allowed to do so if he applies in writing before he completes one year's service at sea as naval shipwright. Instructions were given for any boy shipwrights under training to be notified accordingly. I can

    219
    assure the hon. Member that boys at Portsmouth will be treated precisely as boys at Devonport and Chatham.

    Stowmarket New Explosive Works (Strike).
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a strike is going on at the New Explosive Works at Stowmarket; whether the Board of Trade have taken any steps to settle the dispute; and if he is aware that the men in dispute are willing to accept arbitration?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): I understand that in the case of the dispute at the New Explosives Company's Works, Stow-market, the men are willing to accept arbitration, but that the company have nothing to add to the statement of their position made on 12th June last, when they announced their intention of not paying less than the standard rate, and stated that when the men care to return to work, the pay in each department would be carefully considered.
    Mr. W. THORNE: If the firm refuse to arbitrate on the question in dispute will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiry and report the result to the Board of Admiralty, so that they may take action?
    Mr. BUXTON: I can hardly do that.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: Has the right hon. Gentleman approached the company and have they refused the arbitration of the Board of Trade?
    Mr. BUXTON: I had the company's letter in reply to the suggestion of arbitration.
    Mr. W. THORNE:Is it not the fact that in the case of another firm the Board of Trade did inquire because of a refusal to arbitrate?
    Mr. BUXTON: I do not think that case was on all fours. I will look into it, however.

    Road Board (Grants).
    Mr. HOAREasked the total amount of Grants that the Road Board has actually made to local authorities up to 1st January, 1913; and how much of this sum was given to each of the following authorities: county councils, metropolitan boroughs, county boroughs, urban district councils, and rural district councils?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): The total amount of Grants formally made to local authorities up to the 31st December last was £893,592. Up to the 30th June last it was £1,334,648. I will circulate a statement showing the distribution between the various authorities mentioned. [See Written Answers this date.]

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    UNEMFLOYMENT BENEFIT.
    Mr. BARNESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether a man who is unemployed for a period of several weeks while his employer is stocktaking but is not actually discharged is debarred from receiving benefit under Part II. of the National Insurance Act?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Robertson): The decision as to whether any applicant. is entitled to benefit under Part II. of the National Insurance Act rests ultimately with the Umpire appointed thereunder. I am unable, therefore, to give an authoritative answer to the point raised in the question, but it would not appear that the circumstances set out by my hon. Friend would in themselves disqualify a man from receiving benefit, provided that he otherwise complied with the provisions of the Act, which govern its receipt, including willingness to accept suitable employment if offered to him.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give the total number of unemployment books issued under Part II. of the National Insurance Act up to the 30th June, 1913, under the following heads: building, works of construction, shipbuilding, engineering and ironfounding, construction of vehicles, saw milling, and other industries; and the total number of claims to unemployment benefit made?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I presume that the hon. Member intends to refer to the 30th June. I am circulating with the Votes a statement showing the number of unemployment books issued to workpeople in each of the insured trades up to and including 28th June, 1913. The total number of claims to unemployment benefit, made up to the 27th June, was 524,153. This latter number does not represent separate individuals, and, as I informed the hon. Member on the 7th May, the number of

    221
    persons who have' applied for unemployment benefit cannot be given until the annual statistics are ready.—[See Written Answers this date.]

    MATERNITY BENEFIT.
    Mr. MORRELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the cases that have recently occurred in the industrial dispute in the Midlands, in which women who were lying in have been ejected from their homes on account of arrears of rent; whether, in view of the danger to life that is thus caused, medical officers have power under Section 68 of the National Insurance Act to prevent such a practice; and, if so, whether he will take steps to call the attention of the local insurance committees of the district to these provisions?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: My attention has not been called to the cases referred to in the first part of the question. Under Section 68 of the National Insurance Act where the doctor attending on any insured person in receipt of sickness benefit certifies that the taking of any proceedings to enforce any judgment in ejectment against such person would endanger his or her life, and such certificate has been sent to the insurance committee and duly recorded, it is not lawful during any period named in the certificate to enforce any such judgment. If my hon. Friend has any reason to believe that this law is being violated in any particular areas I shall be glad if he will communicate with me on the subject.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that having a baby does endanger life or not?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes, I think it may.

    Isle of Wight Constabulary.
    Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked the Home Secretary if he has referred a petition for an inquiry into the dismissal pf ex-Police Constable Edwards from the Isle of Wight constabulary to the Standing Joint Committee for the Isle of Wight to deal with; and, if so, will he state whether on such reference it was intended that the Standing Joint Committee should deal with the matter by way of the usual inquiry, at which it would be competent. for Edwards to give evidence on his own behalf, to 'call witnesses, and to be legally represented, as is usual in such cases?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): The petition in question was referred to the Standing Joint Committee as the local authority responsible for the: management of the county police in order that they might make inquiry into the facts alleged. It is for the Committee to decide in what manner the inquiry should be conducted. No doubt they will hear Edwards and his witnesses, but it would be unusual to have legal representatives in such an inquiry.
    Mr. DOUGLAS HALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware an enormous amount of excitement and interest is felt in the Isle of Wight in this case of alleged injustice?' Cannot he see his way to give some advice to the Joint Committee how to act in this matter?
    Mr. McKENNA: If they ask for assistance in the matter I shall be quite willing to help them as far as I can.

    Licensing Statistics.
    Mr. BOWERMANasked when the volume of Licensing Statistics for the year 1912 will be published?
    Mr. McKENNA: The volume is nearly ready, and I hope to present it shortly.

    Telephone Service.
    Mr. ALAN SYKESasked the Postmaster-General, if work,has been commenced on the underground telephone cable between Manchester and Stockport, and, if not, when it will be commenced; and how long it will take from the commencement of the work to completion?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): The actual work of construction has not yet begun; but the preliminary arrangements which must precede that work are in hand. It is hoped to place the contract for the pipework within the next month. Unless unforeseen difficulties arise the work should be completed by the end of the present year.
    Mr. SYKES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his officials state that they cannot reduce the charge for the telephone between Stockport and Manchester until this cable is completed, because if they did they would not be able to handle the extra traffic, seeing that they cannot handle the present traffic satisfactorily, and will he put on a little extra pressure and get the work done?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am aware of the fact, as I informed the hon. Member in answer to previous questions. The pressure on the engineering staff at present is very great, and I am told that it is impossible to complete the work before the end of this year.
    Mr. SYKESasked whether the land has been secured for the new telephone exchange at Stockport; if so, whether building operations have been commenced; and, if not, when building operations will be commenced?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Telephone Exchange at Stockport is to be transferred to the head post office, which is in course of enlargement.
    Earl WINTERTONasked the Postmaster-General (1) whether No.5131 Avenue, endeavouring on 20th June to ring up another subscriber, was in formed alternately that the number was engaged, and that no reply could be obtained, but that prolonged inquiry and,delay elicited the information that the number had been changed; whether he will cause an immediate inquiry to be made into the circumstances; (2) whether No. 5131 Avenue, endeavouring, on the morning of 21st June, to call a subscriber.on the Victoria Exchange, was connected with three wrong numbers in succession, no apology being offered, and this was followed by a series of engaged signals ex-tending over half an hour; that the firm was finally informed by the Victoria supervisor that the number sought had been out of order all the morning; whether he will cause an immediate inquiry to be made into the circumstances; and (3) whether a City firm, No. 5131 Avenue, on 16th June, at 11.30 a.m. endeavoured to ring up a subscriber on the Gerrard Exchange, who was awaiting the call, and that after waiting seven minutes for a reply from the exchange they were rudely informed that no reply could be.obtained; whether he is aware that the firm's operator, holding the original line, secured the number on another line at once; and whether he will cause an immediate inquiry to be made into the circumstances?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am having inquiry made as to the treatment of the calls in question, and will inform the Noble Lord of the result as soon as possible.
    Earl WINTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in order to avoid the delay in answering questions in future, say if there is any department in the Post Office which deals with these matters, and, if there is one, can he see that answers are given more quickly than at present? Is he aware that I made a representation on Saturday, and have not yet received a reply?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Controller's office in London is the office which deals with points of this character. I am sorry if the Noble Lord has not received a reply since Saturday, but the interval, after all, is not very long.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Postmaster-General whether Burrelton telephone office is now closed on Thursday afternoons; whether the parish council had guaranteed the deficit on working expenses under continuous day running; whether this deficit will now be increased in consequence of the half-holiday; and whether he will return to the full time or let the parish council off its guarantee owing to the broken agreement?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am making inquiry, and will communicate with the Noble Lord.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter himself, as I think there has been a little injustice?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Yes, Sir, I am looking into the matter myself.

    Wireless Telegraphy.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that the Goldschmidt system of wireless telegraphy has established communications between Hanover and Tuckerton, Atlantic City, a distance of 3,600 miles, while the expert advisory committee expressed themselves in their Report favourably to this system, the company owning this system have been invited to tender for the contract for the Imperial wireless service: and, if not, will he explain why this has not been done?
    The following Questions were also on the Paper:—
    Mr. GEORGE TERRELL: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will,

    225
    before concluding any new contract with the Marconi Company, call for a Report from his expert. Committee on the successful working of the Goldschmidt wireless system across the Atlantic, and place the House in possession of it before they are asked to come to a decision on the whole matter?
    Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: To ask the Postmaster-General whether wireless communication has now been established on the Goldschmidt system between Hanover, in Germany, and Tuckerton, Atlantic City, a distance of 3,600 geographical miles, and greater than the inter-station distance of any other workable system, and this despite the fact that the mast at 'Tuckerton is not yet completed; and whether, in view of this and the opinion of the Goldschmidt system expressed by the Advisory Committee of experts in paragraph 20 of their Report, he will take immediate steps to ascertain whether the company owning the system in question are willing to tender for the contract for the Imperial wireless service?
    Mr. BARNSTON: To ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the altered circumstances due to the development of wireless telegraphy since the conclusion of the original Marconi contract, he will ensure that the latest performances in long distance wireless telegraphy are duly considered in the awarding of any new contract, and that all rival systems are given an equal opportunity of presenting their claims?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Prime Minister has asked me to answer Question 46, and I will answer at the same time Questions No. 71, 73 and 74. I have no official information as to the results of the experiments made within the last few days with the Goldschmidt system, but I am, making immediate inquiries.

    Education Bill.
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the President of the Board of Education whether the policy of the Government with respect to education will include the introduction this Session of an Education Bill, as promised by the Lord Chancellor; if so, whether full opportunities of discussing it in the House will be provided; and whether the Government have come to the decision that the time at their disposal will not permit of any such Bill being now introduced?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): This question should be addressed to the Prime Minister.

    Shottermill (Surrey) School.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether at Shottermill, Surrey, a recent inquiry by a Commissioner of the Board of Education into an application for the enlargement of the Church of England school resulted in showing that the application of the managers to enlarge the school was undesirable, and that the local education authority and a large majority of the inhabitants desire the provision of a council school for senior children; whether the present school is both unsatisfactory, unhealthy, and dangerously situated; and whether under these circumstances he will refuse his approval of the plans for altering the existing school and order the local education authority to provide the school accommodation required?
    Mr. PEASE: After holding a public inquiry I have decided not to allow the application of the managers to enlarge the Church school. I understand that the local education authority contemplate the provision of a council school when the further development of the district requires it, and I am in communication with them with regard to the supply of school accommodation. At the inquiry a majority of the parents appeared to be in favour of such provision. The premises of the present school do not appear to be unhealthy, but they are not convenient for teaching purposes and the school abuts on two roads, on one of which there is a considerable amount of motor traffic. Plans for alteration without enlargement have not been submitted.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that two sides of this school are against roads where there is a lot of motor traffic and dust, and that the windows have to be closed tight all day long, and does he consider that is healthy?
    Mr. PEASE: I am aware there is a good deal of traffic, especially on one of the roads, but the sanitary condition of the school is satisfactory.

    Wormshill (Kent) School.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education the grounds on which the Board has decided to make an

    227
    Order under Section 11 of the Education Act, 1902, on 10th December, 1903, for the school at Wormshill, Kent; whether the existing trust deed was found to be inconsistent with the provisions of the Act or insufficient or inapplicable; and, if so, in what respect
    Mr. PEASE: The Board decided to make the Order referred to on the ground that the existing trust deed was inconsistent with the provisions of the Act, inasmuch as it did not provide for a body of four managers who could become the foundation managers under the Act.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Mr. O'DONNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland on what grounds the pension granted by the local pension subcommittee was disallowed by the Local Government Board to Mary Allman, Curaheen, county Kerry; and whether this person herself and her husband between them are entitled to £6 per annum, with board and lodgings; and, if so, why is she refused a pension?
    The CHIEF SECRETARYfor IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his question on this subject on the 24th June, to which I have nothing to add.

    Blasket Islands (Pier).
    Mr. O'DONNELLasked whether the Congested Districts Board received a memorial from the fishermen of the Blasket Islands asking for the erection of a pier; and whether this is one of the wildest spots on the west coast of Ireland, where for the safety of the fishermen a pier is absolutely essential?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board have received a memorial from the fishermen of Great Blasket Island asking for improved landing accommodation on the island, and the matter has been referred to an inspection committee of the members of the Board.
    Mr. O'DONNELL: How soon will this committee visit the place?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I believe very shortly.

    Evicted Tenants (Ireland).
    Mr. DELANYasked whether the Estates Commissioners have received an application from Jeremiah Shelley, Raheen
    228
    Glebe, Dorneghmore, Ballybrophy, Queen's County, for an allotment of land on the Thompson estate, Kilcoke, Queen's County; whether Shelley's mother was evicted from a farm on Kilcoke some years ago, after the rent had been paid; and whether the Estates Commissioners are prepared to give favourable consideration to Shelley's application?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The reply to the first paragraph of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second paragraph in the negative. The Estates Commissioners are not at present in a position to make any statement as regards the allotment of the lands.

    National School Teachers (Ireland).
    Mr. O'DONNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland when he expects to be able to make an announcement regarding the claims of the paper-promoted teachers?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Further proposals in this matter have now been made by the Commissioners of National Education, and have been submitted to the Treasury for consideration.
    Mr. O'DONNELL: How soon may we expect the Treasury's reply?
    Mr. BIRRELL: That question had better be addressed elsewhere.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. O'DOWDasked whether the promise made in April last by the landlord to the tenants on the Colonel J. C. Duke estate, situate in the Drumfin electoral division, Sligo Union, namely, that all maps, schedules, etc., in connection with that estate would immediately be lodged with the Congested Districts Board has yet been fulfilled; and, if so, whether the Board has taken any steps in the direction of purchasing the estate named?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The maps and documents necessary for a preliminary inspection to be made of this estate were lodged with the Congested Districts Board in May last. The estate will be valued and a decision arrived at regarding purchase as soon as possible.

    Education (Ireland).
    Mr. O'DONNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether any opposition to his scheme for allocating the pro-

    229
    posed Grant of £40,000 for secondary education in Ireland has come from any public body in Ireland; whether, on the contrary, they have all unanimously approved of it and requested him to press it forward, and, if so, on what theory of representative or democratic government does he refuse to carry out his scheme?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I have received many resolutions from public bodies praying that the Grant may be made immediately available, but, not being experts in education, they have, as a rule, wisely refrained from discussing details. As I have already explained, the delay in this matter has been due to the difficulty in arriving at a scheme which will be satisfactory to an important educational body representing by far the greater number of the teachers concerned.
    Mr. O'DONNELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say, in order to facilitate the discussion of this matter, how soon he will lay these Papers?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Papers will, I think, be laid on the Table to-morrow. They will, at all events, be obtainable at the Vote Office on Friday at the latest.
    Mr. HORNER: If the right hon. Gentleman cannot carry out the scheme in its entirety, will he carry it out in part, and make it applicable to those schools willing to adopt it?
    Mr. BIRRELL: That is a question I will most carefully consider.
    Mr. F. HALLasked the Chief Secretary for Irelandt he source of the information on which he based his recent. statement that no city in the Empire was worse supplied with schools or more in need of education than Belfast; and the number of elementary school places in Belfast, Dublin, and Cork, and the percentage of places to the population of those cities?
    Mr. BIRRELL: My statement as to the primary schools in Belfast was based on the facts stated in a memorial to the City Council presented on the 1st May last by the representatives of the Protestant churches of Belfast, from which it appeared that, while there was in the city a school population of at least 77,000, there was a deficiency in accommodation of 20,500. This deficiency is chiefly in the Protestant schools, while it seems generally admitted that in the case of the
    230=Roman Catholics—one-fourth of the population, and certainly the poorest portion —no such great deficiency exists; and, indeed, it was stated that the Roman Catholic population were amply provided with schools—although this is not a statement I am in a position positively to affirm. With regard to the latter part of the question, if a comparison is made between the national school accommodation and the children of school age—say, between five and fifteen—Dublin appears to have accommodation for 71 per cent. of its children, Cork for 81 per cent., and Belfast for 69 per cent.; but, so far as Dublin and Belfast are concerned, this comparison is misleading, because the professional and leisured classes form a much larger proportion of the Dublin population than is the case in Belfast; the industrial classes form only 24 per cent. of the population of Dublin, whereas they form 33 per cent. of the population of Belfast; and it is also to be remembered that school accommodation is provided to a much greater extent in Dublin than in Belfast by bodies who do not accept or receive aid from the National Board—for example, the Christian Brothers' schools, and some schools under the control of the Church of Ireland.
    Mr. F. HALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that speeches such as were delivered on 27th June at Bristol are likely to facilitate matters?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.
    Mr. MOORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the rate of illiteracy in Cork is double that in Belfast?
    Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: That is not the case.
    Mr. MOORE: It is.

    Irish Revenue, 1913–14.
    Mr. F. HALLasked the principal heads under which the estimated deficit of £1,706,000 in Irish revenue for 1913–14 is made up; and whether this amount will be increased in the event of the Bill to amend the National Insurance Act becoming law?
    Mr. BIRRELL: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the Memorandum on the financial provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill which has recently been laid before Parliament. As regards the second

    231
    part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury.
    Mr. F. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether that statement agrees with all the statements that have been made by other Ministers upon the subject?
    Mr. BIRRELL: That is a large question.

    Local Government Board Laboratory (London).
    Mr. ASTORasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the Local Government Board laboratory in London is utilised mainly for original research or for routine investigation, such as the examination of milk and sputum for tubercle bacilli or blood for evidence of typhoid fever?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Lewis): The work carried on in the Board's pathological laboratory falls under both the categories mentioned in the question. Perhaps I may refer the hon. Member to page 123 of the Appendix to the Final Report of the Departmental Committee on Tuberculosis as illustrating the general character of the work.

    Auxiliary Scientific Investigation.
    Mr. ASTORasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he will make a Return showing the manner in which the sum of £1,900 voted annually by Parliament in the Local Government Board's Estimates for auxiliary scientific investigation concerning the causes and processes of disease has been expended during each of the last three years; and if he will give the nature of the investigations, the names of the investigators, and the amount given for each investigation?
    Mr. HERBERT LEWIS: I think a Return is hardly necessary, but I shall be happy to furnish the hon. Member with a statement of the particulars for which he asks.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Has the Chancellor of the Exchequer any statement to make in regard to business?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: To-morrow we shall, as the first order, take the Committee stage of the Plural Voting Bill. Then we shall take the Third Reading of the Temperance (Scotland) Bill, and, if time permit, the Second Reading of the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Bill.
  On Thursday we hope to take the Report stage of the Plural Voting Bill, and
  On Friday the Third Reading of the Plural Voting Bill.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Does the right hon. Gentleman really think it is possible in any reasonable way to get through in a single day the Report stage of the Plural Voting Bill? Does he not think, at all events, that a whole day and not a part of a day should be given to the Third Reading?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I can only express the hope that Thursday will be sufficient unless every Amendment that was moved in Committee is to be moved again, and that is not usual on the Report stage.
  Earl WI NTERTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to move the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule on Thursday and to sit all night?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I hope it will not be necessary to do that. We will see.
  Ordered, "That the proceedings upon Report of Mental Deficiency [Expenses], if under discussion at Eleven o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), and may be entered upon and proceeded with at any hour, though opposed."—[The Prime Minister. ]

BILL PRESENTED.
  MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Matrimonial Causes in England and Wales," Presented by Sir DAVID BRYNMOR JONES; supported by Sir William Phipson Beale, Sir Frederick Low, Sir John Jardine, Mr. George Greenwood, Mr. Bentham, Mr. Edgar Jones, and Mr. Wardle; to be read a second time upon Friday, 18th July, and to be printed. [Bill 242.]

SOUTH AFRICA (STRIKE OF MINERS).
Mr. OUTHWAITE: I desire to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the retention on the Rand of a large force of Imperial troops at the disposal of the Government of South Africa in connection with a strike not wholly settled, the killing and wounding by these troops of a large number of persons, and the failure of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to provide this House with adequate information regarding occurrences unprecedented in the history of the Empire.
Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid the hon. Member's Motion does not come within the rule. With regard to the first point, namely, the retention on the Rand of a large force of Imperial troops, that must be at the desire of the South African Government, and therefore his criticism is not of this Government or of any matter with which they can interfere, but of the South African Government. In regard to the second, the killing and wounding of a large number of persons by those troops, that is not an "urgent" matter because it has taken place. It is over and nothing that we can do can stop it. With regard to the third, the failure of the Secretary of State to provide the House with adequate information, he cannot manufacture information—at least I hope not. All that he can do is to give the information which he has received. That he has done. There is no suggestion that he has not.
Mr. OUTHWAITE: With regard to the matter of urgency I may point out that if they have already killed a large number of strikers it is probable they may kill others, so that it is a matter of very great urgency. As to the question by whose authority the troops are there, it is on the authority of the Governor of the Transvaal, who is responsible to this House for any action that

243
he may take. As regards the matter of information being supplied, we had a cable read yesterday from Lord Gladstone in which he said that all was quiet, and in a cable dispatched at 2.38 this morning we are told that Maxim guns are ready.
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now giving some information which he has got and which the Secretary of State has not received. He cannot criticise the secretary of State for not having received it.
Mr. OUTHWAITE: The Governor could have sent the information.
Mr. SPEAKER: Again I would repeat what I said yesterday. The hon. Member's cause of complaint, if any, is against the Governor, and the proper course to take is to put down a Vote of Censure upon him under the ordinary forms and rules of the House. If necessary that can be discussed.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: These murders took place on Friday last.
Mr. SPEAKER: I have given my ruling.
Mr. CLYNES: May I ask whether you will not regard as urgent a discussion on the act of shooting these people?
Mr. SPEAKER: No, I do not think so. The object of the rule is to enable the House to come to some decision upon some question which is then open and by reason.of the decision of the House the policy of the Government or the person referred to may be altered. These unfortunate occurrences have taken place, and, of course, will be discussed in due course, but not as a matter of urgent public importance.
Mr. W. THORNE: If the hon. Member puts down a Vote of Censure, will he not have to get permission of the Government to discuss the question?
Mr. SPEAKER: The whole time of the House is now in the hands of the Government. Of course, it rests with the Government as to what use they will make of the time of the House. I have no control over that.

ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES) BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—[Mr. McKenna.]
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: 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."
It fell to my lot four years ago to move the rejection of the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill which was moved by the Prime Minister in 1909. During the interval since then a good deal has occurred, and what has occurred has shown that the position of those opposed to the Bill has been very much strengthened, and nothing at all has happened which does not weaken the case of those who support it. First of all, there has been the Report of the Royal Commission. That had not been issued in 1909. In those days we were accustomed to hear the argument that the Church should be Disestablished and Disendowed because it was the Church of a dwindling minority. Now that the Commission has reported, there is no one who has read the Report who is not perfectly aware that not only is it untrue to say that the Church in Wales is the Church of a dwindling minority, but that exactly the opposite is the case, and that it is the strongest religious body in Wales, progressing at least as rapidly as any other—and I should say more rapidly than any other—religious body, and using to the best of its ability all the money it has to spend. The only complaint I have to make is that there is not more money to spend, because the Church is capable of spending more money usefully.
Then, again, the representation of Wales was solid in favour of this Bill in 1909. Since then, at any rate, three Members from Wales have been returned who are opposed to the Bill. That does not increase the strength of the argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I go further and say that if the matter was submitted to Wales now there would be an enormous increase in the poll of those opposed to the Bill, for the very simple reason that they know what it means now, though they did not understand what it meant then. They were vaguely told to vote for religious equality. No one told them that this Bill meant taking 18s. 6d. in the £ out of their Endowments. They have now been enlightened on that matter, and as the process of enlightenment goes on, so does the tide of resentment against the Bill increase in this country and in Wales. Popular feeling has been aroused against it in both countries, and you have only to look at the enormous number of petitions

245
and the huge demonstrations made against the Bill to know that. What is more, the Government themselves have admitted the injustice of their original proposals, and with great amazement at their own generosity have consented to take 6s. 6d. less in the £, which never was their pound at all. Lastly, since then the Parliament Act has been passed, and if there is one measure which this Government ought to be careful in passing under that Act, I say this is the one. Any democratic Government, or any Government which calls itself democratic, if it is going to make use of the Parliament Act to force this measure through the House in the way this Government apparently pose to do, ought to be quite certain the measure commands the assured sent of the people of this country. Prime Minister laid down several canons with regard to what ought and what ought not to be done under the Parliament Act. He gave cases where he thought the Parliament Act ought not to be brought into operation. He said:—
"You might have a case of what is called a scratch majority combined together under the coercion o f party exigencies for a particular and transient purpose."
I should like to ask hon. Members what could have been more scratch than the majority by which they passed some of the Clauses in this Bill? Not only were they passed by a very small majority, but they were passed by the votes of Irish Nationalist Members, who are in no way concerned, and who have often told us on this and similar questions that they are only guided by the interests of Ireland and no other consideration. There were also Scottish Members voting for the Clauses, though they are in no way concerned in this question.
Mr. FREDERICK WHYTE: Are we not concerned in the question of religion?
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I should be very sorry to say that you are not, but I say that this Bill does not affect that.
Mr. WHYTE: Will the hon. Gentleman accept the national position?
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I accept the position that this question concerns England and Wales before Scotland or Ireland. Perhaps the hon. Member opposite, who represents a Scottish constituency, will bear in mind that the Act of Union with Scotland especially provided that neither the Establishment of the Church of England nor the
246
Establishment of the Church of Scotland should be interfered with by the votes of the one country or the other.
Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: The Irish Act of Union did the same.
4.0 P.M.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am merely answering the hon. Gentleman opposite, who is a very fair controversialist. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Swansea Boroughs (Sir D. Brynmor Jones) had an. interview with the "South Wales Daily News" in December, 1912, in which he said:—
"Our friends in Wales hardly realise how critical the whole situation has been…because of the determined objection of a section of the Liberal party, and the lukewarmness of the whole."
Is that a scratch majority which consists of a large number of Irish Members and a large number of Scottish Members who are not concerned, and a large number of English Members whose lukewarmness is a source of the greatest danger to the Bill? The Prime Minister laid down another canon. He said:—
"You might, again, have a conceivable case of a crumbling and decaying majority which has lost all popular favour."
I am inclined to think that we have got that case now. At any rate, whatever few shreds of popular favour there may be which now cover the Ministerial nakedness from the storms of dissension, they are not derived from their connection with the Welsh Church Bill. The Prime Minister also laid down this:—
"The delay of three Sessions … precludes the possibility of covertly or arbitrarily smuggling into law measures which are condemned by popular opinion, and it will at the same time ensure an ample opportunity for the reconsideration and revision of hasty or slovenly legislation."
I might ask, Where is the opportunity for the reconsideration and revision of this Bill? I should like also to press upon the House that, if ever there was an expression of opinion hostile to any measure, that expression was made in this country and also all over Wales again and again. Could anybody imagine a, better way of expressing popular resentment than the large demonstration that took place on 21st of June in Hyde Park, when 150,000 people gave up their Saturday—a very incon-venient day, on which many people, especially shopkeepers, could not attend—to express their determination to do all they could to resist this Bill. The week after that in Wales 50,000 people assembled in Swansea with the same determination. In every town in England and Wales you

247
have these demonstrations. If that is not a sign of public opinion, how are you going to obtain it if you will not allow a General Election? Where were the demonstrations in favour of this Bill? Hon. Members opposite are very much afraid of putting this question before the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Solicitor-General, who is one of the greatest ornaments of the bench opposite, did me the honour of coming to speak the other day in Oswestry, which is the only English town affected by this Bill, and one would have thought it probable that he would have alluded to this Bill in a speech in which he was boasting of the achievements of the Government, but from beginning to end of his speech not a word is to be found in the report in his newspaper in favour of the Bill. Why? Because he knew that it was not a popular turn, and he did not produce it. Therefore I use the Prime Minister's own words, that the Government now are smuggling it into law, arbitrarily, without revision or reconsideration, by a scratch and crumbling majority drawn together by party exigencies, a majority which has lost all popular favour, and against the strongest expression of popular opinion. He stands condemned by his own words. On his own showing the Government have violated all the conditions which he laid down, which no doubt were very convenient for the passing of the Parliament Act, but ever since have been thrown to the winds whenever occasion required.
In referring to the attitude of the other side with regard to this Bill, I desire to speak without the bitterness which I certainly feel on this question. We have been constantly accused of bitterness by hon. Members opposite who complain of our want of gratitude, while boasting of their own generosity. I would like hon. Members opposite to realise that it is not very easy, feeling as we do, to speak on the subject without some bitterness: After all we are not the aggressors in this matter. We are not the people who began it. The Under-Secretary for the Home Office, in a speech made in the National Liberal Club before these Debates ever began, used words which aroused the greatest indignation. He said—
"that the Church in Wales had not developed from within, but was imposed by England as part of the conquest of Wales."
That is not true.
"It had always been an unsympathetic, unpopular, and anti-national institution, the parasite of aristocracy,
248
the agency of oppression always revelling in the bondage of ignorance, always reviling the banners of the dawn."
I would ask hon. Gentlemen who cheer that, and who ask if we are bitter, if they ever read the fable of the wolf and the lamb? If not, the sooner they read it the better. Personally, I prefer the outspoken words of those who really do dislike the Church to the unctuous references to which we are treated so constantly by people who tell us that their one desire is to do the Church good. But I do ask hon. Gentlemen to realise that there are many of us on this side who feel that we owe very much of the happiness of our lives to the Church, that we feel that this Bill is doing an injury to the Church which will prevent many other people being able to enjoy that happiness which we ourselves enjoy from it, and for that reason that we do very strongly resent in this Act what seems its gross and uncalled for injustice. There was a speech made in the course of these Debates by the hon. Member for Flint Boroughs (Mr. Parry), in which he very fairly presented the case of his own election. He said that as far as his side was concerned there has been no bitterness, because his friends deal with the matter purely and solely as a political and not as a religious question. I think that that probably is quite true of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I can speak for our side in this discussion, and say that we regard this as a religious question, and in the conflict of opinion between those who are animated by political, and those who are animated by religious motives, in the end the religious motives will win. Our attitude is still one of unchanging hostility to this measure.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs, to whose speeches in the previous discussions on this Bill we all listened with very great attention and respect, made a speech the other day, in which we understood that he was attempting to justify the action of Liberal Churchmen in the House in supporting the Second Reading of the Bill. The argument that he gave was that they who had considered it unfair in many respects tried to improve it last year, but had now given up trying because of the uncompromising attitude of my hon. Friends on this side of the House. He said that they would rather have the thing settled by compromise than by any other way, and he gave as a reason for voting for this Bill that it was no use trying any more because he would not accept any compromise as a final

249
solution of this matter. Of course, we realise that what he wants in this Bill will not be so bad as the Bill in its present form, but does he seriously expect us now to give up what we regard as matters of principle, and which we have always said are matters of principle, by which we would stand 'to the end, in order to get some small concession I think that he really must have known at the time that he was moving for those concessions last year that our attitude was exactly the same as it is now, and I cannot for the life of me see why he or his Liberal Friends should have changed their attitude on the matter. Surely it is not quite fair to blame us because there is no compromise. What does the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary do? Before the very beginning of the discussion on this Bill in this Session he went down to Cardiff and said as plainly as he could that he was not going to give any concessions. Why does not the hon. Member for Kilmarnock blame him, or is it that he is unable to believe what the Home Secretary says?
Our view is that Disestablishment is wrong, because it severs the State from any form of religion, because it violently and forcibly dismembers the Church which always has been one, and because it has not been able to be shown in these Debates that any real grievance exists on account of it, or that any real good would be done if the Church were Disestablished. We object to Disendowment, because we have been told by the Solicitor-General that the Church has, and different parishes have, a sound legal title to those Endowments. We see that hon. Gentlemen opposite admit that title when it is held by lay impropriators of tithes, and we say, "What right have they to make that distinction? If it is national property, then take it from the lay impropriators. If it is the property of those who possess it now, what is the reason for leaving it to laymen and taking it away from the Church?" Lastly, we object to it because we object to money which has always been used for religious purposes being taken away now and devoted to purely secular purposes. We do not hear now as we did at one time of the State-paid clergy or a dwindling majority, or any of those old arguments, but there are still some arguments by which hon. Gentlemen defend their case. Some of them say that there are grievances which the people of 'Wales suffer by Disestablish-
250
ment. It has been an extraordinary thing in these Debates how unable hon. Gentlemen opposite have been to produce those grievances. None of them have been able to explain what Establishment means. When they have tried the only result has been to point out that the Church is under a great number of obligations to the public, but that the privileges amount to hardly anything at all. I remember an interesting speech which the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich delivered in which he referred to a sort of undefined line of social distinction which exists between ministers of the Church and ministers of other denominations, as one of the reasons—I cannot admit that that line exists. If it exists at all it does not exist in the mind of anybody whose opinion is in the least worth having. I am perfectly certain that the majority of people estimate the value of a minister of one Church or another, by the amount of good work he does in his parish or district, and by no other standard. But even if it were so, how does this Bill do anything to obliterate that line of distinction? I think that instead of obliterating it, it will draw a much deeper and blacker line of distinction between the ministers of different denominations, because there will be this distinction, a very plain one—the distinction which separate those who have inflicted an injustice from those who have suffered one.
There are no modern grievances to which the party opposite have been able to point as existing in Wales because of the Establishment, but they have, from the Prime Minister downwards, taken the very reactionary course of saying that we must not look so much to the present but that we must look to the grievances of the past. That is exactly contrary to what they have always raid on other subjects. What is it they tell us in regard to Horne Rule for Ireland? They tell us that we must not think of the past and put that all on one side. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] I do not know what the hon. Gentleman thinks is to be the result of the Home Rule Bill if things are not going to he harmonious. Surely it is to put an end to the differences, for hon. Members opposite are always saying, "Forget all these differences in the past." In regard to South Africa you said that all the differences and all the fighting should be forgotten, and old grievances buried. But when you come to the question of the Welsh Church, all is quite different. There are no grievances to which you now call attention, and you say

251
that what you have got to do is to carry your mind back to fifty, one hundred, or one hundred and fifty years ago, when will be found some grievances which the Welsh people never will forget, and which, we say, hon. Members opposite take very great care they never shall forget. I could easily quote a number of speeches on this point. The Prime Minister said:—
"I ask hon. Gentlemen to put themselves in the position of the Welsh people and remember what went on in centuries of the past."
And then he added:—
"There are certain opportunities which can never be recovered."
I could quote other hon. Gentlemen. Why have we to look to the past? You choose to do it for your own purposes, while on another occasion, in regard to some other subject, you tell everybody to forget and forgive the injuries of the past, if there have been any. What possible reason can there be for raking up all this ancient history, when the Church in England and the Church in Wales are doing their work well? What reason is there for trying to bolster up a case by what has occurred in the past but which does not exist at all now? No one is pre-pared to say that the Church is not doing her work manfully and well, and spending to the greatest advantage her money in pursuance of the work for which it was given. Why look at the past? It looks to me very much as if the only interpretation that can be put upon such an attitude is that when the Church was doing badly they could afford to leave her alone, but that now she is doing well her funds were to be taken away. It seems to me a perfectly ridiculous argument to use. It. might as well be said that, at the time of Nelson's great victories, because Admiral Byng lost Minorca, therefore the Navy to-day should be refused supplies. There was one who sat in Mr. Speaker's Chair, but who did not live up to that great position in this House. He went so far as to disgrace his office by accepting a bribe from the City of London. There was a good reason for reducing his salary or expelling him at that time, but I do not think that the House would be of opinion, in these spacious and enlightened times, that because Sir John Trevor accepted a bribe of one thousand guineas from the City in 1692, therefore the salary of the Speaker who presides over us to-day should be confiscated.
The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary told us, with regard to Establish-
252
ment, that he considers Establishment to be morally wrong. If that is so, why does he confine this Bill to Wales? I suppose the answer will be that he thinks there is a majority of Welsh people who want the Bill, and that in England there is probably a majority who do not want it. Therefore, apparently, the morality of this question is to be founded solely on the consideration of majorities. If that, be so, I should like to know something about the question of dismemberment. The Home Secretary has told us that the Welsh Church wants liberty, while the Prime Minister has said that there is "nothing in Disestablishment that will in any way impair the unity of the Church." The two statements are incompatible. If you are going to give the Welsh Church liberty which the English Church is not to be allowed, then, if the Welsh Church, taking advantage of that liberty, makes an alteration in the Prayer Book which the English Church cannot adopt through remaining Established, where is the unity which you say you are doing nothing to impair? If you think it is right, why do you not Disestablish the Church in England as well as in Wales? The reason is that you dare not do it.
Sir WALTER ESSEX: If the Church wants it, she can have it.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Does the Church in Wales want it? That is an argument that applies to Wales as well as to England. I do not admit this doctrine of the majority at all in matters of right and wrong. The majority is very often wrong, especially local majorities. We sit here very often to discuss and upset majorities on one side and the other in regard to particular questions. In questions of right and wrong majorities do not count. A man who thinks a thing is right has to stick to it whether in a majority or in a minority. I am sorry to say that the argument of the majority has captivated even my own bishop, the Bishop of Hereford. If he applies the doctrine of the majority to his own diocese, I do not think it would suit him quite so well. I should like to put this question to those who think as he does on this matter. Suppose, when Moses came down from the Mount with the Commandments in his hand, he had found the majority of the people worshipping the golden calf, and he had said," Here is government by a majority," and had thrown away the Commandments as being no longer required. Quite seriously, I say

253
that I am very glad Moses did not take that view of the situation. On questions where principle is involved majorities on one side or the other cannot be accepted as a final decision. We should never have had any heroes in history, whether Church or other history, if people had been affected by the idea that they had always to shout with the loudest and largest crowd. Another argument of which hon. Members opposite are very fond is that Wales wants to be a nation. It is a nation. I have great sympathy with the idea of Welsh nationality.
I live within two or three miles of the Principality, and I can see a great deal of Wales from my own garden. I see a great deal of what happens among the Welsh people, and I fully recognise that they have characteristics, some good, some not so good, which are distinctive of their nationality, and therefore I say that I have sympathy with the idea of nationality. But I should like to remind hon. Gentlemen from Wales that one of the things that has militated for centuries past against Wales ever being a real nation is that they have never been able to agree among themselves. Whenever they have been near agreement there has generally been a split or some difference and they have separated again, and the different tribes have always prevented complete union in Wales. I submit that if they want to show themselves a great nation in the future it will not be by raking up old grievances or by trying to persecute one religious body, but by showing that they can work in harmony, and there is no point in which harmony is more required than in the matter of religion. I now come to the question of Endowments, and the arguments used in regard to them in this House. We have been told that these Endowments are national money. That statement has been used perpetually, but has never been proved in any argument. Some have said that national money can be used for any purpose, and some, like the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, say that national money can be used for religious purposes. Nobody hag proved that the State ever gave the money, and nobody has proved that the State has any moral right to take it away. I think it perfectly clear, if anybody looks at an old tithe deed, that nobody can honestly say that this was national or public money. Here is a quotation from one:—
"I, George Barlow, finding it an ancient institution of primitive times, do hereby freely give and for ever grant to the said parish church a Stebert and vicars.
254
.… the house by me lately built and the lands thereto belonging, together with all tithes."
Does anybody say that is public money, or what is the equivalent of money?
Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: Is it not for public charity?
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The house, land, and tithes are given to the vicar for the purposes and services of the Church.
Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: To the parson of the parish.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: For the time being.
Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: For purposes defined by legislation.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: That is not in the deed. Here is another:—
"I, Lewis Wogan, leave and bequeath, order and appoint the tithes of all nature whatsoever in the parish of Boulston to be given for ever to such minister or ministers as shall and may be appointed to serve and officiate in the said church of Boulston, by my executor or executors and their issue for ever."
Is that public money or is it the money of Lewis Wogan? It is not right to call either of those public money. [An HON. MEMBER: "Trust money."] It is no more national money than anything the hon. Gentleman opposite might leave for any purpose to be charged on his estate. Their appears to be no difference between-the two cases, and the first is dated 1558 and the second is dated 1701. You allow the Church to keep the second, but the first you take away. On what principle of justice is that done? You say it is, national money, and your definition of national money is money given before 1662. That is your only definition. You have never been able to prove and never will, that this money was national money. Then you say because the Church, has never fulfilled the whole religious obligations of the nation that, therefore, you ought to take away this money and give it, not for religious purposes, but for purposes of secular public utility. I believe St. Bartholomew's Hospital was the first hospital ever put up in London, or St. Thomas's, though for my argument it does not matter which. Would you say that money which was left to endow such a hospital, as soon as it became necessary to erect another hospital, owing to the public need of it, should be taken away from the original hospital because it did not cover the whole ground, and given, not to found' other hospitals, but to erect, say, a main sewer or some other work of public utility in

255
London? Of course you would not. There is absolutely nothing in your argument about this being national money, and there is still less, if there could be less than nothing, in your arguments, that it is capable, or would be capable, of being used for anything of a religious purpose. What we resent more than anything else is that you are taking money, which is being well used, away from the Church, which could use more money equally well, and that you are giving it to secular purposes which could easily be provided for from other sources.
Another argument you are fond of using is that of the Irish Church precedent. I do not desire to go deeply into that question, but simply to emphasise once more the difference between the situation here and that with regard to the Irish Church. The Leader of the Opposition quoted one remark from Mr. Gladstone, in which he said that the two cases were distinguished broadly, vitally, and essentially upon every point in which they could be brought into comparison. That was spoken on the 16th May, 1873. The case for the Irish Church was entirely different. In the first place, there was an election fought entirely on that subject, and you have never had that for the Welsh Church. In the second place, there has never been any contention with regard to the Welsh Church that they are not using their money to the best purpose, or that if they got more money that they could not properly use it. That is the great difference, and that is why you never can use the precedent of the Irish Church in this case. I want the House and hon. Members, especially those who are so fond of saying that everything will be all right and that we can make this up by voluntary subscriptions, to consider the practical situation that will arise after this Bill is passed. The Diocese of St. Asaph's will have 116 parishes without any Endowment at all as soon as the present incumbents die. The time to get the money will not be a long time, and YOU know perfectly well that a very difficult and very serious effort will be required to make up the fund in twenty years or longer to meet the Endowments which have hitherto been keeping those 116 parishes. Then there are other parishes from which the greater part of the Endowments are being taken away. Can you say that that is not going to do harm to the Church, and that in the next twenty, or thirty, or forty years the work
256
of the Church will not be injured by what you are doing. Do try and picture the situation for yourselves. When you say make it up with voluntary subscriptions, you always talk as if members of the Church of England never made any voluntary contributions already, and there is a sort of assumption that we live on ancient Endowments. Do hon. Members know how much is subscribed by the Church members for religious purposes in any one year?
Mr. LEIF JONES: In the Diocese of St. Asaph's?
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I can give you the total of the voluntary contributions in 1910–11 towards clerical incomes, church expenses, school, sick and poor missions, and building of churches and schools, parsonages and endowments. In the four Welsh dioceses the total of voluntary contributions for those objects amounted to £329,228. Therefore, I say, that they already give a very great deal for a poor country. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea District taunted us over the contributions in the parish of Clynnog, which he said he found through a reporter of the "Herald Cymraeg."
Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: The hon. Member is mistaken. I found it in the Report of the Royal Commission, where I got the figures.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am not disputing the figures given, but what I say is that what the right hon. Gentleman said was that the reporter of the "Herald" had given him the figures.
Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: I said my attention had been directed to that particular parish by a statement of a correspondent of the "Herald Cymraeg," who had been recently round in order to verify the facts.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am very glad to have exact confirmation from the right hon. Gentleman of what I said. I am not disputing the figures the right hon. Gentleman made out that in that particular district each person gave £1 in voluntary subscriptions, and he said, why do not the rest of the Church do the same? He counted our numbers as 193,000 communicants, which is always the figure attributed.
Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES rose.
Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity afterwards of correcting any statement.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I hope it will not require any correction. I am trying to state what the right hon. Gentleman said. He said, why do they not give £193,000, whereas in fact they gave nearly twice as much, while the total amount of contributions in that year for those purposes in England and Wales amounted to over £6,000,000. I say it will not be so easy to make up what will be required if this Bill passes, and the only way in which it will be done will be by taking away money which people give to other purposes. It certainly will have to be so in my case. If I give anything to this purpose I shall have to find something which I think is not so valuable as the work of the Church. That `is what I think any hon. Gentleman would 'do. He would put his Church before everything else and say, "I can only afford so much; I must give to the Church before 'hospitals or something else, in order to make up the money which is being taken away by the Government." Therefore, those other things will suffer, and they are far more important than anything you are going to benefit by the way you are going to spend the money. There is one point which seems to be entirely forgotten by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They talk a great deal about the necessity for social improvement and of legislation that they are going to bring in for that purpose. During the last three years they have spent almost all their time not in bringing in measures for social improvement, but in measures for the destruction of the Constitution. In this measure, which is also a destructive measure, they are not only not helping towards social improvement, but they are absolutely hindering it—for this reason: the greatest force for social improvement in this country is Christianity. Christianity is the greatest civilising force that has been known in the last nineteen centuries. Everybody must know that you are, at any rate, for the time being, weakening the powers of one of the forces which go to make up Christianity. What people seem to forget is that it is not in legislation and restriction, or in the appointment of police, inspectors, and officials of all sorts, or in the interference of the. State that you have the only or even the best way of advancing civilisation. The forces of Christianity are the best way of doing it. If you have made a man a good Christian, you have
258
made him a good citizen. If we were all perfect Christians, there would be no need for all these social reforms and all this legislation. You would not require these widespread Health Acts, Factory Acts, and Children Acts, because, if we were all perfect Christians, the relations between employer and employed, between father and child, and all the other relationships of life, would be guided by Christianity, and people would carry out in themselves what you are trying to carry out by restriction and legislation. After all, Public Health Acts and Insurance Acts cannot exterminate sickness or do away with accidents. Trade Boards and Labour Exchanges, although good in their way, cannot do away with suffering. No one, not even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the President of the Local Government Board, has ventured to say that he can bring in a Bill which will abolish sorrow from this world. But Christianity has enabled men during all these centuries to triumph over pain, sickness and sorrow, by the imitation of the Author of our Faith, by bearing one another's burdens, and in the hope of a better world. You cannot do by legislation the good which the work of the Church is doing. Therefore, I contend, that by this measure you are hindering and putting back one of the greatest forces for social improvement in the country.
If the Churches were allowed to work in their own way, free from party politics, as they ought to be—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Does the right hon. Gentleman imagine that party politics in Church matters are all on one side? I really think it is rather beneath the right hon. Gentleman's dignity to cheer the statement with which we must all agree, that it would be far better if the Church were outside party politics, when he knows perfectly well that there are faults on all sides. I have never dreamt of disputing it. I am speaking now not from the party, but from the national point of view. If you allow the Church to do its work in that way, you will be putting in the consciences of the people of this country an inspector not paid by rates and taxes, but one who will appeal to a higher law and more sacred obligations than anything that come out of this House of Parliament. It is for these reasons, with which, I believe, a great majority of the people of this country agree, that I ask the Government to pause while they are still on the brink,

259
and have not gone over the precipice which I believe will lead to moral national disaster.
Mr. W. F. ROCH: At the beginning of his speech the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bridgeman) expressed the hope that he would not speak with any bitterness, although he could not say that he did not feel it. All I can say is that if he felt any bitterness, so far as his speech was concerned, his natural amiability won the victory as usual. I wish to deal very briefly with a few of the points put by the hon. Gentleman. I am sure he would agree that, with all his love for the Church and knowledge of Church matters, it was difficult for him, and it is even more difficult for me, to say anything new upon what is now a thread-worn question One remark of his was that nothing had happened to weaken the Church case against this Bill. We are quite satisfied to think that the case for this Bill is immensely strengthened, and I will tell the hon. Gentleman why. We know by the Order Paper of this House that while hon. Gentlemen opposite are opposed to this Bill they have not one single suggestion to make by which what they regard as a bad Bill can be made a better one. That has given us infinite satisfaction. While they are opposed to a measure of Disestablishment and Disendowment, they cannot make any suggestions for making this a better Bill to carry out its purpose. The hon. Gentleman had the temerity to refer once again to the question of Welsh representation. When you have a homogeneous country like Wales, which the hon. Gentleman opposite, with perfect fairness, admitted to be a nation, and you have the representation again and again for a generation almost consistently one way, where do hon. Gentlemen think it is going to end if that majority can never have its way 7 You have had an experience of that in the case of Ireland, and it has not done good to the House of Commons. You have denied Ireland the Parliament which the great majority of Irishmen wanted. What has been the result? You have been faced with the fact that that refusal has resulted in almost breaking down your Parliament. I hope that hon. Gentlemen, when they talk lightly about Welsh representation, will think carefully whether, if they give them no outlet of any kind, what has been done unfortunately in the past in the case of Ireland, may not be repeated once again in the case of Wales.
260
The hon. Gentleman trotted out the well-worn theme of the Irish Nationalist vote. When does not the Irish Nationalist vote smell sweet? It smelt sweet when it enabled the party opposite to carry their Education Act. It is only when the Irish. Nationalist vote goes Liberal, that it is a thing to be despised and condemned by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I cannot conceive how anybody can throw that taunt. It has been thrown by people of eminence in the Church? It comes ill from such a body of men. When the question of Catholic emancipation was under discussion, there was only one bishop, the Bishop of Oxford, who stood up on behalf of the Established Church for that measure of religious equality. Now we have a minority of only three bishops supporting us in this measure of Disestablishment and it is almost prophetic that amongst them is the Bishop of Oxford now, as, there was the Bishop of Oxford then. I feel convinced in my own mind that as history is on the side of the Bishop of Oxford in that question, so history will justify the minority of three bishops upon this. Why should hon. Members taunt us with the Irish Nationalist vote? I can tell hon. Gentlemen that in my own Constituency there are memories now—of what? Memories of Nonconformist farmers, who were evicted from their farms in the pitiless struggle of 1868, when they. stood up for the very measure of religious freedom for which Ireland, I am glad to feel, is going to vote, not as a party to a log-rolling bargain, but as people who have enjoyed the fruits of it, and wish to see it extended to Wales. I will say why I think the case for the Bill is stronger. As regards Disestablishment we are convinced, with a large measure of support on the other side, that we are right. I was not surprised to read on 5th July, that, in certain Church proceedings, even so doughty an opponent as the Member for South Buckinghamshire (Sir A. Cripps), delivered himself of the following words, according to the report in the "Times":—
"He pleaded for greater freedom for the Church in matters of Church reform. He did not wish to run down the House of Commons, but from an experience of twenty years he said it was quite hopeless and impossible to get, matters affecting the Church fairly and satisfactorily discussed in that Noose. They ought to have the power, as he believed they had the ability and knowledge, to decide such matters for themselves."
Viscount WOLMER: I heard the speech from which the hon. Gentleman is quoting, and I think it is only fair to my hon. and learned Friend, in his absence, to say that

261
he made it perfectly plain throughout the whole of his speech, that he regarded that position as perfectly consistent with opposition to this Bill.
Mr. ROCH: The Noble Lord, like all people in privileged positions, rather likes to get the thing both ways. I was not imputing any unfairness. I think that the Noble Lord himself, on the Second Reading of the Bill, said that the Church should not have the right to govern itself, because it did not wish it.
Viscount WOLMER: No.
Mr. ROCH: I understood that.
Viscount WOLMER: I said that this Bill did not give liberty to the Church.
Mr. ROCH: I think we shall live to see that it does give very effective liberty. I quoted that statement to show that Churchmen themselves have acknowledged that they have the ability and the knowledge to govern the Church for themselves. They have also stated that the present House of Commons is a most unfair body as regards matters of Church reform. We want nothing more than that to prove our case. The Noble Lord or his Friends have hurled strong and almost insulting language at the present Members of the Treasury Bench. They have accused the Prime Minister, I will not say of corruption, but of having broken the Constitution. They have even shouted him down. But they are content to let that man remain the absolute head of their Church, with the power of appointing the archbishops and bishops in his undisputed possession.
Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: They have not got that power. The King has it.
5.0 P.M.
Mr. ROCH: The hon. Gentleman is almost as medieval in his constitutional aspect as he is in his Church aspect. He knows that no monarch now acts, and I do not suppose he wishes him to act, except on the advice of his responsible Ministers. I say that it comes ill from hon. Gentlemen who adopt that kind of argument, and hurl the kind of taunts that they have been hurling, at the same time to accept the Prime Minister the day's having the power, for good or for ill, to deflect to one side or the ether the whole future and well-being of the Church. The hon. Member who spoke said that it had never been proved to his satisfaction—I do not suppose for a moment that it ever quite
262
will be—that Nonconformists to-day were suffering from any grievance whatever. That is always the feeling, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, of the man on the top. He never thinks there is any grievance to the man at the bottom. He is kind to him, he is charitable to him, he is sometimes even a little patronising to him; but he will not for a moment allow that the man at the bottom has any grievance. Does the hon. Gentleman really think that you would have had this controversy going on in Wales for a generation or two: does he think that you would have its representation going on on these lines, unless the great mass of the Welsh people thought they had a grievance? Surely the grievance is perfectly plain! The ordinary Welshman or Nonconformist does feel that the Church of which he is not a member is placed in a superior posito his Church. It is all very well to talk of iconoclasm at the present day, and say that things such as State prestige do not matter. Of course, they matter. We have only to look around to either political side when it comes to some little State preferment in the way of a title or some other such prestige; we are all ready to take it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, all of us on both sides of the House. Indeed, even in your administrative Government, some of the little crumbs in a great national rejoicing like the Coronation have been quite readily—and I rejoice in it—accepted by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
I would say this: The fact that one Church and one body of men are placed in a superior position, I venture to submit to the hon. Member, is bad for both sections. I do not mean to say that the hon. Member is conscious of that superiority. As I said, the man at the top never is, and the man at the bottom is usually much too conscious of it. But looked at in its broad national aspect it is bad for the Church and bad for the chapel. It makes the Church feel touch too superior, as it sometimes makes—I am quite ready to admit it—the Nonconformists feel much too sensitive. That, in a word, is the real grievance and the real feeling of injustice that the ordinary Welshman feels he is suffering from at the present day. It is idle for the hon. Member to talk about whether it is good for the Church or good for the chapel. I do not ask myself that question. I think that, in modern legislation we are far too fond of doing good to people who do not want it. The true basis of legislation is not is what we are going to do good in

263
itself, but is it right and just to the members of the community. Let them all feel that they are living under equal laws and equal encouragement in secular, and even more in religious matters; then let these questions alone; let them take care of themselves when once you have done justice. I really cannot develop the question of Disestablishment further than that. There is a grievance felt on the one side: on the other side they are not even conscious of it. We never think they ever will be conscious of it. But there comes a time in a controversy like this when it is perfectly right that one side should prevail. I believe that time has come now. I do not wonder that the hon. Gentleman said he feels bitterly. We do not feel bitterly, because our side is winning at the present moment. The people who naturally feel bitterness are the people who have been on the top and are now going to be on an equality with the others.It is quite natural that a feeling of bitterness should obtain. We naturally need not feel it at all because we are perfectly confident that the right, according to our ideas, is going shortly to be done.
There is only one other point with which the hon. Member made great play. That was he stated, what I thought was an astonishing thing once again, that we had never proved our case that this was national money. He had the temerity to choose, I think, the worst possible ground for meeting that, because he took tithe. It is notorious that tithe, while it may have been originally a gift to the Church, never could be collected from the great body of Churchmen, even in the great Catholic days, and that the Church had to rely, then as now, on the strong arm of the State to make tithe obligatory before the Church could get it at all. Really when the hon. Gentleman talked of whether or not it is national money, would he for a moment get up in his place and say that that large revenue of tithe, which has been for centuries enjoyed by the Church would have been obtainable by the Church, would ever have been obtainable by the Church if it had not been collected for them by the strong arm of the State and the laws which were passed to secure it in perpetuity for that Church?
Viscount WOLMER: The same thing was done for other people.
Mr. ROCH: That may be, but the great body of the people were never taxed for
264
any other religious purpose. I do not think the hon. Member has quite done justice to what has been contended again and again from this side of the House in regard to the national argument. I do not think he would contend for a moment, against the view that when the bulk of these Endowments were obtained by the Church there was only one great Catholic Church. What happened? We may take different views about the Reformation, and, indeed, views on that subject have developed astonishingly—I am sorry to say—in the Church of recent years. Still, no one will dispute this: that the effect of the Reformation Statutes was to declare the trusts of the old Catholic Church. I do not think anyone will dispute that. Here was this money enjoyed by the Catholic Church and one set of theologians. Then came the Reformation Statutes, and they laid down in binding terms a theology, precepts, and the practice of them, and they gave the money to those who professed these. That is what we mean when we say it is national money. It was originally given to the Catholic Church. It was then narrowed by the Declaration of the Trusts of the Reformation and given to what developed ultimately into what we know as the modern English Church. That broad, general contention, so far as I know, has never been effectually answered. Can anyone go to our great cathedrals, or go into one of our wonderful old churches, and not feel from the old architecture of that church that they were built up around the doctrine of the real presence, of a totally different theology, and a totally different belief, to that which is now taught in these very churches! So much for what I call the broad aspect of these Endowments.
I will only say just a few words as to what I hope, and what I think, will be the future when this measure becomes law. I am not one who believes, and I do not think anyone would like himself to think, that the animosities of this present fight are going to be done away with all at once, or, indeed, over a period of years. I am not going to say that the Church of England will not have to face strenuous years. No body that will have to reconstruct itself constitutionally from top to bottom, no one that is faced, as they will have to be faced, with the whole thinking out of a scheme of government at a time when there is a crumbling theology perhaps in the whole of the Churches—no one

265=can look forward to that future without feeling some anxiety and perhaps some misgiving as to what may happen. But I look upon it not from the point of view of the Church; I look upon it in its various aspects as a good Welsh citizen. I look upon the Disestablishment of the Church not as a matter between Church and Chapel. I look upon it, and hope it will be looked upon, as a measure which will enable them to travel freely from one to the other. I think that the great want in our own country at the present time is a true measure of co-operation between Church and Chapel. I myself think that while the Church has lost something by the lack of this, the Chapel has lost more. To be shut out from the great history of this country is nothing but evil; is nothing but harm to any denomination. I do not think that reconciliation comes quickly or comes readily, but I do think it will be possible if this Bill becomes law. I believe the Church will gain something from the Nonconformists, something of their free government, something of their capacity to give, something of their capacity to take a real working interest in their own Church, and I do think—if I may say so—that the Nonconformists can gain something from the Church, something from the traditions to which I have referred—yes, and something perhaps from a more fixed theology. Each of them wants more help from the other. They are divorced from one another at the present time. With the exhibition of superiority on the one side and inferiority on the other, cooperation I really believe to be impossible. May we go on to say—may we not hope that with a real feeling of equality, with a general feeling of justice, that better co-operation and a better understanding, may, at all events, prove to be a possibility?
Mr. HAYES FISHER: The hon. Member for Pembroke has delivered a speech which I think we generally recognise as full of brilliant argument, and which is undoubtedly a clever speech and full of originality. He stated at the beginning of it that he could not say anything new. Well, he has uttered one or two new things that we on this side of the House recognise as extraordinarily new. He attempted to advance the argument that hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House had actually persuaded a great many hon. Gentlemen, who hold the same opinions as I do, that Disestablishment, after all, was a really good thing, if only we could obtain
266
it without Disendowment. The hon. Gentleman quoted in support of the argument that many of us were convinced in the way he described by a speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Bucks. I do not think that speech could possibly bear that interpretation. While there were a great many Churchmen a while ago who held that if the Church obtained Disestablishment without Disendowment that she would be in a freer position, I believe there are far fewer of those Churchmen to-day; and that the whole of the arguments advanced in the course of debating this Bill have proved to many a Churchman who desired Disestablishment, if it could be got without Disendowment—because it would give greater freedom to his Church and the government of his Church—that these Debates have proved to him, and I think that school of opinion, that after all the loss to religion would be so incomparably great that Churchmen are giving up the opinion that Disestablishment would be better for the Church, and they would infinitely prefer now not to have Disestablishment at all.
After all, all through these Debates most of the speakers have dealt with Disendowment, and I do not think that there has been a single speaker who has spoken from the Church point of view who has not put almost in the forefront—even although but for a moment or two—that he was against Disestablishment. Every one of us who defend our Church defend it quite as much from the point of view of Disestablishment as from the point of view of Disendowment. We believe that if Disestablishment should take place that there can be no formal cooperation between and recognition of religion by the State, and that in all our national moments of joy or sorrow, in all our great national scenes, there will be no appropriate channel by which all our prayers and thoughts may go up to Almighty God. I really believe that the Disestablishment of the Church will be an enormous blow to Christianity, and that the Disestablishment of any portion of the Church will be an enormous blow to Christianity. Many of us were present to-day at a very beautiful service held in memory of a very great friend of ours, and a man much beloved in this House, and by everybody. I recollect that one of the last speeches that he ever made only a very short time ago was one in which he referred to the great loss that Disestablish-

267
ment would bring to the cause of religion. He used these words:—
"I say that the right of every individual to take his nearest and clearest to the churchyard for burial is valued very greatly, as is indeed the right which he has to have read over them those noble and beautiful words which have consoled the grief of the people for many generations. No suggestion has been made throughout these long Debates of any substitute for the National Church in those offices. Who would take the place of the Church on occasions of great national rejoicing and mourning? By what would you replace the right of an individual to sanctification on the great occasions I have alluded to?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th June, 1913, cols. 103 and 104, Vol. LIV.]
These memorable words were words which fully expressed the opinion of those of us who are most devoted to our Church. Then, again, the hon. Gentleman opposite used a very curious and novel argument when he was speaking of tithes. He defended the view of those who are going to deprive the Church of this property by saying it was national property, and he gave a curious definition of national property. He said that if he could prove that tithes or the property of any individual could not have been collected except by the strong arm of the State, then that must be national property.
Mr. ROCH: I did not say "collected"; I said "made payable."
Mr. HAYES FISHER: I understood him to use the word "collected," and now I understand him to say that if he did use it, he does not now wish to use that word. I think I am interpreting him rightly when I say that his argument was that if any property was made payable by the strong arm of the State, then that was national property. All property almost would come within that definition. We have nothing except by the strong arm of the State. There have been many times in our history when it was very hard and difficult to come by our own because the State was not strong enough to collect it. Is he going to argue that in those times and periods, when the State was not strong enough, property which could not be collected became national property because the individual man could not rely upon the State to collect it or to make payment of it? I think I am justified in describing that as a strange and novel argument. I do not care to reargue the question whether this is Church property or national property it has often been argued before. At all events, it is property which has for hundreds of years been used by the Church without anybody disputing the right of the Church to use it.
268
From time immemorial that property has been associated with Christians and with the services of Christianity. I do not think the hon. Member will dispute that. It was never intended for secular uses or secular purposes. It was associated with the Christian Church, and even when, through the agency of the Church, it was associated with the poor, it was used for Christians. Now, does he think it right to take this property away and to devote property which has always been devoted to Christian purposes and to Christianity to purely secular purposes? I think it would be stretching language in a way in which language should never be stretched or strained to say that it ought to be devoted to national purposes.
My hon. Friend, who moved the rejection of the Bill in a good, argumentative speech, made a statement which the hon. Member opposite has made no reply to. He said that for the last eighteen months there is no doubt that the cause of Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church is losing ground. I believe that to be true, in England at all events I will not speak of Wales, although my hon. Friend says it is also losing ground in Wales. Look at all the demonstrations, not the usual kind of demonstration but demonstrations of most fervid, earnest Christian men and women, with the platforms occupied by men who are not in the habit of associating with one another for political purposes, and a general fervent feeling running throughout the whole party. I think there has been some evidence at the by-elections of the effect of these demonstrations which you dare not counter, and you do not attempt to counter. In your speeches you do not attempt to put this question before your audiences. No Cabinet Minister makes a public speech upon this question. You will find a stray remark here and there. Nothing is done by hon. or right hon. Gentlemen opposite to bring the issue before the people. We bring it before the people and the people are siding with us. The average man in the street, I believe, argues it in this way: "I am not in the habit of going to a Church or place of worship, but when my children are born I like to have them baptised. When I am married I like to go to some place of worship to be married, and I hope that when I die some funeral service of a Christian character will take place over my grave." That is his feeling without elaborating these arguments about national property or property of

269
the Church. He sees that this property has been used for hundreds of years for religious purposes, Christian purposes, and he says it ought not to be used for, devoted to, or estranged to secular purposes. I am perfectly certain that this is the very last question to which the Parliament Act ought to be applied. It is a question that has never been properly argued before the people. So far as I can gather hon. Gentlemen opposite are losing ground on this question every day. I am perfectly certain that if an appeal could be taken upon this one question, if a Referendum could be taken upon it, there would be an immense majority in this country in favour of leaving those great gifts of our ancestors, which have been for so many generations devoted to Christianity, as they are, and not have them taken away and applied to secular purposes.
There are many reasons for that. The average man is a little fearful of the growth of materialism in the State. He believes that active Christian Churches should be well equipped and well endowed. To well equip and well endow an active Church is laudable, but to cripple and maim such a Church is an unworthy and an unwise thing on the part of those who represent him in this House. I recollect a speech by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in which he used some ominous words, because he is a Titan of much observation as regards the life of the people. He said that the country is slowly drifting away from the Christian religion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer used words very much to the same effect. The right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not here, but I should like to ask him or the Gentleman who represents the Home Office, does he not think that a deplorable thing if it be true? I have my doubts whether it is true or not, but if on the authority of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, we take it as true, is it not a very deplorable thing that in this old Christian country the people should be drifting away from the Christian religion without finding any substitute for it? I say it is very deplorable, and I say also that if you are going to Disestablish the Church in Wales you will encourage that drifting away. If you take away £160,000 a year from a Church which is active and vigorous in the prosecution of the Christian religion, you are assisting that movement away from Christianity. Look
270
what can be done with £160,000 a year. It will provide 400 resident ministers at £400 a year each. It does not lie in the mouth of a Member of Parliament to say that £400 is too much. There is need of this money. Those who know the Welsh Church better than I do, although I know something about it, say that the great need is for more resident ministers, and therefore for £400 per year you could have a splendid equipment for all those good works which are associated with an active Christian Church, Sunday schools, boys' classes, and all the other social and moral surroundings, which are associated in these days with an active Christian Church.
I have noticed all through this Debate that nobody has argued that the Church is not snaking a thoroughly good use of the Endowments which it has. I have heard reflections upon the Church of England from those who do not belong to it, and once or twice from those who do belong to it, and I think that it was not very loyal on the part of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that he should taunt the Church with what happened so long ago as the old Georgian days, when pliancy, cowardice and neglect were the besetting sins of the Church. I do not think it was quite fair in an hon. Gentleman who calls himself a devoted son of the Church to point at the Church in the worst period of its history. All these characteristics were characteristics not of the Church of England alone; they were characteristic of other religious bodies of that period. In those Georgian days there was sloth, languor, and many other things, but not very long afterwards this sloth and languor passed away, and we have that on the authority of one of the greatest authorities who ever spoke on Church questions in this House, Mr. Gladstone, who commented upon the marvellous and beneficial change that had come over the ministrations of the. Church about sixty years ago. If Mr. Gladstone denounced the Church of the Georgian era for its coldness, indifference, and abasement, he was quick to recognise and praise that Church for the great change which came over it some sixty years ago. He described it as follows:—
"A strange vitality was soon discernible in the long-neglected parishes. The doctrinal and practical teaching of the Prayer Book was again taught from the pulpit; the sacraments were rightly and duly administered; services were celebrated on Saint's days and even daily; new churches rose to meet the requirements of the increasing town population; parsonages were built in the country parishes; the ancient fabrics were purged, restored and beautified; music was again

271
made the handmaid of devotion; every accessory of worship was once more instinct with life and meaning. Above all, to the poor the Gospel was preached.'"
What he said of the Church of England can be said quite truly of the Church in Wales to-day. At this moment, when it is so necessary we should attempt to stop people from drifting from Christianity, surely it is a very mean thing, and a very unwise thing—I do not like to use stronger language than that—to take away from this Church the money which it is capable of using, and is using so well, and to strip these parishes of the equipment which is necessary for the proper working of the Church! Hon. Members sometimes say to us, "You can easily replace this sum." "After all," they say, "what are three or four millions of money to a rich Church like yours?" It is quite true we could make an effort to replace that sum. Every active, practical Churchman would assist in that effort, but would it stop there? The very argument you are using now, declaring that money so given is national, will be put into use again in fifty years' time, or, perhaps, even less. Your successors will point to the Church in Wales. They will say, "That Church is too powerful; her output would be greater if she were poorer." They will point to the Church, and because they see some slight change in the liturgy or even of the doctrine, they will say as they are now saying, "That is not the Church to which the money was given," and the successors of hon. Gentlemen will claim that it is national money. In addition to that, confidence will be shaken by this Bill, if it ever passes, and many people will say, "What is the good of leaving money to the Church? It will all be taken away again." There will be a natural fear, there will be a natural dislike on the part of testators to leave money to a Church which has been Disendowed once because they think it will probably be Disendowed again. If we are to find that three or four millions, it can only come at the cost and sacrifice of other Christian organisations, missions, hospitals, and things of that kind. Many Churchmen give of their surplus wealth to help Nonconformist bodies with which, at all events, they are in sympathy to a very large extent. There are many of us who wish to see all these Churches well endowed, and who believe that any good, active Christian Church in these days is doing really good work. We wish to see them more powerful for that work, and we are giving a surplus of our own money for this
272
Christian work. Although we are not entirely in agreement with them, we are much more in agreement with them than we are with those who are striving to undermine Christianity in this country. I am certain that these are not the days in which we wish to interfere with the work of Christian Churches. I assert that in these Debates the right hon. Gentlemen opposite have been beaten and worsted in every argument, and the only argument they have used which has any strength is the one with which they begin and end all their speeches, namely, that Wales is a nation and demands through her representatives the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church. That is the, only strong argument they have.
Without disputing the fact that Wales is in many respects a nation, we must not forget that it is, after all, a component part of the United Kingdom, and her attributes as a nation must be strictly limited. Where are we to draw the line as to what the majority of the people of Wales ought to be allowed to have, even if they demand it? I ask the hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill to answer this question: Supposing the Members front Wales continually, election after election, demand hereafter that they shall be allowed to Establish and Endow a Church will that be allowed because Wales is a nation? Are Welsh Members only to be allowed to destroy and are they not to be allowed to establish some religion if they desire to do so? Supposing the Members for Wales at election after election, by an almost unanimous vote, demanded that a system of secular education should be set up in Wales, is that a matter that the Government would listen to? Is that a cause which they would plead for? Is that something which they would grant to Wales because a majority of the people demand it If not, the Government are themselves putting the strictest possible limitation on the demand of the Welsh Members and the Welsh people as a nation. We seek to put one more limitation upon them, and it is that just as Wales and the Welsh Members are not allowed to Establish and Endow a Church of their own, so they should not, be allowed to Disestablish and Disendow a Church which is partly their own and partly ours. It is impossible to do this without dismembering the Church of England to which many of us belong, and which we have a right to champion and defend. I believe we are about to take the most retrograde step in the whole

273
history and teaching of Christianity. The day has now come when there is a far more tolerant feeling between the members of all Christian communities, and the proposals contained in this Bill will be bitterly resented by the Church to which I belong This is a measure which will set back the hands of the clock and postpone the day for greater toleration, instead of coming more to the front in the relationship between Christian communities. It has been said of many things that people will advance further if they advance altogether, and so I say that the Christian religion in its conflict with materialism and infidelity will advance further if all the Churches will advance together, and in, that way we shall do justice to one another.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS: As I listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down I could not help feeling that the discussions which have taken place during the last Session have had very little result in the direction of enlightening the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the real nature of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that all the people of Wales can complain of is that in Georgian times the Church neglected the spiritual welfare of the people. That is not the case. Our case is that the Established Church in Wales has never been in community of spirit with the Welsh people. For a whole century after the Reformation the Church in Wales had no rival, and I will endeavour to show why the old faith disappeared almost entirely. At the time of the Reformation every historian knows that there was no portion of the United Kingdom which was so wedded to the Catholic faith as Wales. Whenever there was a plot or intrigue against Edward VI. or Elizabeth, Welshmen were always to the fore, and they were the most ardent Catholics in this Kingdom at that time, and for years afterwards it was common knowledge that there were more Catholics in proportion to population in Wales than in any part in England. I do not think I am saying too much when I say that in the estimation of contemporaries at the time of the Reformation Welshmen were far more Catholic than the inhabitants of Ireland. I am not going to go to-day into the reasons for this. The Catholics gradually disappeared because the Church did not send missionary priests to preach the old faith among the mountains and valleys of Wales as they did in England and Ireland.
274
The Established Church in Wales after the Reformation had no rival in the Catholic organisation, and they had the field all to themselves. They had no rivals in the Nonconformist organisations. There was one great Nonconformist, John Penry, who was hanged in the time of Queen Elizabeth for suggesting that preachers should be sent to Wales to preach in the language of the country. He was the only Nonconformist who appeared in Wales for a whole century after the Reformation. There were great and good men in the Established Church then who tried to bring the new form of the Church into touch and sympathy with the people of Wales. The Welsh people owe to Bishop Morgan, Bishop Parry, and Bishop Davies the privilege of being able to read the Bible in their own ancient language and that work has remained the canon for Welsh prose from that day to this, and Welsh Nonconformists have never ceased to be generous in their recognition of the work of those great men in what may be called the golden days of the Established Church in Wales. The hon. Member for Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Ormsby-Gore), when he refers to these matters makes too much of the case for his Church. What really happened during that century was that though there was no teaching of the Catholic faith. Nonconformity had not arisen, and although the Established Church had the field to herself, she failed miserably to administer to the spiritual wants of the people. Let me give one illustration. There were 600> copies printed of Bishop Morgan's Welsh Bible in the time of Queen Elizabeth and that was not a sufficient number to be distributed among the parish churches in Wales, because everybody knows there were then over 900 parishes and there are nearly 1,000 to-day.
When the authorised version was published the same difficulty again arose, and there were no Welsh Bibles to be found in Wales except those in the parish churches. In 1630 two patriotic Welshmen, Sir Thomas Middleton, the Lord Mayor of London, and Alderman Heylin, published what is still known in Wales as "The Little Bible," and 1,500 copies of it were printed in 1630. In 1651 the Long Parliament determined to send two great men to Wales, who were the founders and apostles of Nonconformity, Walter Cradock and Vavasour Powell, and these great men determined to find out if there were

275
any more of these little Bibles still in existence in London. They went to the printer's office, and out of 1,500 copies printed in 1630 they found 1,000 copies still in the printer's office. Therefore for a whole generation 500 Bibles were considered sufficient to supply the religious needs of the Welsh people. That was the condition of things at; the end of the century when the Established Church had no rival in the field. Why was it that 500 Bibles were sufficient to satisfy their needs? The Reformation brought in its train greater evils to Wales than to any part of England. Everybody knows that there were more monasteries in Wales than there were in England at that time in proportion to the size of the country and the population. That meant that in the Middle Ages there were free schools provided by those monasteries for the sons of the poor people.
An old chronicler, Adam of Usk, who wrote, I think, in the time of Richard II., recorded that there were enough Welsh students in Oxford to form what was called a nation by themselves. I cannot charge my memory with the exact number, but there were at that time an enormous number of Welsh students at Oxford quite out of proportion to the population of Wales, and this was due to the multiplicity of these free schools for the sons of the poor people in Wales. When the Reformation came these monasteries were dissolved and the Endowments confiscated, not in order to provide free education, as had been done hitherto, but in order to enrich the people whom the King wished to honour. Therefore these free schools were taken away from Wales, and there were no schools of learning left. There were, in the Middle Ages, more schools in Wales than in England in proportion to the population, but at the Reformation there were hardly any of these schools left. There were, it is true, one or two grammar schools—Edward VI. Schools and Queen Elizabeth Grammar Schools—erected out of the ruins of these monastic schools, but they were comparatively few, and the result was that the people of Wales were thrown back upon themselves. They had no schools in which to teach them to read in their own language, and therefore, when the time came for the printing of the Bible, there were no people there who could read the Bible either in English or in Welsh. Not only that, but the desolation which
276
resulted from the Reformation devastated the whole life of Wales.
What do we find? Welsh literature died out. The Eisteddfod, the oldest and most characteristic Welsh institution, disappeared for two centuries. There was no Welsh prose written. There was not a single Welsh original book written during those hundred years I have mentioned. There were fine translations, like the Bible. There was a book, which is still a standard of Welsh prose, by Morris Kyffin, a translation of Bishop Jewel's "Defence of the Church of England," a book which is read now, and which was reprinted the other day by the Guild of Graduates of the Welsh University. But, though there were these fine translations, there was not a single original book printed in the Welsh language for 100 years after the Reformation. The first original book ever printed in the Welsh language was the "Book of Three Birds," written by a man whose name is still revered, Morgan Llwyd of Wynedd. Morgan Llwyd was a Cromwellian Independent, a preacher who in the Civil War had acted as one of the Ironside chaplains. Take, if you like, any department of life. The language was dying. Read books like "The Welshman's Candle," a splendid book written and composed by the Vicar of Llandovery, dealing with moral and religious matters. His verses were not published in his day. They had to be collected after his death by one of the old Puritan fathers, Stephen Hughes, and, but for his pious efforts, that great work, which has had a greater effect upon Welsh life and civilisation than anything next to the Bible, would have been lost to Wales. It was composed by a good clergyman in the Established Church, but his book would have gone to oblivion but for the effort of this old Puritan father, who succeeded him. Read that book, and what do you find? You find that the Welsh in which it is written is ten times more corrupt than the Welsh that is spoken to-day, even in Anglicised districts in Wales. That book has preserved the Welsh language as spoken in Carmarthenshire in those days—the county which has kept alive the Welsh spirit and the Welsh tongue almost better than any—and yet the vicar, writing for the edification of his people, used more corrupt Welsh than is used to-day. What does it mean? It means that Welsh was ceasing to be a literary language. It was becoming a mere patois of chance and trick

277
unworthy of the respect of the learned. Welsh literature was dead; the Welsh language was dying; there were no schools in the land; no one could read, and culture had disappeared.
That was the result of one hundred years Of a Church without a rival, having the opportunity of gathering to its fold the people of Wales. From whence did protection and relief come to these poor people in Wales at the end of the seventeenth century? I venture to say that no Welshman can read the story of his country without feeling that his forefathers had descended into the depths of degradation and misery and superstition and ignorance at the end of that hundred years. From whence did relief come? Not from those in high places, not from this Parliament, not from the Established Church, not from officialdom, not from the rich, but from the people of Wales themselves. They wrought their own salvation in their own way. Poor people, sprung from the ranks of the common people of Wales, became the leaders of a new movement in Wales. They saved the Welsh language, and they purified Welsh life. They made again a great thing of Welsh literature, literature which appeals to the most cultured Welshmen to-day. They did more. They wrought wiser than they knew. Their sole concern was to save souls. They did not think about the Welsh language; they did not care about literature; they cared nothing about culture. All they cared for was to save souls, and as Stephen Hughes said in one of his prefaces:—
"Before we can rave souls we must teach the people to read the Bible."
That was the beginning of the great popular education movement we have had in Wales. These old Puritan fathers came under Providence at the very right moment, when the people were perishing, when the Welsh nation was a thing of scorn, of shreds and patches, a thing that was unworthy to be regarded with respect by anybody. At that moment Providence raised these great men. I have heard some taunt levelled against the people in Wales because they speak Welsh. Why do they speak Welsh? Because that is the language Providence has placed in their mouths. We cannot help ourselves. Why is it that the Welsh language has been preserved? It is because these men found that, if the souls of these old Welsh people were to be saved, they had to appeal to them through the Welsh language. That
278
is how Welsh has been preserved, and I am glad to think that the Welsh language to-day stands in a more secure position than it ever did before, because it is enshrined in the hearts and affections of the people of Wales. All that is holy and most sacred in their memory and in their traditions is associated with this old language which has been spoken for fifteen hundred years. That is the work the Nonconformist fathers did. What was the testimony given by a man whose name I am almost afraid to mention, it will sound so strange to the ears of hon. Members opposite. Probably, they have never heard it, though he was one of the greatest Welshmen of his age. He called himself Ieuan Brydydd Hir, but his real name was Evan Evans. He lived and died a curate in the county of Cardigan, but he was the most learned Welshman of his day, and in 1761 he published a book. He hated the dissenters, and he was a strong Churchman, and, like all the patriotic clergymen of 'his day, he was frowned at by those in authority in his own Church. What did he say in his preface to that book? He said that for the one hundred years that had gone 'by—that was ever since Nonconformity had become a thing of moment in Wales—all that was best in Welsh literature came from the hands 'of Welsh Nonconformists, and he reproached the Church' He loved his Church, but he saw that there was something wrong.
6.0.P.M.
The Church ought to be the National Church. In England, it is to a large extent the National Church. Look at your Nelson, and at your Tennyson, children of the parsonage. Look at ordinary English literature, and what do you find? From the time when the first English novel was written down to yesterday, there is hardly a typical or characteristic book of fiction written in English that has not something to do with the Church and with the parson. They are characteristic types of your English life. Whoever heard of a Welsh novelist who went to the parsonage for his hero or heroine? The thing is not credible. The novelist, as I have no doubt my hon. Friend opposite (Sir G. Parker) will agree, must be true to life. He must be true to nature. He must depict society as he finds it. His book must be a mirror of all the society he sees around him. That is why, in the great novels of England, from the "Vicar of Wakefield" down to Mrs. Humphrey Ward's novels to-day, that the parson is a typical and characteristic picture in all your society. You

279
never find that in Wales. The Church in England is a National Church to that extent. It has grown in its soil. It is racy of the soil. It is full of the genius of England. It is the expression of the religious feeling and of the culture of Englishmen. In Wales, that is not so. Why? Because the Church is an extraneous product. It is an exotic. It never grew in the soil of Wales. It was transplanted there from alien soil, and the mark of its origin is upon it for all time. In 1876 or so another great Welshman republished this book of Ieuan Brydydd Hir, Chancellor Silvan Evans, a man who was brought up a Nonconformist, but who did great service for the Church, and who, in spite of that, was universally respected and esteemed by all Welshmen, because he was a great Welsh scholar and writer. He reissued this book in 1876, and when he came to that note to which I have already alluded, that the Nonconformists had done more for Welsh literature than the Church, Chancellor Silvan Evans, added this footnote:—
"How can it be otherwise as long as the Church is governed by aliens?"
That was in 1876. What is the real grievance we have in Wales against the Church? I am saying nothing against it as a religious organisation, and I honestly believe and pray that it will have great power in the future, and that it will succeed and go on from strength to strength. All that I am concerned about is this: I should like this Church to be a Welsh Church. As long as it represents the genius of Wales, as long as it is organised and controlled by the people of Wales, I am sure it will conform to the national type, and I look forward to this Bill becoming law, because I believe that it will free the Church and give her the chance which has never been given her yet of associating herself with the people of Wales, and thereby becoming reconciled to the people of Wales, and I am perfectly certain, if wise efforts are made when liberty is given to it next year, no Churchman here will regret the day when Parliament passed this Bill.
Mr. BALDWIN: In the most eloquent and moving speech which we have just listened to, there was a remark which I confess struck me as very true. The hon. Member said that during the last two years it was quite impossible for those amongst the Welsh Members who are advocating
280
this measure to feel that they have made any impression upon us on this side. I fear it is equally impossible for us on this side to feel that we have made any impression on hon. Members opposite. So far as the Welsh Members are concerned, I cannot feel that anything we can say or do can make any impression on them. For that reason I hope the hon. Member will not think me lacking in courtesy if I do not attempt to reply in detail to his speech, but touch for a moment or two on one or two aspects of this question dealt with in the concluding part of his remarks. If there is one thing that has struck me in the conduct of this Debate, it has been the small part played throughout by Liberal Churchmen and Nonconformists who sit for other than Welsh seats. I cannot help feeling that this peculiarity of these Debates is owing in large measure to the fact that there is a real reluctance among Liberal Churchmen, as a body, and among numbers of English Nonconformists to support the Disendowment portion of this Disestablishment Bill without which, we are told, the Bill will not be acceptable to the people of Wales. I have listened carefully to a good deal of the Debate, and I have read closely the speeches that have been delivered in my absence, and I cannot find any argument used by Liberal Churchmen in support of Disendowment other than this: That they are in favour of Disendowment because they believe that Disendowment of the Church in Wales will stimulate its members to greater activity, and will do that Church good in the long run, and no harm. That is a very curious argument, and if it were applied further to more obvious matters it might lead to curious results. If Liberal Churchmen really believe it possible to stimulate a man by reducing his income, I feel confident that the next time we move the reduction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's salary from this side of the House, we shall receive unanimous support front Members who hold that view. It is difficult to see indeed how anyone who advances that argument could have voted in favour of giving himself £400 a year.
There is one other thing they say. It is that they believe that out of tribulation will come good for the Church. There is more than a grain of truth in that, but it is one thing to do good to your own soul by renouncing your wordly goods, and it is quite another thing to do good to another man's soul by taking away his goods. I feel that if there arose in this country a

281
new St. Francis—and I do not know any man of whom we have greater need in these days—if there arose in this country a new St. Francis, it is possible that by preaching the doctrine of religion and poverty he might sweep many of us on this floor up to be his followers, but when that apostolic poverty is only preached by followers of a modern, democratic, undenominational St. Sebastian, it is a very different thing and the argument leaves us absolutely cold. We, on this side of the House, look at the Disendowment proposals very differently from the way in which the Welsh Members look upon them. We look upon them as an essential concomitant of Liberalism, as an article of political growth. That is a point of view that has had its day. We believe that the desire for Disendowment in this country is very much less than it was, and we believe that it only lingers in parts of the country like Wales, where there is a strong Celtic element and where ancient animosities are nursed and memories of past wrongs live much more vividly than amongst the English people. I sympathise with that view myself, because my ancestry on one side was entirely Celtic, and my mother's family fled from the Highlands after having been out with Prince Charles in 1745. I remember that in my early days it was with very great difficulty that one could stand up while the band was playing "God save the King" because we had a Hanoverian King and not a Jacobite King. But as one grows up those feelings pass away, and I cannot help thinking that as the Welsh people grow up they, too, will grow out of what is, after all, only a comparatively modern development, and one which reflects perhaps less credit on them than other manifestations of their loyalty. If Liberal Churchmen vote for this Bill—for the Disendowment part of it in an altruistic spirit, in order to do us good, then I think we, on this side, may vote in an equally altruistic spirit to prevent Nonconformists doing this harm.
And here I want, if I may, to say how ninth I agree with a good deal of what fell from the hon. Member who last spoke in the latter part of his speech. He spoke about the early Nonconformists in Wales being out to get souls. That is exactly what they were out for. They were not oat for Church Endowments, and I would like to illustrate that as far as I am able. After all, What is it that makes a man a Nonconformist instead of being a Churchman I do not for a moment speak of the
282
man who changes his religion and leaves the Church to go to Chapel because he has had a quarrel with the parson, or with the man who leaves the Chapel and goes to Church because he thinks he may benefit himself socially. But what is it that made men in early days become Nonconformists rather than remain in the Church? It was one thing only. It was that they might find or create for themselves, if they could not find it, an environment in which their spiritual growth might attain to the greatest measure that it was possible for it to do. They wanted a spiritual environment in which they might thrive, and that was the reason that men went out front the Church to find outside her what they could not find inside her. They did not go out because they felt they were in opposition to tithes or for any reason of that kind. They went out for their own soul's health and to quicken the spiritual life of their fellow countrymen. It was that that led the early Wesleyans into the wilderness, and it was that for which they endured persecutions such as no one in these more comfortable days can ever conceive, and the reason they spread all over the country and did the work they did was because the men who went out were men of the pulpit and not men of the platform. I have read a good many of the letters and diaries of these early preachers, some of whom were members of my own family, and I remember well a phrase which was written more than a hundred years ago by one of these early Methodists, who was both a preacher and a scholar. He said—and I think it was true of all men of that generation:—
"Methodism in itself is nothing to me save as a means of growing into the likeness of my Master."
That was the true spirit of Methodism, and as long as it was the spirit Nonconformity was bound to flourish spiritually. The day when it gets allied to a political question like the question of Disendowsilent it will, I believe, do it infinite harm. The Nonconformists of this country, for the first time, are in a position now to have their will in this mater of the Welsh Bill. They will be able to carry the Disendowment portion as well as the Disestablishment part. But I cannot help fearing for them that they might find that the moment of their political success, that the moment of their triumph, is the very moment when they will do themselves damage from a spiritual point of view, damage of which they may feel the effects for many years to come. It is for that

283
reason, as much as with the object of defending the Church to which I belong, that I shall give my vote against this Bill.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House in a very fair, temperate and able speech, expressed his surprise that Liberal Churchmen sitting on this side of the House, coming from England and Scotland, and even English Nonconformists, had not taken the part he would have anticipated in supporting this measure, and he attributed that to an exhibition of reluctance on their part to support the principle of the Bill. But may it not be due to another reason which is rather more consistent with the principle of the Bill, namely, that they feel that the control and management of their spiritual affairs is a matter which belongs to the Welsh people themselves I could not help noticing that in the speech delivered by the hon. Gentleman there was not a. word to challenge that proposition. He simply opposed the principle of Disendowment, and he never challenged the principle of the Bill itself. He never denied that the management and control of its own religious and spiritual concerns is a matter for Wales, and for no one outside. The hon. Gentleman who initiated this Debate had a good deal to say about General Elections and what might happen to this country—what had happened in the past and what would happen in the future if we had a General Election now. But I was very much struck with one thing, and that was that he never expressed the slightest confidence that if there was a General Election now Wales would repudiate this Bill.
There have been at least eight General Elections within my memory at which the Welsh people have by overwhelming majorities demanded their own settlement of their own concerns. I do not think there is a country in the Empire or a free country in the world where, if a demand of that sort were made, a superior force coming from outside could resist it. Take the whole of the British Empire, the self-governing Colonies, the Crown Colonies; take Scotland, take Ireland, take England—there is no part of the whole of the British Empire where there has been a religious settlement forced upon the people against the will of that people themselves. The hon. Gentleman claimed with pride that he came from a part of Scotland
284
and had Celtic blood in his veins. Take his own country. In Scotland the attempt we are now seeking to redress absolutely failed. Episcopalianism was set up as an Establishment for Scotland. It was resisted by force by the Scottish people. It was reimposed a second time, and was again resisted by force, and it hopelessly broke down. Although we have been governing Ireland, heaven knows, against the will of its people for hundreds of years in social and in economic questions, in religious questions even in Ireland an attempt to force a national religious settlement upon them broke down forty or fifty years ago. Wales stands alone, not merely in the British Empire, but among free and democratic countries throughout the world, as the one example of a country where you have a superior force from outside imposing upon its people a settlement of their own intimate spiritual concerns. It is an impossible state of things. You do not attempt it in any Mahomedan or Bhuddist land in India. Go to the East; take any country that is governed under the British Crown, and there is not a single tribe where you attempt to do what you are attempting by sheer force of arms to do in Wales. In a free and democratic country like this, after we have for forty or fifty years by constitutional methods come here to protest, is it not right that at last justice should be done?
We have heard a good deal about the spoliation of the Sanctuary. In Ireland an alien Establishment fell amidst the clatter of the same epithets. So it did in Scotland. Spoliation, robbery, sacrilege, you are injuring the population, you are doing harm to religion! It was the same menace that you are creating bitterness. What has happened in Wales? What has happened in two stages? The Welsh people, after centuries of experience of Anglicanism, came to the conclusion that it was utterly opposed to their temperament and religious feelings. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams), in one of the most eloquent speeches to which I have been privileged to listen in this House, gave a very remarkable account of the experience of Anglicanism in Wales and how it utterly failed in everything you would expect a great Church to do for a people, not merely on the spiritual side, not merely on the moral side, but in all you would expect a great National Church to do as a civilising, elevating instrument and agency for the good of the people. It was left alone

285
without any rival, without a competitor, yet the nation was allowed to fall into a state of degradation, and now even Churchmen are ashamed of that chapter in their history. After a few generations the Welsh people went a stage further, and realised that a State establishment did not help the growth of religion in Wales. After they have come to that conclusion, ought not the mere fact that the vast majority of the people themselves have come to that conclusion be a determining factor in the matter?
The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken asserted that it would inflict an indelible injury upon religion. I think we can trust the Welsh people to look after their own spiritual affairs, and I say so with all respect to him. But can he and those who make that statement explain this fact; that the three parts of this country where the great majority of the people are associated actively with the work of religion are the parts of the country which support this measure. In Ireland, probably nine-tenths of the people are associated with some religious community, either Catholic or Protestant. Of Scotland the same thing can be said, that four-fifths of the people arc actively engaged, each according to his gifts, in helping along the promulgation and extension of the work of the Christian religion. Scotland by a great majority supports this Bill. The same thing applies to Wales. It is not altogether so in England. For reasons into which I need not enter, the majority of the people in this country are not actively associated with the Christian Church, for reasons that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down very eloquently glanced at. He said you had not got the same association with the work of the Christian Church in England as you have in the other three parts of the United Kingdom. Those three parts of the United Kingdom by an overwhelming majority support this Bill. Does anyone imagine that Scotland with its great religious fervour, that Ireland with its intense spiritual earnestness, that Wales, which is vitally, and I would say, with all due deference, eternally concerned, does anyone imagine that those three countries would set their hands to a task that would inflict indelible injury upon religion? Wales is asking this in the interests of her own religious life. Is she not competent to judge? Is she to be overridden as somebody who does not know his own spiritual difficulties? Look at what has happened there. I should like to know what there is in the history of Wales, what there is in
286
the present condition of Wales, to justify anyone saying that Wales cannot be trusted with the decision of what is best for her own religious life.
The people of Wales have made as great sacrifices—to put it at the very lowest—asany people in the world for the maintenance of the Christian religion. You cannot drive through Wales without realising that fact. Compare it, if you like, with England. Here you have a population of 35,000,000, and all the churches put together have only provided sittings for 14,000,000 in their churches, chapels, and mission rooms for religious worship. Take the case of Wales, where you have a population of slightly over 2,000,000. Taking the churches and chapels together—mostly by a voluntary effort in both cases—they have provided sittings for 2,000,000 of the population, which is practically all the population that would be available for worship. I am not going to refer to cases like that of the Rhondda Valley. There you had a great need sprung upon Nonconformity and the Church. It was not the case of one or two rather poor little parish churches, but you had a great thronging population crowding into these valleys from every part of Wales in the West of England. What happened? You have there chapels and churches built in the course of forty or fifty years by voluntary effort, the vast majority by Nonconformists, and built out of the pence of the miners themselves, with the result that the whole needs of the valley have been answered. Is there anyone who says that such.a population could not be trusted not to inflict an indelible injury upon its spiritual life? It is not merely in the crowded valleys of South Wales. Go, if you like, to the bleakest moorlands, where the population is scattered and poor. Yon may go to many a place where a man has to go ten miles for a doctor, but you can go nowhere in Wales where he has to go two miles to a place of worship. All that has been done by the people who have to pay tithes to maintain a religion of whose services they will not avail themselves, while at the same time they build chapels and missions and maintain their own ministry. I think the House of Commons, can trust the people of Wales to see that they will not do any harm to their own religious life. I am sure that they need—no, I will not say assistance, but no direction from outside.
I should like to say one more word about that. How has this demand arisen? The

287
hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Bridge-man) said, "Why should you rake up"—I am not using his exact words—"why have you got to go into the past? Why do you not examine the present position without looking at the past?" If you are going to judge an Establishment like this, you must judge it upon the whole of its record and not upon what has happened after generations of Nonconformity and of conflict with Nonconformity have stirred up its energies. You must look at the whole record of the Church as an Establishment in Wales. Judging it upon that, what guarantee have you, supposing Nonconformity were wiped out, supposing the Nonconformist chapels come to poverty, supposing you restore the position you had in Wales before Daniel Beaumont ever appeared, when the whole of the spiritual care of the Welsh people was left to the State Establishment—what guarantee have you that you would not have a repetition of the whole of that evil? Someone said the other day that the fathers of Nonconformity left the Uhurch reluctantly. That is the condemnation of the Church. If they had been men who had failed to get the recognition they thought was their due and therefore left the Church, if they had -been men who had got certain fads and cranks and wanted to found a sect, you might then say it was not the fault of the Church. But they were men who clung to the Church to the very last—clung with the desperate hope that they would be able to do their work through the agency of the Church. But after a life of disappointment they were driven to the conclusion that it was impossible to achieve the spiritual regeneration of their people inside the Establishment. The hon. Member (Mr. Baldwin) said they were men of the pulpit, and not politicians. Perfectly true. They were preachers. They meddled not with politics. They expressed no opinion about the Establishment. I am not sure whether they did not express an opinion which was quite favourable to Establishment. At any rate they took no part in the controversy. There was no controversy. They simply came to the conclusion that remaining inside the Anglican Church was quite incompatible with doing that great work of regeneration.
Another generation passed, and the Nonconformist leaders were driven to the conviction that it was not Anglicanism, it was
288
not Episcopalianism which was at the root of the mischief, but the State Establishment. They were not politicians. They came to that conclusion for religious and spiritual reasons. Why? They found the Church, instead of co-operating, instead of working together in a spirit of harmony, instead of treating Nonconformity as a collateral and a fraternal agency for the accomplishment of the same great work, was treating Nonconformity exactly as if it were a hostile body. Everything was done to discredit and destroy its power. There is a very remarkable illustration of that in George Borrow's "History of Wild Wales." He was certainly a strong pro-Establishment Anglican, and you cannot read this book without feeling how hostile he was to Welsh dissenters. Nothing gave him greater satisfaction, when he went to Bala, than to meet there a very strong Anglican Establishmentarian, who told him that the days of Nonconformity were numbered, and he began to inquire about the clergy. "Who is the clergyman of the place?" "Mr. Pugh." "Is he a good preacher?" "Capital, Sir, and so is each of his curates. He and they are convartin' the Methodists left and right." Then he goes on, "the present minister fights the Methodist preachers with their own weapons, namely, extempore preaching, and beats them." That has really been the whole mischief of the State Establishment in Wales. It has created a sort of ecclesiastical sheep-stealing business. Nonconformity is treated as if it were a hostile political party. It is not a question of getting men from the public-house, but of taking them from the Methodist parson. All that created an atmosphere which was very disastrous to the harmonious cooperation of all the Churches for good Not only that, but the spiritual leaders of Nonconformity came to the conclusion that in the interests of religion itself in Wales it was better that there should be a separation between the Church and the State, that the Church itself would be a more powerful instrument for religious purpose, and that co-operation between the Churches would be more effectively established if this were accomplished.
I am very loth to enter into the question of what has happened in the past, but you cannot avoid it. Anyone who reads the history of the Establishment, certainly since the date of the Reformation, and even to a certain extent before that, knows that we were protected, curiously enough,

289
by the Popes before that, but we had no protection after it. Afer the days of the Reformation most of the mischief has come from the fact that the National Church was dominated by the State for political reasons. Take the 100 years before the Methodist revival; what happened then? The Welsh people were Jacobites, and they were then ultra-Tories. The Hanoverians had the same feeling about Welsh nationality as they bad about the ancestors of the hon. Member. They thought they ought to be exterminated or driven South, as they did with the ancestors of the hon. Gentleman. Why? They said the Welsh language, the Welsh nationality, the Welsh spirit, Welsh literature, is all purely an inspiration for the Jacobites, so they used the Church as a means of destroying the Welsh language and Welsh nationality purely for political purposes. How did they go about it? They said, "We will appoint English bishops." For 150 years from the commencement of the reign of Queen Ann, when this conflict really began in Wales, right up to 1870, I believe out of sixty-six bishops appointed for Wales there was only one Welsh-speaking bishop. Why was that done? Purely for political purposes. Not for the politics of Wales, but for political exigencies in England. Political exigencies in England forced Whigs and Tories—they are both equally to blame; I am not sure the Whig was not the greater sinner—to conspire to send English bishops to Wales in order to destroy the Welsh nationality, which they regarded as a shield for Jacobites. What more did they do? They sent Englishmen to the benefices there; they would not encourage English Welsh-speaking, and the result was that there was no preaching in Wales, there was no teaching in Wales, and there was practically no public worship in Wales. It became a pagan nation because the religion was associated with the State, and the State dominated religion there for political purposes. How can we, therefore, avoid looking into the past when we are considering the desirability or otherwise of associating religion with the State? Even in Tudor days the same thing happened. It is perfectly true that the Welsh nationality v as naturally very favourably inclined to the Tudor dynasty.
But take what happened to John Pendry. Why was he executed It was not that, the Tudor bishops were opposed to the Welsh language, because Arch-
290
bishop Whitby encouraged the translation of the Bible into the Welsh language and he took the first step. Then came John Pendry and said, "What is the good of translating the Bible into the language of the people until you teach the people to read and until you are able to explain and preach to them?" By that time the Puritans were giving trouble in England —political trouble as well as religious trouble. Archbishop Whitby started quarrelling with the Puritans, and because there was a political row in England John Pendry was not allowed to preach in Wales. What does that mean? If you trace the history of the Establishment for 300 years in Wales, you will find that at every stage it has interfered with the spiritual life of the Welsh people. It is true to-day. The hon. Member (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) knows perfectly well that the greatest preacher his Church produced in this generation in Wales never received recognition—Dean Howell —one of the greatest preachers who ever mounted the pulpit, a man of most extraordinary eloquence. If you had left it to the Welsh people to choose their bishop, he would have been chosen unanimously. He never was made a bishop. Why? He was not a strong partisan. He did not take an active part id Church defence. He did not attack Radicals on the platform. He did not go careering about England addressing Tory audiences, denouncing Welsh Nonconformity and Liberal Ministers and Liberal measures. So, although Dean Howell was the greatest preacher the Church produced, probably for a whole generation, it was only when he was an old man at the end of his days that he even became a dean.
Appointments are still made for political State reasons and not for reasons which affect the spiritual and religious life of the people, and until you separate the two it will always poison the atmosphere of the Church. None know that better than the young clergy. If I were a Churchman I would fight this to the very end. I think it is vital to the Church, if it is to become a power in Wales, as I hope to God it will, that it should be free to adapt itself to the spirit of Christian sympathy and to the racial temperament of the people, and that is why from the bottom of my heart I regret the fact that I can see fetters being forged which will keep these young men, full of eloquence, full of spirit, full of the real temperance of religious revivalism,

291
within fetters which may be quite suited to the great Church in this country but which are absolutely unsuited to the temperament of the race.
I have only one more point to refer to. I wish the Leader of the Opposition were here, as I should like to put a question to him. He is a Scotch Presbyterian. I might put it to the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. F. E. Smith). If he is not a Presbyterian, he is, at any rate, a Nonconformist. Let me put this: Supposing that in Scotland they had failed in 1685 to establish Presbyterianism —supposing that the Church in Scotland had remained Episcopalian, their numbers would probably be larger in that country than they are at the present moment, but let us assume that they have only one-fourth of the population, and that the remaining three-fourths are Presbyterians—I wish to ask the Leader of the Opposition whether, in that case, he would vote against a Bill which proposed to Disestabish Episcopalianism as the national religion of Scotland? Would he insist on enforcing Anglicanism there? I can see some Scottish Members opposite. Would they insist upon enforcing Anglicanism upon the Presbyterians of Scotland? I think I am entitled to ask that question. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) talked about Wales being in a minority. Is it because Wales.is small that you insist upon enforcing Anglicanism there? It has a nationality as distinct as that of Scotland, and its repudiation of Anglicanism is just as emphatic as that of Scotland. Why should it be enforced upon us? The second question I wish to put is this: Supposing you bad Anglicanism in Scotland as the national religion, and a Bill were carried through for the purpose of Disestablishing it, would you afterwards insist that the Presbyterian farmers of Scotland should go on paying their teinds to the Disestablished Episcopalian Church? Of course, you would do nothing of the kind. I could put the same question to English Members. Presbyterianism was established in this country at one time. Supposing that it had continued, supposing that at the Restoration you had not restored Episcopalianism, and that three-fourths of the people were Episcopalian, and only one-fourth belonged to the Presbyterian Established Church, would the Episcopalians have gone on paying for that
292
Church? We only ask them to render to us the justice they demand for themselves. They would not tolerate it for an hour. They would regard it as an humiliation and an insult to their faith. Wales is small. Is her claim for justice therefore to be refused? Wales is loyal and law-abiding. She does not threaten rebellion the moment Acts of Parliament are passed.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: What about the Education Bill?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We did not threaten rebellion or illegality. I ask: "Are these things to count against her?" It will be a bad day for constitutional government in this country when they do. We have asked this measure in the spirit of the Constitution, and by the methods of the Constitution, once, and then a second time—we have asked not for one generation, but for several generations, justice from the Imperial Parliament, and now I trust it will be granted.
Mr. CAVE: I do not think we have any reason to complain of the temper or the argument of the right hon. Gentlemen. He has dealt with the argument on the whole temperately, and I desire, if I may, to be allowed to reply to him in the same spirit. The right hon. Gentleman began by using what I venture to call the political argument, namely, that this Bill is supported by the majority of the Members for Wales. The reply has always been that, in the first place, that argument has no bearing whatever upon the question of Disendowment. Whatever may be its force as to Disestablishment, no majority has a right to confiscate the property of the minority. If a great majority of my neighbours desired to take my property, I dare say I should have to part with it, but if 99 per cent. desired to take it without any consideration whatever, I am sure I would resist, and I think the right hon. Gentleman would take the same course. I do not think that he, or anybody, has shown that the political argument has any force whatever. Even as regards Disestablishment, I think it may be pressed a great deal too far. After all, the Church of England and Wales is one Church, and the English and the Welsh, if they be two nations, are, at all events, parts of one State. Let me assume that the Welsh do desire to cut that Church in two, and to establish a different system in Wales from that which we have in England. I think that is a proposal which concerns not

293
Wales only, but England also. We are entitled to say that by no act of ours, but simply as the result of the history of the country, the Church in England and Wales is one, and we who have her interests at heart are entitled to object to the Church being rent in two because a part only of the country may desire it. All Englishmen have an interest in the question how far in our country of which Wales forms a part—I agree a most important part—it is wise or right to attempt to cut the link: which binds the State to religion. After all, that is a point which concerns every man in this country. It may be due to my bringing up as a lawyer, but I believe that the formal connection between religion and the State is good for the State, and perhaps as much in Wales as in any other part of our country. You have in Wales, as elsewhere, from time to time great religious revivals. They spring up, burst into flame, and die away, but all the time we have there as here the presence of the legal establishment of religion in the personality of the Church of England. We did not impose that Church upon Wales. It is a fallacy to say that England imposed Church Establishment on Wales by force. The Church in Wales is older than the Church of England. It grew up there, as it grew up here as part of our common history, and it would be one thing to endeavour to force the Establishment on Wales if it did not exist there, and quite another thing to cut an existing Church in two, and deprive part of the country of the benefit of the close association of religion with the State. I was struck with the Chancellor's second argument. He said "After all you English people are riot a religious people at all. This Bill is supported by the only religious parts of the country, namely, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland." I doubt his premises entirely, but, at all events, I am somewhat surprised that he should state that the support which the Irish Nationalist Members give to this Bill is all through their solicitude for the future of religion.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but he has not, paid attention to what I said. What I said was this: If they were convinced that the Bill was impairing the cause of religion in Wales, they would certainly not vote for it.
Mr. CAVE: I will not dispute with the right hon. Gentleman about what he said. I have a vivid recollection of that part of
294
his argument in which he stated that the three most religious parts of the Kingdom were in favour of this Bill. Among these, he included and indeed specified Ireland, and I think the answer is a fair one that the Irish Nationalist Members, if they were free to deal with the matter, would perhaps be supporters of the strongest kind of Establishment which the world has ever known. With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman I do not believe that the support they give to this Bill is due to any religious motive whatever. I believe they would acknowledge in this House that they support the Bill because they desire Home Rule.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: For the last thirty years we have voted in favour of Welsh Disestablishment whenever it came up, quite apart from Home Rule.
Mr. CAVE: One thing which is certain is that the proposals for Disestablishment come from the party, and the only party that ever made proposals for Home Rule. Whatever the hon. and learned Member says, I cannot think that he means that the support he gives to this Bill is really owing to his concurrence with the arguments used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think it would be fairer to say that, at all events, the moving spirit behind his support to-day is another reason altogether than a religious one.
7.0 P.M.
Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to some reasons why, according to him, the Welsh people desire Disestablishment. He referred to the strong feeling in Wales against the Establishment. He did not mention, but the hon. Member for Pembroke did mention a reason for the feeling which was said to exist against the Church in Wales, which is seldom referred to in this House, but has been referred to before. The hon. Member said that for some reason of social feeling the Welsh people objected to the Establishment. I believe that to be an injustice to the Welsh people, and to the Welsh Nonconformists. I do not think that such a petty feeling actuates them, and I am pretty sure that if Disestablishment came about it would not alter by a jot the social relations between the ministers of different Churches in Wales. What the right hon. Gentleman did was to strive to fan the embers of past controversies in Wales, to revive in his own way Welsh Church history, and to put down that as a reason for this Bill. To begin with, I quarrel very much with his history. I think that he was mistaken

295
about the position of the Church of England in Wales. In the seventeenth century I believe that the power and influence of the Church of England in Wales were very great.
I do not think it is true to say that the Reformation was anything like a failure in Wales. I think that the Church was extremely strong, and if there was, as indeed there was, any decline of Church work and Church earnestness in Wales, it dates, I believe, rather from the Hanoverian period, when so much slackness came into a great deal of our national life than from the earlier period of the Reformation. That is the time upon which the strictures of the right hon. Gentleman should be bestowed. In any case, is it a wise or statesmanlike thing to justify proposals for a change to-day by reference to a history which we all admit is the history of a bygone time, and reflects only what happened in that time? The Prime Minister, who spoke on the Second Reading of this Bill, said, I think with more justice and more wisdom, that that time was gone, and that the Church was rapidly overtaking the arrears of the past, and if there had been, as there was, neglect in the Church in Wales generations ago, that is no longer the case, and the Church has put all her energies into the work, and the successful work, of making up the ground which was then lost, and establishing once for all her position in the hearts of the Welsh people. It would be wiser to take account of these present conditions, and not to go back to the worst time, not to use past history for the purpose of severing the different Churches in Wales, but to use the more recent history as an engine for unifying the religious denominations. This Bill is a survival from the feelings of a generation back. If it falls through, as we hope and believe it may, no Bill in such a form as this would be heard of for a generation to come, and I hope and believe that during that time the progress of unification will be so great that the desire which now exists among Welsh Members for a Bill of this kind would no longer find expression, or at any rate forcible expression, in this House.
Little has been said to-day about the question of Disendowment. The Chancellor proposed to deal wth it, but he did not do so, and yet it is a matter of very great moment, and we are entitled to ask that we should hear, not the justification
296
for Disendowment, but your real inducement, your real reason for Disendowment. Think for a moment what you propose to do. You are going to set aside a title which rests on a prescription of centuries—for the title of the reformed Church itself is centuries old. You are going to take away an income not, as is often rather suggested, from a wealthy Church; you are going to take £160,000 a year, not from a body called the Church of England in Wales, but you are going to take away from the thousand parochial corporations in Wales. You are taking £50 here, £100 here and £200 there, from the service of the Church, not of course, from the present incumbents, many of whom may not last for many years, but from the next incumbents. Consider what that means. It means that the next incumbent of a Welsh parish will perhaps be a man having less pay, and therefore, perhaps, of less education, who will have less for food and less for his clothing. He must wear his old coat some years longer. He will have less to give away to people who want help in his parish, and he will be in the position of begging month after month and year after year for the means to carry on his work in the parish. If you face it, that is what it means. It is not taking £160,000 a year from the Church in Wales. It is taking these little sums of £50, £100, or £200 from the men who in these little parishes in Wales are doing the spiritual work. Will hon. Gentlemen look at it in that way and tell me why they are going to do that? It is a farce to to tell us that it is a good thing for the Church or its ministers. You may say that. No one here believes it. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that you believe it. Why, then, are you going to take so much from the income of these men? What man, woman, or child will be any better for this proposal? Will any hon. Member opposite give an answer to that question?
The real reason for Disendowment is not that which you have given in this House. It is not your doubtful history and bad law. That is not your reason. It may be your excuse in your own mind, your justification. It is not the thing which pushes you along and induces you to do this thing. No doubt the primary reason is the number of Welsh Members who press this on the Government; but what moves them and their constituents? I think it is not at all due to the kind of feeling to which the hon. Member for Pembroke

297
referred, which, as I have already said, is too petty a thing on which to base a change of this kind, and I cannot help feeling that deep down in the minds of some supporters of Disendowment is the feeling that ministers of the Church in England and Wales ought not to have a fixed income of this kind, that their brethren the ministers of Nonconformist Churches have no regular income and have to collect what they require, and that the ministers of the Church of England ought to be in the same position. Is that the feeling of anyone? If it is, I think he ought to put it out of his mind, for surely deliberately to impoverish men who are doing work of this kind is not an object worthy of any member of any Church.
I leave the reasons and go to some of the excuses. The hon. Member for Pembroke was bold enough to say that the Church Endowments were national property. He said that tithe is national property because the Courts enforce payment, but the Courts did not enforce payment of the tithe except when the tithe was a debt. The Courts were only enforcing payment of a debt, and if that makes it national property, then there is no source of income which on the same principle is not national property.
Mr. ROCH: That was not my reason.
Mr. CAVE: I heard the hon. Gentleman, and if I have mistaken his meaning I can read his speech to-morrow, but that is the impression that he made on me. I prefer very much the answer given by the Prime Minister in the speech to which I have referred. He said: "True the Endowments of the Church are not national properly in the sense of being the property of the public. They are the property of the Church, but they were given to the Church as the National Church and as representing the nation on its spiritual side, and now that the Church no longer represents the nation we think that the Endowments ought to be taken away." Let the House examine that for a few moments. A great part of the Endowments was given to the Church at a time when the Church was substantially the Church of the whole nation, but the Endowments were given to the Church for spiritual purposes, and purposes which were to be pursued through the medium of this particular Church of England. The Church continues. There are to-day as many members of the Church of England, probably more, than when the Endowments were
298
given. The Endowments are not a bit too much for use through the medium of the Church. That being so, what justification have you for taking away those Endowments from the Church? The purpose of the givers can be carried out to the full to-day. If the Endowments were too great for this purpose they might be dealt with as other charitable funds, which exceed the needs for which they are intended. They are not too great; they are not great enough. The original purposes can be carried out, the spiritual good of the country can be pursued through the medium of the Church services, and they can be carried out to-day. You have therefore no ground for taking away the funds given to the Church.
In any event, I submit that this argument condemns itself, or rather, condemns the Bill. If these funds were given for the spiritual purposes of the whole nation, then what right have you to divert them from those spiritual purposes? That argument, if it be true, would surely lead up to a different conclusion from that which finds place in this Bill. You might say, "Under these conditions, these moneys, given for spiritual uses, do not fulfil the whole of the spiritual uses of the nation; let us so deal with them so that they will be more efficiently and more generally applied to spiritual purposes." But what you are going to do is to divert them to other purposes altogether. Hon. Gentlemen know the point which is in my mind, as it is in theirs. In the last discussion on the Bill many of us expressed willingness that, if the Endowments of the Church were to be taken away they should be applied to the benefit of all Christian denominations. That proposal was rejected by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the reason which they gave is this: "We do not want any of your Endowments; we do not want people to say that we do." What does it matter what people say, or even what hon. Gentlemen opposite in this generation want. The point is not what they want, but what is best for the country, and what is most in. accord with the spirit in which the Endowments were given. I wish it were still possible to have fairer, more generous, and more impartial consideration of this matter. Perhaps this is the day of all others when we could desire that something should be said which might lead to unification in those efforts for religion which, in different forms, animate so many people of this country. I wish

299
there were a chance of that, but I believe that the greatest obstacle to unity in religious matters in this country is the proposal that you make in this Bill. If you carry your Bill you set the denominations against one another for a generation, perhaps for generations to come. All of them, I believe, certainly those with whom I am best acquainted, certainly the members of the Church of England, are more than willing, they are eager to consider any proposal by which religious forces might be united against the forces on the other side. But you make that impossible by this Bill. This must be the last word I have to say on this proposal for Disestablishment and Disendowment, and I beg the House to consider whether, in making a proposal of this kind, they are not, whatever they may desire—and I do not wish to attribute to anyone other than proper motives—aiming at the religion of the country a dangerous, almost a fatal, blow.
Mr. FRANCE: I cannot quite agree with the hon. Member who spoke from below the Gangway a short time ago, that nothing has been changed in the tone or point of view of Members on either side of the House during this Debate and during the controversy which has gone on during last year and this year. Anyone who has listened to the speeches which have been delivered must realise there is a difference of atmosphere and of tone and at the same time that there is at any rate an attempt to see the other's point of view. That, I think, is something for which we ought to be very thankful. The speech of the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Bridgeman) in opening the Debate was one which I admired, though in one particular it rather astonished me. It seemed to me that he desired to rule out the Irish vote in the decision of this matter. It also seemed to me that for the first time he wished to propose that the Scottish vote should not be regarded in dealing with the Welsh Church. I thought that he even desired to carry the suggestion a little further than that, because he pointed out that Oswestry is the only English town affected by this Bill, and apparently he would appear to suggest that English votes ought riot to count in this controversy. In arriving at that interesting conclusion he arrived at one which undoubtedly would affect a-great many of us who, on the main principles of Disestablishment and a certain measure of Disen-
300
dowment, have always held that the voice of Wales ought to be listened to with respect and with effect. I am afraid that there is a disposition on the part of some speakers—I refer more particularly to Members on the other side—not altogether to appreciate the point of view put forward with such eloquence as that in the speech delivered by the hon. Member for Pembroke.
They do not see the real point of view of those who feel that the history, electoral and religious, of Wales during the last two generations shows that the time has come for carrying into effect the wishes of the Welsh people with regard to the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church. I admit that it is sometimes a difficulty, and very often a dangerous thing, to attempt to see the other man's point of view. Some of us made that experiment last year, and although it did not meet with the success which we honestly desired, yet, as far as I am personally concerned, and I am not a member of the Church of England, its object was not to secure something for the Church, from the monetary point of view, but was undertaken from the point of view so eloquently expressed by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock only a few weeks ago in this House. At a time such as this, when a great change is likely to be carried into effect by the majority of this House, and further to be carried into effect under the operation of the Parliament Act, we felt there should be an effort made as far as possible to prevent bitterness and future controversy from raging round the subject by treating the Church with the greatest amount of generosity and rightness of view, compatible with adherence to principle. That was the point of view some of us took last year. The reasons which led us to do so were put forward by the hon. Member for Kilrnarnock. I should, however, like to emphasise this fact which has been lost sight of, or certainly has been partly misunderstood, that some of us who took that point of view last year have always been, and still are, firm and consistent supporters of the principle of Disestablishment and a measure of Disendowment. The reason for attempting to alter the Bill to some extent in Committee was an effort to look at the whole question from a point of view which is not quite our own, but our efforts in that direction were not received with favour and were not helped forward by those who now, quite honestly, say that they view the whole Bill with disfavour, and not only with disfavour, but

301
with an intention of resisting it at every stage.
The hon. Member for Oswestry rather twitted us with complaining that our efforts towards compromise or a more generous settlement have not been accepted. If the hon. Member had been present I should have liked to remind him that there is surely some difference between the point of view of those who wish to suggest something in the nature of compromise and the point of view of those to whom that compromise was offered. It must not be forgotten that the wishes of the people in Wales have been distinctly and duly declared on this subject. There is a majority in this House which represents the wishes of the people of Wales, and there is the Parliament Act which was passed for the very purpose of seeing that constitutional declarations of opinion in the country and in this House shall be carried into effect. When that position is established, then there is something to be said on behalf of those who feel and who are anxious that the utmost generosity should be observed in regard to those who undoubtedly will feel for a time a great sense of soreness and grievance. I do not, however, think that it is quite fair that the feeling which has been manifested on this side of the House, and which has found expression in the way I have indicated, should be received with such uncompromising opposition and refusal. There is one point which influences me and many of those "who think with me in voting, with a sound and clear conscience, and with enthusiasm for the Third Reading of this Bill, and it is that having seen this declaration of opinion and feeling in Wales so eloquently described to-day, having seen in this House, not a diminishing, but an increasing majority in support of the main principles of the measure, and having seen the Bill sent to the House of Lords and rejected without any attempt at amendment, and without any alteration in its details being suggested—having seen all these things; many of us, and I am one them, have come to the conclusion that the Bill should pass into law, and that all those who uphold and believe in the best traditions of constitutional government, should deem it their duty to give it their hearty support.
Mr. DUKE: In listening to the Debate which has proceeded during this afternoon, one could not help wishing that the fundamentals of this matter might have teen discussed in some such spirit as has
302
been manifested here to-day, before His Majesty's Government had framed the Bill upon which the people of this country are divided root and branch, so that it is difficult to know who are the majority and who are the minority. I cannot help thinking, for my own part, if hon. Members who speak in terms of appeasement and conciliation to-night, when, as we think, a great act of wrong and injustice is about to be inflicted, so far as it can be iniflcted, had brought those matters into their consideration and had impressed them upon their political leaders some time ago, we might have had a Bill very different from this Bill. Two main grounds have been stated in the course of this Debate why this House ought to take this Bill. I am not going to cavil with the grounds, and I do not think Englishmen, as a rule, cavil with the grounds. One is, better recognition of the national character of the people of Wales. I do not cavil with that ground, and I have never met any rational person who desired to belittle the national characteristics of the people of Wales. Another ground was the capacity of the people of Wales to manage their own affairs, and their desire for religious independence, and for the absence of badges of religious inequality. With regard to the national characteristics of the people of Wales, if they had been applied to some rational scheme of Church reform, one could conceive that out of the Debate which has necessarily attended the raising of this question, you might have had a settlement, perhaps a settlement with a very large measure of consent, which would have recognised the national characterestics of the people of Wales, and perhaps have realised in some measure those ambitions which showed themselves here and there in the very interesting speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
But recognition of the national characteristics of the people of Wales does not imperatively require that you should inflict insult upon a majority of the people of England. It is not necessary in order to give effect to the religious independence of Wales that you should treat the view of the people of England who are-members of one common Church with a. certain proportion of the people of Wales as though their feelings and their opinions were negligible. So, I say, when you introduce into the Debate on this question the national characteristics of the people of Wales, you do not advance yourselves

303
one step on the road on which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen have travelled so far. What is the detriment to the national characteristics of the people of Wales that there exists in Wales about a fourth, if not a third, of the population of Wales who are attached to a Church more ancient than the monarchy of England? What is the detriment to the national Character of Wales in that? Christianity is wider than any national tie. Christianity in its best days was world-wide, at any rate throughout the civilised world, and to treat the common membership of a historic and ancient Church as though it were an insult and affront to the national feeling of the people of Wales is really to present an insult to national feeling in Wales. What men look forward to is that religious differences will disappear, and what they look forward to with regard to separations of Christian men is the world-wide union of Christian men, and if that is the true and real religious ambition, how is it served, or how can it be supposed it is being served, by throwing the integrity of the existence and the ancient historic unity of a great Church as a sop to this recently engendered passion for the magnifying of the national characteristics of the people of Wales? This is not a politic proposal, or a national proposal, it is a partisan proposal with regard to that matter of national feeling in Wales.
This question of the position of the Establishment and of the Church in relation to the people in Wales has very little more than a notional existence. The Established Church of England, comprising Wales, does not impose itself by any mode of compulsion upon any one person in Wales. No layman in Wales is subject to the jurisdiction of any Church Court. There is no ecclesiastic in Wales who would desire or dare to interfere with the religious independence of any individual in Wales. How can it then he said that there is some hurt or affront to the nationality of Wales that a third or fourth of the population in Wales enjoy a historic right which they have inherited in their membership of a Church, of which no man need be ashamed to be a member, and which takes its stand by right of its history upon an equality with any ecclesiastical or religious organisation which has ever existed? Where is the affront to the people of Wales in that membership, or the possibility of that membership, and there is nothing more than that? Whether certain divines
304
shall sit in the House of Lords, which is, of course, to be reformed, or whether they shall attend Convocation, are matters which really have nothing to do with the national characteristics or the individual independence of people in Wales. One comes to the other matter, namely, that of dealing with the Church in the practical elements of its everyday life, to which my hon. and learned Friend so cogently, referred. The gist of this Bill is not the degradation of the influence of the bishop or the reduction of the social status of the Church of England clergymen; you cannot do it. Men of the character and calibre of the bishops and clergy of the Church in Wales cannot be degraded by Act of Parliament. They have the charter of their position in their character and in the affection which they gain by the performance of their duties, and it is an idle expectation, when you throw a sop to fanaticism and to sectarianism, to pretend by Act of Parliament to alter the status of ecclesiastics in Wales.
The gist of this matter really is the injury which is to be inflicted, the temporal and permanent injury in a material sense which is to be inflicted, on the Church in Wales for the reasons to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. The Chancellor of the Exchequer framed once more his unjust indictment against the Church in Wales in past times. There were lay members of the Church in Wales and there were Welsh clergymen of the Church in Wales. In this country we do not take the position of the Church in England in Hanoverian times and treat it as though it were the offence of somebody else. We take some blame to the people of England in those days for the condition of their Church in that time. I do not say the cases are entirely analogous, but there is similarity between them. What does it mean when the right hon. Gentleman, with his eloquent phrases and his ingenious mind, frames once more his indictment against the Church of England in respect of its past history and its want of sympathy as lie says with the national genius of the people of Wales. It means this, that the right hon. Gentleman is stating reasons for the spoliation of the Church. That is the object of those ingenious and often repeated charges against the past history of the Church in Wales. The real live question about the Church in Wales is what is she doing to-day, and the generous answer is that which has been given in this House and

305
elsewhere by the Prime Minister that she is doing her duty with every ounce of her powers, with every penny of the revenues which have descended to her. Yet this is the time which is chosen for spoliation, the time when the Church is progressing in the lines of her duty, and when it is known that she is gaining an increased hold on the masses of the people in Wales. Is this the time at which hon. Members who have spoken here in terms of conciliation should join in this attack?
For my part, I think one of the most deplorable incidents of this deplorable controversy is the means which is found of raking up and reviving old accusations in order to justify the infliction of punishment upon the Church in Wales. Will the cause of religion be advanced by diverting £160,000 per year from the duty of the advancement of religion to the furnishing of museums? [An HON. MEMBER "There are no museums."] If there are no museums, the last excuse for depriving the Church of this money is gone. I thought that for want of some other lawful object to which this money could be applied, without the shamefaced consent of any individual who would not have too little pride to accept it for his own purposes, museums and objects of that kind had been selected as a kind of nonsectarian purpose to which this money could be diverted. An hon. Member says they are not in the Bill, but the library is in the Bill. I do not care whether they are libraries or museums. Does anybody suppose who professes any interest in the advancement of religion that the difficulties of this time with regard to the advancement of religion are going to be mended, much less ended, by appropriating a new fund towards free libraries beyond the farthing or penny in the £ which you can get under the existing law. Nobody dreams that those libraries and museums are religious purposes. When you speak of money which has been bestowed for the purposes of the community to be used for the purposes of the community for the most sacred objects of all, that is for the spiritual good of the community, you touch a chord in the heart of every honest man and it is easy enough to get his sympathy. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) has appealed to that sympathy with the proposal that if we cannot be agreed to leaving this money to he devoted to the religious uses for which it is now used, at any rate to agree upon
306
some religious uses to which it shall be devoted. Hon. Members would find a. considerable response in some quarters where they would not expect it if it were possible that these difficulties could be composed upon lines of that sort, but when you propose to take a little fund of perhaps £160,000, less than 2s. per head for the population of Wales, and to divert it from religious purposes where it is most urgently needed, and to apply it where it is mere superfluity and waste, then you; negative the suggestion that you are pursuing this purpose with any religious motive at aii. Go back to t he indictment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and you see, just as the political purposes of the Bill are partisan purposes, the religious purposes of the Bill are those of sectarian bitterness and animosity. Hon. Members complain that strong language is used. So long as they think fit to abuse the Parliament Act in overriding by the strong hand, the feelings of those who are a majority of the people of England, if they are not a majority of the people of the three Kingdoms, as many of us believe they are, they must not expect that it is going to be received on this side as though they were making a supreme manifestation of the Christian virtues towards us. They are doing nothing of the sort. They are inflicting injustice and wrong, and on this side of the House, and I believe in the country at large, this willingness of theirs for partisan and sectarian purposes to inflict injustice and wrong, will be resisted as long as resistance is of any avail.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: I was interested to hear in the genuinely earnest speech of the hon. and learned Member that he had never yet met a rational being who denied the distinctness of Welsh nationality. Evidently, he was not in the House when the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) declared that he denied it. I understand, however, that the hon. and' learned Member said a "rational" being. Therefore, I accept his correction. The hon. and learned Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave), in his very interesting speech, asked a number of questions. He said that we were cutting the link between the State and religion. I should like to say in reply to that, that there is no formal connection between State and religion in any of our Colonies or in Ireland. I wonder whether the hon. and learned Member will declare that religion does not count

307
for as much in Ireland or in our Colonies as it does in England or in Wales. He went on to say that the steady pressure of the State connection is one of the great advantages of the State Establishment. He said: "In your Nonconformist churches you have periodical religious revivals; they come and they go; they wax and they wane, and there is an end of them." "As the result of this connection between Church and State, you have the steady pressure of the State connection." I do not for a moment quarrel with the phrase. It is perfectly true. 'That is just where our grievance comes in. We have felt the steady pressure of the State connection in Wales. Hon. Members opposite would not for a moment deny that in Wales, the great bulk of the people are Nonconformists. They till, they sow, they plant; and they are forced by law to pay tithe for the maintenance of a Church whose services they never attend. Some time ago they said, "We will not pay. We believe in religion, but we do not believe in the connection between State and Church. We never visit the Established Church, therefore we will refuse to have anything to do with it." Then came "the steady pressure of the State connection." Their horses, cattle and pigs, were sold up; and they were made to feel "the steady pressure of the State connection." Then, as the hon. and learned Member will know, they decided that, instead of having more tithe sales, they would recommend their own Parliamentary representatives to come on to the floor of the House and demand what they conceive to be elemental justice. That is why this Bill has been brought forward by the Government—in response to the demand of the Welsh people, that "this steady pressure of the State connection "should cease where religious questions are concerned. The hon. and learned Member for Kingston drew a picture, which the last speaker emphasised, and with which I have a good deal of sympathy. No one will deny that many of the successors of the present clergy will suffer when this Bill goes through.
Mr. EDGAR JONES: No
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: Certainly. I am entitled to my opinion. I have a good deal of sympathy with the man who finds that he will have to depend on the voluntary offerings of his people where before he had the "steady pressure of the State
308
connection." But who pays this money? The hon. and learned Member did not ask that question. He says that £160,000 is paid in hundreds and fifties to these men. But who pays it? These Nonconformist peasants. They toil by the sweat of their brow to pay it; and then they attend their own little Nonconformist chapels. The hon. and learned Member has sympathy with the clergy who, he rightly says, cannot be degraded because they are not dependent on wealth. But these Nonconformist peasants are not in a position to pay to men whose services they never require. Take the Nonconformist churches. Their ministers are not as well paid as they ought to be. We grant that. But what are we doing? We are raising central funds; we are making appeals to the rich members of our Nonconformist bodies out of the fullness of their riches to supplement the stipends of the ministry. That is a voluntary offering. We do not appeal to the steady application of the arm of the State. If Churchmen are prepared to do voluntarily what we are prepared to do, their clergy will have no cause to complain. The hon. and learned Member expressed the belief that if this Bill falls through there will be an end of it. I do not for a moment think that the hon. and learned Member who spoke last believes that. I remember sitting in the Gallery when he spoke on the Bill of 1894, and he said almost the same thing then. We were told then, "This Church of ours is increasing. Leave it alone for ten or twenty years, and you will see the Welsh Liberal Members will diminish." But here we are to-day in greater force even than in 1894.
Mr. DUKE: I think there is some mistake of identity. I had not the honour of a seat in the House until 1900.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: Perhaps it was on the second Welsh Bill. I may be mistaken in the date, but I am not mistaken in the speaker. The name, the voice, and even the style of argument appealed to me in the Gallery, and I have taken almost a paternal interest in the hon. and learned Member ever since. I was delighted to hear him again to-night, because I am now able to speak, which I could not do from the Gallery, and to tell him that we are here in greater numbers than ever. I would ask hon. Members opposite, what do you really propose in regard to this question in Wales? You cannot leave matters as they are. Some of you say that

309
you are more opposed to Disestablishment than to Disendowment. I do not know whether the hon. and learned Member is prepared to associate himself with some of his colleagues in that declaration. What is Establishment? The late Lord Selborne, who was as zealous a Churchman as he was distinguished as a lawyer, declared that Establishment is a political privilege. Are hon. Members opposite prepared to accept Lord Selborne's definition? If so, I ask on what ground they justify the perpetuation of that political privilege. Bishop Welidon, some time ago, laid down two tests which he said a State Church ought to be able to satisfy: First, that the Established Church in a country should embrace half the people of the community; and, secondly, that it should be broadly sympathetic with the tone and temper, the age and the ideals, of that country. Will the hon. and learned Member for a moment maintain that the Established Church in Wales satisfies either of those tests? So far from embracing half the population, according to their own showing on the statistics supplied to the Church Commission, they are only able to number 193,000 out of a population of 2,000,000. As to sympathy with the tone and temper of the nation, how does the hon. and learned Member account for the fact that out of thirty-four Welsh Members, thirty-one are in favour of the Bill, and no less than six of those thirty-one are Churchmen? My hon. Friend the Member for Pembrokeshire (Mr. Roch), who made an interesting speech to-night, is a very zealous Churchman. He is in favour of this Bill, though he thinks as much of the Church of England as any hon. Member opposite.
8.0. P.M.
It has been said by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Welsh bishops, and it was repeated to-night by the hon. and learned Member for Kingston, that the Establishment of religion means the national recognition of religion—that it is a guarantee that the State is solicitous for the welfare of religion. If that is so, I can never account for one fact: How is it that in the Colonies there is no such connection between State and Church? There is no national recognition of religion in that sense, but no one will declare that the people are less religious in the Colonies than in our own country. The hon. and learned Member spoke very bitterly about the proposals in the Bill dealing with Disendowment. If I understand the position of hon. Members opposite
310
aright, they object to Disendowment on two grounds: They declare that we are taking away property belonging to the Church, and they complain that we are diverting to secular objects money which was left for religious work. Let us deal with the first ground. The Prime Minister, on the Second Reading, in reply to the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University, proved conclusively, at any rate to my mind, that this property was given, in the first instance, not to the Church, but to the parish. It was given to the community. I should like to put a question which has puzzled me a good deal. The Bishop of St. David's, in his crusade up and down Wales, has said that in leaving to the Church her Endowments after 1662 we are only leaving her 6d. in the £. Very well. Do hon. Members for a moment say that the people of the Church before 1662 were more pious than those who have lived since? If up to the year 1662 it was a matter of 18s. 6d. in the and since 1662 it has only been 1s. 6d., you are forced either to confess that the men who lived before 1662 were more pious and more generous to the Church or to come to our view that the bulk of that money was given for the benefit. of the parish and not for the benefit of the Church. Let me remind the House of the recent discovery of churchwardens' accounts in Somersetshire. It is a most interesting discovery. A collection of these churchwardens' accounts were published under the editorship of Bishop Hobhouse. They related to six parishes in Somerset-shire, and they began as far back as the year 1344. If I remember rightly, that is before the very first of the predecessors of Mr. Speaker had been appointed to that Chair. What do those accounts show? They contain entries of parish property. It was very rare for any person of substance in those days to make a will without leaving a legacy to the parish. Very commonly there was a bequest of a widow's wedding ring. If you look at these accounts you will find that money left to the parish was utilised by the Church, and it was utilised on behalf of various objects in the life of the community. It is quite true that the clergy were maintained; that the fabric of the Church buildings were, kept in repair. The hon. and learned Gentleman will be interested to know that sonic portion of the money was spent on historical plays. In a certain parish in

311
Cambridgeshire a part of the tithe went for the rehearsal of the play, "St. George and the Dragon," and even in Wales some portion of the tithe were diverted by the Welsh princes for the maintenance of the public roads. So I absolutely dissent from the hon. and learned Gentleman when he declares that we are diverting to secular objects money which has been left for purely religious work. We maintain that that money, even originally, was given in various directions for the good and for the benefit of the community at large. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not deny that a part of the tithe and a part of these Church Endowments went in the establishment and support of almshouses and hospitals. He knows that when it became necessary to establish colleges in medicine and in law at Oxford and Cambridge, in order to prevent English youths going over to the Continent, that a large number of the parishes of this country got a diversion of tithe for the purpose of founding and establishing these colleges. To this very day—
Mr. DUKE: The hon. Member must not suppose that because I do not interrupt that I concur in the suggestion—that the people of the parish or the parish had the control and the disposition of the tithe. I dissent from it absolutely.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: I do not for a moment mistake the silence of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I know he is much too courteous to a younger Member of this Assembly to interrupt. But I do take it for granted that he knows quite as much as I do. He himself admits—at least he does not deny—that money came from the parish. I do not say that it came from the people, but that money left to the parishes went directly, for the purpose of founding and endowing these colleges. I will tell him something new. In Wales the tithe from a certain number of parishes comes now every year for the maintenance of Christ College, Oxford, one of the richest colleges in Oxford. If it be right that part of the Welsh tithe should be diverted for the maintenance of one of the richest colleges in Oxford, I fail to see why the hon. and learned Gentleman should disagree with us, because we wish to divert it from Oxford for the maintenance of a national library. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are both wrong."] The hon. Member might help us to divert it from Oxford to begin with. We have heard a good
312
deal in the past, and we have heard a good deal to-day in reference to the dismemberment of the Church. The hon. and learned Gentleman hinted at it in his speech to-night. I well remember that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Walton spoke about dismemberment. I think the hon. Member for Dudley once complained of dismemberment as being even worse than Disestablishment or Disendowment.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Hear, hear.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: The hon. and gallant Gentleman assents to that. I am glad to have even one assent from the other side. But you cannot have it both ways. What is the Welsh Church? The hon. Member for Dudley went down into Wales, and spoke of the Welsh Church as the elder sister Church of the Church of-England. I agree with him. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South Bucks came here one night, and he said it is no good talking about an elder Church: You were taking away from the province of Canterbury four dioceses. He spoke of-Wales as if it were a mere geographical expression like Yorkshire and Lancashire. You cannot have it both ways. Either the Welsh Church is a collection of four Welsh dioceses, or it is, as the hon. Member for Dudley suggested, the elder sister Church. If it is only four Welsh dioceses; if, as the hon. Member for South Bucks suggested, it only represents four separate dioceses of the province of Canterbury, then they have no right to claim the national Church of Wales. If, on the other hand, the Church in Wales does represent the elder sister Church, then it is a reversion to type to free her from the jurisdiction of Canterbury. I would like to remind hon. Members that all through, from the great days of Welsh history, the Welsh have objected to the connection of the Church in Wales with the See of Canterbury. They objected to it at the time of Augustine, the first Bishop of Canterbury. They have objected to it all through the centuries, and as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, a petition was sent to the Pope from the Welsh Princes and from the Welsh people asking that the Church in Wales might be severed from any connection with Canterbury.
We, in Wales, base our claim on Nationality. We have no Ulster Unionists in Wales as they have in Ireland. The claim for Ulster is that there are two

313
separate peoples in Ireland. We have no Ulster in Wales. I do not forget that the hon. Member for Denbigh Boroughs once 'declared in an outburst of rhetoric, that if this Bill was passed—I am quoting from memory—he would unsheath the sword of his ancestor, and I suppose use it. I am quite sure that the hon. Member for Denbigh Boroughs is much too amiable a character that he should seek to moisten the rust that has gathered over the sword with the blood of his fellow countrymen. I am much more concerned with the attitude of the Opposition. It is stated that we complain that hon. Members opposite are not grateful for the concessions already made. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite realise that we have made far more concessions than I think the Government were justified in making. There were the concessions made by the Home Secretary in connection with Queen Anne's Bounty and the Parliamentary Grants Fund. I am quite ready to admit that my right hon. Friend had a, mind open to argument, and I believe that he was persuaded by sheer force of argument, but has not his colleagues, the Under-Secretary for the Home Office, in a pamphlet that he published over his name some time ago, declared that the income which Wales derived from the Queen Anne's Bounty as the income derived from Parliamentary Grants, is public and National in character. He also declared that as to the money coming from the Parliamentary Grants Fund, as it was contributed directly by Parliament, there could be no doubt about its public character. What was the great confession in the speech made by the colleague of the Home Secretary? We have given to the Church now a sum of £15,000 a year, which according to the Under-Secretary for the Home Office represents public property. I am quite sure of this, knowing the Home Secretary as I do, that I believe he has gone to the limit of concession. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Walton some time ago sneered at the Welsh Members and declared that we were always ready to bark and not to bite.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Hear; hear.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: There are, apparently, other hon. Members besides the one I have mentioned who have that feeling. Let me remind the House that if any more concessions are made the Home
314
Secretary and the Government would be dealing not with the Welsh Members, but with the Welsh people. You may have had your demonstrations in London. You are able to get better demonstrations than we, because you have more money to spend on them. You can get your petitions sent up signed by hundreds of thousands; but the people who go to the ballot-box vote unanimously in support of the Bill, and it is the ballot-box that counts in the Constitution of the country. A question was asked by the hon. Member for Oswestry, who told us in his speech of how he looked eastwards from his garden—and I must confess that I wondered what the feelings were that were passing through his mind when he surveyed the glories of Wales from his back garden. I read an article the other day by the organiser of the Conservative party, the hon. Member for East Birmingham. He declares that at the next election the Tories hope to win 103 seats. I am quite sure that the hon. Member for Oswestry, when he surveyed the Welsh mountains, must have declared to himself that not one of these 103 would ever possibly come from Wales—not one of them! There is not the slightest chance. I may even tell the hon. Member, who has himself fought a Welsh seat, that I should not be surprised if at the next election we reduce the Tory representation of Wales from three to one—and perhaps even wipe that one out! Our opponents may complain that we rake up the past. You have to remember this, that nations, and especially Celtic peoples, have long memories. The neglect of centuries cannot be condoned in one day, or even in a generation. The Established Church knew not the day of its visitation. It wilfully and woefully neglected its mission and its opportunity. In its neglect, Nonconformity found its origin and its justification. Nonconformity found Wales, as my right hon. Friend once said, derelict. It reared up a nation. It found it pagan; it made the Welsh peasantry the most religious people in the whole of Europe. It found it ignorant, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared to-night in his speech. It has so stimulated its energy, that to-day it has the most complete educational system in the whole country. It found it dormant. It has made it the most progressive and most democratic community in the whole of the-United Kingdom. All that we seek under cover of this Bill is not to create envy or jealousy, as some of you arc apt to think and some are ready to declare; but rather

315
the removal of injustice, and ancient injustice whose rust has eaten into the very heart of our nation, and produced septic poisoning in the religious life of our people. Privilege for no religious body; equality for all religious bodies! That is, Sir, the substance of the national demand of Wales. That is what we ask, and less than that we will not take.
Mr. GRANT: I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in much of what he has said, but during the course of his remarks he put a very pointed question to this side of the House, and asked us what we proposed to do. Speaking for myself, I should say that we propose to leave things alone. The ancient Church in Wales is doing good and admirable work, and anything that we do to its detriment will be against the cause of religion in that country. The hon. Member made a statement that was interesting to us. He told us that at the present time the Nonconformist. Churches in Wales were building up a fund for the future—were, in fact, endowing their Church. How would the hon. Member—looking to the future—like, by Act of Parliament, to have that fund diverted from religious purposes, as suggested now in the Bill before us, and diverted to secular purposes? The question is perfectly similar to the point that we are making at the present time. The funds which are being dealt with by this Bill were funds put to one side for religious purposes. By this Bill it is proposed to divert them to secular purposes. I have listened to many speeches from the Government side in advocacy of this Bill. Speaking from an outside point of view, for I am not a member of the Church of England, or of any of the Nonconformist bodies in Wales, the real and fundamental question is, to my mind, whether this Bill will do a service to the cause of religion now or in the future. Any argument in that sense has been most conspicuous by its absence during the whole course of these Debates. We have heard ad 'nauseam statements made as to the number of people in Wales who are in favour of this Bill. We do not contradict it in any way whatever. That is not a matter of principle; it is only a question of so many heads in favour of one thing and so many in favour of another. We have been given a good deal of historical research, as interesting generally, I should say, as it has been accurate. This historical research —I speak as one not very learned in his-
316
tory: as a man in the street—does not interest many people very much in connection with this Bill. We are dealing with the twentieth century, and not with what some people thought did take place and some people thought did not take place in the eleventh or twelfth centuries. We are dealing with a Bill to Disestablish and to lower the status of the English Church in Wales and to take from that Church certain funds with which it has been endowed, funds to which it certainly has a prescriptive right. As an ordinary man, I cannot see that any body can have a greater right to the possession of funds than the Church of England in Wales has by prescriptive right. I quite recognise that in a community like this the Government might in justice interfere with funds which people have by prescriptive right, if these funds were not applied to the use for which they were meant or even if they were applied to some object which was not a good object, but there is no question of that kind at the present moment. Everyone agrees that the funds of the Church are applied to the best of objects and are doing increasing good every year. I cannot see any morality or justice in removing these funds from their present purpose. It seems to me the Government by their action in touching these funds are interfering with one of the most essential and fundamental principles of government.
Certainly before this Bill should be carried into law, and I think before the Government ask us to vote upon it, they ought to justify it with reasons on the highest and most complete moral and religious basis. They ought to point out, without a shade or shadow of doubt, that by their action on this Bill they will increase the cause of religion in Wales. We all recognise that in a community like our own there is no question that religion is a good thing. The more the precepts of religion are impressed upon the community the better it is for that community, the better for the character of that community, and what we want to know is how, by lowering the status of one of the great engines for religion in Wales and depriving it of money, you are going to advance the cause of religion in Wales. We are told that if the Church is made a voluntary Church it will do better work in the future. I do not wish to say anything provocative, but I do think that hon. Gentlemen who use that argument are self-deceiving. I cannot see why the

317
natural laws which apply to everything else should be different when applied to a religious body in Wales. Take a State. If you lower its position in the world and empty its exchequer, is that State in a better position, is it in a position of greater usefulness? Take an individual. If his social status is lowered, if his pocket is emptied, is his usefulness greater than it was before? I cannot see why the natural laws which apply to everything else should not be applied to a religious community in Wales.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: The hon. Member has not followed my argument. What I said distinctly was that we felt that your Church ought to seek its income for the ministers and clergy from its own people, and not by having recourse to the law to augment them as is the case in Wales.
Mr. GRANT: I was not addressing myself to any particular argument of the hon. Gentleman, but I am glad he interrupted me, because I am afraid he did not quite see my point. If you lower the status of any religious body, if you take away moneys from that religious body, why should that body be more useful in the future than it was in the past? I was trying to illustrate that argument by taking individuals, or another State or community. I said that natural laws should be applied to the Church in Wales as to anything else. I do not wish to use provocative language, but I must say that I do sincerely believe that the Government has really brought in this Bill in pandering to a feeling of jealousy on the part of the Nonconformists of Wales towards the Church of England in Wales. I do not say that a feeling of jealousy is altogether despicable. It is based upon a feeling of emulation. A good many of us would not like to be called jealous, but I milt say that as one sits in this House one cannot help having a feeling of jealousy, at any rate I have, when I see so much ability on every side of me. But that is one thing, and it is another thing to deal with a. Church and to lower its status. We see that feeling of jealousy which has been put in plain language by hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is not a noble or an admirable sentiment and is certainly not a Christian sentiment. I know hon. Gentlemen opposite are very sensitive about any charge of insincerity. I would agree that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is perfectly sincere in desiring to pass this
318
Bill into law, and the gentleman who enters my house at midnight with the intention of removing my goods is also sincere. What we want to know and what we have a right to ask is that they have a sincerity of conviction that by this Bill they will increase the usefulness of the Church in Wales and add to the strength of religious feeling in Wales and I say emphatically they have failed to do, that. They have done nothing except to make a statement that they believe it; they cannot prove it. It is a matter of speculation at best and even as a matter of speculation they have not argued it, they rarely touch the question at all.
I am one of those who believe that there is not a very strong feeling in favour of this Bill apart from the few militants who agitate and manufacture this feeling. I am not speaking of personal knowledge of Wales, my knowledge is second-hand, and I do not wish to press the point, but I may say that the information I have is that the feeling is not very strong. Be that as it may, I do feel that in dealing with this question we are dealing mostly for the future, and who can say even if that feeling is strong that it will always exist?' There is no doubt great mutability in a sentiment of that sort. We have seen in the last few years in Scotland a most remarkable change has taken place in that respect. I remember in the 'nineties fighting a Scotch constituency and both camps were absolutely divided on this question of Disestablishment and Disendowment, or leaving the existing state of affairs to stand. In Scotland you had many men just as keen as those who are backing up this Bill who were in favour of Disestablishment and Disendowment in Scotland, and who fought on that question and advocated it with equal eloquence to that which we have heard in support of this Bill. What is the situation to-day? Is there a man in Scotland who advocates the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Churches there. The reverse is entirely the case. The very men who fought hard for Disestablishment in Scotland are now working for the union of the Churches there. We have had these traditions handed down from our forefathers, and we ought to hand them down to those who come after us. Heads and noses ought not to count in this matter because it is a question of principle, and it is our duty to retain that which has been handed down to us from the past. I am not aware who is going to reply on behalf of the Govern-

319
ment, but, whoever replies, I should like to hear from him something on the point whether the Government is satisfied that in bringing in this Bill they are doing so with the assent of the other sex. Personally I am one of those who do not agree with votes for women, but I should very much like to hear the Prime Minister on the point, whether he can honestly say that he thinks a great Church like this should be despoiled before he is satisfied that the women of this country agree with such action. This is not an unimportant point. It is unnecessary for me to enlarge on the fact of how dependent the other sex is upon the Church, or how we depend upon women to bring up our sons and daughters and the future generations. It is well known how dependent the other sex is upon the ministrations they get from the Church. This question is all the more important at a time like the present when women are taking such a prominent part in politics. The Prime Minister thinks it would be a public calamity that women should have votes, and I would advise him to be very careful about taking an irrevocable action in this matter without being satisfied that those who are so dependent upon the Church desire that this action should take place in connection with the "Welsh Church. I end as I began by deploring the fact that those sitting on the Government side of the House have so signally failed to point out to us how this Bill can in any way add to the religious welfare of the people in Wales.
Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: I wish to say something which I think ought to be said in this Debate, and which is not of a controversial nature, I have been watching for some time for an opportunity to refute the calumny which has been so frequently urged in these Debates, that the Irish Nationalist Members have no interest in the subject of Welsh Disestablishment. I wish to say, speaking for myself and my colleagues, that we have the very keenest interest in this question. Many of the arguments which have been urged during this Debate are admirable, but they lack knowledge and they are forty years too late. I interrupted the Leader of the Opposition in this House when he asserted that Irishmen and the Trish Nationalist Members have no real interest in this case, and I refute that statement altogether. The Catholic Members amongst us in particular in this matter are in full sympathy with the Welsh Members,
320
because they for many generations suffered the oppression and the inequality of a State Church. The Protestant Members of our party likewise know perfectly well that the Disestablishment of the Irish Church has done that Church as a spiritual institution immense good, while it has not substantially harmed it in the temporalities, and at the same time it has freed that Church from the control of its appointments by the State. For reasons which stimulate the people to-day, for the reason that we ought to do to others as we would they would do unto us, we Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, who have been relieved of the burden of a State Church, feel that it is our bounden duty to help and assist the Welsh people in this matter in every way in our power. I know of no subject of more interest than this question of the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Welsh Church. It is very easy for the student of history to speak of analogies and to be diverted by them, but in the Irish Church and the Welsh Church we have as much a parallel and parity of circumstances as can be imagined in any historical sequence of events.
In very brief terms I would like to point to some of those analogies between the rid Irish Church and the present Welsh Church system, and I would like to reason from that parallel that the Welsh Church will be quite as well off and better off, especially in the estimation and love and affection of its own people, after Disestablishment than it ever was when it, was, as it is now, a branch of the English Civil Service. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] Let us consider how that is. How can we Irish Members in justice to ourselves or to our own country refuse to vote thoroughly with the Welsh Members under these circumstances? During eleven Parliaments you have had a majority from Wales in favour of Welsh Disestablishment. You have now thirty-one Members in favour of this Bill from Wales and only three against it, two of these being Anglicans and the third a Roman Catholic who does not belong to the Establishment at all. When we Disestablished and Disendowed the Irish Church we had 105 Members in this House, and of those sixty, and sixty alone, were in favour of Disestablishment and forty-five were against it. Under these circumstances how can we refuse to actively work for what the Welsh people desire? I think I ought to be grateful in this matter for the conduct of

321
a Welsh Bishop of St. David's, who in the past have always had somewhat remarkable characters. When the Irish Church was Disestablished there was a celebrated Welsh bishop, Bishop Thirlwall, who was A great historian, an eminent preacher, a great theologian, and a distinguished member of the Chancery Bar. When the epithets of "sacrilege," "spoliation," "pillage of the Church," and "public robbery" were heard both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords against the Irish Church Bill, what did Bishop Thirlwall do? He got up and said, "This is not robbery of God, and 'robbery of God' in reference to any property assigned to the Godhead is not a Christian but only a heathen idea." The true idea of property being bequeathed to the service of God, he said, was that it should be most beneficently used for the good of the community at large. That was the opinion of a Welsh bishop of the Irish Church Bill of forty years ago.
Both the Irish and the Welsh Churches were Churches of the minority. They were both in antagonism to national aspirations; they were both dead weights on every national movement; they were both Churches that sold their birthright and could not inherit the blessing. These are not expressions of my own; they are the expressions of Mr. Lecky, for many years Conservative Member for Dublin University. They were both alien Churches, but the alien Church in Wales was different from the alien Church in Ireland. In Ireland, the Reformation Church had never any sway, but in Wales the Church was not alien originally; it was alienated by the misconduct of rapacious English strangers who took the bishoprics, the livings, and the money without any idea of its religious uses and proprieties of the time. It is no exaggeration to say that in 1735 North Wales was a perfect Anglican community. It has been computed that there were not more than six Nonconformist meeting houses there. The people were driven into Nonconformity there because there was no spiritual life in the Church, and the leaders of the Nonconformist movement were men who, like Griffith Jones and Daniel Rowland, were expelled from the Church because they were too worthy of it, while the bishops were Englishmen who could not speak a word of the Welsh language. Bishop Houdley has been spoken of as the Bishop of Bangor. He was never in Bangor or in the Diocese of Bangor, but he took all the money. Bishop Houdley had a little
322
brother, and he was sent over to be All Primate of Ireland, and, exactly like his brother in the Welsh See, he took the money and glorified the divine succession of George I. Bishop Watson, who was the Bishop of Llandaff, used to visit his diocese once or twice in the course of three years. He was professor of divinity at Cambridge, and, strange to say, his house in Cambridge is now, I believe, a hostel for Roman Catholic students. He had time to go to the House of Lords and speak in support of the Irish Union in 1799. He said that he had written to the Duke of Rutland, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1785, in advocacy of the Union. The Duke said that if he proposed it he would be tarred and feathered in the streets of Dublin.
Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Does the hon. Member say that the modern bishops have behaved badly?
Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: No, the modern bishops have behaved excellently well. I am acquainted with half the Welsh bishops. I am an old friend of the Bishop of St. Asaph, of whom I expect a wonderful career in his Church when he is able to manage it and establish it on a new principle which will commend itself to the Welsh people at large. I am an old acquaintance of the Bishop of Bangor. The Welsh Church and the Welsh bishops are behaving admirably well, but that very circumstance reminds me of a curious anecdote of a celebrated judge. When a prisoner was brought up before him and pleaded guilty of various offences, he said he would go over the depositions, and when the prisoner came up for sentence the next morning, he said:—
"Prisoner at the Bar, your conduct when in danger has been just as good as your conduct when out of danger has been bad, and therefore I think it better to keep you in a dangerous position as long as I can."
Therefore, I.say to the Welsh Church, "Your conduct in recent years with Disestablishment hanging over your head has been as good as your former conduct was bad, but at the same time you have not commended yourselves to the people, and the sooner you go and become a private community the better both for you and for them." Amongst the great supporters of the Empire who are going to fight for loyalty are the Ulster Members. Why have none of them appeared to give a helping hand to gallant little Wales? Not one of them has appeared and advocated the claims of the Welsh Church. Why? Because they know that the Disestablish-

323
ment of the Irish Church has been a great success for that institution, and there is no one, not even among the most extreme Tory section in Ireland, who would in the slightest degree wish to see the Establishment, as it formerly was in Ireland, restored. It was stated and prophesied that the Church in Ireland would be robbed and impoverished. It is the best specimen of a robbed and impoverished institution that I know. Since the Disestablishment, £750,000 have been expended by that Church alone on the building and restoration of churches and cathedrals, and a new bishopric has been founded. The Irish bishops are no longer the creatures of the Executive, appointed by them; they are appointed by the dioceses, in which the clergy and laymen have equal voice, and are, therefore, the popular and most beloved men in the community. Then, again, it was prophesied that Protestantism would fail, and that once the Irish Church was Disestablished Catholicism would be in the ascendant, and would, in fact, override and overawe the Irish Protestant community. The Irish Protestant and Catholic bishops have become the best of friends. It is no secret that when the Protestant Bishop of Down passed away the Armagh Catholic Cathedral bell was tolled, out of respect, and in memory of him, sooner than the bell of the Protestant Cathedral of which he had been bishop. When the Disestablishment of the Irish Church was proposed, one Irish bishop, Dr. Knox, the Bishop of Down, was hooted and hustled in the streets of Belfast and at a great meeting in Ulster Hall, he was called "Traitor" and "Judas." Sixteen years after the Church had been Disestablished, and after the effects of Disestablishment were realised, the Primacy of the Irish Church became vacant, and the bishops unanimously elected to that vacancy the very gentleman who was the very protagonist of the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church and whom they had thus reviled. We hope that the same happy result may come to Wales as has been experienced in Ireland, and we feel that we are doing our duty in supporting this Bill, in thereby giving to every religious section of the community a fair chance, equal favour and, as in Ireland, a great enlargement of sympathy and a better understanding between all classes of the community.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Every hon. Member who has risen from the other side of
324
the House has commenced his speech by assuring the House that it is in no feeling of hostility to Nonconformist bodies in Wales that he approaches this question, and hon. Members on this side have followed suit by being equally anxious to assure the other side that it is in no feeling of hostility to the Church that they support this particular measure. That to me is the most painful side of this Debate, because it proves conclusively that religion is a question that ought not to be the concern of this Parliament. A recent speaker, representing the Egremont Division of Cumberland (Mr. Grant), brought some remarkable arguments forward in support, and, indeed, in defence of this Church. "Bill Sykes" and "Votes for Women" were the only contributions he could make in defence of his Church. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I submit I am in the recollection of the House when I say that both these arguments were used in defence of his contention. First he asked, "What are we to say to the burglar who enters our house at night for the purpose of stealing our goods?" The only application of that illustration to this Debate is that he assumed that we who are supporting this Bill are in the position of the burglar who is stealing the goods, and my answer would be this, "What would he say to the burglar if that burglar, instead of coming to steal his goods, were only to ask hint for some of the goods that had been stolen from him? That, in a few words, is our position in Wales. On the other hand, he asked, "What right have the Government to determine this question unless the women of this country are consulted?"' My answer to that would be, "What question can this House ever determine but that the women of the country are equally affected?" Would the hon. Gentleman and his party be justified in introducing Tariff Reform, which equally affects women, without seeing that they are consulted?
My only reason for rising at this stage is to answer two questions put by the hon. Member for the Bewdley Division of Worcestershire (Mr. Baldwin). He asked, "What is it that makes a Churchman leave his Church and join the Nonconformist body? So far from being hostile to the Church in Wales, I have a profound regard for it. It was Mo., Church school that I received my only education. It was in a Church Sunday school I first received any spiritual education. It was amid Church surroundings that I was

325
reared, and I can truthfully answer the question why I left the Church of Wales, educated, though I had been, in a Church day school and attending, as I had done, a Church Sunday school. It was because when I reached the age that I could think for myself, when I reached an age at which I could study this problem, when I reached an age at which I could examine the question from every conceivable standpoint, I found that the whole environment of the Church was foreign not only to the dictates of my conscience, but to the spirit that animated the whole of the people of Wales. That, I submit, is the real answer to the question why Churchmen in Wales leave their Church. The hon. Member went further, and said it was significant that only a small portion of the Members of this House, outside the Welsh Members, had taken part in the Debate. It is not because of their indifference to the Bill, it is not because of their hostility to it, it is not because they are lukewarm in support of the measure, but it is because they recognise that this is essentially a Welsh question, and that the people of Wales should state their own case arid their own demands, and should have an answer to those demands.
A remarkable admission was made by the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Duke) who realised what, unfortunately, a large number of Members on that side of the House have hitherto failed to recognise—the distinct national claim of Wales. The hon. and learned Member said that so far as he was concerned he did not quarrel with that claim, but, on the contrary, he believed that they could justify their demand on national grounds. He added that they had a capacity and an intelligence which made them quite equal to governing themselves, and he asked, "Why did they not apply their capacity and their ability for statesmanship, not to securing the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church, but to an effort to ascertain if some compromise could not be arrived at in this matter." Then he said we should probably have been able between us to find some solution of this difficult question. How long has it taken that hon. Member and other Members opposite to recognise our claim at all? When they were on this side of the House, and when the people at the other end of the Lobby had the power they have not got to-day, and any suggestion for dealing With the Welsh Church was put forward by the Welsh Members or the Welsh
326
nation, it would have been scoffed at. It is an admission, not only of weakness, but that we have a case, when they come here at the eleventh hour and say: "Why do you not try to settle this question upon other lines?" What, after all, is the question? Religion is not a question of party politics. Religion is not a subject that ought to be bandied about from one side of the House to the other. Religion is not some difference between sects and creeds; it is a question between a man and his conscience. You may argue with me; you may quarrel with my theology; you may be able, by your superior education, to tear me as it were, literally to pieces in my knowledge of history; you may even condemn the Bible, but my answer would be: "There is something in me that says I am right." That is religion.
9.0 P.M.
What is the State? It is not a question of conscience. It is something that affects not only every section of the community, but every individual in the community. Why should you, by Act of Parliament, although I hold conscientious views and have strong and definite religious principles, be in a position to place me outside the ban of civilisation. People may say that it is one Church in Wales, and that you may claim us, who are Nonconformists, as being in the Church, but we are not of the Church. You cannot place yourselves in our position. If you did, I am perfectly certain you would have recognised our claim long ago. If I could conceive for one moment that this Bill, if passed into law, would make for secularisation, if I thought for one moment that it would hamper or hinder religion, I most certainly would not support it. No one recognizes more than I do the awful tendency towards secularization in these days, or that there is a tendency to disregard the Sabbath. Unfortunately, the richer people of this country are contributing too much to that. When you can go on a Sunday, as I have gone, to see your golf links full, what are we to say to the working man, who has been working six days in the week, with no chance of recreation, when he finds the people who have had so many opportunities for pleasure spending the Sabbath on the golf links? In spite of the awful tendency of the present day, I am profoundly satisfied that the Church will he better freed from the State. It is because she will be free and unhampered, and will be

327
able to enter into the life, the spirit, the feelings and sentiments of the Welsh people, in a manner she has never done in the past, that I heartily support this proposal. It is because I believe it is right, because I believe it is just, and because I believe it is in the interests of true religion that I desire it to pass, and I believe that when it is passed, the Churchmen of to-day, like those who opposed the Irish Bill in the past, will be able to look back and say, "In spite of our Opposition, those who supported this measure were justified by events."
Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: I have listened with interest, as I am sure the whole House has done, to the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas), and, like him; I sincerely deprecate the necessity of dealing with what is to a large extent a religious question upon the floor of this House, which is wholly unsuited to that process. But when the hon. Member suggests to us that the Disestablishment and, still more, the Disendowment of the English Church in Wales will tend rather to a spread of religion and to a decrease of worldliness than the process of retaining the Establishment and maintaining the Endowments of the Church as we should like to see them maintained, I for one must beg entirely to join issue with him. It seems to me, when I listen to the eloquent oratory which comes largely from Welsh Members on the opposite side of the House, that it is their eloquence and sincerity rather than the reasonableness and convincing nature of their arguments, which carries the enthusiastic Welsh temperament along with them, and persuades so large a number of their compatriots to take up so hostile an attitude towards the Established Church. I myself live among Welsh people, and have perhaps more to do with Welshmen than any Englishman in this House. I can fully appreciate the enthusiasm with which they put forward their views, especially when they base those views upon what they are pleased to call nationality. The hon. Member for Mid-Glamorgan (Mr. Hugh Edwards) told us frankly that the whole of his position in this matter was based on considerations of nationality. I should like to ask Welsh Members present what constitutes nationality, so far as it affects this question? Is it language? If so, with the Welsh population constituted as it is to-day, it would not afford a very
328
strong claim to support for this Bill, because not only is the Welsh language by no means exclusively spoken in Wales, but the English language is spoken by a larger proportion of the population every year. I ask again, Does race constitute nationality? You have only to look at the great industrial and growing population of South Wales to find that the Welshmen as a race are getting, proportionately to the whole, smaller every year, and as time goes on they will become smaller still. I ask again, Do geographical limits operate to constitute nationality? If so, why is Monmouthshire, which is an English county, included I should also like to ask why is my own district in the Forest of Dean, where you will find quite as many Welshmen as you will in many parts of Glamorganshire, excluded from the area of this Bill? The truth of the matter is that nationality does not enter into this question at all. The religious unit for this purpose is not Wales, nor Wales and Monmouthshire; it is England and Wales, and it is only by a process of dismemberment of the Church, which is common to both countries, that you can carry out what appears to us to be anything but a national process.
We have heard a good deal about the injustice of the poor Welsh peasants and tenant farmers paying tithe for the support of a Church which is not their own. Tithe is not paid by these peasants or tenant farmers at all, but is now paid by the landlord, and if there is some sensitiveness on the part of Nonconformist landlords in paying tithe for the maintenance of a Church to which all Protestants in Wales belong, even the Nonconformist members of it, surely the proper way of dealing with that problem is to ask this House to pass a Commutation Act, under which the capitalised value of tithe shall be handed over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to be held in trust for the Church to which it properly belongs l I object to the Disestablishment Clauses of this Bill because, in my opinion, they are illogical, and they operate an injustice to the poorest part of the Welsh population, and I object to the Disendowment Clauses of the Bill because they are illogical, they are unjust, and they are an absolutely unnecessary part of the Bill. The Disestablishment Clauses are illogical because the unit for this purpose is England and Wales, and not Wales only, and if you mean to Disestablish the Church at all, the only logical

329
position that you can take up is to Disestablish the whole Church throughout the whole of the religious unit constituted by both England and Wales. From the Church standpoint there is much to be gained by the process of Disestablishment. By such process you might obtain within the Church a greater degree of vitality and a much larger measure of self-government by the great lay body which constitutes the majority of Church members. But, on the other side, not only would the nation be the poorer for the process, but you would be doing a great injustice to the poorer part of the population, who, under the existing system, can claim, as of right, the spiritual ministrations of the ministers of the Church. Immediately you Disestablish the Church there is no claim as of right on the part of any of the poorest people, who can ill afford, many of them, to pay anything towards the maintenance and upkeep of any other religious corn-'nullity and its services, to the ministrations of their Church.
As regards Disendowment, that process, too, is illogical because it seeks to take away the tithe which is enjoyed by the Church, and, for some reason or other, leaves tithe still enjoyed by lay impropriators. The hon. Member (Mr. Swift MacNeill) has just told us that if he had his way he would deprive the lay impropriators also. I was rather surprised at that suggestion coming from a lawyer, because, like any other kind of property, it has repeatedly changed hands on payment of full value, and if its owners were to be dispossessed it would be a process of robbery of a most flagrant kind which no Member of the House would attempt to justify. Still, it is an illogical process if you are going to deal with tithe on an historical basis and yet treat in a different way tithe which is received by the Church and tithe which is received by the lay impropriators. In the second place, it is unjust, because, unlike the case of the Irish Church, its resources were never more required than to-day. Admittedly they are being well administered, and above all, there is a prescriptive title under which they have been used, not for the general purposes of the community, eleemosynary or otherwise, but because, for at any rate several hundred years, they have undeniably been used for the religious purposes to which they are now applied. In the case of any property owned by private individuals, even the short period of twelve years, at any rate
330
in the case of land, would give them an indefeasible title as against the whole world. In the case of property applied to religious purposes, we ask that the title of several hundred years shall give the Church the same right, but it is an unnecessary process to dispossess the religious community of its financial resources, particularly in the case of Wales, where the industrial and the general wealth of the country is increasing probably at a greater pace than in any other part of the United Kingdom. This money is not required for the purposes towards which this Bill seeks to appropriate them. It is not required for the social and educational purposes which the wealth of Wales, and particularly of South Wales, is better able to provide to-day than ever it has been in the past, and, unfortunately, on the other side, the Church in Wales, and particularly in the poorer agricultural parishes, is less able to carry on the excellent and purely spiritual work it endeavours to carry on to-day, owing very largely to the fact that the wealth of the country is being diverted to the great industrial centres.
It seems to me that the national position cannot be defended and the historical position, as placed repeatedly before this House, is eminently unreal, and the history is open to criticism even on the part of those who have not conducted any great historical research. Surely, after all is said and done, this is a social question and not a religious question at all. I, for my part, should like to see, particularly in these days when there is so much need for it, every branch of the Protestant Church joining forces one with the other to combat the great and increasing evils to which the body politic at present is subject. There never was a time when it was more necessary to join forces rather than create divergencies, and, if this is a social question, surely in these days, when we pride ourselves on our democratic spirit, we can adopt some other means of bringing more into social intercourse for the mutual advantage of every class all those who, owing to petty jealousies, or owing to divergent and different tastes, seem to think that their paths, religious and social, lie in different directions! In the district in which I live, surrounded as I am by Welshmen, I am glad to say that we do not admit in any way in our public efforts or social efforts any class distinctions whatever. Churchmen and Nonconformists work without jealousy and with mutual

331
confidence, and I believe that if the same spirit could inspire all classes throughout the Principality of Wales, we should be able to put behind us once and for all this social jealousy which truly lies at the bottom of this movement for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church in Wales, and that Wales would be spiritually the better for the process, instead of passing, as I believe she will pass as the result of this Bill, into a last state which will be far worse than the first, and which, so far from advancing religion, will retard the progress of religious influences for many years to come. The Chancellor of the Exchequer referred, as so many in the House have referred, to the sterility of the Church's activity in the eighteenth century. Surely what we have got to look at to-day is not to the condition of the Church in the eighteenth century, but the condition now! If, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, the bishops were then appointed because they were politicians and for purely political purposes, that can be no argument in favour of the Disestablishment of the Church to-day, because no one has suggested that the bishops are not properly appointed now, and no one has suggested that the clergy in the various parishes in Wales are not suitable persons, and not carrying on the work in the most efficient manner. Surely most of the argumets used as to past history are wholly inapplicable to present conditions. The Church is entitled to be judged, and ought to be judged, on her present position and work, and I venture to say that if she is judged on that basis, she will not be found wanting.
Mr. TOWYN JONES: When the Welsh Church Bill had already passed its First Reading, I was returned by the electors of East Carmarthen, a typical Welsh constituency, to support it, despite the greatest misrepresentations of its contents and purport. This Bill has been termed by its opponents as "confiscation," "spoliation," and "robbery of God," but the great majority of the Welsh nation regard it as justice, tempered by mercy and charity. Much as I sympathise with the intense feeling in Carmarthenshire and throughout Wales against the concessions which the Government granted during the Committee stage of the Bill, I nevertheless, heartily support the measure as it stands, for every sincere Welsh Nationalist ought to be willing to make great sacrifices in this matter if he can in
332
any way help in putting an end to the religious strife which has embittered the life and retarded the progress of the Welsh nation for the last three centuries. May I, with all humility, state that opportunities have been given me of knowing the mind of my countrymen as well as any man inside or outside this House. I took an active part in all the national movements of Wales for the last thirty years, and in the prosecution of my work I not only walked the country from one end to the other, but I came into close contact with the people at public meetings and in their own homes in every nook and corner of the land. No man could do that without becoming profoundly conscious of the fact that the one ruling passion of the Welsh people is the realisation of a free Church in a free country. The idea that the Welsh representatives did not receive a mandate for this measure at the last election is, not to use stronger language, a huge joke. No Liberal Member or Labour Member could have been elected by a Welsh constituency to this Parliament if he had not first of all pronounced in unmistakable language for religious equality.
During the last generation questions of the day have made English people change their political colour from one election to the other, but the Welsh people have been of one idea to which they have adhered, and they have consistently and persistently with almost unanimous voice expressed by constitutional methods their determination to have the Church of England in Wales severed from the State, and the ancient Endowments, which they believe were national in aim, used in the interest not of one minority denomination of alien temper, but of the whole nation. But why do the Welsh people cling with such tenacity and persistence to this one question of religious equality? The answer is at hand. They are compelled to do so by their religious convictions, and by their national instincts. Let us consider the matter first of all from the religious standpoint of the Welsh people. The foundation principles of Christianity are the foundation principles of evangelical Welsh Nonconformity, and consequently the more we are possessed by these principles, the greater will be our antagonism to the connection between Church and State. The Church of the New Testament is a spiritual body of which Christ is the spiritual head, and everything that pertaineth to this Church in matters of instruction and government, in matters of

333
progress and defence, must come from Him alone. Spirituality implies freedom from State control. The rights of mind and heart, of conscience and will, are not the rights of Kings and Parliaments, but rather the Crown rights of the Redeemer. The connection between Church and State cannot but be detrimental to both institutions, and what God bath put asunder, let no man join together. The Nonconformists of Wales believe in the national recognition of religion, not by a Church artificially established by law, but by the truth of the Gospel incarnated by grace in the hearts of the people. No nation can be Christianised apart from the individuals who compose it. There is no gainsaying the fact that in Wales the Establishment has ever been a hindrance to religion. England was stirred to its depths by the great Reformation about a hundred years before Nonconformity started on its career in the Principality, but notwithstanding the fact that the Church of England in Wales had the whole field to itself during that period the Anglican historians had to dip their pens in Indian ink to describe the wickedness and negligence of the priests and the darkness of the land, in the shadows of which the people slept. Although the 29th Article of the Church declares that—
"it is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of the primitive Church to have public prayer in the Church or to minister the Sacrament in a tongue not understanded of the people,"
yet the occasional sermon which the Welsh people were privileged to hear was almost invariably delivered not only by drunken priests, but in a language which they did not understand. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] That is quite right. I am simply giving what the Anglican historians write. [An HON. MEMBER: "What historian is that?"] Pritchard, and Jones, the two greatest historians of the Church in Wales. The monoglot Welshman could not get any benefit from the sermon in the English tongue even if given from the lips of a saint, of a priest. What comfort could Englishmen get from the following quotation:—
Canys felly y earodd Duw y byd, fel y rhoddodd Efe Ei Uniganedig Fâb, fel na choller pwy bynnag a gredo ynddo Ef ond caffael ohonno fywyd tragy-wyddol."—(Ioan III., 17.)
The words which I have just quoted contain the very marrow of the Gospel, but the seventeenth verse of the Gospel of St. John in the Welsh language would be to the majority of this House. That is what the same verse would be to the monoglot. Welshman if given in
334
the English tongue. In such circumstances it was no wonder that the State English Church, whatever its creed may have been, whether Catholic, or Protestant, or Puritan, failed ignominously as a spiritual force in the Principality. It was Nonconformity, with its tongue of fire, its life of love, and its miracles of grace, that transformed the Welsh nation, and that, in spite of the cruellest tyranny and the most inveterate persecution of the Established Church, from being one of the most ignorant and pagan of populations into one of the most cultured and spiritual of all the nations of the earth.
The demand for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church of England in Wales has always come, not from politicians as such, but from the most spiritual men and women in the Principality. The Bishop of St. Asaph, referring in another place to a resolution, proposed by John Elias and passed unanimously at the annual meeting of the Calvanistic Methodists of Wales, held in 1834 at Bala, to keep aloof from a movement at that time in the Principality for Disestablishment and Disendowment, made the following remark:—
"It can hardly, therefore, he said that Disestablishment and Disendowment originated with the great religious leaders of Wales."
But the right reverend prelate forgot to state that there were Nonconformist religious leaders in Wales for 200 years before 1834. The Calvinistic Methodist body severed from the Church in 1811. The great Methodist revival which swept our country at the end of the eighteenth century was as the breath of heaven to the Welsh nation, but it was the older Nonconformist denominations, the Independents, the Baptists, the Unitarians, the Quakers, that lighted the divine fire in the land and dared imprisonment and persecution to keep that divine fire burning on the altars of the temple. The leaders of the older denominations advocated strongly the severance of the Church from the State, and there is a record of a resolution passed by the Llanwenarth Baptist Church, in the county of Monmouth, as early as the year 1655, in favour of religious equality. The Calvinistic Methodists came out of the Church of England from spiritual conviction, but they did not for some time realise that the spiritual religion, which they counted dearer unto them than life, meant the severance of the Church from the

335
State. They had the germ of a principle which afterwards developed into a denial of all legislative interference with religion, and their leaders were found among the finest champions that Wales ever had for Disestablishment and Disendowment. I wonder what the Bishop of St. Asaph has to say to the strong resolutions passed unanimously in favour of this Bill, and against making any further concessions to the Church, at the annual association of the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales, held a few weeks ago at Fishguard? The deeper the spiritual power of Christianity will be felt by Nonconformists and Churchmen in the Principality the louder will be their demand for religious equality. But spirituality implies diversity of thought and expression. It is the law of the universe—the deeper the life the greater the variety. The Act of Uniformity was a violation of that law in the spiritual realm. Every man who, from spiritual conviction, cannot bow to a church of unreformed conformity must get out of it, if he is to be faithful to the call of God in his inmost soul. Nonconformists have the greatest respect for Churchmen who believe in their heart in official priesthood and baptismal regeneration, but they resent with holy indignation any compulsion laid upon them to uphold in the land such beliefs which are contrary to the dictates of their own consciences.
Again, spirituality spells voluntaryism. Welsh Nonconformists have had the privilege of demonstrating to the world the power of the voluntary principle in religion. They left the Established Church, and though they were extremely poor and harshly persecuted by a State-aided Church and a Church-aided State, they covered their country with chapels, which were filled with consecrated inert and women, who became the light, the music, and the aroma of Heaven in the land. No country on the face of the earth has a more charming romance than that of Welsh Nonconformity. But it has been contended by our opponents that voluntaryism has broken down in the Principality. Nothing of the kind. It possesses more fire and force to-day than ever. We have been told that the heavy debts upon our chapels prove that voluntaryism is a failure. In Wales, in the year 1906, the Church of England had 1,864 places of worship, while the Nonconformists had provided 4,669 chapels and mission rooms, with an accommodation for 74 per cent. of the popula-
336
tion—three times and a half that of the Established Church.
Instead of winning the admiration of the bishops for such work, we have been taunted by them that the heavy debt on our chapels prove that Nonconformity, based on the voluntary principle, is a failure. Nothing could be further from the truth. The solvency of Welsh Nonconformity is beyond all doubt. We have not the least difficulty to borrow money at a low interest. Our Nonconformist. chapels have been built not only for existing, but also for future needs, by men and women who would have their children and their children's children share with them the joy of paying the debts on the temples in which they worship the God of their fathers. Thus debts on chapels have from generation to generation proved almost invariably a blessing to our churches. The denominations, by means of central funds will take care that individual churches will not be crushed by the heavy debts upon their chapels. The debts upon the Nonconformist chapels are no proof of the failure of voluntaryism. The United Kingdom has a tremendous National Debt. But Britain is not yet in the Bankruptcy Court. Are we not making records year by year in trade and commerce? Then we are told that voluntaryism has failed, because there are a great number of parishes in Wales without resident ministers. Nonconformity has nothing to do with the geographical limitations of the parochial divisions of the Established Church. Our care is for the people, and you will ever find the Nonconformist ministers residing, when at all possible, in the most convenient places to attend to their flock. I say "when at all possible," advisedly, for often a Nonconformist minister, in taking up his residence in a new locality, cannot immediately secure a house in the most convenient spot, and in many instances we have found that the ground landlord has made it impossible for a Nonconformist minister to get a residence in the village in which his chapel is situated. Scores of parish parsonages are far removed from the centres of population. But Nonconformists know religion to be intensely personal and pray for themselves, and even when they desire to have others to read and pray with them, they would often prefer saintly colliers, farmers, tinmen, and artisans—men who have lived the life of heaven before their eyes, to the most popular preacher in the land. But apart

337
from such considerations, in 1905 Nonconformity had then in Wales 4,841 ministers and preachers, whilst the Established Church could not lay claim to more than 1,597 clergy.
Again, it is contended that the sustentation funds of Welsh Nonconformity proves the failure of voluntaryism. May I state very humbly that I ought to know something about sustentation funds. I have been more closely connected with all the funds of the Welsh Congregational body for the last eighteen years than any other man. In 1895, the Twentieth Century Fund was mooted, and I happened to become the senior secretary of the Welsh Congregational Union. In the following year I became the South Wales secretary, and organiser of the Twentieth Century Fund. In 1906 I resigned my pastorate of the Cwmamman Congregational Church, the largest Welsh Church, to become first home missioner, and afterwards organiser of the sustentation fund. I have visited almost every chapel and every mission room belonging to the Welsh Congregational Union, not only in Wales, but throughout England as well. It is our intention to raise the salary of every Congregational minister to £80. That there are men of culture and power in the Nonconformist ministry to-day at an annual stipend of £70, £60, and even 150, is no proof of the failure, but rather of the vitality of voluntaryism. The salaries of the Nonconformist ministry have increased threefold during the last fifty years, but notwithstanding the fact that the average salary to-day is but a small pittance, there are hundreds of the finest young men of Wales at schools and colleges preparing for the ministry of the Word among Nonconformists. In 1905, the Church of England in Wales collected toward the ministry the sum of £48,972, and for all purposes the sum of £296,400, while the Nonconformist Churches in the same year collected toward the ministry £426,897, and for all purposes £818,700.
Furthermore, we are told that voluntaryism has failed in Wales because Nonconformity is a decreasing force, and the Establishment the only increasing denomination. Nonconformity, we are told, is a decreasing force, because, in the first place, it has had to sell a great number of its chapels for other uses than that of religion. That is only a half-truth, and half-truths are often the foulest falsehoods. Nonconformity has sold many of
338
its old chapels for the good reason that new and larger chapels have been built in their stead. The old chapels had become either too inconvenient for the majority of the inhabitants of the district or too small for the congregations. Then it is contended that the number of Nonconformist communicants are becoming less and less year by year. In 1905 the Nonconformists of Wales, including the Roman Catholics, numbered 615,080, and the Church communicants 193,081. The. Nonconformist Churches abnormally increased in 1904, 1905, and 1906, the years of the revival, and, judging matters in the light of the revivals of the past, we expected relapses by the thousands for many succeeding years. The Welsh Congregationalists number 14,059 to-day more than they did in 1903, which means an average annual increase of 1,573 for the nine years from 1903 to 1912. And what is true of one of the Nonconformist denominations is true more or less of the rest. But is the Church of England in Wales an increasing denomination'? Take the figures of the Established Church in 1911 and 1912. In one year, in the Diocese of Bangor, we have a decrease of 375; in that of St. Asaph, a decrease of 1,452; and in that of St. David's, a decrease of 174. In the three dioceses I have named the decrease amounts to 2,001. In the Diocese of Llandaff there is an increase of 561, and doubtless four out of every five of those who make up that increase are not Welsh. We have a decrease in the communicants of the Established Church in Wales during the last year of 1,440. Wales is and will be overwhelmingly Nonconformist. But the battle for religious equality with us is not a fight of figures. Religious equality with us is not a matter of arithmetic, nor of geography, nor of political opportunism. It is a question of principle, of justice, of spiritual religion, and of the loftiest claim of the human soul.
Let us look at the matter again for a few minutes from the national standpoint. To deny the distinct nationality of the Welsh people is to cast aside all considerations of race, language, literature, temperament, genius, memories, and traditions. Every nation, however small, has its own peculiar mission to the world, and in order to accomplish the task it has been given to do, it should be allowed to work out its own salvation along the lines of its own ideals. The Established Church has divided the Welsh nation into two antagonistic camps. In the name of the

339
Prince of Peace the Establishment has infused bitterness into the relations of neighbours and townsmen in every parish in the Principality. We cannot have an Established Church, without religious inequality. It is impossible to have religious inequality without political injustice. And both religious inequality and political injustice spell dissension and strife. In Wales, we owe almost everything that makes life worth living to the Nonconformists, and that in spite of the State-aided Church. Our authors and editors, our journalists and educationists, our poets and musicians, our printers and publishers, our prophets and preachers, and our patriots and philanthropists have ever been, and still are, overwhelmingly Nonconformist. The Church of alien temper has ever been the sworn enemy of our nationality. From the throne to the cottage, it has left no means untried to secure its authority as a governing power. From the cradle to the grave it has taken advantage of every event in the individual life to assert its claim to the submission of the conqueror's hand. As of yore, the Establishment to-day is outside our great national movements respecting spiritual awakening, education, social reform, and self-government. The Established Church does not count as a body, even at present, as a, spiritual force among the Welsh people. It is a branch of the Civil Service, the right hand of oppressive landlordism, and the strongest pillar of selfish and unjust moponolies that deteriorate the character, sour the life, and hinder the progress of the people.
To my personal knowledge, a great number of the clergy, who dare not speak out, are panting for Disestablishment and freedom from Canterbury, so that they may be able to co-operate with their Nonconformist brethren in the highest interest of the land of their fathers. The fact that our's is a small nation is no proof that it cannot be of any service to the Empire and humanity. The world to-day owes what is best in its laws, its line arts, its paintings, its music, its traditions, and its religion, not to great Empires, but to small nations. The Greeks are a small nation, but their country was once the eye of the world. The Japanese are a small people, but their prowess and progress constitute one of the greatest wonders of history. Switzerland is a small country, but its civilisation attracts the youth of the five Continents to its schools. Palestine is a
340
small tract of land, but it was the Jews that gave salvation to mankind. Religion and nationality these then are irrepressible and irresistible forces which compel the Welsh people to persist without a pause in their efforts for religious equality. What the North Pole is to the sailor's compass, religions equality is to Wales. And what Waterloo was to Europe, and Bunker Hill to the United States, the passing of this Bill will be to the Principality. We have travelled through tears and brood, a long and difficult road, but with unflinching courage and unbounded joy. And should we fail, during this Parliament, to reach our goal, which seems to be now in sight, that will not in the least stifle our demand and will not deter our efforts for religious equality. We will go on until our hopes will he realised. But we are confident that the realisation of the hopes of the Welsh people, like unto those of the Irish race, will soon become a part of the history of the United Kingdom. I should like, on behalf of my countrymen, to thank the Government and all the lovers of liberty in this House who have set their mind upon freeing the Principality from the thraldom of the Establishment, so that Welsh Conformists and Nonconformists may join heart and hand together in prayer and labour for the highest development of the Welsh nation, for the progress of the universal Church, for the emancipation of man, for the resurrection of the world.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: I am sure that everyone in every quarter of the House will join in recognising the very evident sincerity with which the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has applied himself to the subject now engaging the attention of the House. We had the hon. Gentleman's statement for the fact that he could speak thirty times as fast if he were at liberty to address us in his own language. I am sorry to say, as far as I am concerned, and I fear as far as many of my hon. Friends are concerned, that we should have lost the advantage of the hon. Gentleman's rhetoric if he had adopted that course. He will perhaps permit me to add that if his claim be well founded, and I have no reason to doubt it, we can readily understand the reputation as a controversialist, which by universal consent he has got. I will not pay the hon. Gentleman so poor a compliment as not to make one or two observations upon his interesting speech. The hon. Gentleman told us, in a phrase which I think was

341
somewhat highly coloured in view of the facts, that the Welsh Nonconformists had marched through tears and blood in order to reach the goal which he is sanguine enough to suppose has now been almost attained. I am not sufficiently familiar with the more recent developments of this controversy in Wales to have very clearly in my mind the incidents to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but it may be he spoke metaphorically, and I think very probably he did. I notice that he spoke of the possibility that a still longer road might be in front of him and his friends before this goal was finally reached. I am not at all sure that this was not the most reasonable prediction contained in the speech of the hon. Gentleman. He used a very picturesque phrase which I appreciated as much as any of his friends, by inverting the well known expression, what God has put asunder let no man join.
If I understood the hon. Gentleman aright, he was dealing generally with the subject of Establishment, and I am quite sure the hon. Gentleman judged by the tenor of his whole speech may be deemed to be an advocate of the old Liberationist principle which for so many years was a conspicuous part of the Liberal programme, and would avow himself without any reserve to be an opponent of Establishment. I can only say it is a little difficult to reconcile a conclusion stated so logically and so unreservedly with the disposition to recognise the Establishment both in Scotland and, as far as I understand the proposals of the Government, in England. The hon. Gentleman continued, and said that the land was dark when the Church was supreme in Wales. I confess I was sorry to hear any minister of religion add to that observation the statement that at a date imperfectly defined, and this was his complaint, that the doctrine of the Church was invariably delivered in Wales by a drunken priest. If it is relevant., and I shall show in a moment some reasons why I say that the suggestion is entirely irrelevant, but if it is relevant to enter in a disparaging and depreciating spirit into the past activities and history of the Church of England in Wales, I should have thought it was desirable for any Member of this House at least to make the charges which he desired to make in restrained and temperate language, within the facts, and I should have thought it was especially desirable when he was a minister of religion to exhibit a spirit of charity. I say to the hon. Gentle-
342
man when he makes the statement here, although he makes it of a Church to which I do not happen myself to belong, that at any time in the history of the Church of England in Wales it was true that its doctrine was invariably or almost invariably delivered by drunken priests, I say he makes, I am prepared to believe in the heat of unconsidered debate, what is a monstrous and shameful libel; and I say, when he makes a vague allusion to the historians of that period, I challenge him to cite any passage from any responsible historian which entitles him to make so general a charge against a Church which has played a great part in the history of this country.=I do not for a moment complain of the real and enthusiasm which the hon. Gentleman shows, and is entitled to show, on behalf of those who share his view. It is as engaging a quality as the other is an unfavourable quality. When he says that the Nonconformists of Wales have been the life and aroma of the land, ho contributes a poetic phrase to our Debates which will be appreciated even by those who believe that the whole of the light has not by any possibility been confined to any one sect. But no one will quarrel with him for expressing warmly his own view. The hon. Gentleman, condescending to figures, informed us of the number of places of worship belonging to Nonconformist bodies in Wales. The statistics on this subject have worried the whole House ever since ore than a year ago, when we first engaged ourselves in the discussion of the present Bill and I have no intention whatever of adding to the figures which have been given. For all I know the hon. Gentleman may be perfectly right in saying that there are 4,664 Nonconformist places of worship in Wales. For the purpose of this discussion I accept his figure. I do not know whether he recollects that the evidence before the Church Commission, which, speaking from recollection, I believe was accepted by the majority, was that there was incomparably more seating accommodation by the kind of megalomania which underlies this provision than there was population in many of the parishes in which it was provided. I do not enter into a discussion as to how far it is an admirable quality that you should provide in a single parish in your Nonconformist places of worship a greater amount of seating accommodation than would accommodate all the known adherents of any

343
single form of religious belief in the parish. It may be a wise and reasonable provision to make for development, but in view of the admission generally made as to the declining membership in the Nonconformist Churches I am not sure that a mere recital of the amount of seating accommodation affords a very powerful indication of your growing numbers.
10.0.P.M.
The hon. Gentleman, making himself a prophet for this purpose, informed us that future generations would share and appreciate the joy of paying the debts upon these chapels. All I can say is that in matters of this kind there is great doubt whether anybody enjoys paying debts which somebody else has incurred, and it does not appear to me to behove anyone to be a very confident prophet in this respect. It would be better for the hon Gentleman to confine himself to his own generation and leave future generations to express the precise degree of pleasure they feel at finding themselves saddled with these debts. The hon. Gentleman told us that there were 4,000 Nonconformist ministers in Wales at the present time. Does he suggest that those 4,000 Nonconformist ministers are adequately paid? He spoke of his own activity in connection with a sustentation fund. Certainly no one on these benches would deny him any praise to which he is legitimately entitled for his exertions on behalf of that cause. But I was immensely struck by his statement as to the result of those efforts. He told us that the salaries of Nonconformist ministers in Wales were to be raised to a minimum of £80, and he added what to me was a most surprising and shocking statement—that the salaries of those ministers had been raised threefold in the course of a period of years which I do not exactly recollect. Could there be anything more appalling if it is true, and I take from him that it is true, that at the present moment an organised effort has to be made in order to raise the salaries of Nonconformist ministers to £80? I would put this further question. Does it appear to the hon. Gentleman or to anybody else to be a moment when it is reasonable to cripple the resources of another church which is faced with the same difficulty?
I have attended with some interest all these Debates, and I have found that the greatest difficulty of all was to determine the ground of principle upon which the hon. Gentlemen opposite were proceeding
344
in this matter. In all the discussions we have had on this subject I have been struck by one circumstance which has recurred in all the various stages. All the speeches made by Welsh Members, and generally by supporters of the Bill, deal with one point, while all the objectionable provisions of the Bill which we attack deal with an entirely different point. This Bill consists, and must obviously consist, of two parts the Disestablishment part and the Disendowment part. I spoke in support of an Instruction which would have had the effect of making our discussions at once more orderly, more precise, and more intelligible, by separating the two subjects. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were good enough to listen with great indulgence and patience, and not without favourable comment, to the speech I delivered on that occasion. Every word of the discussions which have followed upon the rejection of that proposal has deepened my conviction of the inconvenience, and, indeed, impossibility, of discussing Disestablishment and Disendowment together. Take the speeches which have been delivered to-day by Welsh Members, speeches of great ability and great eloquence. I will take as an illustration of those speeches, one of the most admirable to which I have listened, the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams). He delivered a speech very powerful and very eloquent, and one which above all others caused me to rejoice that we still retain in this House, despite all the threats of indiscriminate devolution with which we are assailed. a Member who reminds us that after all we consist of a country to which many different nations afford contributory streams. The hon. and learned Gentleman made, as other Welsh Members have done, an impressive speech. I am the last man in this House to do injustice to the substance and force of the contention which hon. Members have advanced, but what does it all come to? Into what does all their eloquence resolve itself, if you analyse it? It comes to this and to nothing else—that they have a grievance, if, indeed, there be a grievance at all, because some degree of religious inequality is involved in the maintenance of the Establishment as we understand it to-day. Had that grievance, which is the mainspring supplying the whole driving power of every single speech to which we have listened to-day, ever been put forward as one of the grievances the removal of which would end this controversy, we should not

345
find ourselves—speaking in profound conviction—in the bitterness of controversy in which we are to-night. It has never so been put forward. You keep that for your arguments, you keep it for your speeches, you keep it for you perorations; but every time you are asked whether the removal of that grievance of religious inequality would remove this controversy, from that moment we hear of other subjects, other difficulties, we hear nothing of that which, when we discuss the whole subject, is the beginning, the middle, and the peroration of your speeches. So far as I and my Friends are concerned, I am not authorised, as I have said before, to make any statement on behalf of the Church of England; but I have listened to speeches in the course of these Debates, which have been made by those who are highly qualified to speak on behalf of the Church of England, arid I say that over and over again, and with the greatest authority, it has been indicated to hon. Members opposite that if their object was really—I am sorry to have to make so painful an assumption—not to take a pitiful sum of money from a religious body; if their object was really the removal of some religious inequality, and they would be content with any proposal which would have the effect of removing that religious inequality without, at the same time, taking money admitted to be piously used by an ancient religious institution, that might be considered. That is recognised by hon. Members opposite, and by Welsh Members when they are not speaking in this House to influence Liberal Members who do not see their own particular atmosphere. Let me give to the House a statement made by a Welsh Member, the hon. Member who sits for Flint Boroughs, who said, speaking in this House, though unfortunately to a very empty House:—
To-day, the Welsh people are fighting this question not, from a religious point of view, but purely and solely as a political issue."
I do not complain of that Welsh Member—I may be, perhaps, allowed to add, the fruit of one of the recent by-elections, which is supposed to have been fought upon the Disestablishment question—I do not complain of him speaking as a politician, or of his treating this question as a Political question. So far from complaining of that, and of his making a public statement, I rather commend his candour. But I do say, when one of their own number comes forward on this question and says it is not being fought from a re-
346
ligious point of view, but solely and simply as a political issue, that, at least, we might be spared some of the perorations and some of the complaints to which we have been treated in the course of these discussions. However, even the hon. Member himself who spoke, and whose speech I enjoyed so much, is as much open to this particular complaint as the hon. Member whose speech I have just referred to. I do not know whether it is in the recollection of the House that there was a Convention of the Welsh Nonconformist bodies some eighteen months ago, in which a speech was made by a Welsh Member, indicating at least some degree of sympathy with the position of the Church of England. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Carmarthen Boroughs conceived an apprehension that only Disestablishment was to be carried through, and that he and his Friends were to be deprived of the fruits of Disendowment, and the hon. and learned Gentleman who is so concerned with the establishment of religious equality said this:—
"I say roundly"—
This is a considered letter; not an extempore speech—
"that Disestablishment without Disendowment is not worth asking for, much less worth fighting for. If Wales is content with so anaæmic a policy well and good; but it would be folly to ask the Government to waste a day of Parliamentary time to secure so academical and infinitesimal a reform"
The crusade is run in order to remove religious inequality! All the speeches today have dealt with the importance of restoring that to the Welsh people. Hardly a speech that has been made has dealt with the financial provisions of this
Bill. That is the case that is put forward wherever the general case must be made. Then we get hon. Members thinking there is some risk that thepecuniary incidence of this reform may be sacrificed. So the hon. Member says it will be folly to waste a day of Government time to secure so academic and infinitesimal a reform. I was prepared at one stage of our controversy to believe there might be a different view. I was prepared at one stage of our controversy to believe that there were some sincere men, not in the least concerned, if they could avoid it, of taking money from the Church, which was not too well off, and who did sincerely believe that there was some tincture of social or religious wrong in the maintenance of the Establishment. I say I was prepared to believe all that. That has been shattered by the protagonist of the Welsh party in

347
these Debates. We know now on his authority that there is no substance in the complaint so far as Establishment is concerned, that it is an anemic reform, not worth the while of he and his Friends to lift up their hands in the Parliamentary battle. Let us then clear the decks of this humbug of talk of religious inequality.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS: That is eighteen months ago.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: That is an extremely interesting intervention of the hon. and learned Gentleman. Eighteen months ago Disestablishment was an anemic policy not worth his while to lift his hand in support of.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS: All I wanted to say was this, that the right hon. Gentleman, on 29th November, said that he was practically in favour of Disestablishment. I had written the letter to which he refers twelve months before.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: The hon. and learned Gentleman will believe me when I say that while I am always ready to read any letter or speech of his to which my attention is specifically directed, it sometimes happens in the course of a busy life that he writes letters to which my attention has not been directed. It so happens that my attention was only directed to this most interesting and important utterance quite recently. But whether it was written eighteen months ago, or whether it was delivered in the course of his speech to-day, it would not have assisted his argument. I presume that it represents the present deliberate and reasoned conviction of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSassented.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: The hon. and learned Gentleman is good enough to assent to that. Therefore we know that Disestablishment is an anæmic policy, not worth spending five minutes of Parliamentary time upon. Then let us at least hear no more talk about religious equality. It is not religious equality that hon. Members opposite are concerned about. That is an anmnic policy. It is quite other things which is engaging the enthusiasm and attention of the Welsh Parliamentary party. The Chancellor of the Exchequer to-day treated us to a speech more restrained indeed than many of the utterances to which I and my Friends have listened on this subject, but one in which
348
he repeated what has always been a part of his argument. He repeated it very forcibly, though I do not think he will quarrel with me when I say that not quite so forcibly to-day as the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke below the Gangway, though indeed the latter anticipated the particular argument, which was that the whole of this was historical. We were told of the wrongs of 300 and 200 years ago. We were given the case of a man, whose name I only imperfectly caught, John Penny I think. So far as I understood the statement it was that this gentle man had been put to death because he advocated that native preachers should be sent to Wales. I hope I shall not incur the censure of any of my hon. Friends on this side if I say at once that if the facts be truly as stated, the nature of the penalty seems excessive. I take it as typical of half a dozen cases which I have not been able to verify, but which I accept for the purposes of this argument at their face value.
I will take the whole record of those centuries in which it is suggested that the Church of England in Wales committed almost every fault of omission or commission that any religious organisation in any civilised country in the world ever has committed, and I pause only to attempt one qualification, that the date of which these complaints were made was a date at which the Church in Wales was coextensive with the people of Wales, and I say to those who are deeply concerned in the many admirable qualities—I am not concerned to deny them—making for improvement in the people of Wales and which have existed always amongst the Welsh people, I am not sure it is altogether wise and just to the Welsh people to attribute to and charge the whole of the backwardness of Wales for so long a period upon the supposed faults of the Church of England in Wales. Accepting that, however, at its face value, suppose the Church was to blame, is it your position that this measure is a punitive measure? Is it your position that, quite irrespective of the position and the work of the Church of England in Wales to-day, you are justified in making these proposals, because 100 or 200 or 300 years ago the ministers of the Church of England in Wales were false to the obligations they had undertaken? Either that is your object or it is not? It is either the goal of your argument or it is not. If it is the goal of your argument let us understand

349
it. We are to take £150,000 a year from the Church of England in the year 1913 because some hundreds of years ago a priest was put to death unjustly and certain clerics of the Church of England got drunk. Is that your position? Let us understand it. It is obvious that no sane man whose mind was not poisoned by political controversy could possibly state such a contention before any assembly of civilised men. No one could get up and say, "Because the Church of England was guilty of faults 200 years ago we will take its money away to-day." No one in naked language would dare to state such a contention, not even in this House, still less on the public platform. Nobody dare state it. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman who is going to reply to advance that contention if he dare, and if he is not going to advance it, then where is the relevance of it? Has it any relevance?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer who is an extremely adroit and practised controversialist perceived that if he used it it would put him a little behind the times in handling what is a difficult case, and therefore he set up this hypothesis: "Suppose that to- morrow Nonconformity disappeared in Wales, possibly the Church of England in Wales would be guilty of exactly the same faults as it was guilty of then." Could anything exceed that bankruptcy of argument? The Chancellor of the Exchequer was driven to that, in order to relieve himself of the bungling irrelevance of those records of ancient historical wrongs. If he will pardon me for saying so without any desire to be offensive, that argument was childish, and if I am to attempt to answer it I would say that if he takes so gloomy a view of the fortunes of Welsh Nonconformity, I hope he will allow me to reassure him and to say he has greatly exaggerated the tendency, admittedly, to decline at the present moment. But assuming that he knows best, and that he has some basis for his pessimistic view of that decline, I say the time to come to the House of Commons and say, "We will take money from the Church of England," is when that anticipation, which he obscurely affirms, is realised, and when he can show by the facts that the Church of England has reverted to the historical faults of which he has made so much play in his speeches. The modern conclusion, unassailable by argument, is the admission of the Prime Minister who said that the work of the Lurch of England is admirable, beyond
350
reproach, and a great benefit to the community in which that work is done.
I rejoice and welcome the assent that is given to that proposal, because it enables me to add, if we are all agreed, that if the work which the Church of England is, doing to-day is good, why cannot every honest controversialist sweep away the past as irrelevant? What is the question to which we are addressing our minds to day? The leader of the Welsh Parliamentary party made an observation not long ago which threw a vivid light upon the circumstances under which this Bill is being forced through the House. I was greatly interested to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer say to-day that if this: was a Bill which would do irreparable harm to England, it was not a Bill that would get the Parliamentary support of the Scotch and Irish parties. I am not going to attempt an analysis of the circumstances under which the support of the Irish and Scotch parties is forthcoming. If I chose to embark upon a fruitful and not uninteresting subject of discussion I might recall an expression which the hon. and learned Member for Waterford used, in which he said in this House:—
"The Irish party gives its vote upon a perfectly intelligible basis; it gives it in relation to the present-and future of Home Rule, and upon no other basis."
If I were inclined to analyse the Irish vote I would make that point to discount what the right hon. Gentleman said. I am not concerned to discuss the value of the Irish vote on the Scotch vote, although the value on principle of the Scotch vote against the theory of Disestablishment would be a fair subject of analysis. I leave the English and the Scotch parties on one side and ask what is the value of the vote given by the English Liberal party in favour of this Bill under existing circumstances? If I gave you an opinion
upon it you would not accept it from me because you would say it was the language of a partisan. I will quote what the Leader of the Welsh party said when his withers were wrung by one thousand or two thousand pounds being given back to the Church against his strenuous and passionate endeavours and when he was explaining the matter to Wales, injured Wales at a time when the party was thinking so much of principle and so little of money, and was deeply concerned with the grievances of religious inequality. He said:—
"No one is more angry than I am at the fact that the Government found it necessary to yield as they did to pressure from English sections of the Liberal party. I may add that I feel certain that the Govern-

351
ment never would have yielded if it had not been for representations made, not in public, but in secret, by English Liberal Churchmen and Nonconformists."
They never make the mistake of supposing that the Home Secretary has yielded to argument in public. They never make the mistake of imagining that he has been deflected by one hair's breadth from the course he has marked out for himself by considerations of justice. They point out that those representations were made, not in public, but in secret, by English Liberal Churchmen and Nonconformists. The full limelight was supplied by the hon. Member for Mid-Glamorgan (Mr. Hugh Edwards). They were so concerned in Wales to find that while people were talking about principle the pounds were going past them—as somebody said every day's debate in Committee cost £1,000— that they assembled a conference in Wales to discuss the position, to discuss the betrayal of the small nation of which the 'Chancellor' of the Exchequer is never tired of talking, and the hon. Member for Mid-Glamorgan compressed in a sentence a more sure and penetrating analysis of the Parliamentary methods of the Home Secretary than I have seen supplied in columns of our Parliamentary Debates. He said:—
Mr. McKenna did come to our meeting"—
a dramatic meeting of the Welsh Members with their feelings, their principles, and their strong desire for religious equality—
"and he told us that he was being pressed by Liberal Churchmen. He said he was afraid that he would have to give way. We told him we wanted him to> resist them."
Thank God, there is some sincerity and courage in politics!
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had read my letter to the "Times" he would have found that I contradicted the report. I am sorry to interrupt, but I think, in justice to the Home Secretary, as well as to myself, I must say that we were not bearing on that point at that particular moment.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: I am very sorry that the hon. Gentleman should suppose that I had not read his letter in the "Times.'' It was part of my argument; I have got it here, and was going to refer to it. The hon. Member did not contradict a single word of the report I have just read. He said that it was true, but he desired to add
352
that the Home Secretary had also added that he thought that justice required the same course. Let us see what was said, taking the "Times" and the interview together—
"Mr. McKenna said he was afraid that he would have to give way. We told him that we wanted him to resist them, and he said that he would if he could."
An old proverb said that when a certain class in the community fell out there was a prospect of other people coming by their own. We know now what happened at this meeting, because the hon. Gentleman's letter to the "Times" supplies us with a valuable addition to our previous knowledge. We know that the Home Secretary at that meeting thought that justice required these concessions to be made; and we know that the Welsh Parliamentary party, who did not think so, said they wanted them resisted, and that the Home Secretary promised the Welsh Parliamentary party that he would resist them if he could.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to say that I never said anything of the sort.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: I will allow the right hon. Gentleman to say anything he wishes in qualification of what I have said.
Mr. McKENNA: I did not qualify it; I deny it.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman says, "Where did I get it from?" I got in from a report in a Welsh Nationalist paper of a speech made by the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, purporting to record what took place at that meeting of those who are the supporters of the Bill. As I am placed in a position so unfortunate—
Mr. McKENNA: Hear, hear.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: That I must. disbelieve either the Home Secretary or his supporters, I tell the right hon. Gentleman plainly that I believe his supporters below the Gangway.
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS: I think it only fair to say that these words do not do justice to the Home Secretary.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: What a dilemma! The Home Secretary never used these words. The hon. Gentleman who did use them is convinced that they do not do justice to the Home Secretary. Why di-

353
he state them as being the result and purport of what the Home Secretary said at that meeting? Because they were true! "We told him we wanted him to resist, and he said he would if he could. But supposing I am forced." Mr. McKenna asked," Supposing I am forced." Forced to do justice! Does he deny that he said that?
Mr. McKENNA: I deny entirely the accuracy of any quotation that is made with reference to the Grant from Queen Anne's Bounty; I deny that anything of the sort was said at that meeting. My hon. Friend has referred to another meeting which took place, and in which an entirely different set of circumstances was discussed, and he has quite, unfortunately —yes, most, unfortunately—referred to a conversation which took place at one meeting of the party as the occasion when there was another meeting of the party. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has made a direct charge of falsehood against me, and I must be allowed to reply that, on the occasion to which my hon. Friend referred, when we discussed the question of Queen Anne's Bounty, I never put before the Welsh party any one opinion except that in my judgment justice required it to be done.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: The subject becomes more difficult. What do I care about Queen Anne's Bounty? I do know that at this secret meeting concessions were forthcoming that were not forthcoming at the public meeting. I do not know, and I do not care, whether Queen Anne's Bounty was discussed. But I know on the statement of his own supporters below the Gangway that the right hon. Gentleman said that justice required these concessions, and "I will resist them if I can, but what if I am forced?" I say, whether it was Queen Anne's Bounty or any other Amendment by which the unfairness of this Bill was attempted to be qualified, it is a scandalous thing that a Minister, who, according to the admission of his own supporters, had satisfied himself that justice required these concessions, should have said, "I will resist them, but supposing I am forced?"
Mr. McKENNA: I did not say that. The right hon. Gentleman has no right to say I said it. He knows he has no right to say it.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: It is a very simple issue. I know I have no right to say what
354
a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman reported in the public Press that he did say, and which has never contradicted for four months. I say, and I say deliberately, I rejoice now the whole veil of hypocrisy has been lifted—has been drawn from the Disestablishment side of the Bill—I rejoice that the last word in this year in reply to me is to be said by a Minister who, before he became a Minister, said one of the few words of truth that has been said on that side in the country on behalf of this Bill, when he said:—
"I am in favour of Disestablishment; it is a policy that has money in it and the only policy worth having,"
I say that a Minister who said that, in recommendation of a Bill that was to take away scanty moneys from an impoverished Church, never degraded himself or his party more than by an argument addressed on those lines to poor people.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Ellis Griffith): We have had a speech of considerable violence from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. There was some time at his disposal and at mine, and I think that when he made a speech of such violence he need not have added to his armour by taking the protection of the clock. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!" "Withdraw!" "Take to-morrow!"]
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Who took up the time?
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: The speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was directed in the main to considerations which, I am sure he will be the first to admit, had not very much relevance to the Third Reading of this Bill. For the last ten minutes or quarter of art hour he was dealing with a letter to the "Times—" [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—and I do submit that it had not very much direct reference to the Third Reading of this Bill. [Interruption.] I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that the little time at my disposal I might be allowed to use. As [understood the right hon. Gentleman, his two main points, so far as the Bill itself is concerned, were these: He says we have joined together in this Bill two subjects that ought to be separated. There are in it Disestablishment and Disendowment, and he indicated, amid, I think, the silence and dejection of hon. Members behind

355
him—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—very well then, amid their cheering approval, that had Disestablishment stood alone, we might have been able to settle this Bill, and agree upon a compromise. I am sure the Noble Lords below the Gangway opposite do not assent to that proposition. How often have we heard that their consciences are not in the market? If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, I think he stands almost alone. It might be very well to separate these two subjects, if there were a certain body of opinion upon that side of the House in favour of Disestablishment and against Disendowment. I understand the relevancy of that. But when they are equally opposed to Disestablishment and Disendowment, what is there to be said for dividing the Bill into two parts, to each of which they are equally hostile I have not that command of strong language—[Interruption.] I do not complain of the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends. As defeat approaches temper sours and the vocabulary strengthens, and although we have heard complaints about this Debate being unreal because it is under the provisions of the Parliament Act, I think the Debates ten years ago were much more unreal than they are now. We spent eighty-three days then on Home Rule. Across the corridor it was thrown out by the House of Lords. Was not that an unreal Debate? I suppose hon. Members opposite think that the Debate of ten years ago was real because it led nowhere and the Debate this year is unreal because it is going to lead to legislation.
With regard to separation, if I could imitate the right hon. Gentleman's language I might use the word humbug with an adjective before it. It is merely trifling with the question to complain that this Bill contains two subjects to which hon. Members opposite are equally hostile. I think the right hon. Gentleman and the House will agree with me that he said very little about this Bill. It is just' as well to remember casually, upon the Third Reading, what the Bill is, and, in' the first place, in view of what has been said in the country, it is just as well to remember what the Bill is not. A good deal of enlightenment has come upon the provisions of this Bill during the last six months. Does any hon. Member opposite now, partisan though he may be, suggest that this Bill touches the essentials of the
356
Church? If so, I will read what the Archbishop of Canterbury said:—
"It is not essential to a Church to be established, and it is not essential to our Church in its essence, in its spiritual power, in its divine grace and in its ministry."
May we also agree further upon this point that this Bill does not destroy the life of the Church in Wales. I have high authority for that. It is said that the Bill repudiates true religion. That is a stock argument upon the Bill from time to time. It does nothing of the kind. It does not even repudiate the Church of England, but it repudiates the fiction that the Church of England in Wales is the national religion of the Principality. With regard to these two points of Disestablishment and Disendowment, I have not the time at my disposal to go into the details of the matter. The hon. Member says, "You talk about grievances when you are really thinking about Disendowment." It is a curious thing that a harsher Bill was before the House of Commons in 1895. You knew our-complaint about grievances. You were in power from 1895 to 1906. Why did you not remove some of those grievances? You cannot, you do not you will not touch the Church. You cannot reform the Church without giving it autonomy, and you cannot give autonomy to the Church without Disestablishing it.
HON. MEMBERS: Why not?
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: Because you, will not do it. You have had the opportunity. You have been in power for eighteen years out of the last twenty-seven and you have not tried to reform the Church during all that period. You say the Church has no privileges. It is quite-an inconsistent position that the right hon. Gentleman takes up. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) always says that the Church has no privileges, or that all the privileges it has are disabilities. He mentioned the bishops in the House of Lords, the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the matters of precedence, but all these were not worth talking about. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) once put it in a jesting way, "It is all because an archibishop goes to dinner in front of a duke." We do not understand the ducal method of dining, but the real grievance is that the Church itself is chosen by the State to have the cure of souls throughout the country. That gives it a privileged position. We know something about what happened in connection with the Investi-

357
ture. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that all the arrangements were delegated to him, and that it was on his own responsibility he invited certain Nonconformist ministers to take part in the ceremony. The Church of England was there by right, and the Nonconformists by request. In the Investiture and all matters of that kind the Church is there by law and the Nonconformists only by license. That is a distinction which can never be removed until religious equality is established. The Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) is not so tender about the pious ancestor. He has no regard for the pious ancestor even so far back as 150 years ago. His name was on the back of a Bill recently brought before the House for the purpose of transferring property from the rural parish of Gatcombe to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. The Bill proposed to take away £150 of a pious benefaction which was to pay the rector to look after the spiritual ministrations to 200 people. The Noble Lord, with others, is responsible for that Bill.
Lord HUGH CECIL: The hon. Gentleman is attacking me by irrelevancy and inaccuracy. I do not mind one of the two, but both are more than I can allow without protest.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: It is easy enough to say that.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Quite inaccurate.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: The Noble Lord, although responsible for the Bill by having his name on the back of it, was not here at the discussion of it. That is to say, he takes the money of the pious ancestor on paper, but he will not come here to support his Bill.
Mr. GOULDING: Give us something about the Welsh Church Bill, and leave the Noble Lord alone.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: Will the hon. Member be quiet? He has been away since seven o'clock. The point with respect to dismemberment is that which is most relied upon by certain hon. Members opposite. It is quite true that this Bill deals with four dioceses in the Province of Canterbury. We deal with them by way of Disestablishment. We deal with them by the only way available for this purpose. Whether the principle of the Bill be right or wrong, no one has ever suggested a method of dealing with this other than the method of the Bill.
358
Given the principle that we have got to Disestablish there is no other method suggested on any side of the House than the method contained in this Bill. We take these four dioceses and separate them from the Province of Canterbury. You cannot Disestablish the Church in Wales without doing that. But that is dismemberment. It is the same process under another name. You cannot make it better or worse by calling it dismemberment. From the point of view of the Church of England it is dismemberment. From the point of view of the four dioceses in Wales it is Disestablishment. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Why do you refer to history unless you mean it to be punitive" That is a very specious argument. Does he think he can cut out all history from a Bill of this kind? We are dealing with an institution, and in dealing with this institution it is relevant to examine into its past history in determining the attitude of the Welsh people towards it. You cannot with a spirit of political pedantry discuss these institutions on the abstract merits. You have got to ask: What part have they played in the life of the people? Have they harmonised with national institutions? Have they been with or against national life? What part have they taken in natural development? Some time ago the Bishop of St. Asaph advocated a boycott of the national library in Wales. The principal of Lampeter College on degree day, carried that further into private life, and suggested—
"In the first place, Church people, asking more money from Church people, would surely, as a matter of business, put more business in the way of Church people."
That is a deliberate incitement to boycott. If you tell us here, "Never mind the elections; look at the demonstrations and petitions," I say I prefer the vote of the electors given in the secrecy of the ballot to any number of petitions.
Viscount HELMSLEY: Why do not you take it?
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: We have taken it eleven times in Wales with the same result, and those who advocate a boycott after the Bill has passed are not likely to abstain from suggesting a. boycott to prevent the Bill passing. For my own part I distrust very much these petitions and the signatures. We are asked to discard the testimony of history. I like to hear of the picture that is drawn about the unity and harmony that exist between

359
Church and dissent in Wales. The House is aware of what the Bishop of St. Asaph said about the Calvinistic Methodists the other day. I wish I had the power of the right hon. Gentleman to describe it. He made most serious and most grave charges against them. This is what he says:—
"Were their standards of faith"—
—that is the standard of the Church—
"unaltered through the centuries to be replaced by the shifting theories of the Calvinistic Methodists, who within the short span of their existence had already turned their backs upon their own trust deed. (Cheers.) Were the reverance and sanctity of the altars of the Churches to give place to those of the chapel where the altar first became a pulpit and then a. platform? (Cheers.) In morals was the standard of truth and honour to be filled by that of the Calvinistic Methodists as all Wales knew it with mart and market. (Cheers.) Was their standard of purity to be taken from those districts where Calvinism was predominant; and in the moral life were their ideals and Christian fellowship with broad-minded charity and fair dealing in the distribution of local privileges, and honours to be taken from the Calvinistic Methodists as they knew them in the public life of Wales?"
HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.
Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITH: Hon. Members cheer that. What it comes to is this: He charges us in faith with insincerity, in worship with irreverance, as commerce with dishonesty. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] The right hon. Gentleman is a Nonconformist himself. He appreciates ibis. Then we are charged in private life
with immorality and in public life with corruption. That is the state of the Church in Wales, when a bishop cannot defend his Church without reviling his people. I am not surprised at this feeling of bitterness in Wales, when the head of the Established Church speaks of his denomination in these terms. But there is at all events: his to be said in favour of the Calvinistic Methodist Church, that the son of one Calvinistic Methodist and the grandson of another constitute 50 per cent. of the bench of bishops in Wales. There have been threats to boycott us in the country, and we are now threatened with repeal of this measure in the House. No doubt you have the wish, desire and intention to repeal this Act, if you ever have the power to do so. But that may not come. In any event we are confident of this, that we are marching with the spirit of the times, and that the future is with us. In any event, whatever befalls us, we are certain of this, that we Nonconformists will not falter in our faith, that we shall not swerve from the path we have trodden so long, and that we shall never abandon the principle which for two hundred years has been the dominant political passion of our people.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 347; Noes, 244.

Division No. 181.]

AYES.

[10.58 p.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

Abraham, Rt. Hon. William (Rhondda)

Brace, William

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Adamson, William

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Davies. Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Brocklehurst, William B.

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

Bryce, J. Annan

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

Agar-Rabartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Dawes, J. A.

Agnew, Sir George William

Burke, E. Haviland-

De Forest, Baron

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Delany, William

Alden, Percy

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

Devlin, Joseph

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

Dewar, Sir J. A.

Arnold, Sydney

Byles, Sir William Pollard

Dickinson, W. H.

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Dillon, John

Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Donelan, Captain A.

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Cawley, H. T. (Heywood)

Doris, William

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Chancellor, H. G.

Duffy, William J.

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Duncan, C. (Barrow in-Furness)

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

Clancy, John Joseph

Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

Barnes, George N.

Clough, William

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick)

Clynes, John R.

Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Elverston, Sir Harold

Barton, William

Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Beale, Sir William Phipson

Compton- Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Bentham. George Jackson

Cory, Sir Clifford John

Falconer, James

Bethell, Sir John Henry

Cotton, William Francis

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Cowan, W. H.

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

Black, Arthur W.

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Ffrench, Peter

Boland, John Plus

Crooks, William

Field, William

Booth, Frederick Handel

Crumley, Patrick

Fitzgibbon, John

Bowerman, C. W.

Cullinan, John

Flavin, Michael Joseph

France, Gerald Ashburner

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

McGhee, Richard

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Gelder, Sir William Alfred

Maclean, Donald

Reddy, Michael

George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Redmond, John E (Waterford)

Ginnell, L.

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Macpherson, James Ian

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Glanville, H. J.

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Rendall, Athelstan

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Richards, Thomas

Goldstone, Frank

M'Curdy, C. A.

Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

M'Kean, John

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoin)

Greig, Colonel J. W.

M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lines, Spalding)

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Griffith, Ellis Jones

M'Micking, Major Gilbert

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

Manfleld, Harry

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

Robinson, Sidney

Gniland, John William

Marshall, Arthur Harold

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Hackett, John

Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Hall, Frederick (Nermanton)

Meagher, Michael

Rowlands, James

Hancock, John George

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Rowntree, Arnold

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Menzles, Sir Walter

Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

Hardie, J. Keir

Middlebrook, William

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)

Millar, James Duncan

Scanlan, Thomas

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

Molloy, Michael

Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E.

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Moiteno, Percy Alport

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Sheehy, David

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Mooney, John J.

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Hayden, John Patrick

Morgan, George Hay

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Hayward, Evan

Morison, Hector

Snowden, Philip

Hazleton, Richard

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Helme, Sir Norval Watson

Muldoon, John

Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

Hemmerde, Edward George

Munro, R.

Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

Murphy, Martin J.

Sutherland. J. E.

Henry, Sir Charles

Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.

Sutton, John E.

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon. S.)

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Hewart, Gordon

Needham, Christopher Thomas

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Higham, John Sharp

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Tennant, Harold John

Hinds, John

Nolan, Joseph

Thomas, J. H.

Hobhouse, Rt. Hen. Charles E. H.

Norman, Sir Henry

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Hodge, John

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Hogge, James Myles

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

Toulmin, Sir George

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Nuttall, Harry

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Holt, Richard Durning

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Verney, Sir Harry

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Wadsworth, J.

Hudson, Walter

O'Doherty, Philip

Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

O'Donnell, Thomas

Walton, Sir Joseph

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

O'Dowd, John

Ward, John (Stoke-on-Trent)

Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

Ogden, Fred

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

John, Edward Thomas

O'Grady, James

Wardle, George J.

Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Sw'nsea)

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Jones. H. Haydn (Merioneth)

O'Malley, William

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Juries, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Watt, Henry A.

Jones, Leif Stratten (Netts, Rushcliffe)

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Webb, H.

Jones. W. S. Glyn-(T. H'mts, Stepney)

O'Shee, James John

Wedgwood, Joslah C.

Jowett, Frederick William

O'Sullivan, Timothy

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Joyce, Michael

Outhwaite, R. L.

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Keating, Matthew

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Whitehouse, John Howard

Kellaway, Frederick George

Parker, James (Halifax)

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Kelly, Edward

Parry, Thomas H.

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Wiles, Thomas

Kilbride, Denis

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

King, J.

Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M.

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton)

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Lardner, James C. R.

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

Pirie, Duncan Vernon

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

Pointer, Joseph

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Leach, Charles

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Winfrey, Richard

Levy, Sir Maurice

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Wing, Thomas Edward

Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

Logan, John William

Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

Young, William (Perth, East)

Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

Primrose, Hon. Nell James

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Lundon, Thomas

Pringle, William M. R.

Lyell, Charles Henry

Radford, G. H.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. W. Jones.

Lynch, A. A.

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

362

363

NOES

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Gibbs, G. A.

Nield, Herbert

Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

Gilmour, Captain John

Norton-Griffiths, J.

Anstruther-Gray, Major William

Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Archer-Shee, Major

Goldsmith, Frank

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Astor, Waldorf

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Baird, J. L.

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Paget, Almeric Hugh

Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.)

Grant, J. A.

Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

Baldwin, Stanley

Greene, W. R.

Parkes, Ebenezer

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lend.)

Gretton, John

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.

Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)

Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Perkins, Waiter Frank

Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

Haddock, George Bahr

Peto, Basil Edward

Barnston, H.

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Barrie, H. T.

Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc., E.)

Hall, Marshall (L'pool, E. Toxteth)

Quilter, Sir William Eley C.

Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

Hamersley, Alfred St. George

Randies, Sir John S.

Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

Ratcliff, R. F.

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

Rawson, Col. R. H.

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Harris, Henry Percy

Remnant, James Farquharson

Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwlc)

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Helmsley, Viscount

Rolleston, Sir John

Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Beresford, Lord C.

Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

Rothschild, Lionel de

Bigland, Alfred

Hewins, William Albert Samuel

Royds, Edmund

Bird, Alfred

Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)

Blair, Reginald

Hills, John Waller

Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

Boles, Lieut. Col. Dennis Fortescue

Hill-Wood, Samuel

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Hoare, S. J. G.

Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)

Hohier, G. F.

Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

Boyton, James

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Sanders, Robert A.

Bull, Sir William James

Hope, James Fitzaian (Sheffield)

Sanderson, Lancelot

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

Burgoyne, A. H.

Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)

Sassoon, Sir Philip

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Horner, Andrew Long

Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

Butcher, John George

Houston, Robert Paterson

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

Hume-Williams, William Ellis

Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p', Walton)

Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. (Dublin Univ.)

Hunt, Rowland

Spear, Sir John Ward

Campion, W. R.

Hunter, Sir C. R.

Stanier, Beville

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Ingleby, Holcombe

Starkey, John R.

Cassel, Felix

Jackson, Sir John

Staveley Hill, Henry

Castlereagh, Viscount

Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Cator, John

Jessel, Capt. H. M.

Stewart, Gershom

Cave, George

Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Kerry, Earl of

Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

Keswick, Henry

Sykes, Sir Mark (Hull, Central)

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Terrell, G. (Wilts, N.W.)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)

Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

Terrell, H. (Gloucester)

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Thompson, Robert (Belfast, N.)

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)

Clive, Captain Percy Archer

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts, Mile End)

Thynne, Lord Alexander

Clyde, J. Avon

Lee, Arthur Hamilton

Touche, George Alexander

Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham

Lewisham, Viscount

Tryon, Capt. George Clement

Courthope, George Loyd

Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)

Tuilibardine, Marquess of

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

Valentia, Viscount

Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Walker, Col. William Hall

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Locker-Lampoon, O. (Ramsey)

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Craik, Sir Henry

Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee

Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

Cripps, Sir C. A.

Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

Weigall, Capt. A. G.

Croft, Henry Page

MacCaw, Wm, J. MacGeagh

Weston, Colonel J. W.

Dalrymple, Viscount

Mackinder, Halford J.

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

Macmaster, Donald

White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

Denison-Pender, J. C.

M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Denniss, E. R. B.

M'Mordie, Robert James

Willoughby, Major Hon, Claud

Dixon, C. H.

M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)

Wills, Sir Gilbert

Doughty, Sir George

Magnus, Sir Philip

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

Duke, Henry Edward

Malcolm, Ian

Winterton, Earl

Duncannon, Viscount

Mallaby-Deeley, Harry

Wolmer, Viscount

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Wood, Hon, E. F. L. (Ripon)

Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

Meysey Thompson, E. C.

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)

Middlemore, John Throgmorton

Worthington-Evans. L.

Falle, B. G.

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

Fell, Arthur

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

Wright, Henry Fitzherbert

Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert

Moore, William

Yate, Col. Charles Edward

Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

Younger, Sir George

Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

Mount, William Arthur

Fleming, Valentine

Neville, Reginald J. N.

Fletcher, John Samuel

Newdegate, F. A.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr. Bridgeman

Forster, Henry William

Newman, John R. P.

Gardner, Ernest

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Bill read the third time, and passed.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY [EXPENSES].
Resolution reported,
"That, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session to make further and better provision for the care of Feeble-minded and other Mentally Defective Persons, it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of—

(a) contributions towards the Expenses of Persons detained in, or removed from, certified institutions for Defectives, and towards the Expenses which may have been incurred by any society in assisting or supervising Defectives;

(b) the salaries or remuneration of the Commissioners and their officers, and other Expenses incurred in the execution of such Act."

Resolution read a second time.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to move as an Amendment, to add at the end of the Resolution the words, "such salaries or remuneration of the Commissioners and their officers not to exceed the sum of four thousand pounds a year."
I am extremely sorry to delay the House at this hour, but it is not our fault. The object of the Amendment is to limit the amount that the Home Secretary shall spend upon the salaries of the new Commissioners and the new officials who are to be appointed under this Act. If the House is to retain any financial control, it is absolutely essential that some such limiting proviso should be inserted. Yesterday the Home Secretary told us that under the first part of this Financial Resolution the amount to be spent on contributions to the mentally defective was limited to £150,000 a year; he did not tell us the amount under the second part; that is for Commissioners and officials. Under the proposals of the Bill the existing Lunacy Commissioners is to be enlarged and in the future is to be known as the Board of Control. The number of paid Commissioners is to be increased by four. There are eight Lunacy Commissioners. Till 1911 there were only six. These eight Lunacy Commissioners now deal with 135,660 lunatics under the Lunacy Acts, or 18,000 for each Commissioner. This number is to be increased by
366
20,000, according to the Home Secretary; as a matter of fact, I believe the increased number to be dealt with under the Act is only about 15,000. But, taking the figures of the Home Secretary, four new Commissioners will be appointed to deal with 20,000 additional persons, or one Commissioner for every 5,000 persons, while under the Lunacy Acts each Commissioner deals with 18,000. The duties of these Commissioners under the Mental Deficiency Bill will not be as heavy as the duties of the Lunacy Commissioners under the Lunacy Acts. Under the Lunacy Acts it is provided that each institution or lunatic shall be inspected or visited once a year by two paid Commissioners. Under this Bill each institution is only to be visited by one Commissioner and in certain cases the inspection or visitation can be carried out by an official and not by the Commissioners themselves. Therefore, the duties under this Act are not so heavy as the duties of the Lunacy Commissioners under the Lunacy
Acts. The number of new institutions to be set up will not be very large. The local authorities in some, if not in all, cases will make arrangements with existing institutions and will not put up new institutions. The right hon. Gentleman told the Committee upstairs that the number of Commissioners would be necessary in order to safeguard the liberty of the subject, in order to see that no person was locked up unless that person was really mentally defective. As a matter of fact, it does not rest with the Commissioners to say whether a person is locked up or not. That rests entirely with the judicial authority before who the petition is heard, and in some cases the mentally defective person is sent straight to the institution by order of the Home Secretary. In no case is the consent of the Commissioners necessary, nor are they consulted. The right hon. Gentleman said yesterday that although he had got authority to appoint four Commissioners he was only going to appoint three. I have no reason to doubt the right hon. Gentleman, but he is riot going to remain always at the Home Office. His successor, when he finds he has power to appoint four, and that there are only three, and that he has a good fat job to give away, will appoint the fourth Commissioner. We on this side have always protested against the increase in the number of highly paid officials, and therefore I hope my hon. Friends will support this Amendment,

367
which does not interfere with the real object of the Bill, but simply lays it down that the amount that is spent on salaries to officials shall be limited to £4,000 per year. When we consider that the total sum to be spent is only £150,000, I think we will come to the conclusion that £4,000 is sufficient for the purpose of officials. If we do wish to spend more money, and if we have the money to spend, for the purpose of dealing with the mentally defective, let us increase the Grants to local authorities, instead of spending that money on highly paid officials.
Mr. GRETTON: Those of us who have sat upon the Committee upstairs, I think without exception, on both sides, have felt that one of the weak points of the Bill is the vista of lavish expenditure which is opened out on this subject, and many of us are anxious to sec that some limitation should be put upon the possibilities of expenditure by the Home Office, not so much upon the right hon. Gentleman, but particularly upon the Home Office in the appointment of highly paid officials to administer this Bill. It has been stated that the salaries of the present Commissioners are about £1,000 a year, and the Home Secretary, before the Committee, asked for salaries of about that amount. All this Amendment asks for is that in the appointment of highly paid Commissioners they shall not receive in the aggregate a greater sum than £4,000 a year. It appears there is an immensely strong case for this proposal, and I think the House of Commons would be well advised to adopt the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend. There is no doubt that the expenditure of this country upon officials and the administration of the Government is increasing by leaps and bounds, and the time has arrived when the House of Commons should take some steps to restrain the constantly increasing expenditure for which apparently the consent of the Treasury has been obtained. I think we should be well advised to put some limitation on the expenditure upon salaries proposed in connection with the Bill now before the Committee upstairs by adopting this Amendment.
Mr. McKENNA: I cannot help feeling that both the mover and seconder of this Amendment are under a misapprehension as to the powers of this House. The hon. Member for the Stowmarket Division (Mr. Goldsmith) observed that if the House
368
wishes to retain control some such limitation as this is essential, and the seconder said that all he desired was to limit the possible expenditure on the four Commissioners to an aggregate amount of £4,000 a year. In the first place this limitation is not in the least necessary in order to maintain absolute control in this House. When the Bill comes back to the House from the Committee it will be found to contain a Clause in which the number of Commissioners is defined.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: Not the number of officials.
Mr. McKENNA: I said the number of. Commissioners. In the same Clause the salary of the Commissioners is fixed. The Committee upstairs have decided that the number of Commissioners should not. exceed four additional paid Commissioners, and that the salaries should not exceed £1,500 a year each.
Mr. PRINGLE: Can we have any guarantee that we shall have an opportunity of discussing the matter on the Report Stage?
Mr. MCKENNA: The hon. Member knows that I am quite unable to give any undertaking on the point and time, and that question is not really relevant to the point that the House does not lose control Supposing the Clause is not discussed, and nobody desires to discuss it, not one penny of this money can be spent until it has been voted year by year in the Estimates, and as the House knows under the existing arrangements the Noble Lord who represents the Opposition has only to express a desire to the Patronage Secretary to have a particular vote put down on a particular Thursday, and it will not be put down for discussion on that day. The House will retain absolute control whether this limitation is put into the Resolution or not, and the salaries of the Commissioners and the number of the Commissioners and the number of the officials will be precisely what the House wishes they should be.
Mr. BOOTH: Only in theory.
Mr. McKENNA: It is more than in theory; it is really in fact, because under the present Rules the particular Vote put down for discussion is the Vote required by the Opposition to be discussed.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: The Opposition are in favour of this Bill.
Mr. McKENNA: The hon. Member for Stowmarket speaks in this matter, I think, on behalf of his party when he says that complaint has been made that this Government has appointed too many officials. The answer I make to this is that if we appoint too many officials under this Bill it will be open to hon. Members opposite to ask for a discussion of the salaries of those very officials on any Thursday they choose, and the House will retain as full control as it is possible for the House to retain over the expenditure of this money. Let me show how impossible it is to accept a limitation of this kind if the Bill is to be worked at all. The hon. Member based his case upon the fact that eight Lunacy Commissioners now have the control of very nearly 135,000 lunatics. He divides eight into 135,000 and finds that it goes very nearly seventeen times, not quite. Therefore, he says, one Lunacy Commissioner is enough for every 17,000 lunatics. It is absurd, he goes on to say, to propose to appoint four additional Commissioners to deal with a maximum number of 20,000. His figures are not correct. The new Commissioners, of whom I only propose to appoint three, not four, will consist as to one of a woman, and as to the two others of a chairman and one additional member. The existing eight Lunacy Commissioners have left to them all their existing work under the Lunacy Acts, and although we shall hope to get assistance from them, any assistance they give in the working of this Bill must be made good to them by the service of the new Commissioners.
We shall only have three new Commissioners to deal with the whole of the work which arises in consequence of this measure. The hon. Gentleman says that there will only be 20,000 defectives at the maximum to be dealt with and that therefore three or four Commissioners is an excessive number. It is quite correctly stated that the contribution from the State is £150,000, but that is to meet a compulsory contribution from the local authorities of an equal sum, making a total of £300,000 a year as the first expenditure. The number of defectives who will be dealt with will probably be somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000; it will depend on the number who are placed in institutions and the number placed under guardianship. Outside that number there will be defectives for whom provision will be made by the local authorities in excess of the amount contributed by the State. London has already made considerable provision for defectives
370
and I am quite sure will continue to do so. But I have to be prepared. I must not ask the House to give me machinery which cannot possibly meet the contingencies which I am bound to have in view. Next, we shall have a number of defectives who do not come under these limitations at all; criminal defectives and violent defectives who are dealt with directly by the Secretary of State. It is impossible to give a definite estimate of the number of these; they will, however, total some thousands. Then there will be some thousands of other defectives who are detained in private homes. The 'number it is impossible to state, but there are many thousands. Although, under the Bill defectives in private homes will not be inspected by the Commissioners, I think the hon. Member is incorrect when he estimates the total number at. 20,000 by at least 10,000. My estimate is that when this Bill is in operation the number of defectives who will come under inspection by the Board of Control will be quite 30,000.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: Is it not the fact that the existing private institutions are already inspected by the existing Lunacy Commissioners under the Idiots Act?
Mr. McKENNA: No. It is rather difficult to make clear the distinction, but can assure the hon. Member that the number of defectives in private homes who are not now under inspection will become inspected under this Bill, and certainly the total number that will have to be dealt with by the new Commissioners will be nearer 30,000 than 20,000. That is what we contemplate having to do immediately, and I am informed by those quite able to judge that that will be as much as we shall be able to make provision for in the first two or three years. As, however, our organisation becomes complete, and we are able to offer greater provision for the very much larger number of defectives who exist outside, we shall have ultimately to provide, whether by institutional treatment or under guardianship, as estimated by the Commissioners, for at least between 60,000 and 70,000. It might be asked, "Why not wait until your numbers are larger before you ask for full powers to appoint four Commissioners?" My reply to that is this. In the first start in the organisation of this work the labours thrown on the Board of Control will be exceptionally heavy. We have got to start an organisation entirely new. The exist-

371
ing eight Lunacy Commissioners have their hands already more than full with their own work.
Mr. BOOTH: Yet you are giving them more!
Mr. McKENNA: My hon. Friend is so adroit that I do not wish, if I can avoid it, to enter into a controversy on this point. But he will see that in giving the Lunacy Commissioners this work we propose to add to their number so as to give them assistance. They have their hands full now; we are giving them additional work with additional assistance. In the early days the work of the organisation will be extremely heavy. We shall require the full assistance of the three additional members whom I shall propose to appoint. I take power in the relative Clause of the Bill ultimately to appoint four additional Commissioners, because we are bound to look forward to the day when the whole area of the defective field will be covered by this Bill. That is the reason—as shortly as I can state it—why we ask for this number. The hon. Member wants to limit us to an expenditure of £4,000 a year. Let me remind him that the expenditure of the Lunacy Commissioners for salaries, travelling, and incidental expenses—precisely, if I remember the terms of his Amendment, the words he uses—the amount of the expenditure of the Lunacy Commissioners is now estimated at 20,000 a year. He proposes to limit the additional expenditure to £4,000 a year. It is not enough if we have to appoint three additional Commissioners. [An HON. MEMBER: "At what salary."] The same salary that we settled in Committee last year, not exceeding £1,500 a year. The existing Commissioners already receive £1,500 a year. We shall have to anticipate that the three Commissioners whom I shall propose to appoint would ultimately attain to a sum of £1,500 a year, and we shall have to provide, for them alone, £4,500 a year. We shall have to appoint some additional inspectors and some additional clerks. In these circumstances to put a limitation in this Resolution of £4,000 a year would be to absolutely undo the work which has been done by the Committee upstairs, and upset all the conclusions to which they have come. I can assure the House, with really some knowledge of what the claims of the organisation of the new Board of Control will be, that it will
372
be impossible to carry on the work with such a limitation as this. I would suggest that hon. Members should be satisfied with the control which the Estimates give, and allow this Resolution to be passed.
Mr. PRINGLE Mr. PRINGLE rose—
HON. MEMBERS: "Divide."
Mr. PRINGLE: I hope the hon. Gentlemen on the benches below me will restrain themselves, and, if they desire to move the Closure, that they will at least allow us to have a consecutive Debate before they put an end to discussion. I do not wish to repeat the arguments which have been so ably put before the House by the hon. Member for the Stowmarket Division (Mr. Goldsmith), but to reply to some of the observations made by the Home Secretary. My right hon. Friend has sought, very ingeniously, but not very successfully, to reassure us regarding the control of the House over the expenditure provided for in this Resolution. In the first place, he says that we shall have an opportunity of debating the Clauses in the Bill in which these appointments are made, but when I took the liberty of asking whether we would have any guarantee that those Clauses will be discussed upon the Report stage, he referred me to the Prime Minister. He can hardly expect us to be satisfied with such an assurance as that statement implied. He went further, and said that even granting we were not able to discuss the Clauses on the Report stage, we should still have full control in Committee of Supply. It is only necessary to examine his contention in that respect to see how fallacious and futile it is.
He said the discussions in Committee of Supply are arranged between the Noble Lord who is Chief Whip of the Unionist party and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. But what comfort is that to any small independent minority in the House? Those Votes in Supply are set down which the Noble Lord, the Member for Sussex, asks for. But it is not the official policy of the Unionist party to question this expenditure. The official policy of the Unionist party is, and. has continuously been expressed upon this Bill by the hon Member (Mr. Steel-Maitland) who is as powerful in the councils of the Unionist party as the Noble Lord (Lord E. Talbot). Indeed he seems to have had control of the Prime Minister in this matter. But that being

373
the case is there the slightest likelihood that if either the hon. Member (Mr. Goldsmith), the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), or my hon. Friend (Mr. Wedgwood) were to desire the discussion of the Votes providing for the salaries of these new Commissioners and Inspectors that opportunity would be granted? Consequently when we examine the arguments of the Home Secretary in this respect we are driven to the conclusion that we cannot believe that there is any security that this House will have the slightest control over the expenditure if we allow this Resolution to pass to-night without this limitation.
On the merits the case has been admirably stated by the hon. Member (Mr. Goldsmith) and the Home Secretary has been very unsuccessful in traversing his contention. Be has indeed endeavoured to dispute the hon. Gentleman's estimate of the numbers who will be dealt with under this Bill. He says that 20,000 is too moderate an estimate and he places the number at 30,000. Of course this is purely a matter of estimate and in the region of estimate on the whole the authority of the hon. Member is not much inferior to that of the Home Secretary. Those who have been fortunate enough to be upon the Committee last year know the interest which the hon. Member took in this question, and the House will feel justified in taking his estimate as a trustworthy estimate. Under these circumstances, if we accept the statement of the Home Secretary that only three Commissioners are to be appointed, we have the situation that the new Commissioners will have to deal with 6,000 or over on the Home Secretary's estimate, with 10,000 appeals, whereas the existing. Commissioners deal with 17,000 each under the Lunacy Act. The Home Secretary said the existing Lunacy Commissioners have their hands full. We know it is only two years since their numbers were increased by 33 per cent. Their hands must have been more than full in the year 1911, when this increase was made, arid surely the addition to their numbers then was, in the opinion of the Government, adequate for the tasks which they had to discharge.
It is surely strange now, that only two years afterwards, the Home Secretary should say they have more in hand than they can accomplish. In these circumstances we are right to believe that the eight existing Commissioners are
374
quite capable of dealing with the 17,000 lunatics with whom they have at present to deal, and on that basis even three Commissioners are too large a number for the number of mentally defectives who will come under the existing Act. What is the result of this contention? We are driven to the conclusion that under this Resolution money is being provided for a machinery altogether out of proportion to the work which is to be done. It is far too elaborate a machinery. Indeed, in this case, as in many others, the present Government are showing themselves to be slaves of machinery. They are desirous in every case of setting up elaborate machinery—a considerable paraphernalia of officials—and they think when they do this that they are entitled to acclaim it is scientific social reform. We are constantly told that we must strive after scientific and constructive social reform, but at the same time these terms "scientific" and "constructive" are becoming, as it were, mere slang words or catchwords of social reform. When a Minister is able to come down to the House and say, "This is the scientific method," he believes that all parties in the House will accept the measure without question and without cavil. The time has passed for such unquestioned belief in these meaningless labels. No matter how specious the pretext may be, the time has come when the House will look at the actual work which is to be done, and they will require a machinery which is adequate, but not more than adequate, for that work. It is in that spirit that we now ask for a limitation of the expenditure under the present Resolution. I think I am speaking for several Members on this side of the House, as well as on the other side—
Mr. EDGAR JONES: Ten.
Mr. PRINGLE: More than ten. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil knows that a Welsh Commissioner is to be nominated and he is satisfied, but all of us who have not been "squared" are not in that position. A number of us have looked upon this proposal in a critical spirit. We have, it is true, been subject to a good deal of contumely and contempt for the attitude we have taken up. Our opposition has been represented as opposition to reform. The speeches made against the Bill are at least an adequate refutation of any such suggestion.
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now dealing with the general position in regard to the Bill. That does not come into the discussion this evening.
Mr. PRINGLE: I am very sorry if I have been led away somewhat from the immediate subject under discussion. I always endeavour to keep myself within the rules of order. I do not intend to pursue that point further. We desire to see steps taken for dealing with the problem. Our quarrel is that too expensive a machinery is being set up, and we wish to save the money that is to be expended on machinery for the real beneficiaries under the Bill. That money should be set free from the expenses of officials for the benefit of the feeble-minded. I hope the House will accept the limitation proposed by the hon. Member opposite.
Mr. RAWLINSON: I submit that the statement of the Home Secretary is illusory. I do not even share the hope of the hon. Member who spoke last that the Whips would give us an evening to discuss the matter. The Home Secretary has power to appoint four Commissioners. If they are once appointed—I am sure they would be perfectly proper persons—the House would not afterwards disestablish them. What we say is that two Commissioners should be appointed at the present time. If they are sufficient we should save the two salaries of £1,500 each of the remaining two Commissioners, with perhaps £1,000 expenses, and then if it is found necessary to appoint extra Commissioners then the Government has power to come to the House and ask that another Commissioner or two Commissioners should be appointed. If we pass this Resolution now we are parting with our power of deciding the number of Commissioners to be appointed under this Bill. The Home Secretary takes a very favourable view of the number of people to be dealt with under this Bill. He has told us 30,000. The money that is controlled is £300,000. Assuming it to be as much as that, there is already a sufficient number of mentally deficient in the United Kingdom to be dealt with under a voluntary system. The expensive part of this Bill is the compulsory part, the part that will require the officials and Commissioners, and you are only going to provide sufficient money to deal with the good part, the voluntary part, which is the part that ought to be dealt with as soon as possible. I would therefore suggest to the House that it
376
should pass this Amendment. If necessary the Government could come to the House afterwards for the appointment of extra Commissioners, and I am certain that the House would readily grant it. Though I am very much against the appointment of officials, yet if you have to appoint them to responsible positions you should pay them well. I respectfully ask the House not to rush into this matter and vote an unlimited letter of credit to the Home Secretary to appoint these four Commissioners which are not necessary at the present time.
Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: I am a suporter of this Bill and voted for its Second Reading, but I was very much surprised at some of the Home Secretary's remarks with regard to the work of these Commissioners, and I am inclined to think that it would be an advantage, to restrict the number of Commissioners to be appointed in the first instance. I have served for twenty-two years on an Asylum Committee, and I have read from time to time the reports of the Commissioners who visit the Asylum Committees, and I can tell the House that the work of bringing into organisation the whole of the machinery of this Bill will not be that of the Commissioners but of the Local Committees appointed under this measure. The Commissioners visit the asylums once in every six months, and the contention that each looks after an average of 17,000 patients is an absurdity. What they do is this. They go round, I believe, every half-year visiting the asylums. They see the wards and they see the patients, and they can make any recommendation they think necessary to the Committee. They present a report to the Home Office, and that report is sent down to the local Committee. It is the Visiting Committees who do the work, and it will be the Committees, and not the Inspectors, who will do the work under this Bill.
12.0 M.
I have been present at Committee meetings where hundreds of inmates of asylums have been discharged on the recommendation of members of the Committee. The Inspectors know nothing about that work. Moreover, every Asylum Committee, in addition to a monthly visit, appoint a Sub-Committee, the members of which visit the asylums every alternate fortnight for the purpose of giving every inmate the advantage of having their case reviewed. The whole of this work is

377
absolutely done by the Visiting Committee, and it is not done by the Inspectors. The only work of the Inspectors is to go round once every six months to inspect the asylums and make their report. It would be quite easy for any one of these Inspectors to visit one of the asylums, and if you had a small place attached to the asylum within the grounds, or in some other part of the county, it would be an easy matter for the Inspectors to pay another visit on the same journey to inspect the homes where these children are kept, or where these unfortunate imbeciles are kept, for the purpose of making their report. I venture to say four Inspectors are not needed, and that two ought to be sufficient to do the work. The rates in our localities are going up by leaps and bounds, and my complaint about this Bill, if I have any complaint, and I have said it privately as I was not a member of the Committee, is that I am afraid our local expenditure will go up. If the Inspectors go down and make extravagant suggestions to the local Committees to create big institutions, I think you will have some kind of rebellion on the part of the local authorities against this Bill. They are already protesting. I have received letters from them this week protesting against increase of rates without Imperial grants.
Mr. SPEAKER: I do not see how those remarks are relevant to the question of the salaries of these gentlemen.
Mr. J. SAMUEL: I would appeal to the Home Secretary not to increase the Parliamentary expenditure by sending down Inspectors with a view to increasing that expenditure. I am afraid if that is done the local authorities will take umbrage against the Bill.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: As a member of the Staffordshire County Council I endorse everything that has just been said by the hon. Member. There is a great deal of resentment against costs being thrown on the local authority. The more permanent officials we have the more work they will make for themselves. I rose to refer to the pay of the new Commissioners. The existing Lunacy Commissioners get £1,500 per year, and are in a privileged position as they do not retire at a certain age and continue to receive that sum for life, and on the same terms as judges. Because of that we are compelled simply to preserve a certain uniformity between old and new
378
Commissioners, to pay the new Commissioners at the same rate and with the same privileges.
Mr. McKENNA: The hon. Member is mistaken. The beginning salary of the new Commissioners is not so high, and the new Commissioners will be appointed on Civil Service terms.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I am very glad to hear that.
Mr. McKENNA: That was done last year.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: As far as I remember the Bill as originally proposed provided for exactly the same salaries for the new Commissioners. The Home Secretary I think appealed to the House to do that and said that as the present Commissioners had 21,500 the new ones must have that too. I appeal to the House to fix a lower maximum salary than £1,500. In the first place we want some women among these Inspectors. Everybody knows perfectly well that if you have these very high salaries you will not get any women appointed. It is particularly important, as this measure is to deal with the poor and not with the rich, that we do have on the Board of Control representatives of the working classes. We do not want only expert physicians who go in for vivisection and all the rest of it; we want people from what I believe are called the lower orders. If the salaries are £1,500 a year does anyone imagine that you will get working men or trade unionists put into these jobs? Therefore we ought to insist upon this limitation being inserted, in order that these jobs may not be reserved for highly trained barristers and highly skilled physicians.
When we dealt with the question of small holdings this House retained control of the Board of Agriculture, and it was not possible for the Board to appoint an unlimited number of Commissioners. When they wanted more Commissioners they had to come to the House to get them appointed. It is the same with judges. When more judges are wanted the Government have to come to the House and ask for them. Why should we, in the case of a new Board of Control, of whose operations we have no means whatsoever of judging, give the Home Office a free hand? The House should retain control here just as they did in the matter of small holdings, and

379
the only way of doing so is by inserting some such limitation as that now proposed. If that limitation is inserted three Commissioners will be appointed at sufficient salaries to secure the class of men and women that we want. I hope that all advocates of economy, all who want women and representatives of the working classes on this Board, and all who believe in retaining Parliamentary con-
trol over the expenditure of the great spending departments, will vote for the Amendment.
Mr. McKENNA Mr. McKENNA rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The House divided: Ayes, 191; Noes, 53

Division No. 182.]

AYES.

[12.10 a.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Hancock, J. G.

O'Doherty, Philip

Addison, Dr. C.

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

O'Donnell, Thomas

Allen, A. A. (Dumbartonshire)

Harmsworth, Cecll (Luton, Beds)

O'Dowd, John

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles Peter (Stroud)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)

O'Grady, James

Arnold, Sydney

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Shee, James John

Barnes, G. N.

Hayward, Evan

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Barton, William

Hazleton, Richard

Parker, James (Halifax)

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Helms, Sir Norval Watson

Parry, Thomas H.

Bean, W. W. (T H'mts, St George)

Henry, Sir Charles

Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Rotherham)

Black, Arthur W.

Higham, John Sharp

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Boland, John Pus

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Pointer, Joseph

Bowerman, C. W.

Hodge, John

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Hudson, Walter

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Brace, William

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Radford, George Heynes

Brady, Patrick Joseph

Illingworth, Percy H.

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Brocklehurst, William B.

Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)

Reddy, Michael

Bryce, J. Annan

Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Burke, E. Haviland-

John, Edward Thomas

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood)

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Rendall, Athelstan

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Clancy, John Joseph

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Clough, William

Joyce, Michael

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Clynes, John R.

Keating, Matthew

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Kelly, Edward

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Robinson, Sidney

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Kilbride, Denis

Roch, Walter F.

Cotton, William Francis

King, Joseph

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Craig, Herbert.J. (Tynemouth)

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Rowlands, James

Crooks, William

Lardner, James C. R.

Rowntree, Arnold

Crumley, Patrick

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumbir d, Cockerm'th)

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

Cullinan, John

Leach, Charles

Samuel, J. (Stockton)

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Scanlan, Thomas

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Lewis, John Herbert

Seely, Rt. Hon. Col. J. E. B.

Dawes, James Arthur

Lundon, Thomas

Sheehy, David

Delany, William

Lyell, Charles Henry

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Alisebrook

Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

Lynch, Arthur Alfred

Smyth, Thomas F.

Devlin, Joseph

Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, W.)

Dickinson, W. H.

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Sutherland, John E.

Dixon, Charles Harvey

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

Sutton, John E.

Doris, William

Macpherson, James Ian

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Duffy, William J.

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Tennant, Harold John

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

McGhee, Richard

Toulmin, Sir George

Elverston, Sir Harold

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Manfield, Harry

Verney, Sir Harry

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

Meagher, Michael

Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney)

Esslemont, George Birnie

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Webb, H.

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)

Ffrench, Peter

Middlebrook, William

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Field, William

Millar, James Duncan

Whyte, Alexander F.

Fitzgibbon, John

Molloy, Michael

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Williamson, Sir A.

Furness, Stephen

Morgan, George Hay

Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Muldoon, John

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

Greig, Colonel James William

Munro, Robert

Wing, Thomas Henry

Griffith, Ellis Jones

Murphy, Martin J.

Young, William (Perth, East

Guest, Hon. Frederick (Dorset, E.)

Nolan, Joseph

Gulland, John William

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Wm. Jones and Mr. Geoffrey Howard.

Gwynne, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Hackett, John

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

NOES

Adamson, William

Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Agar-Rohartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

Stanier, Beville

Baird, J. L.

Magee, James Myles

Starkey, John Ralph

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Barnston, H.

Horner, Andrew Long

Stewart, Gershom

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Hunt, Roland

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue

Lewisham, Viscount

Thomson, W Mitchell- (Down, N.)

Booth, Frederick Handel

Mason, David M. (Coventry)

Touche, George Alexander

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Morrison, Mell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

Boyton, James

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Watt, Henry A.

Bridgeman, William Clive

Perkins, Walter Frank

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Cator, John

Peto, Basil Edward

Wilson, W T. (Westhoughton)

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Pringle, William M. R.

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Dalrymple, Viscount

Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Younger, Sir George

Goldsmith, Frank

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Greene, Walter Raymond

Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Wedgwood and Sir John Spear.

Gretton, John

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Question put accordingly, "That those words be there inserted."
The House divided: Ayes, 49; Noes, 191.

Division No. 183.]

AYES

[12.18 a.m.

Adamson, William

Greene, W. R.

Spear, Sir John Ward

Baird, J. L.

Guinness. Hon. W.E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Starkey, John R.

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Hogge, James Myles

Sutherland, J. E.

Barnes, George N.

Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

Sutton John E.

Barnston, H.

Horner, Andrew Long

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue

Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

Thomson W. Mitchell- Down, N.)

Booth, Frederick Handel

Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

Touche, George Alexander

Bowerrnan, C. W.

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

Boyton, James

Perkins, Walter Frank

Watt, Henry A.

Brace, William

Peto, Basil Edward

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Pointer, Joseph

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Pringle, William M. R.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

Dalrymple, Viscount

Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

Dixon, C. H.

Sanders, Robert A.

TELLLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Gretton.

Elverston, Sir Harold

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Essiemont, George Birnie

NOES.

Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Addison, Dr. Christopher

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Dawes, J. A.

Hayden, John Patrick

Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

Delany, William

Hayward, Evan

Allen, Rt. H n. Charles P. (Stroud)

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Hazleton, Richard

Arnold, Sydney

Devlin, Joseph

Helms, Sir Norval Watson

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Dickinson, W. H.

Henry, Sir Charles

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Doris, William

Higham, John Sharp

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Duffy, William J.

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Barton, William

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Hudson, Walter

Beauchamp, Sir Edward

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo.)

Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

Illingworth, Percy H.

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.)

Black, Arthur W.

Essex, Sir Richard Walter

Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

Boland, John Plus

Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

John, Edward Thomas

Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

Ffrench, Peter

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvll)

Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

Field, William

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Brady, P. J.

Fitzgibbon, John

Jones,.J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

Brocklehurst, William B.

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushclitle),

Bryce, J. Annan

Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

Joyce, Michael

Burke, E. Haviland-

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Keating, Matthew

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Greig, Colonel J. W.

Kelly, Edward

Cator, John

Griffith, Ellis Jones

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Cawley, H. T. (Heywood)

Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dset, E.)

Kilbride, Denis

Chapple, Dr. William Allen

Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

King, J.

Clancy, John Joseph

Gulland, John William

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Clough, William

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

Lardner, James C. R.

Clynes, John R.

Hackett, J.

Leach, Charles

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Hancock, John George

Lewis, John Herbert

Cotton, William Francis

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Lewisham, Viscount

Crooks, William

Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)

Lundon, T.

Crumley, Patrick

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)

Lyell, Charles Henry

Colinan, John

Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

Lynch, A. A.

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Sheehy, David

MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)

O'Shee, James John

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

Macpherson, James Ian

O'Sullivan, Timothy

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Parker, James (Halifax)

Stanier, Beville

M'Callum, Sir John M.

Parry, Thomas H.

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

McGhee, Richard

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

Stewart, Gershom

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

MantleId, Harry

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Tennant, Harold John

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Price-Jones, Col. E. (M'tgom'y B'ghs.)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Meagher, Michael

Radford, G. H.

Toulmin, Sir George

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

Rattan, Peter Wilson

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

Reddy, Michael

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Middlebrook, William

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Verney, Sir Harry

Millar, James Duncan

Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Molloy, Michael

Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

Webb, H.

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Rendall, Athelstan

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Morgan, George Hay

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Muldoon, John

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Whyte, A. F.

Munro, Robert

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

Murphy, Martin Joseph

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Nolan, Joseph

Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

Robinson, Sidney

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Wing, Thomas

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Roche, Augustine (Louth)

Young, William (Perth, East)

O'Doherty, Philip

Rowlands, James

Younger, Sir George

O'Donnell, Thomas

Rowntree, Arnold

O'Dowd, John

Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Wm. Jones and Mr. Geoffrey Howard.

O'Grady, James

Scanlan, Thomas

O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Question put accordingly, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
Mr. MCKENNAclaimed "that the Question be now put."
The remaining Orders were read and postponed.
It being after Half-past Eleven of the clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.
Adjourned at Half Twelve of the clock a.m., Wednesday, 9th July, 1913.