§ Considered in Committee. The CFTAUIMAX (Mr. Whitley) proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of the
1628§ 12th May, to put the Question. "That the Chairman do report the Bill, without Amendment, to the House."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes. 298; Noes, 204.
1631| Division No. 109.] | AYES. | [4.7 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) | Booth, Frederick Handel |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) | Bowerman, Charles W. |
| Adamson, William | Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | Boyle, Daniel (Mayo. North) |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs) | Brady, Patrick Joseph |
| Agnew, Sir George | Barran, Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.) | Brocklehurst, W. B. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Barton, William | Brunner, John F. L. |
| Alden, Percy | Beale, Sir William Phipson | Bryce, J. Annan |
| Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire) | Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George) | Buckmaster, Sir Stanley O. |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Bethell, Sir J. H. | Burns, Rt. Hon. John |
| Arnold, Sydney | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Byles, Sir William Pollard |
| Baker, Harold T, (Accrington) | Black, Arthur W | Carr-Gomm, H. W. |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Boland, John Pius | Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich.) |
| Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood) | Hudson, Walter | Parry, Thomas H. |
| Chancellor, Henry George | Hughes, Spencer Leigh | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Chapple, Dr. William Allen | Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | John, Edward Thomas | Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M. |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Johnson, W. | Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) |
| Clough, William | Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Philipps, Colonel Ivor (Southampton) |
| Clynes, John R. | Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) | Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth) | Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe) | Pratt, J. W. |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) |
| Cotton, William Francis | Joyce, Michael | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Kellaway, Frederick George | Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) |
| Crooks, William | Kelly, Edward | Primrose, Hon. Neil James |
| Crumley, Patrick | Kenyon, Barnet | Radford, George Heynes |
| Cullinan, John | Kilbride, Denis | Raffan, Peter Wilson |
| Davies, David (Montgomery Co.) | King, Joseph | Raphael, Sir Herbert H. |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton) | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) |
| Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth) | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Lardner, James C. R. | Reddy, Michael |
| Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardiganshire) | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Dawes, James Arthur | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) |
| Delany, William | Levy, Sir Maurice | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) |
| Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Devlin, Joseph | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) |
| Dewar, Sir J. A. | Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H. | Lundon, Thomas | Roberts, George H. (Norwich) |
| Dillon, John | Lyell, Charles Henry | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Lynch, Arthur Alfred | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Doris, William | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | Robertson, John M. (Tyneside) |
| Duffy, William J. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Robinson, Sidney |
| Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | McGhee, Richard | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Maclean, Donald | Roche, Augustine (Louth) |
| Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Esmonds, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Rowlands, James |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Macpherson, James Ian | Rowntree, Arnold |
| Essex, Sir Richard Walter | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | M'Callum, Sir John M. | Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W. |
| Falconer, James | M'Curdy, Charles Albert | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Farrell, James Patrick | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Ffreneh, Peter | M'Micking, Major Gilbert | Seaman, Thomas |
| Field, William | Manfield, Harry | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) |
| Fitzgibbon, John | Marks, Sir George Croydon | Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B. |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Marshall, Arthur Harold | Sheehy, David |
| France, Gerald Ashburner | Martin, Joseph | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson | Mason, David M. (Coventry) | Shortt, Edward |
| Fielder, Sir W. | Meagher, Michael | Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Ailsebrook |
| George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Smith, Albert (Lanes., Clitheroe) |
| Gill, A. H. | Median, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix.) | Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton) |
| Ginnell, Laurence | Middlebrook, William | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Gladstone, W. G. C. | Millar, James Duncan | Soames, Arthur Wellesiey |
| Glanville, Harold James | Molloy, Michael | Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert |
| Goldstone, Frank | Molteno, Percy Alport | Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland) | Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred | Sutherland, John E. |
| Greig, Colonel James William | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Swann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Griffith, Ellis Jones | Mooney, John J. | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke) | Morgan, George Hay | Tennant, Harold John |
| Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) | Morrell, Philip | Thomas J. H. |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Morison, Hector | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Hackett, John | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Toulmin, Sir George |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Muldoon, John | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hardie, J. Keir | Murphy, Martin J. | Verney, Sir Harry |
| Harmsworlh, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C. | Walters, Sir John Tudor |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) | Neilson, Francis | Walton, Sir Joseph |
| Harvey, T. E. (Leeds. West) | Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmoulh) | Nolan, Joseph | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Havclock-Allan, Sir Henry | Norman, Sir Henry | Wardle, George J. |
| Haydon, John Patrick | Norton, Captain Cecil W. | Waring, Walter |
| Hayward, Evan | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Hazleton, Richard | Nuttall, Harry | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Webb, H. |
| Henry, Sir Charles | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) |
| Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | O'Doherty, Philip | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.) |
| Higham, John Sharp | O'Donnell, Thomas | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Hinds, John | O'Dowd, John | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth) |
| Hodge, John | O'Malley, William | Wiles, Thomas |
| Hogge, James Myles | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Holmes, Daniel Turner | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.) |
| Holt, Richard Durning | O'Shee, James John | Williams, John (Glamorgan) |
| Hope, John Deans (Haddington) | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Palmer, Godfrey Mark | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| Williamson, Sir Archibald | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow) | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.) | Yeo, Alfred William | |
| Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Winfrey, Sir Richard | Young, William (Perthshire, East) | Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| Wing, Thomas Edward | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) |
| Amery, L. C. M. S. | Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue | Nield, Herbert |
| Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R. | Foster, Philip Staveley | Norton-Griffiths, John |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major William | Gardner, Ernest | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) |
| Archer-Shee, Major Martin | Gastrell, Major W. Houghton | Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. |
| Ashley, Wilfrid W. | Gibbs, G. A. | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William |
| Astor, Waldorf | Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. | Paget, Almeric Hugh |
| Baird, John Lawrence | Gordon, John (Londonderry, South) | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) | Perkins, Walter Frank |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, London) | Grant, James Augustus | Pole-Carew, Sir R. |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Greene, Walter Raymond | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Baring, Major Hon. Guy V. (Winchester) | Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S. E.) | Pryce-Jones, Colonel E. |
| Barnston, Harry | Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Quilter, Sir W. E. C. |
| Barrie, H. T. | Haddock, George Bahr | Randles, Sir John S. |
| Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc, E.) | Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) | Hall, Frederick (Dulwich) | Rawson, Colonel Richard H. |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth) | Rees, Sir J. D. |
| Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich) | Hamersley, Alfred St. George | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- | Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Beresford, Lord Charles | Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Rigland, Alfred | Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Rothschild, Lionel de |
| Bird, Alfred | Harris, Henry Percy | Royds, Edmund |
| Blair, Reginald | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby) |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Helmsley, Viscount | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Boyton, James | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth) |
| Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Henderson, Sir A. (St. Geo., Han. Sq.) | Sanders, Robert Arthur |
| Bridgeman, William Clive | Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.) | Sanderson, Lancelot |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Sandys, John George |
| Burgoyne, A. H. | Hoare, Samuel John Gurney | Sassoon, Sir Philip |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Butcher, John George | Hope, Harry (Bute) | Sharman-Crawford, Colonel R. G. |
| Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) | Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) | Smith, Harold (Warrington) |
| Campion, W. R. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred | Hume-Williams. William Ellis | Stanier, Beville |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Hunt, Rowland | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| Cassel, Felix | Hunter, Sir C. R. | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Ingleby, Holcombe | Starkey, John R. |
| Cator, John | Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, E.) | Staveley-Hill, Henry |
| Cautley, H. S. | Jessel, Captain H. M. | Stewart, Gershom |
| Cave, George | Joynson-Hicks, William | Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Swift, Rigby |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) | Kerry, Earl of | Sykes, Alan, John (Ches., Knutsford) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Keswick, Henry | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) |
| Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. | Kinioch-Cooke. Sir Clement | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Down, N.) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc's, E.) | Kyffin-Taylor, G. | Tickler, T G. |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Touche, George Alexander |
| Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | Larmor, Sir J. | Tryon, Captain George Clement |
| Clive, Captain Percy Archer | Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End) | Tullibardine, Marquess of |
| Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham | Lee, Arthur H. | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Courthope, George. Loyd | Lewisham, Viscount | Warde, Colonel C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) | Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.) | Watson, Hon. W. |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury) | Weigall, Captain A. G. |
| Crichton-Stuart. Lord Ninian | Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury) | Weston, Colonel J. W. |
| Croft, H. P. | Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Currie, George W. | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R. | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) | Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E. R.) |
| Dalziel, Davison (Brixton) | Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. | Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading) |
| Denison-Pender, J. C. | MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh | Wilson, Maj. Sir M. (Bethnal Green, S. W.) |
| Denniss, E. R. B. | Mackinder, H. J. | Winterton, Earl |
| Dixon, C. H. | Macmastcr, Donald | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Duncannon, Viscount | M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon) |
| Du Pre, W. Baring | Magnus, Sir Philip | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Eyres-Monsell. Bolton M. | Malcolm, Ian | Worthington Evans. L. |
| Faber, George Denison (Clapham) | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton) | Yate, Colonel Charles Edward |
| Falle, Bertram Godfray | Mount, William Arthur | Younger, Sir George |
| Fell, Arthur | Neville, Reginald J. N. | |
| Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert | Newdegate, F. A. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord |
| Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes | Newman, John R. P. | Edmund Talbot and Mr. Pike Pease. |
§ Bill reported, without Amendment.
§ Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—[Mr. McKenna.]
1632§ Objection taken by several Members.
§ Earl WINTERTONMay I ask how many objections in a case like this you 1633 would expect in order to postpone the Third Reading?
Mr. SPEAKERThe Rule does not provide for any particular number. The Rule is that the Third Reading can be taken immediately after the Committee stage with the general assent of the House. That means that a few solitary objections would not be sufficient. Of course, if the whole Opposition object to the Bill proceeding now, I should feel that I should not be at liberty to put the Question for the Third Reading. I gather that that is not so?
§ Earl WINTERTONNo, Sir; I only wished to ask the question on the point of Order.
§ Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSI beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
I confess that this seems a unique occasion in the history of Parliament, because it is the first time in which we approach the Third Reading of a Bill introduced for the third time under the Parliament Act. I confess that I feel, and I am sure that those who are associated with me also feel, that we approach the consideration of this Bill, under these circumstances, with feelings of considerable depression and irritation. I am quite sure that I shall carry with me the general assent of the whole House when I say that it is impossible to enter on this discussion on what is the final stage of this Bill in this House without looking back for a moment to its introduction, and remembering a voice, now for ever silent, which was raised in eloquent and passionate protest. If this House, so quick and so generous in its appreciation of an earnest and upright character, has felt its Debates the poorer and its work the harder by the loss of the late Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, hon. Members will realise what that loss has meant to us. Deprived in a few days—deprived for ever of the benefit of his counsel, of his brilliant leadership, and of his magic sympathy, there has not been a day during the course of these Debates when we have not remembered him and regretted the loss, and we find our only consolation in the fact that his memory is common property, and that there is no quarter of this House in which he is not held, and will always be held in affectionate remembrance. Apart from that, we approach the Third Reading of this Bill with, as I have said, feelings of depression and, to a great extent, of 1634 irritation. Hon Members opposite, doubtless, to some extent, share that feeling of irritation because, while desiring to see this Bill put on the Statute Book, they will regret the delay of the two years which have gone by since its first introduction. But they can also appreciate the fact that, if they regret the consequences of the delay to them, it is to us a painful and, to some extent, an irritating task to enter on what we feel must be a futile discussion. On whom does the blame lie? The blame, I submit to the House, lies with the Government, and the Government alone, because if they had fulfilled their oft-repeated pledge to reform the House of Lords and endow it with the powers which every other Second Chamber in the Constitutions of the World has, it is quite clear that this Bill would have gone to them in 1912, and would have been passed or referred to the electors of this country for their decision, and it is because we have at present a truncated Constitution that we have had this delay and oft-repeated discussion covering some points of the case.
Let me, in the short time I propose to occupy, examine the course of this Bill in the country and in the House of Commons. The justification, as we know, by the oft-quoted words of the Prime Minister for the delay that has occurred, is this:—
It is to preclude the possibility of covertly and arbitrarily smuggling into law measures which are condemned by public opinion.and its object isto ensure an ample opportunity for the reconsideration and revision of hasty and slovenly legislation.Is there any Bill in the recollection of any man present in this House which has been so condemned as this measure has been by expressions of public opinion? There is not a county in England or Wales in which meetings have not been held. They have been attended by thousands of people. There have been monster demonstrations in the provinces, and miles of petitions have been sent to us against the Bill—one of them signed by 550,000 people. Distinguished ecclesiastics with the Liberal traditions of a lifetime behind them have preached and written against this Bill, while in favour of it, if public opinion is the test, the expression has been practically nil. Even in this House there has been shown little enthusiasm for the Bill. From whom has its support come? Of course, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary who introduced it has given it consistent support, and there is the right hon. Gentleman (Sir 1635 D. Brynmor Jones) who so ably leads the Welsh party, and who, I think, may be justly recognised as a supporter of this Bill. Then there is the hon. Member for the Kilmarnock Burghs (Mr. Gladstone), who has impartially distributed his criticism between those who oppose and those who support the Bill. There has also been the constant support of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond), who speaks with deep convictions in favour of Nonconformity—convictions inherited no doubt, but the possession of which do him the greatest credit. That practically is, I hold, all the support we have had in this House for the Bill, and, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Welsh party has put that question beyond doubt, because, in an interview which he granted to the "South Wales Daily News" on 26th December, 1912, he said:—Our friends in Wales hardly realise how critical the situation is, not from any lack of effort on the part of the Government or want of energy on the part of Welsh Liberals, but because of the determined objection of a section of the Liberal party and the luke-warmness of nearly the whole of them.If public opinion is to count at all, I submit it never will find more concentrated and more emphatic expression than it has found in this case. But what does the Prime Minister mean? How is it to find expression? Does he really mean, as I fear, that it is of no avail and counts as nought, unless and until it is reflected by the votes of his supporters in this House? If that is the test, as long as the present party system exists no amount of public opinion is ever likely to have the least result upon the delay incident to the passage of Bills under the Parliament Act. What further expression of opinion does the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary want? Is he wanting the Bishop of St. David's to attack his portrait with a hatchet? Does he expect the Bishop of Llandaff to throw paper packets of flour at those who sit on the Treasury Bench? If public opinion is ever to find expression in this House, I submit that it must fall short of actual reflection in the votes of the supporters of the Government; otherwise it will never find expression at all. If that is the state of affairs in the country, let me pass to the consideration of the history of the Bill in this House. Let me add this one point. I do submit that it is a matter of common knowledge, even from the point of view of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the enthusiasm, if there be any in Wales, for 1636 this Bill has not increased, but if anything has decreased. The right hon. Gentleman and I fought a battle upon this question of Disestablishment four years ago, and he is able to contemplate it with more complacency than I am, for he is justified in saying that as the result of the battle he was returned to Parliament and I was not. But this, I am sure, he will admit: that the enthusiasm for Disestablishment and Dis-endowment is no greater than it was twenty years ago. It is a stationary feeling, and a feeling which, even among those who advocate the Bill, has not grown to anything like the proportion to which the indignation of Churchmen has grown since the introduction of this Bill.Turn now to the conditions which have marked the progress of these Bills through the House of Commons. It was introduced in April, 1912, and we were then allowed to follow the normal procedure of this House, which is to have a First and Second Reading and Committee and Report stages. The Committee stage took place on that occasion, and we have had none since then. If ever there was a Bill, in which a Committee stage was necessary in order to consider the numerous points, and in order to give Members who sat on all sides an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon the multifarious points of this Bill, it is this Bill. But since the Committee stage in the first Session in which this Bill was introduced we have had no opportunity of discussing any of the details of the Bill. As an example of the hardship which it worked, take the seventh Clause of the Bill which defines the Endowments there are exempted as private benefactions, as those which came to the Church after 1662. For that subject we were given one day's Debate, on 17th December, 1912. The great question that arose upon that Clause, the question of tithes, what should be kept by the Church and what should be given up by the Church, was never discussed at all. We were never given the opportunity, and now the discussion in Committee is to us merely a matter of recollection. It is eighteen months since it took place, and from that day to this we have never been given an opportunity of bringing forward those great questions which are involved in the matter of tithes, and all that is involved in a proper discussion of Clause 7. What happened in 1912, when the discussion took place? A very distinguished leader of Nonconformist thought, the Rev, F. B. Meyer, wrote to 1637 the "Times" suggesting that the question what constitutes private benefactions should be referred to a panel of jurists. That followed a speech by the right hon. Gentleman at Pontypool, in which he used these words:—
Let them show that any part of what they were claiming was originally a private gift, and they would be willing to consider it. They were not anxious to touch any benefit to which they could not show a national claim.Following on that this distinguished gentleman suggested that this great question, which is wrapped in darkness, and which has been the subject of endless historical research in this House, should be referred to a panel of jurists to be nominated by Mr. Speaker in order to determine the question. The Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin moved an Amendment to that effect. Of course, it was lost. Consequently we have had no opportunity of discussing the subject. We did think, at any rate, that on the second and third passages of the Bill to the House if there was to be no Committee stage we should be given the stage denned in the Parliament Act as the Suggestion stage, a stage at which details of this Bill could be suggested to the House of Lords for alteration or amendment and insertion by the House of Lords. And I confess that I was astounded to hear from the Leader of the Government the other day, in answer to a question by the hon. Member for York upon this precise point, as to whether the House of Commons would have the right to determine whether a Suggestion stage was to take place, that the Suggestion stage was not a stage in the Bill at all. Let me read to the House the Clause of the Parliament Act. Sub-section (4) of Section 11, which says:—"Provided that the House of Commons may, if they think fit, on the passage of such a Bill through the House in the second or third Sessions, suggest any further Amendments without inserting the Amendments in the Bill, and any such suggested Amendments shall be considered by the House of Lords, and, if agreed to by that House, shall be treated as Amendments made by the House of Lords and agreed to by the House of Commons."
The Suggestion stage is to begin here. The duty is denned by the Act and is placed upon the House of Commons to suggest these Amendments to the House of Lords, and if the House of Lords choose to entertain them and put them into the Bill they come back here as Amendments 1638 to which we have agreed. Why? Because they have been inserted and accepted here. How can you suggest Amendments to the House of Lords if we are not to be allowed to debate them? Surely if we are not allowed to discuss the Bill in its passage through the House under the Parliament Act we are robbed of the normal conditions of Parliamentary procedure. If we are not allowed to discuss the details of the Bill in Committee, at any rate, we ought to have the Suggestion stage which the Parliament Act itself provides.
§ Sir D. BRYNMOR JONESCan the hon. Member say that there is anything in Standing Order about Suggestions?' [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."]
§ Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSNo, but I have quoted the Section of the Parliament Act, which in terms provides in the plainest English that the Suggestions are to originate in this House. Then is the Prime Minister to say that there is no Suggestion stage at all in this Bill? What does he mean? He appears to have forgotten the Preamble to the Bill. He seems also to have forgotten the remainder. Therefore, as far as the passage of this Bill through the House of Commons goes, we have been robbed of the opportunity of a discussion particularly applicable to this particular Bill. There is one more fact in connection with the passage of this Bill through the House of Commons which demands attention. That is, that if it had not been for the votes and support of those who sit behind me this Bill would have been defeated over and over again in the House of Commons. After all, doing every justice to the hon. Gentlemen who come here from Ireland, how can they be expected to treat as anything but an academic discussion quarrels between the Anglican and the Nonconformist Churches.
§ Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSLet me read to the hon. Member the words of the Leader of the party by whose votes you have been saved during the passage of this Bill:—
Your English politics do not concern us. Our votes will in this Parliament as in past Parliaments In-directed by one sole consideration, by what we regard to be the interests of Ireland.And that this Bill has been saved times without number by the support of the Irish Members is placed beyond doubt by the oft-quoted letter of the hon. Member for 1639 the Scotland Division of Liverpool, which he wrote to the Press on the 6th December, 1913:—Thus it is that when the Welsh Bill, which puts an end to one of the clearest cases of clerical ascendancy in the world, was before Parliament, it did not excite a ripple among the wonting classes, and if it had not, been for the adhesion and the spirited discipline and attendance of the Irish Members, it would not have passed through this House of Commons.So what we come back to at the end of all these discussions is that at the bottom of this question, as at the bottom of almost every other question in this country at the present time, we find the Home Rule Bill, because, if you had not introduced the Home Rule Bill, you would not have purchased the support of the Irish Members who sit behind me. They would have adhered once more to their oft-declared faith, that they take no interest in British politics at all, and it would be a long day before you could tempt them over from Ireland to sit here and vote for you upon the question whether the Anglican or the Nonconformist Church should prevail in this matter. Under these circumstances, with the steady refusal of the Government to submit this question to the country, with our normal Parliamentary procedure mutilated, so that the Bill may escape adequate discussion, with the Suggestion stage, which the Parliament Bill itself provides and for which we had hoped, autocratically swept aside by the Government, with all expressions of public opinion absolutely ignored, is it to be wondered at that we approach the Third Reading of this Bill with feelings to some extent of despair, certainly feelings of sustained and concentrated indignation? I will pass to a short examination of the Bill, though I am sure that the House will feel that it is difficult upon the Third Reading of the Bill, within three weeks of the Second Reading, in the De-date on which some of our most brilliant speakers took part, to avoid repeating anything that was said on previous occasions. I trust that the House will remember that it is almost impossible to avoid doing so. Take, first, the question of Disestablishment and Disendowment. It is quite obvious that there has been no logical connection between them. This has been made clear times without number. The Home Secretary himself has said that there is no necessary connection between Establishment and Endowment. How can we say that there is any between the two, when we know that there are cases where there has been Disestablishment without 1640 Disendowment? And in the well-known, almost classical, phrase of the Under-Secretary of the Home Department, Disestablishment is a social programme, and no social programme is worth having, to us, without money.So that you have this absolutely admitted by the Members of the Government—and, indeed, it scarcely needed admission—that there is no logical connection at all between Disestablishment and Disendowment. We tried to separate them. I myself moved when this Bill came before the House for the second time an Instruction that Disestablishment should be considered separately from Disendowment. I need scarcely say that we did not succeed. But at any rate we are not being allowed that discussion on the present occasion, for the Prime Minister in framing his Guillotine Resolution the other day quite frankly said that the fact that we have been allowed to have it at all was owing to an oversight, and he had taken care that we should not again have the opportunity. Even that remaining consolation is gone, and we come to this Third Reading without having had any opportunity of discussing the details of this Bill, and without having the opportunity now of bringing forward once more the patent fact that you ought in justice to consider Disestablishment entirely apart from Disendowment. What has emerged from the discussion upon the Disestablishment part of the Bill? The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said that it was a purely sentimental and social consideration. I have listened to the whole of the Debate on the subject; I even remember the able and moving speech of the late hon. Member for Ipswich, whose loss we all deplore; and, from the beginning to the end, I submit that there has not been one single argument brought forward to show that, if we Disestablish the Church, one individual or one corporation would be profited, or that one member of one congregation, Nonconformist or otherwise, would be bettered.
If that is so, at what a time do you bring forward this question of Disestablishment! Is it a wise time or an appropriate time? What does it mean? It really means a return to the doctrines of individualism, to the doctrines of the Liberationist school; it means the individual detached from the State, carrying on his individual worship. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, without acknowledging or denying any connection with or any control by the State. You do that at a 1641 time when increasingly the State is by common consent interfering at every turn in our national life, and interfering, too, by the wish of parties! It has control of national education, it is controlling the national health, and day by clay the State is becoming, by desire largely of the Liberal party, the father of the people, and is tying itself up, if I may use such a word, with private as well as public institutions. There was a very remarkable article in the "Westminster Gazette," on the 12th May, by that most eminent gentleman, whose authority will be recognised by hon. Members opposite, Principal Forsyth, and it contained these remarkable words:—
White theories based, in the age of laissez faire and Manchesterism, either upon the secularity of The State, sectarian churches or individualist religion, are losing effect in the mental climate of a coming generation.He also laid down in the same article the following:—Some of our views, therefore, about the Church and the Nation may require revision—not in principle, but in form. Some of them were formulated in an age when our present notions of society were not yet born, during the reign of an individualism, aggressive and metallic, whose clang is now fading into the past!It does seem to me in that condition, and, indeed, in the practical position of modern legislation and statesmanship, what you want is more recognition and not less recognition—above all, more comprehensive recognition. Is this a time to separate the Church from the State? I am one of those who think that a State Church is right. The Establishment—that is, the recognition of the Church by the State—compels no man; it leaves every man freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, and freedom of religion. But it has this advantage, that it does impose a necessity upon someone of providing in every parish and in every corner of our land for the spiritual necessities of the community. If I thought—and I may say there are those who think with me on this—that during those discussions there had emerged any real grievance, showing that any man was the worse for the Establishment, I for one would do what I could to remedy an injustice. But unless and until some Member opposite can point out to me that some individual, some corporation, or some Church, will be the worse for the continuation of the Establishment, then I say that the time is not now, and the opportunity and the circumstances have not arisen when it is wise that statesmen and the Legislature should interfere with what has existed for centuries, and with what harms nobody and benefits many. Let me 1642 turn to the question of Disendowment. A great deal has been said in this House during the interesting Debates we have had upon the subject. Historical research has been exhausted; we have ranged from ancient authors down to modern authors and exponents most learned; but stripped of all argument, stripped of all the discussion with which the subject has been surrounded, it is after all a very simple issue.We are not dealing with the Church in the past but the Church of to-day, and you are proposing to take away now from the present existing Church £158,000 a year, to be devoted to objects altogether foreign to the purposes for which those Endowments were made. I am not going to take up time at this stage of the discussion by examining historical arguments as to the real origin of Endowments and of tithe. I want more, if I can, to bring this discussion up to date and to deal with existing facts. Let me deal with those Endowments which admittedly, whatever their object, have been enjoyed for 250 years. I put this to the House as an axiom of which it will admit the justice, that there are only two reasons for which you could take away Endowments from any institution which had enjoyed them for 250 years, namely, that the object of the Endowment has ceased to exist or that the funds are being so misused that it is legitimate to take them away. It does seem to me that these are the only reasons, in elementary justice, on which you can found any argument for taking away from existing institutions funds which they have so long enjoyed. One thing emerges from this discussion which is beyond controversy. It cannot be said that anybody, even the most violent partisan of this Bill, has attempted to say that the funds of the Church have not been properly employed. The Prime Minister himself in a speech which he delivered, and which was quoted in this House by the late Mr. Lyttelton on 23rd April, said:—
During the last seventy years, at any rate in the Church of England in Wales, there has been opened a new chapter, a new, beneficent and fruitful chapter. She now by every means which an enlightened statesmanship and strong spiritual devotion to the best needs of Welsh people could dictate, is overtaking, or endeavouring to overtake, the errors of the past.5.0 P.MThe clergy are earnest, self-sacrificing, persistent, and able; the Church is active; and the only real complaint is not that she is misspending her Endowments, but that her resources are already too small for her needs. I submit to hon. Members opposite that you would not treat a cats' home in 1643 the way in which you are treating this Church, unless you could show some strong reason, or some misuse of the funds, or unless you could show that the institution in whose favour the funds had been given had teased to exist. Not an hon. Member opposite would attempt to rob the most humble institution of its funds and treat it in the way in which you are treating the Church in Wales unless some such reason could be shown for doing so. Do not forget that in taking from the Church in Wales these Endowments you are going to deprive her of funds out of which churches have been built and parishes have been formed, and the development, often costly development, of religious action has been encouraged. You now propose to leave them without those funds. One hundred and ninety-three parishes will be left without a penny of those funds which they have enjoyed for 250 years, and which by common consent have been spent in the highest form of Christianity—not only in administration to the religious needs of the community, but often in relief of distress among the very poor. Close upon 100 parishes will be left with less than 5s. a week, and 561 curates will find their occupation gone and with no prospects of compensation coming to them. What eloquence could equal those figures. Four hundred and twenty-one churchyards will be taken from the Church, whilst Nonconformist graveyards are left untouched. Only the other day, in this House, I took part in a Debate which arose upon a Bill introduced by Nonconformists in this House, to enable them to compulsorily acquire the freehold of the sites upon which their chapels are built, and where their burial grounds are situated. I was proud, as a very humble Member of this House, who sits upon the Back Benches, to give my humble support to that Bill. I spoke in its favour, and did what I could to promote it, because I thought it was justice to Nonconformists in that matter. How can Gentlemen who have asked and obtained that right from the House of Commons to acquire their chapels and their graveyards support a Bill to deprive us of that large number of our graveyards upon which our sentiment rests, and which have many associations for us? [An HON MEMBER: "They are not yours but the parishes."] I want to deal in a few words with some of the reasons which have been given for this drastic 1644 scheme of tile Disendowment of the Church, because I do not think it would be respectful to hon. Members opposite to try and maintain objections to this Bill unless I dealt with some of the arguments brought forward in support of those schemes. First of all, we are told that because in 1811 certain members of the Church of England ceased to conform to the doctrines of the Anglican Church, and that they now represent a section, although it must be remarked, not a majority, that therefore the funds of the Church should be taken away and handed I over not to those dissenting bodies but to the county council. I should have thought that it was common sense that if you voluntarily leave a body which is endowed, and whose Endowments you have not contributed, and if you do so with your eyes open, you leave that property behind you and that it is not open to you to complain afterwards that you have been deprived of the advantages which you have voluntarily given up.
Beyond that, it is said there is a want of continuity, and it is said that those Endowments were orginally given to a Church which is not the Church of to-day. In that connection we heard a great deal about the fact that the Endowments were largely given to the Roman Catholic Church in order to enable prayers to be raised for the souls of the dead. If you think that those funds belong to the Roman Catholic Church, why do you not restore them? As a matter of fact, the continuity of the Church has been established beyond all question. We have the words of the Prime Minister himself on the subject, and it is quite obvious that if you give funds to a Church whose support you have enjoyed, and whose ministrations have been availed of by you, those funds ought not to be taken away, because the doctrines and the rights have been altered from time to time. How would the Nonconformists like a theory of that kind put into active operation. If it was there would scarcely be a Nonconformist body in the land which could keep its Endowments unless from time to time they were allowed to alter tenets and doctrines of their particular set. That argument, also, upon several other grounds, does not hold water. Let me give an example. Supposing I, or somebody much more capable, were to give a certain amount to a hospital largely engaged in research work on cancer, and suppose that in the course of time, and with the advance 1645 of science, a cure was found for that disease, would anybody stand up in this House to say that because that dread complaint had been cured that therefore the gift which had been made to this hospital should be taken away and handed over to the county council. Surely it is unarguable that because any details of the management or doctrines of an institution are changed, therefore you are to take away the funds which have been given to that institution, and devote them to purposes entirely foreign to the objects for which they were intended.
It has been said, too, that tithe is a tax. If it is a tax, why enforce it, and why not remit the tax. Of course, it is not a tax. Much historical research has been devoted to this question as to whether it is a tax, but it is poor consolation to those who pay the tithe to be told that it is a tax, and I suppose to have the implication that it is an unjust tax, and to be left to pay it for all future time, not to the Church, but to a central fund which is to be handed over to the county council. Lastly, there was that argument which I am glad to say has disappeared recently from our Debates, and that was that it would be good for the Church. I think it was the Home Secretary, in introducing this Bill, had the hardihood, and he must have required it, to submit to the House the argument that it would be in favour of the Church, and would do the Church good if you took away her property, because why—because it would teach her to effect so many economies that in time she would be much richer. I wonder, how would the Home Secretary feel if he were to be deprived of half his salary in order to teach him to effect economies which ultimately would be for his good, and I wonder if hon. Members generally would like to be told, "We will take away half your £400, and that will teach you to effect economies."
That doctrine was, I think, chiefly dear to the heart of the present Liberal Parliamentary candidate for Ipswich, who may explain its charms to that thrice happy electorate. The final argument, and the one on which I think there has been more emphasis than any other, is that it was legitimate to attack the Church in Wales because its services were not satisfactory to Celtic nature. I deny that in toto. Remember that the Church in Wales has its Celtic congregation—they are still in the majority, and they attend the services. Do you think that the Church of England is so retrogade, or so stupid that it does 1646 not trouble to attune itself to the ideals, desires, and aspirations of its congregation. The Church services are as beautiful as the meagre funds will allow. In every way in which it is possible, they encourage and find expression for the Celtic nationalist sentiment, and it is for that reason that they have progressed with them. It is idle for hon. Members to come down here and say that this Church, which as I pointed out more than once, still commands the majority of adherents in Wales, is entirely out of touch because it does not understand the Celtic nature of its own congregation. In conclusion, let me sweep away all historical considerations and get to root fact. You are going to take away from a poor and hard-working Church the meagre funds which she so sorely needs, and with which she is doing you no harm, but with which, on the contrary, you must admit, she is doing the work of Christ, and you are going to give it to the county councils, and divorce it altogether from purposes of religion. Why should you do this? What has this Church done to deserve it, or that you should desire to harm her so?
Not only is that so, and not only are you attacking the Church, but you are as well outraging her sentiments. You may say that sentiment does not count. I do not agree—sentiment rules the world. What are the primeval forces of nature, hate and revenge, but sentiments? What is loyalty but sentiment? Sentiment still rules the world, and is at the bottom of most things. In depriving the Church of its means, and robbing her of the churchyards, you are, I am afraid, purposely outraging the sentiments of a keenly Christian religion. You are doing this at a time when we all admit the increasing need of money for the manifold duty of spreading Christian truths. I have always thought that one of the most painful parts of the duty of a minister of religion is to be constantly begging. If he has had to do so in the past, I do not think his duties are likely to be easier in the future in that respect. This is a time when, as you know, every Christian sect is doing its utmost to get together sufficient funds, and I honour you for it, and admire your energy, and wish you every success, in order to be able to give to those who preach the gospel a living wage, just something on which they can live divorced from the care of finding that wage. Just at that time, when we are all trying to provide funds for that purpose, you come 1647 down and you attack, as I say, a sect which is working side by side with you, and which has done no harm, and which you admit is spending its funds properly in the service of Christianity. You are doing it also at a time when the danger of atheism is increasingly felt in the land. I do not know if hon. Members quite realise the danger, but there are schools in this Metropolis where little children are taught atheism, and there are even those who think, quite conscientiously, that religion should be divorced from the education of the young. Atheism, free thinking, is making tremendous strides, but it has this advantage—that in face of a common enemy all Christian sects are moving towards each other in kindly recognition and kindly toleration. It has had that advantage, that it has bound us together in battle against the common enemy, and now, when that movement is progressing, and when every day ideals are enlarged and toleration is greater, and true Christianity is spreading among every sect, you choose this time and do your best to cripple a Christian sect—let me put it no higher—which works by your side, and which you admit is doing common work to the common advantage of Christianity.
I would appeal, in conclusion, to Nonconformists who sit opposite, and I would ask them what good to Christianity will this Bill effect? Will it relieve the necessity of one human being in distress, will it solve doubts, or will it bring comfort to any doubting spirit? Why do you want to wound, as you are doing, those with whom you are working in a common cause? To Liberal Churchmen who sit on the other side of the House what shall I say? Do not let it be supposed that I would venture to dictate. Such a thing is foreign to my thoughts; I would not even suggest it. But I would make an appeal from Back Benches to Back Benches. I would ask Liberal Churchmen to come forward and help our Church when it is in danger—our Church, which we love, to which we owe so much. I would ask Liberal Churchmen who think that there is justice in the demands which we venture to put forward not to forget their party politics, but deliberately and consciously to set them aside for a higher and nobler object.
§ Mr. EDWARD WOODI beg to second the Amendment.
1648 I think that all who heard the speech of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Hume-Williams) will agree that he has made a most forcible and an extremely comprehensive presentment of our case. For my part, I feel that in what he said at the outset he gave expression to what most of us feel more keenly at this time than almost anything else, and that is the grave complaint that we have in the whole method by which this matter has been treated by the Government, and the whole evolution of the political position as we now find it. I am one of those who are disposed to think that there is something more than accidental routine in the arrangement of business by which this Welsh Bill is given precedence over the Home Rule Bill. It would not be unnatural, from the point of view of hon. Members opposite, if they were unwilling, by the passage through this House of the Home Rule Bill for the third and last time, to deprive themselves of what for two or three years has been an all-powerful hostage in order to guarantee the support of hon. Members from Ireland. If that is true, it means that, when we are entering for the last time upon these discussions, you are afraid to do what you have never yet been able to do, namely, to put the Irish party in a position that they have never yet known—that of being able to vote upon the merits or demerits of this Bill without ulterior considerations. Is there any gainsaying the fact that of these two Bills, the Home Rule Bill and the Welsh Bill, the former commands the larger measure of assent on the benches opposite? It is based on the hope and belief—mistakenly, as we think—that you may be able in the future to realise an ideal by the grant of the proposed powers. The Welsh Bill, on the other hand, avowedly proceeds upon the supposed shortcomings of Churchmen in the past. There is accumulated evidence to show with what open dislike the Disendowment provisions are confessedly viewed by hon. Members opposite. Yet it is with regard to the Bill that avowedly commands the greater measure of assent that you are prepared to introduce concessions, even to the extent of an amending Bill. What does that mean? Surely only one thing—and it is not a thing which leads to respect for the House of Commons—that you are prepared to concede to force what you will not even begin to consider in the ease of claims that are not advanced with the accompaniment of force.
I do not wish, after what my hon. and learned Friend has said, to go into detail 1649 either as to the extent of your policy or as to the foundation upon which you support it. We judge it essentially from the point of view of principle, that has a direct and immediate application in many directions to the life of the Church and of the State, especially of the State. Therefore it is worth while, I think, even at this eleventh hour, to restate the reasons why we are so opposed to this Bill, and the considerations which make it impossible for us to enter into any bargain with you, or to come to any terms, either as to your policy or as to the degree to which you shall give effect to it. It is a Bill for Disestablishment. I suppose that there is no term in the English language that has been more responsible for confusion of thought than the term "Establishment." That confusion of thought, I believe, has been responsible for such demand as underlies this Bill. It is a very serious thing when words are the offspring of confused thought. It is far more serious when words themselves create confusion of thought, as I think has been the case here. Many hon. Members who have voted faithfully for Disestablishment would be very hard put to it to define what they mean by it. In no case do we need to guard ourselves more scrupulously against that most disastrous of all habits, trying to read the history of the twelfth and sixteenth centuries by the light of our notions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Even granting for the sake of argument that you can make out a case for the illogicality of the State's having any peculiar relationship with one religious denomination, wherein is that relationship unjust or inequitable to Nonconformists? If anybody suffers it is the Church, who suffers by the false interpretation current as to what is involved in that relationship. It is supposed, wrongly, as I think, to justify the subjection of the Church to the control of a House of Commons that is avowedly secular. But if that be true, the remedy for it is not this Bill, but to recognise the inherent liberty of the Church, and to grant her a larger measure thereof.
That there are grave differences between the Church and Nonconformist sects I should be the last to deny. There are differences of doctrine and of organisation, differences social and often political; but I challenge any hon. Member opposite to prove that any one of those differences either is caused by Establishment or would be cured by Disestablishment. Many people support this Bill in the expectation 1650 that it will be responsible for a fundamental alteration in the character of what I may call the essence of the Church. There could be no more profound delusion. There may be changes; but hon. Members may be assured that the life and the being of the Church are beyond the power of this or any other Parliament. Whether this Bill pass or fail, whether the Church be endowed or disendowed, whether she be confirmed in her property or deprived of it by politicians, the Church will remain the same in doctrine and in discipline, inspired' by the same ideals, and based on the same-principles as she has always been. Some hon. Members seem to think that this Bill is going to alter the character of the Church in some unknown direction. Let them not hug themselves with that delusion. I noticed in the "Times" on Saturday a somewhat remarkable letter from the Dean of Ripon. For the Dean of Ripon I have, on personal grounds, the greatest possible "respect, but he is a gentleman with whom on every matter of profound controversy I should probably disagree: therefore, his opinion will be likely to have with hon. Members opposite more weight than that of other ecclesiastical dignities. I was very much struck to see that the dean, after deploring the fact that the rules and discipline of the Church as they now exist have the effect of cutting the Christian nation at once into two hostile camps, concluded by saying:—
I will only state that I have been a Liberal all my life, and a constant advocate of all measures which would place Nonconformists, among whom I have many friends, in a position in which Episcopalian and Non-episcopalian members of our Christian nation may unite in their common work. But it seems to me that the present Bill would increase the evils complained of instead of removing them.By the testimony of one who has been an avowed supporter of the Liberal party all his life, and who holds views widely differing from those held by hon. Members on this side, both on ordinary politics and on church politics, your Bill is unhesitatingly condemned. Nor is the dean alone in that position. We on this side, both in and out of the House, have repeatedly pressed for an answer to the perfectly-plain question—In what respect does the relationship existing between the State and the Church of England in Wales penalise any single Nonconformist? We have repeatedly expressed our willingness to extend to Nonconformists, either in Wales or in England, any privileges that can be shown to be the result of that relationship. Therefore you cannot be 1651 surprised that, in the absence of any response to this request, we begin to be sceptical when you tell us that what inspires you is the desire to get rid of a paper illogicality, to promote unity, to further the Church's efficiency, and that for these objects it is necessary to deprive the Church of £158,000 a year. I very much doubt whether hon. Members on the other side of the House, who know Wales better than I do, and have more right to speak on the point, can do so, but so far as I have been able to inform myself, I doubt very much whether, from the most extreme Nonconformist view, it is possible to make out a case for the statement that it is the Establishment, so-called, that is a bar to religious unity in Wales to-day. Well-informed and competent observers have told me that one of the most noteworthy tendencies of Welsh Nonconformity to-day is what I might call "a disruptive centrifugal tendency," which I have been told—though I do not vouch for it—is responsible for one in every five of the chapels in the Principality. If that be approximately true, is it not ridiculous to make that claim as to the bar to unity? There are those who talk about unity! Unity is a very tender plant. Whether you are confronted with differences of one sort or another, the only atmosphere in which that plant of unity will grow is a great and rushing desire for it—a desire that will impel you always to view your differences by the light of unfailing charity.Can hon. Members opposite suggest that this Bill, with those provisions to which my hon. and learned Friend drew particular attention, is likely to promote that spirit of unfailing charity by which alone you can promote the cause of unity? Then, with regard to Disendowment, let me repeat the question: Why do we on this side fight the battle at this time? It is not—let me again repeat—that we fight for money as such. We fight for the work that money enables us to do. What follows the robbery of £158,000 from the Church? It means that the officers of the Church in their various capacities have got to set to and rebuild the Endowments that you will wantonly destroy. Can anybody suppose—and I frankly admit it—that the direct spiritual work of the Church has not been hampered in the last three years by the fact that the Welsh bishops, clergy, and others have been compelled to divert 1652 their attention, even in some degree, even from direct spiritual work, in order to resist your proposals? A great many hon. Members on the other side deplore, as much as we can possibly deplore, the low-result when a religious organisation becomes immersed in other and more mundane considerations. Therefore, you will be doing the greatest possible disservice to any religious organisation when you increase the volume of mundane work to be discharged before you can get the spiritual work proper. What is the universal experience of Nonconformist sects themselves in this matter?
In 1902—I dare say this already has been quoted in the House—Lord Bryce, then a Member of this House, rested his main defence of the Welsh proposals of that date directly upon his opinion that the voluntary principle was generally preferable, and that it was the secret of the success which the Nonconformist sects have achieved. What is the case now? Every Nonconformist sect, I think I may say without exception, is appealing for endowment funds. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has lent the weight of his support to one of the greatest of those appeals. How, in the face of that, you can substantiate your plea that by Disendowment you are also making the Church more efficient is something which requires more ingenuity than I can lay claim to to understand. The fact is that what was years ago termed "free trade in religion" has hopelessly, finally, and irrecoverably broken down, and I venture to say that hon. Members on the opposite side of the House know that as well as we do here. I hope, though, that hon. Members will not think that because they have failed to achieve results that they perhaps wanted that their efforts will be barren. I have said something about the effect on the Church. My hon. and learned Friend said a good deal about the effect on the State. I would only add a word to what he said. He reminded us what has been the course of thought in the last generation or two on these matters: how we have moved from Erastianism to Liberationist theories, and how in turn Liberationist theories have been discarded in favour of the thought that now nearly all of us, either consciously or unconsciously, accept, namely, that religion and the religious instinct is the real underpinning foundation of society, and is the basis upon which society as a whole must always rest. If anyone doubts that; if anybody is disposed to doubt that religion is the most 1653 potent, single social force that we now know of, I would ask him what would have been the course of the world's history, more especially English history—with which we are more familiar—if you had taken out of that history the men who have influenced it, and who were inspired in the direction in which they influenced it by the touch of religion? How much philanthropy would you have had without that. If, therefore, that be true, and if it is to religion rather than to laws that you must look to effect your social reforms for you, what folly it is that during the very time you are trying to stimulate the public conscience to wake up to overdue social reform, when in every direction the force and the grip of materialism is becoming tighter, and when the most superficial acquaintance with the contemporary thought and literature of our day shows us that it is not only the outward expression but the very anchors of morality that are being challenged and dragged, what folly, I say, at that time to force a quarrel with the forces that ought to be your greatest ally in the battle.
Let hon. Members be under no delusion as to another matter. The results of your policy will not be confined within the four borders of this country. I doubt very much whether anybody who realises what Christianity has done in the past in the world's history, and what it has yet to do, can contemplate without dismay what will be the result of this policy when the news reaches many parts of the world where at this moment the battle of Christianity is being most keenly and stoutly contested. What will be said, for example, when the news reaches China that in the great Christian country of the West the people have seen fit to divert funds that have been for centuries devoted to religious purposes and devote them to purposes entirely unconnected with any religious administration? I express my opinion that when the news reaches China—and there are many other places like China—when it is passed from lip to lip against Christianity, that the evil effect is not likely to be diminished by your nice explanations in this House as to the exact historical growth and meaning of Establishment.
§ Mr. WILLIAM JONES (Lord of the Treasury)At the outset let me say how sympathetically I view most of the remarks of the Seconder of this Motion for the rejection when he touched upon the 1654 vital and essential power of religion in all social, intellectual, and other questions. I have in the course of my life spoken hundreds of times on Welsh Disestablishment, but I have never said a word about the religion of the Church in Wales. God forbid I should do so! Our quarrel is not with religion or with the Church. Our quarrel is with the Establishment. The Seconder of the Motion comes at once into touch with us when he says that throughout the world to-day Christianity is working against infidelity, atheism, and materialism, with a united front. But in all our Colonies—Crown Colonies as well—and in the whole of the United States of America, it is working without an establishment. It has freedom. It has, to use the term of the hon. Member, that sentiment to go to the people without the trammels of any State Establishment. Let me turn for a moment to some of the remarks of the Mover of the Motion. Let me join with him in the terms he used with regard to the late Mr. Alfred Lyttelton. Though I was opposed to him, we were always on terms of the most cordial personal friendship. The Mover of the Resolution has dealt with the whole question, not from the Welsh point of view, not from the inwardness of the national standpoint, but from the stand point of an Englishman, taking his cue mainly from what the Church of England is doing in England. There is no parallel between either the activity or the history of the two Churches. The hon. Member said something about the Parliament Act. He questioned some of the points of the Parliament Act in regard to this Bill. Let me quote to him the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the former Leader of the Opposition. On the Second Reading of this Bill, on 21st April, the right hon. Gentleman said:—
The Parliament Act was originally an interim arrangement intended to allow Home Rule and the Welsh Church Bill to pass. That was the object with which it was brought in. That was the avowed object. The Act was an instrument intended to carry out these reforms."'When was the Parliament Bill originally introduced? It was introduced into the House of Commons in May, 1910. It was introduced into the House of Lords in November, 1910. The last General Election took place in December, 1910. The hon. Gentleman touched upon the lack of meetings in favour of the Bill in Wales. He spoke of the lack of enthusiasm there as compared with the innumerable petitions and meetings against the Bill. I do not want to carry that matter too far, but 1655 examine the methods of obtaining signatures. I have letters innumerable which show that in some cases ministers of the Gospel whose names are on the petitions never saw the petitions. They were obtained, just the same as the votes of the Welsh voters were obtained before 1868; they were obtained by territorial magnates; they were obtained by Churchmen who were landlords; they were obtained by captains of industry; they were obtained in my Constituency by agents and by stewards. What did it all mean really? There were innumerable petitions, twice as many as you have against this Bill, presented against the Education Act of 1902; quite as many as you have against this Bill were presented against the Licensing Act. What did you do with our objections? You despised them. You despised them just as much as you did the Welsh majority that came from Wales. We do not despise petitions in Wales, but what they prove to us in Wales is what a thoroughly good and right thing the Ballot Act is. I want to give some quotations from bishops, and most of the quotations I intend to give are going to be from the words of bishops and Churchmen and very few from Nonconformists—none if I can help it. What did Bishop Jayne say on this question. There was a complaint in some cases that Churchmen were afraid to say what they thought against this Bill, but let us not forget that there are thousands of Churchmen in Wales who are good Liberals. We have seven or eight Liberal Churchmen Members for Wales, and we had from the beginning. Now what did Bishop Jayne say? He said:Let them (the friends of the Church) whisper their secret in the ballot boxes.That is what the Welsh people have done since 1868. On this great question they have done more whispering, and they have at last used the ballot boxes and voted at the polls. We have found it a great argument that ought to be understood by the people of England. England has made constitutional government the basis of the Constitution. You have offered the world that principle and that doctrine, and it is going back on that principle if you have recourse to petitions and speeches and public meetings. Welsh people have whispered their secrets in the ballot boxes, with the result that the constitutional majority in Wales in the last eight General Elections has been overwhelmingly in favour of this Bill. Let me quote what the "Church Times" said, not a decade 1656 ago or twenty years ago, but on 24th November, 1911:—If Wales were a separate country, with a separate Legislature, then there would hardly be room for any discussion at all. Disestablishment would be effected straightaway by an overwhelming majority,Then we have other questions. The hon. Member who moved the rejection dealt with the churchyards—the parish churchyards—criticising the demands of the Nonconformists that they should have equal rights, and that all the parishioners should have equal rights. At the present moment there are no churchyards, but there are-parish churchyards. They belong to the parish, and let us not forget this fact—that in the vast majority of the rural agricultural districts of Wales the vast majority are Nonconformists, and their ancestors lie buried in these churchyards. If you keep the churchyards after Disestablishment, what will occur? Why, instead of being churchyards belonging to the parish, they become the churchyards of a sect, because after Disestablishment the Church will become a sect in Wales. I would like to call the attention of hon. Gentlemen opposite to this fact: You have always been telling us that our majority on this Bill was an Irish majority. As a Whip I take some account of the figures, and what do I see, that on all the essential Divisions, and during all the great Divisions on this Bill, in all the most important majorities on the Second and Third Reading every year, if you take the Irish Members from both sides—and that is fair, though hon. Members opposite would eliminate only the Nationalists, but we, for the sake of this argument, chose to eliminate the Ulster Orangemen as well—and if you do that you will find a British majority in all the great Divisions ranging from 22 to 47. The last majority was a clear British majority of 28 on Second Reading.But we do not dwell upon British majorities only—we have the Act of Union still in force, and surely from the constitutional point of view, the Irish are just as much a part of this Assembly as anyone else, and we are proud to get their help. Then both hon. Members referred to sentiment. Did it ever occur to them why the sentiment of the Welsh people is against Anglicanism. In Scotland, the sentiment of the people is against Anglicanism, and the Scottish people became Presbyterians. Scotland remained Presbyterian. Scotland fought and triumphed over Anglicanism. Again, take the case of Ireland—Ireland is Catholic, 1657 not Anglican. In the Isle of Man, in Cornwall—all the Celtic peoples are against Anglicanism. The Isle of Man and Cornwall have become Wesleyans, and the Welsh have become Nonconformists. I am proud to join with the Noble Lord opposite in saying that this is a religious question, that there is a religious principle behind this matter. That is why the Liberal Members from Wales are here. They would not be here, not one of us, but for the birth of this great religious revival in Wales. The genius of this movement of the Free Churches is a religious movement. It began with the great birth of opinion, and with the birth of a nation, and with the birth of the nation came the great Nonconformist leaders, not a secession from the Church, but driven from the Church by force, many of them wishing, as Luther wished, to keep in touch with the Church of Rome, so that all these leaders who were in their heart of hearts, and it was only against their will they severed their connection, and then came the new birth during that great religious revival which we have in Wales to-day in all the force that makes for national life. The Welsh revival transformed the moral and intellectual life of the whole of our people. I should like all hon. Members to read something of the history of the old Church writers of the seventeenth century. The Church of England is Anglicanism. At one time in its career it had a real chance of taking hold upon the people of Wales. That was when the Welsh Tudors were on the throne, when they sent Welsh bishops, great scholars, Welsh statesmen from Wales, leaving Wales and the Welsh people in gross ignorance and darkness. You have only to read the reports of the lives of the Welsh Churchmen. What did some of the great bards and men of letters in the 18th century say of the Church, which was to take hold of the people? Why, that it was an Anglicising movement owing to the State connection. From that we have got a new life. We owe a great deal to Church scholars of the Bible and the New Testament, but we know infinitely more as Nonconformists of the religious views of districts from many works written by Churchmen themselves. Books, religious in character, were spread and distributed in thousands. Pamphlets, literature, journalism, intellectual activity, a wider outlook on life, the education of democracy in Wales, politics, all sprung from this great revival, and that is the reason why some hon. Members on the 1658 other side fail to see that we do not believe in Christianity through formulæs or sacerdotal Christianity. I am not condemning these from their point of view, but this Christianity of ours is Christianity based upon the New Testament, upon thought and life of all great preachers and great journalists; and periodical writers and educationists, who take their inspiration for politics and everything else from the Great Book. Let me, in that case, read what Dean Edwards said in the Church congress. Dean Edwards was never a Liberal, he was never a Disestablisher, but he was almost on the brink of becoming a Liberal, and almost on the verge of despair for the Church. What did he say?—
For 150 years, every teacher whose name lives in the hearts of the Welsh people has been almost without, exception a Nonconformist. While the bishops were laying hands upon unfit men, the natural heaven-born teachers of Wales were influencing thousands in the chapel, and Cymmanfa. Of the clergy, those who were educated knew no Welsh, and those who knew Welsh were not educated. Those who had something to say could not, say it to the people, and those who could say it had nothing to say.6.0 P.M.These were Church dignitaries. He was one of the few Churchmen who helped Welsh Nonconformists in that great education movement. Listen to what Dean Edwards said in a letter to Mr. John Gee in reference to the educational matter of Endowments when we were just starting the great secondary education movement in Wales. He said:—
I am, by the fortunes of war as a clergyman, almost compelled to be a Conservative. But I am, in these days, able to find some consolation in the belief that the Liberal representatives understand the popular aspirations of Wales and of the Welsh people, and will probably do something considerable for their realisation.That is one of the things which Welsh Liberal Members, from Henry Richard down to Tom Ellis, have done. This is the last lap and the last chapter in the history of liberty of religion cast in this Debate, and this Bill will pass from heated arguments and controversies into the solemn realm of fact and reality. Since Dean Edwards' time the Church has shown increased activity, and a new spirit has shown itself, but still it shows no sign of becoming the organ of the religious faith and aspirations of the Welsh people. Listen to what Canon Hobhouse said at the Church Congress at Stoke in October, 1911:—The weakness of the Church seems to be more marked in purely rural districts, and where there is a predominance of Welsh-speaking people. The lack of Welsh-speaking clergy was one main cause of the origin of dissent, and this is reflected in the present state of 1659 the Church. We are left with the impression that the Church still feels more at home with the English-speaking population, and with the comfortable classes. In spite of herself she has not altogether shaken off a certain aloofness and stiffness of movement, but continues to be hampered by the results of past mistakes and by defects of system.Then there came the Bangor protest in 1895, signed by the leading vicars of the Church and the Warden of the School of Divinity at Bangor. What did he say?At present our leaders in the Church are bewildered by the national awakening which we see on all sides in politics, in literature, in education. The whole stream of the national revival is flowing past us.That is an admission from the ablest members of the Church itself, that the Church was taking to the backwater, leaving the main stream of culture and literature and social reform in the hands of the Nonconformists. The Church itself remains to-day in intimate touch with only one-tenth of the people, while they say the Nonconformists claim to be in touch with three times as many. Those are the figures of the Church Commission after going into the matter very carefully.
§ Lord HUGH CECILThe figures were wrong.
§ Mr. W. JONESYes, there have been figures on both sides. In the figures pre pared by the Nonconformists a mistake of only 500 was found, whereas when the Church statistics were examined they found mistakes of thousands. The Noble Lord opposite only needs to read the report of Mr. J. H. Davis—
§ Lord HUGH CECILIf the hon. Member will read the report of the archdeacon he will find just the opposite to that which ho has stated.
§ Mr. W. JONESIn St. Asaph's there was a revolt of the clergy, and the bishop there was alleged to be—
pursuing without restraint a policy which sooner or later must be fatal to the position of the Church in Wales.In spite of the activity and reform of the Church, 75 out of 206 of the beneficed clergy of the diocese of St. Asaph's signed a protest, and they told the bishop that a vast majority of them were, ready to sign, only they were afraid, and those who did sign were the men who had the richest benefices under the Bishop himself, and were not afraid of him. The Rector of Marchwiel, in declining an invitation to meet the Bishop of Wrexham, wrote:—The only kind of meeting you deserve at my hand is the national one of cuigelling with a wild ash stick.1660 I can assure the House that it is infinitely stronger in Welsh.
§ Mr. W. JONESPastwn onen wyllt.
§ Mr. W. JONES1900. Our nationality strove to meet materialism, scepticism, doubt, tuberculosis, and questions of that sort. Our Christianity has always been the ever-moving force of the national life. One of our greatest journalists, Dr. William Lees, who was a great preacher and a lecturer, wrote letters to the farmers of Wales, and that is one of the reasons why the fanners in Wales are Radicals and democrats to-day. They were taught politics through Christianity, and politics from that point of view was a practical application of the Christian ideals of New Testament teaching. That is why Churchmen, particularly Anglicans, failed to understand the requirements of the Welsh national life. We agree with what a great Scotsman, Dr. Caird, said in a sermon he preached, in which he said:
Religion is not a thing by itself apart. It is something which has to do with everything that we are and everything that we do.That is the meaning of Christianity to Nonconformists in Wales. There are plenty of Nonconformists who are not perfect, just as there are Churchmen who are not perfect. In the Gallery of this House when I was a boy I met one of the most saintly laymen of Wales who was a Pressman writing his weekly letter for the papers. I afterwards met him at education and political meetings, or at lucid intervals after writing his letters—[Laughter]—yes, they were very lucid intervals for Wales, because he brought Christianity through journalism into education, and often have I seen him with a cough shaking him through and through advocating not merely freedom of religion, but the higher education of the poor in Wales. He was connected with Aberystwyth College, where he inspired young men to follow his example. Those were men who took their Christianity seriously, and made it four square with everything appertaining to Welsh life. That is why our nationality in Wales is what it is today. It has been said that these Endowments are to be devoted to secular purposes. Why do you say Endowments for secular purposes? We do not know those secular purposes. The Church itself has these Endowments as a trust for the people.1661 That might be so when the Church in Wales was coterminous with the nation, but can anyone say now, even by using the highest figure with which the Noble Lord opposite can speculate, that it is coterminous with the nation to-day? We say that a substantial and essential part of those Endowments should be given not to Nonconformists, because they do not want them; Nonconformists get their Endowments by voluntary effort, and they have been doing work, not for Nonconformists only, but for the whole democracy of Wales. They have built colleges. Aberystwyth College was mainly built by Nonconformists. The first cheque for that college was one which came from a Nonconformist, the late Mr. David Davis, who gave a cheque for £5,000, and his grandson, who is now a Member of this House, endowed a college with one of the finest libraries in these islands. That is the spirit which has come from the great Nonconformists' ideals. We want these Endowments for a nation and not for Nonconformists. Why? Because a nation is greater than any sect. What did Archbishop Temple say, as quoted in the "Yorkshire Post":—
It is a trust placed in our hands for the good of all, a trust given in the most sacred way for the general good of the country as a whole.That is why we are for Disendowment, and the moment there is Disestablishment there will be hundreds and thousands of laymen and clergymen, particularly young clergymen of the new school, who are anxious to burst the fetters of formularism—join their contribution to the fuller life of Wales. I often wonder how it is as compared with England that the memories of some of these great clergymen are not enshrined in song. We have not, as far as I can remember, a single bishop or a dignitary of the Welsh Church whose name is on the tongue of the common people in song. Look at the parish priest in Ireland. One of their most beautiful songs is "Sogart Aroon," the Darling Priests, the priest who sympathises with the people. We have thousands of poems echoing and reechoing the glory of Welsh Nonconformist preachers. There is one of a bishop, a classic, which I know by heart. I learnt it as a boy. It was written by a Welsh clergyman, but it was not about a Welsh bishop. It was about the great missionary bishop and hymn writer, Bishop Heber. Even in Wales Bishop Heber is remembered in an old elegy. Now, let me turn attention to one or two features with regard to the present and the future. Even to-day, as before, the great preachers of Wales are 1662 Nonconformists. There was one great Church preacher, and the Nonconformists would have made him a bishop, but he was never made a bishop. That was Dean Howell. He was at St. David's Cathedral when they had Welsh services there. At the present moment there is not a single Welsh cathedral service in any one of the four dioceses. There are Celt Church services in Welsh, but not a single Catholic cathedral service. The moment Dean Howell was dead an English dean was appointed in his place, even in one of the "Welshiest" districts.How can hon. Gentlemen opposite understand Wales unless they know something of the power of the great personalities of Wales? I have often heard it said that the unit of Church administration is the parish, and very often that we have scores, if not hundreds, of parishes without a resident minister which after Disestablishment and Disendowment will lose spiritual ministrations. Not at all. There is not a cottage or shepherd's cot but the inmates have the ministrations of spiritual Christianity given them day by day and Sunday by Sunday. It is more than Church people get, because very often the incumbents of the Church are fettered by certain regulations and dare not go beyond the diocese to preach. In Wales the great Nonconformist preachers, whether in South, Mid, or North Wales, go wherever they like, and they are very often in mountain districts, far from the sound of industry, where only the bleat of sheep can be heard, and there they preach to the poorest in the land. I myself remember going often with one of the great modern preachers of Wales. I have heard great preachers, both Anglican and Nonconformist, in London, but I have never heard a greater preacher than Dr. Thomas G. Edwards, head of Aberystwyth College. I heard him at Oxford preach to the dons and students, and the verdict, one after another of Churchmen and Nonconformists alike was that they had never heard a greater sermon. I had the pleasure of climbing mountains in Wales—I used to climb Plynhymon on a Sunday afternoon—to hear this man preach to a fold of six shepherds or of peasant farmers, and he preached to them with the same spiritual fervour and the same scholarliness of exposition as he exhibited at Oxford, only in simpler language. The Welsh cottagers have had the means for the last six years, and they have the means now, of hearing the great- 1663 est thinkers, the greatest ministers, and the greatest pastors.
Let me tell the House that it is from these cottages that nearly all our great scholars have sprung. If you glance over the list of the great scholars of Wales today you will find that the historians of our nation and the grammarians of our nation have been poor boys who have sprung from cottages. At one time we could not send our men to Oxford and Cambridge, and some of them used to walk all the way to Edinburgh and Glasgow, but to-day, thanks to the efforts of these people, we have got a university and three constituent colleges, 75 per cent. of the students of which are drawn from our secondary schools, whilst 90 per cent. of the students in our secondary schools are drawn from the elementary schools. See how catholic it is? I am not going to say it is next to Scotland. Scotland centuries ago had that which we had not, alongside with Presbyterianism and Free Kirkism. That is one of the reasons why Scotsmen have been such great administrators and statesmen for the Empire. National we are to the core, but we have been Empire builders, too. The Tudors are of Welsh blood. Who is the Lord Chief Justice of India to-day? A Welshman, one of the greatest servants sent there by the Crown. The late Chief Justice of Australia was a Welshman, and the teacher in the finest chair of moral philosophy in Scotland today is another Welshman, Sir Henry Jones. Most of these were country-born on the Uplands and lived among shepherds.
People in England cannot understand our arguments; save the argument that you, Mr. Speaker, will appreciate, the constitutional argument. I say it again, because I have hundreds and thousands of Church friends, and we respect each other's convictions. The Church is following Nonconformity now in the large towns of England. One must not forget that, wherever Welsh Nonconformists go, whether to London, Liverpool, Manchester or Birmingham, there they build themselves Free Churches and maintain them by voluntary offerings. I should like some hon. Gentlemen opposite to attend some of the Welsh services on a Sunday evening in London. I should like them to go to the Wesleyan Welsh Church in City Road, to the Calvinistic Methodist Church in Charing Cross Road, or to the Independents at King's Cross. We have in London alone 1664 thirty-two chapels. One denomination has twelve branches. The Church of England, when I came here, had only one Welsh Church. I am glad to pay tribute to it and to say that it has five to-day, so that it is following in the footsteps of Nonconformity when given the alternative. In the Liverpool and Manchester area we have seventy Welsh Nonconformist churches. In America and Canada there has been established a system of Welsh churches throughout the land, and the number of churches where Welsh services are held number over 420, but those of the Anglican faith are all held in the English tongue, and it is a remarkable fact that even Welsh Churchmen, when they go oversea, are known to become adherents of the Nonconformist Welsh Church. Go to the Argentine and in Patagonia there are twenty-four Welsh Nonconformist churches. President Roosevelt told me at the White House that the finest citizens in America were those who organised their religion—Scandinavians, Scotchmen, Welshmen. In Australia there are two Welsh Nonconformist churches, in New Zealand one, and in South Africa three. In Bristol there are two, in Birmingham two, in Newcastle one, and in Middlesbrough two.
If you go to some of the London churches you will find between 700 and 800 members and communicants, many of them assistants in drapers' shops. There was an appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) in one of the Debates on this Bill, and there was an appeal made today by the Mover of the Motion for the rejection. I, too, will make my appeal. What are we doing in Wales to-day to meet the needs of our religious and social life? It is the Nonconformist Churches which are preparing to meet the spiritual needs of the great masses of our people, and they do it by providing that the young ministers in all our denominational Churches shall take their Arts Degree at a Welsh university or go through a postgraduate course at Oxford or Cambridge. I will read what was said of this by Sir Harry Reichel, the principal of Bangor College, himself an Anglican and a Conservative, at the Church Congress at Manchester in 1908, when showing how Wales during the last quarter of a century had undergone "an educational reconstruction amounting almost to a revolution":—
But Lampeter the oldest chief training for Church Ordnands is entrenched in a Royal Charter and defended by loyal affection of a large body of graduates who are not unnaturally inclined to resent any proposal 1665 for reconstruction as an imputation of inefficiency against their Alma mater.' 'The educational revolution which has transformed Wales has left the education of the Church clergy virtually untouched.' Referring to post graduate study in theology he states—'Assuming that all those who went, on to other colleges were graduates, the proportion would work out thus: (1) Taking post graduate theology for at least two years—Lampeter one in 22, Nonconformists all.'That is how we are training our ministers to fit them for our intellectual needs of the future. This great scholarly Churchman says:—When I first came to Wales, Lampeter turned out a better type of man than the best of the Nonconformist colleges. The positions are now reversed. The Nonconformist colleges have brought themselves into line with this movement. Lampeter stands where she did.If you want to know who are our great historians, who are the great theologians, and who are the great writers of Wales, you will find they are nearly all scholars from our Nonconformist colleges. There is, however, a new movement among the young Churchmen. They, too, insist upon coming to our national colleges, and that is a great sign, a good augury for the future. The same thing has happened in the world of social reform in the great industrial centres of South Wales. Who have been working there for social reform? Who have been Christianising largely the gaolbirds of Somersetshire and Warwickshire, and crying to them, "Come, join our ranks." This is no laughing matter. A late chairman of the Somersetshire County Council told me that nearly all the men released from gaol in the counties of Somerset, Warwick, and Gloucester, are sent off to the Welsh collieries. I am not putting any claim for anyone, but there is work to be done here, work to be done by Christianity. It is being done by the forward Nonconformist movement. I have not heard of any forward Church movement in these industrial centres. I know there are missions, but they are not of the same extent as our forward movement at Newport, Merthyr, Tredegar, and like districts—nothing to the same extent. We are doing more. It may interest the House to know that one sect in Wales has a mission at Assam, and a great Indian statesman has said that this little Calvinistic Methodist Mission was one of the finest missions in India.The hon. Member who moved the rejection of this Bill says that if this Bill passes there will be bitter conflict. No, there will not, and I will tell the House why there will be neither bitterness nor conflict. There will be temporary inconvenience and embarrassment, but not conflict or bitterness, because we have in Wales 1666 great forces to combat, and all our intellectual, moral, social, and industrial strength will be needed to help. All the best Christians will have to come together. We are doing our share in Wales, and to-day the best young Churchmen are eager to burst their fetters and join us, and when this great storm and stress of religious strife is over, then, apart from sect, apart from Anglicanism, apart from sectarianism, all these forces will flow together for the regeneration of Wales. That is what we hope from this Bill, and I venture to think we shall not hope in vain. There will be a merger of the Churches, and all these hundreds of thousands of laymen will participate in it. Hundreds of young clergymen who are nationalists to the core will then come out and make the Church more national than Anglican, more spiritual than Erastian, and more Christian than all.
§ Mr. STUART-WORTLEYThe hon. Gentleman who spoke last commended himself to the House in a way in which real farvour when thus manifested never fails. He has shown as regards his country, and some of the best things in it, an intimate knowledge in which I must sorrowfully confess there are few in this House can compete with him. He has claimed that the members and adherents of the Free Churches in Wales have done very much to advance all that is best in Welsh life, but I cannot help calling to mind the time when the Welsh University Act was passed, and I seem to remember something being then said about some things done and sums of money given even by Churchmen.
§ Mr. W. JONESI said so.
§ Mr. STUART-WORTLEYIf that be part of history, it seems to me it is a poor return we are making to try and contend here to-day, when things have changed so little in Wales, that you can get no redress except by bringing in this particular Bill. The hon. Gentleman showed a great knowledge of Welsh history, and he spoke as if Wales had enjoyed some great deliverance from burdens unnamed and from political tyrannies beyond description when the ballot was brought into force. I am afraid I am old enough to remember the first General Election held under the Ballot Act, when a large Conservative majority was returned in the United Kingdom, and I believe it is true to say that Conservatism and that Churchmen improved their position in that General Election in 1667 Wales, as in the rest of the United Kingdom. That was the election of 1874. The hon. Gentleman has unfolded a record of his country, a record of which any country might be proud; but what we fail to see is why, on that ground, the property of the Church should be taken away, and its status altered, as we think, for the worse. I might detain the House long by the discussion of the old familiar grounds. But we can to-day discuss two points. Either we can discuss what we are doing, or we can discuss the circumstances in which we are doing it. It is open to us to discuss and criticise and condemn on its merits the Bill which we are asked to discuss. It is open to us, on the other hand, to protest against the unreality of these so-called deliberations of ours, and against the cynical opportunism, as we think it, of the decision which everyone knows in advance is going to be given.
I will address myself, first, to the circumstances in which we are discussing this Bill. The outstanding feature seems to be the note of triumph which we read in the Ministerial Press and in the utterances of outside speakers. References are made to our situation on this side of the House under the operation of the Parliament Act. Taunts are levelled against our political impotence to do as we did before—when our two-Chamber system was unchanged, and when we could stop Bills, or if we could not stop them, we could get them referred to the people of this country. I refer to these forms of exultation because they do at least recognise there is on this side of the House and amongst Churchmen all over the United Kingdom a feeling of strong and well-justified indignation and resentment at the proposals of this Bill. I can tell hon. Gentlemen that this indignation applies not only to the matter but also to the manner of this Bill. We condemn not only the fruitlessness and destructiveness of what is being done, but we condemn also the form under which, as we say, popular authority is being usurped. Whether caused by violence or by chicane in method or by wrongfulness in the thing itself, our resentment lives and lasts, and we say will remain, a sure mark of the failure of your legislation to achieve that consent and that contentment at which all statesmanship is supposed to aim. Of the circumstances in which we are met to read this Bill a Third time to-day, I will say this one thing more: All these forms 1668 of yours by which you are straining the principles of our Constitution are evidence chiefly of one thing—that is, of your haste to get this procedure applied before this House gets dissolved and sent to its constituents. That haste, we think, is begotten by an anxiety which you do well to feel, and that anxiety is the child of a doubt only too well founded—namely, whether the people would now, even by implication or inadvertence, grant you even so little as a technical and formal authority which, by this procedure, we say you are abusing.
I come, then, to the Bill itself. Here, again, I find the same signs that I found in the procedure. When you want to examine the case for a Bill you naturally go to the statement of the case in the language of its best advocates and, if possible, you go to those who attain the greatest cogency in the fewest words. There is one obvious source for that—that is, the speeches of the present Prime Minister. I take, for example, his speech on the Second Reading of this Bill in this House on 17th June, 1913. I consider that speech especially interesting because, although it was what might be called a second-year speech, in which the right hon. Gentleman might have availed himself of the stage in which we stood under the Parliament Act to say that the Bill was resjudicata and hardly worth arguing over again, instead of doing that he stated in his inimitable manner all the weighty things he could find to say for it. Why do I refer to that speech? I will explain that to the House by giving a short analysis of its contents, because it was the best exposition I have ever heard of the case for the Bill. The significant part of that speech was its omissions. There was a significant absence from that speech of any claim, let alone any attempt to prove, any concrete grievances or burdens existing on Nonconformists in Wales at this present day in which we are met. By concrete grievances I mean grievances which are not merely sentimental. I do not wish to underrate for one moment the value of sentiment, but when you are proposing the things you are proposing to do in this Bill, you are bound to address yourselves more to concrete grievances than to memories of things which happened in the past. When I talk of present grievances as well as concrete grievances I mean grievances operating among the people who now live in Wales.
1669 The Prime Minister upon that occasion—it is very significant—did not enlarge upon the real or fancied origins, attributes, or destinations of tithe. He knew a great deal better than to do that. He knew perfectly well that if this sort of claim were to be raised, it ought to have been raised in the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth, when the first Poor Law passed, or in the year 1662, when matters were further reconsidered, or some equally distant date, and not now, when these claims are nearly 250 or 300 years out of time. Much of what he said had no concern with grievances either past or present. Nothing he said had relation to present or concrete grievances in Wales. He did deprecate all exaggerated or embittered language. He spoke of the size of the majorities of this House by which the stages of this Bill had been affirmed; he combated the expediency of a Referendum; he discussed the claims of Roman Catholics to the secularised funds.
Most people would have thought that to say the Roman Catholics had no claim to these funds would not be exactly to prove that county councils have a claim to them. He explained his own speeches of previous years on the continuity of the Church, and for the life of me I did not know whether we were to infer that continuity or non-continuity is to be taken as being the grievance of Nonconformists in Wales at the present day. He discussed the dismemberment of the Province of Canterbury and its Convocation. He discussed the prospects of the re-union in Protestantism in Wales after Disestablishment, and he justifies the appropriation of its funds to secular uses. That was not showing any present grievance in Wales; that was merely advancing arguments which seemed to me to partake of the character of saying that your remedy will not do harm to others. We have still to learn that because your remedy will not do harm to others you have proved that it will do good to your patient. Hon. Members will say that the Prime Minister must then have gone on to describe as a grievance the present state of things in Wales. Not so! The rest of his speech consisted entirely of a complaint against us Unionists of what he called our lack of imagination. You do not require imagination to see present wrongs. The Prime Minister dwelt on the relevancy of what had gone on in the centuries of the past and of the memories inherited by Welshmen from their fathers. He said:
You cannot ignore these things.1670 He said the Church had lost a golden opportunity, and that certain opportunities could not be recovered. Here I come to the passage which contains the animus of the whole. He said:—How important it is in these matters to have regard not merely to the material and financial, or even the ecclesiastical conditions of the existing moment "—the Prime Minister did well to avoid the existing moment—and he wound up by an eloquent reference to—The garnered memories, the stored-up traditions, prepossessions, prejudices it you like, antipathies if you like, of the people with whom yon are dealing'.I will admit one thing, that so far as you can base practical schemes of legislation upon the memories of past things alone, it could not have been more skilfully or eloquently done. One fact remains, and that all through the skill and all through the eloquence, that is the absence of any tangible injustice that can be pointed at to-day as operating upon persons now living. So that the main plea for your Bill rests upon that which must be daily losing force as time goes on. Memory cannot for ever go on nursing the grudges of which the causes are for ever receding into an ever dimmer and ever less relevant past. To suppose that it can, the supposition involved is that we should have to believe that because a hundred years ago Churchmen in Wales were irreligious or indifferent, or contemptuous and intolerant towards their humbler neighbours, therefore, Welshmen to-day and of days to come will, if this Bill does not pass, for ever seek to inflict humiliation and loss upon Churchmen of to-day, who are Welshmen like themselves, but who are neither irreligious, contemptuous nor intolerant; whose lives are, on the contrary, as saintly as their own, whose parish work reaches teeming populations quite as necessitous as their own, and whose prayers, though they be liturgical and not extemporised, are surely as sincere as their own. This I refuse to believe. I believe better of Welshmen than their representatives in this House appear to do.What are the ethics of this matter, let alone the absence of any present grievance? Even if this memory is going to be permanent, surely every day that goes by would make it less worthy of admiration and more and more a thing to be ashamed of. Nor will popularity and the democratic principle make it any better. You cannot say, in these days, that democracy can do no wrong. Not even a responsible Government can change wrong into right. Popularity and a democratic principle, no 1671 doubt, could have been invoked to justify all manner of things. They could have been invoked to justify the vindictive excesses of the Scottish Covenanters in the 1650's, and they could have been invoked to justify the violence of the Dutch-Orange mob which executed lynch law in 1672 on the brothers De Witt. For my own part, I refuse to believe that the Welsh democracy would desire to perpetuate such a wrong as would be the keeping alive of these uncharitable memories, and the putting them into action by retributive injustice such as this Bill will work. May we not take a more hopeful view? I am glad to think that the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, in a part of his speech, did take a more hopeful view of what might be possible in Wales. Here I come to a part of my speech in which I have to take special care to say that I represent no bench and no party, and no Church and no party in any Church. I wish to say, personally, that I take a more hopeful view, and look forward to the possibility of unity in Wales, without Disestablishment, on the lines of the recognition by each disputant of his own shortcomings and his adversary's good points. In an earlier stage of these Debates it was said by the Attorney-General that the Church services repelled the Celtic temperament by what he called their "frigidity." To him and to the Celtic temperament the sermon which is preached is somewhat amateurish, and the prayers are mere liturgical formulæ. There was said by the Attorney-General to be too much claimed for sacerdotal mediation.
7.0 P.M.
These things are not absolutely inherent or necessarily perpetual. For my own part, I would cheerfully dispense with the amateurish sermon. A man may be a good parish priest without being a fancy preacher, and the sermons would not be less valued if one did not get them so often as once a week, nor always from the same preacher. Why should not Anglicanism borrow from some of the other Churches something of their principles of itinerancy, and the organisation of a missionary order of preachers, selected for their natural gifts, and perfected by special training? I want to know, on the other hand, why our liturgical prayers should be condemned. One thing I am going to tell the House—it is my own personal opinion; it is a small thing, and I should like to get rid of it; it might have great consequences—I 1672 should like to get rid in our Anglican services of the intoning of prayers. The monotone in our services is born of the muddled thinking that confuses prayer and praise. To music it was never anything but a sort of mediaeval maiden aunt. It ought to have been left behind with other sterilities so soon as the growing sense of design and more refined and artistic perceptions of the Middle Ages gave us the austere, but beautiful forms of Church music which have come down to us from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. My belief is that if we could get the matchless sixteenth century English of our Bible and our Prayer Book properly read in Church, with good articulation and true emphasis and in a natural voice, we should hear much less of the demand for nineteenth century extemporisation. Let me refer further to some other grounds of disfavour to the Church to which the Attorney-General did not refer. All Churchmen on this side of the House are prepared to reform, drastically if you will, our patronage law and our system of choosing our ministers. Most of us are wishful to secure, in the choosing of the parish clergyman, a much closer consultation than we have at present of the interests of parishioners. If provincial incorporation with Canterbury is the stumbling block, let us recognise the growing needs, as well as the national pride of Wales by letting her have, like York, within the pale of the great historic Anglican Communion, a province and a primate of her own. Surely the descendants of the converts of St. Augustine and of St. David can bring themselves to respect so far each others great traditions that there should be resulting from it, not jealousy, but a rivalry in goods works that should tend to the uplifting of both.
Let me summarise what we believe to be our case against this Bill. With regard to the Welsh Church, its funds are far from excessive—they are not even sufficient. Its ministers are often overworked and underpaid. Its funds are well administered, and used with a single eye to the welfare of its worshippers. Its doors are open to all, yet none can be forced to enter; its zeal, influence and acceptance amongst large industrial populations are daily increasing. Its so-called privileges are largely disabilities, obligations, liabilities and burdens from which ministers of other Churches are free. No present hardship, suffering or exaction can be pointed 1673 to as due to its existence. The only grievances alleged are historic and a mere sentimental legacy from a happily receding past. The Bill to rob it of its modest Endowments is detested from one end of England to the other, and even when you come to Wales itself, though it may be that the Bill is opposed by only one-tenth of the representatives of Wales in the House of Commons, it is, nevertheless, we believe, resented by a far larger proportion of her people than that, and it is too much, as we can all see for ourselves, for the stomachs of many Nonconformists and many strong party men amongst Radicals in England. These are the considerations which hon. Members opposite persist in ignoring. To this end they are using the haste of which I spoke and straining in this way our constitutional forms. It is a sorry cause, it seems to me, for the sake of which to seek to override this resentment of ours, which your numbers may overcome, but which your victory will not silence nor allay. If this Bill passes, it will be remembered, not as a triumph of the Celtic temperament, but as an example to the discredit of majority rule, and as a manifestation of its least edifying and, indeed, its morbid side. I shall be told, perhaps, that I am bringing an indictment against a nation. That weatherbeaten piece of artillery has no terrors for me. Peoples, like individuals, have to pay in moral responsibility for political freedom and power. Unless peoples are of unlike passions with persons, then by the same means as we do with persons we should seek to win and to retain the good opinion of peoples. I wish to be, and to be thought, a friend of the Welsh people. Therefore, it is that I have no hesitation in ranging myself rather with their outspoken critics than with their political flatterers and local sycophants. That is why I ask the House, even now, deeply committed and unfairly urged onward though it be, to reconsider its judgment and so to gain time for that religious co-operation and reconciliation which we believe the passing of this Bill can only embarrass and defeat.
§ Mr. ELLIS DAVIESThe hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Hume-Williams) referred to what he called the growing opinion in England against this Bill. I was wondering whether he was deriving much consolation from the reduced majority at Grimsby. He advanced a rather novel proposition. He said the Irish Nationalist Members could hardly take 1674 part in a discussion and in a vote on a question of this kind. I do not quite understand how hon. Members on the other side, on the one hand, refuse self-government to Ireland, and, on the other, refuse to allow Irish Members to take part in our affairs. The hon. and learned Gentleman further suggested that Members of the Catholic Church could not take part in this discussion. One of the Members for Wales (Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart) is himself a Roman Catholic, as is also the Chief Whip on the other side, but we as Nonconformists have made no objection to their taking part in any discussion which would vitally affect the religious life of the Principality. We have had very little to-day on the principle of a State Church. A State Church which is refused by the Parliamentary representatives of the nation to which it belongs by thirty-one Members out of thirty-four must either have failed in its mission or be unacceptable in its creed and its tenets. The hon. and learned Gentleman, however, said that place must be given to sentiment, I agree, and I would ask those who are interested in the future of the Church in Wales whether it is wise to ignore Welsh national sentiment, whether it is wise to ignore the sentiment which has pressed itself against the Church, not of necessity against its creed, because, when he referred to the secession of the Nonconformists in 1811, it was not a secession on a question of principle. As a matter of fact, the Calvinistic Methodists of to-day hold identically the same creed as the Church of England.
I suggest that, before this Bill is finally disposed of, either hero or elsewhere, the question ought to be considered by those who are interested in the Church whether it is wise in the interests of that Church to ignore national sentiment. We are also informed outside that the Disestablishment of the Church means the repudiation of religion by the nation. Reference has been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) to the question of patronage, and he has expressed his readiness to deal with the matter. The Tory party were in power for twenty years, and if they were desirous of dealing with the question, it ought to have been dealt with before now. Take the position at the present day in Wales. During the last few weeks there have been several livings vacant, and the position has been that we Nonconformists have been urged 1675 day after day to exercise our influence in favour of particular candidates for the cure of souls in Wales. If Disestablishment is the repudiation of religion, a system of patronage is a disgrace to religion.
Then the hon. and learned Gentleman asked what advantages Wales is going to derive from the Disestablishment and Dis-endowment of its Church. He said that, so far as he knew, no one in Wales would derive any benefit from it. May I advance one or two reasons for saying that Wales will benefit. First of all, its Churchmen will benefit by its Disestablishment, and, secondly, the nation itself will benefit. To the Church itself it will secure freedom from that system of patronage to which I have referred, it will secure free choice of its minister, and it will confer, for the first time, such a freedom of choice that they can ignore political considerations, for in the past the curse of the Church in Wales has been that its livings have been the spoils of political parties. A good deal of the feeling against the Welsh Church and a good deal of its inefficiency to-day is due to the fact that its leading ministers and even its bishops are too often appointed, not for their knowledge of theology, not for the religion, but for the zeal which they have shown on the political platform. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I make this statement and I leave any hon. Member who represents a Welsh constituency to deny it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Carnarvon referred to the position occupied in the Church by the late Dean Howell. I am old enough to remember the appointment of the present Bishop of St. Asaph, and I say without any hesitation that if a poll had been taken in the diocese of St. Asaph as to who was the fittest and best person to fill the diocese as a theologian and as a religious leader it would have been Dean Howell, and not the person who now occupies that see.
How are we, as a nation, going to benefit by Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church? One thing we are going to secure is to get the freedom of our own churchyards. I heard an hon. Member refer to "our" churchyards. Legally, as well as morally, they do not belong to the Church. They are the churchyards of the parish; they are vested in the rector as trustee for the parishioners. That is beyond controversy. Even the rector of the parish himself has not absolute control, because the churchwardens have a right to interfere if the 1676 rector allows the burial of a non-parishioner. The point we are making is this, that these churchyards never belonged to the Church, and that they are held only in trust for the parishioners. They are not held in trust for the communicants. They are held in trust for any parishioner who dies in the parish. There is more to be said than that. Not only are they held in trust for the parishioners, but there can be no doubt that one of the reasons for the bitterness which lies behind a good deal of the movement for Disestablishment in Wales is the callous, cruel and indifferent manner in which the parsons have exercised their right over the churchyards. What do I mean by that? I will give an instance which came under my own notice not very long ago. One of the leading Nonconformist ministers within the last two years had to bury his only son. He appealed to the clergyman to be allowed to use the service of the Nonconformists, and to allow it to be conducted by a leading Nonconformist minister in Wales. He was refused that privilege, as it was within the power of the clergyman to refuse, and we had the discourtesy and cruelty of a clergyman of the Church of England thrusting his services on the parents in their great sorrow. I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that one of the things we most covet and fight for at the present moment is that in future the churchyards of our native country shall be controlled by a public body which shall be answerable to public opinion.
The hon. and learned Member went on to argue that there was no evidence that the Endowments of the Church in Wales were badly used, and he said that if we could prove that the Endowments were improperly used, he would not continue his opposition. I am here to state—and I say it without fear of contradiction—that the real reason for the demand which is made by Wales for the Disestablishment of the Church is the fact that her Endowments are not properly used. I have stated in this House and outside, and I repeat, that if the Endowments of the State Church in Wales had been properly used, and transferred from rural districts to mining districts and to the large towns, I would not have cast my vote for the present Bill. What is the position? Hon. Members are defending the Endowments in Wales by the work done by the Church. But it is work which has been done by the Church not where it is endowed, but where 1677 it is carried on by voluntary efforts. Take the position in South Wales—Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, and the Rhondda Valley, account for no less than one-fourth of the whole Welsh population. The total Endowment is £1,038, and I say it is unfair for hon. Members opposite who defend the Endowments of their Church to come and tell us that the Church is active, progressive, and increasing in strength, numbers, and influence, when they know perfectly well that the progress in the work has been brought about not by means of the Endowments of the Church in Wales, but by voluntary effort and sacrifice of Churchmen in South Wales. Let me compare the position with the position in Anglesea and Carnarvon. In the places where there is one-fourth of the population you have a little over £1,000 in Endowments, but there are three parishes in Anglesea where three churches have £2,200, and there are less than 220 communicants. I take the case of my own Constituency, the Eifion Division of Carnarvonshire. There are Endowments in that constituency to the extent of £9,000 a year, but there are less than 3,000 communicants of the Church of England, whilst, on the other hand, there are 24,000 in connection with Nonconformist bodies.
Our argument for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church is because, notwithstanding all that has passed in this House during the last forty years, notwithstanding all the appeals of the leaders of the Church for its own reform, nothing was ever practically done to bring about a change in the position. We say that money which should have been transferred from rural districts to the large towns is being wasted to-day in our rural districts. I mentioned the matter on a previous occasion, and I was reminded by an hon. Member that that was not the question before the House. I am aware of that, but I would remind the House that if the true interests of the Church were at stake, the matter could have been dealt with during the last twenty years. Less than twenty years ago a scheme was drafted in the form of a Bill, and if I am not mistaken the Bill was actually brought before the House, providing for the pooling of Endowments and the transfer of money from rural districts to the populous districts in South Wales. What became of it? It was treated with contempt, and I was rather surprised the other evening to find that the system which 1678 at present admits of money being used in rural districts where the churches are empty is the system which is to be continued in future. The hon. Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) said:—
Do hon. Members opposite think that the Representative Body will have so little regard for the existing trust deeds, so little regard for the trust deeds of the Endowments in the parishes, that we shall take the money from them under your Bill and spend it in other parishes?If that means anything, it means that the Endowments which are now found in the rural districts are to be continued in those districts, and that the large incomes now attached to churches which are practically empty, or where the number of communicants is small, are still to be continued, because those who claim that the Endowments are needed in the parishes do not say anything about the work done in other parts of the Principality. We are told that the Bill is a mean Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] I rather expected that cheer. May I point out that we are leaving to the Church in Wales at least £200,000 a year? We are leaving a sufficient sum to enable them to provide £200 a year for each parish in Wales. May I point out that the Church of England in Wales is the Church of the rich; it is the Church of the landowner and the mine-owner.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREindicated dissent.
§ Mr. ELLIS DAVIESThe hon. Member denies it. Let me ask him to give me in Merioneth or Carnarvon the name of a single landowner or a single mine-owner who is not attached to the Church to which he belongs. What we say is that the Church, which is left £200,000 a year, cannot be said to be meanly dealt with. On the other hand, I would point out that the Nonconformists of Wales to-day are contributing no less than 15s. per head towards their religion, while the contribution of the rich Churchmen in Wales only amounts to 5s. per head. Our argument; is that we have dealt liberally and generously with the Church. The Bill before the House is much more generous than that which had the support of Mr. Gladstone in 1893. It is much more generous than the Bill of 1909, which was submitted to two General Elections. More than that, we feel that the laymen of Wales, in any event, are not against us, and I think the most significant thing in this movement against the Bill is the absence from the platform of the Welsh laymen. I know 1679 that you can name a hundred English laymen in Wales who are standing up for the Church. They are our squires, landowners, and successful grocers from England who have come to reside in our midst, but the hon. Member opposite cannot deny what I say,' that the Welsh layman is not opposed to the Bill. He desires freedom for his Church, and he wishes to mould his Church to answer the needs and idiosyncrasies of the Welsh people. He thinks if that be done, the Welsh Church will again become a centre of religious life in the Principality.
§ Mr. MALCOLMI do not feel certain that the concluding observations of the hon. Member (Mr. Ellis Davies) have added very much to the discussion on the Third Reading of this Bill. I am really sorry that he should have sounded a class utterance as against those to whom he is on political and certainly on religious grounds opposed. Nor do I think his accuracy is very commendable. Of course, a very large number of persons have signed protests against this Bill in Wales, and when you take off whatever percentage your imagination may devise for the way the protests were got up you still have a great many thousands in Wales who are neither squires, nor landowners, nor mine-owners, nor even English grocers. And the county Carnarvon is, I think, to be congratulated upon the show which it has made hitherto on the opposite side of the House in this Third Reading Debate. We have had the advantage of speeches from two of its Members. The hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Bench a little while ago gave us a very interesting speech upon a great number of topics, all of which pleased us, and in many cases he enlightened us. But I do wish that these hon. Gentlemen, instead of suggesting; a broad ease for some change in the Establishment in Wales, had directed their minds more to the Bill which is supposed to be under discussion. Our real grievance is that in spite of all the arguments and appeals which we have made, and which have fallen upon deaf ears in this House, it seems impossible to pierce the impenetrable inattention which His Majesty's Government show to our double complaint that this Bill conveys a twofold insult and injury to the ancient Church in Wales, first by divorcing it from its age-long union with the State, and second, by crippling its spiritual activity in robbing it of a very large part of its 1680 already quite inadequate income, and transferring these moneys to secular objects.
The only defence that I have heard was one mentioned in a passing phrase by the hon. Member for Carnarvon, who spoke from the Front Bench, and who said that, of course, it was quite all right, because in Wales all secular matters were really religious. This double injury, as we conceive it to be, is to be inflicted, not by the hands of Churchmen, who are anxious to liberate their faith from the fetters of State interference, but from a body who are primarily politicians, and a majority of whom have a conscientious, but quite persistent hostility to the claims of the Anglican Church. Some of these Gentlemen are never tired of telling us that they base their claim upon the Reformation settlement which they argue broke the continuity of our Church, and, therefore, thereby justified the alienation of funds. It seems to me to come strangely from the lips of those who base so much upon the Reformation settlement that they should be the first to lay hands upon the Establishment which the Reformation settlement set up. Alone they were unable to do this. Alone they are unable to-pass even the present Bill, and therefore they invoke the aid of Roman Catholic representatives from Ireland without which this Bill would have been wrecked over and over again. Again and again, I admit freely, the cry has been raised from these benches "saved by the Irish." The Liberal Whip who spoke an hour ago said that he had gone into the figures and could assure us that "saved by the Irish" was not the case; but in that the hon. Member for Mayo disagrees with him, because in his speech on the Third Reading he said:—
Saved by the Irish. Yes, why not? We have saved them over and over again. The Irish Catholics are against Establishment. They are against Endowment. They are Free Churchmen to the tips of their fingers.On this point I do not think His Majesty's Government is quite so sure as the hon. Member for Mayo, because I observe that in the Home Rule Bill it docs not include, in fact it expressly deprives a new Irish Parliament of the right to legislate on Church matters in Ireland. It would seem to be by way of compensation perhaps that whereas they cannot legislate for Church matters in their own country they are to be allowed to have a voice in settling Church matters regarding Wales, so that while they are arguing for 1681 the right of self-government for Ireland, the ancient Church in Wales should be deprived of its heritage. And that is the measure of their gratitude and the reward to the English Churchmen in this country who no fewer than three times in the last five or six years have saved the voluntary schools for the Roman Catholics. I would like to say that I think that this undoubted blow which is aimed at this Church throughout England and Wales is one which no British Government would dare to inflict in any other country, or upon any other Church under the British flag. If right hon. Gentlemen opposite were to introduce legislative measures gravely offending the Mahomedan in India, transferring the property of the Hindus, or interfering with the Church organisation of Buddhists, they know very well that they would have revolution and bloodshed in India within a month. If they were going to try to dismember the Nonconformist bodies in England from those in Wales, they know that they would be out of office within a week. So jealous is every religious corporation of its property, its organisation, its independence. And yet there are those in this House who are not ashamed to say that they believe that in this particular case of the relations of the State with the Anglican Church, they, by their hostile action against us, will heal old wounds, will soften old asperities, and will make for religious peace so enduring that the Chancellor of the Exchequer looked forward in one of his more sanguine moments to the reunion of the new sect, as I think he called the ancient Church, with Nonconformist bodies. And the Home Secretary actually imagines and says that after the passing of this Bill the Church of England in Wales would take her place in the sisterhood of the Free Churches.What a fool's paradise hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are living in. It is not in the power of legislation to affect changes so miraculous, so devoutedly to be desired. These great differences—I think it is as well to state it perfectly clearly—sad as they are, are not based upon questions of Establishment, or questions of Endowment, or of status, or of wealth. They lie upon fundamental divergencies of doctrine, of conceptions of worship and of organisation, differences which no Parliamentary device like this Bill can possibly bridge. And I would like to add this particular application of what is, I think, a general principle. We know that in daily life, when a grave injury is done, the doer of 1682 the wrong is always the person who bears resentment longest. In this case, we of the Church shall certainly endeavour to forgive, though we cannot forget. We believe that political Nonconformists will forget, but that they will not be able to forgive. A rankling sense, we are assured, will remain behind, and though our Establishment has been broken, and though our endowments have been taken away, there would be no more chance of a closer spiritual union between the then Free Churches in Wales than there is now in the Colonies or in India or in the States of America. If these unhappy dissensions, which we all must admit are not likely to be diminished but rather increased by the passage of this Bill, how can we believe that by your, action you are promoting the interests either of a Christian Church or of a Christian State? I suppose that we all remember the classic letter written by Dr. Dollinger in 1885 to Mr. Gladstone, only a few words of which are generally quoted. I crave leave to quote a few lines from that letter. Speaking of Disestablishment, Dr. Dollinger said:—
It would be a blow to Christianity, not only in England but throughout Europe. If such a measure were adopted by a country with a history like that of England there could be no mistake as to its significance. It would be well understood alike by the friends and foes of Christianity in Germany, in France and throughout the civilised world.Yes, it is, in our belief, the State which in the long run is going to suffer by this Bill, and by the larger Bill for the Disestablishment of the same Church in England, which has been promised to us to succeed this one by more than one Cabinet Minister. My belief is that just as there-is a divinity which hedges the character of king and of subjects alike, so there should be a divinity to hedge the conduct of a State, and I believe that that divinity is best expressed by the ancient Church which we now have. It was, perhaps, still better expressed in earlier days when there was less division between us. As for the Church itself, you may cripple its body, but you cannot kill its soul, though you do drive it back into the little upper chamber where it first saw the light. In this country, as in others, our Church has survived a great many persecutions for the faith, and she has triumphed over them. She has done penance for many sins committed in her name. She has rectified many blunders committed by politicians who thought sincerely that they were doing her service. She has flourished in spite of the Reformation, a movement, as we all know, political.1683 in its origin, which enabled Henry the Eighth not to get rid of the Mass but to get rid of Catherine of Aragon. She has survived the settlement which was meant to be temporary, but which the blunders of politicians have made permanent, and have perpetuated apparently for all time. Yes, the Church which has prospered the life of this country, in spite of so many difficulties, will surely survive the revolution which is before us to-night. I expect that hon. Gentlemen will all agree to that. But that does not seem to me to excuse them from putting their hand to an instrument which will hold her back in her good work at this moment when, in spite of all the fine phrases which fall so glibly from the lips of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite about the good of the Church, about spiritual freedom, and so on, they are really of two minds as to whether they want our Church to be fettered or free.
You have not really made up your minds. If you want her to be free what do all these Clauses about Re-establishment mean—these Clauses which take away with one hand what you are giving with the other? You must know that within the circle of our Church itself there are a great many men who do not object to Disestablishment at all, but who find it insurmountably impossible to vote for this Bill so long as these Re-establishment Clauses remain. Once the Church is Disestablished what can it matter to you or to Parliament or to anybody, except to Church people, what the internal economy of our Church is to be? What have you as a Government or as a political party to do with the composition of Convocation, and whether it is to include Welsh bishops or whether it is not? Why do you require, as the Home Secretary told us, to be satisfied as to the composition of the first Welsh Synod? Why do you wish to put the imprimatur of the State on the Church's own definition of her own scope? A Church so constructed would be a State Church of the very worst possible kind. It is without precedent; it is unheard of, I believe, in any country of the world—unknown in Scotland, unknown in Nova Scotia, unknown in Wales, unknown even in South Wales, too. You cannot have it both ways. You ought to settle for yourselves whether you are to have us fettered or to have us free. If you want us fettered and keep the Re-establishment Clauses, then do not go on prating about getting us free. If you want us free, do what you 1684 can to cut these Re-establishment Clauses out of the Bill. I say it is nothing less than a scandal that we, after the passage of this Bill, should have to go to a purely secular authority, to the present Home Secretary, or whoever his successor may be, or to somebody in quite another place perhaps, to ask him for leave to set up this so-called free spiritual body on one set of lines or upon another.
There is the test of the sincerity of the promoters of this Bill—the test of the sincerity of their reiterated profession that all they want to do is to level up or to level down our Church to the line of perfect equality with others; of their constant assertion that they are going to do all this for the good of Christianity in general and the good of our Church in particular, that they wish us no harm, and that they rejoice in the good work that we are doing. I say, "Here is the test. Disestablish our Church if you can, Disendow it if you dare, but do not humiliate us, do not humiliate the ancient church of our country in Wales by setting upon her the gyves and fetters of a State-made constitution at the very moment when you are telling her that you are doing all this to leave her free. Leave it to the Church herself to set in order the house that you have put in disarray, and to work out the salvation of her people according to the light of ancient faith and practice, and not according to the whim of a Parliamentary draftsman. In this way you can test your own sincerity, as we and others will test it too. We ask no impossibilities of His Majesty's Government. If your consciences or your constituents, or both, ask you to Disestablish or Disendow the Church in Wales, do it if you can. We, unfortunately, on this side of the House cannot stop you. If your legal training enables you to advise His Majesty that the Coronation oath can bear the meaning that the Church in Wales is not included in that worship, discipline, and government of the Church of England which he swore to maintain, then do that. The whole moral responsibility lies with you. But when you have done that, proceed with your work of destruction. Nobody has asked this House, nobody has asked this Government, to reconstruct the organisation of the Church which you have destroyed, so far as human influence can destroy it. We beg of you, while you still have time, to leave out these Clauses, which you have called your Re-establishment Clauses, which only humiliate and 1685 hinder her, and leave us to again build up a temple which you will have left in ruins.
§ Mr. THOMAS TAYLORI support this Bill for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the English Church in Wales as an English Churchman. I do it from the rock-bottom foundation of absolute equality. As a Liberal I carry my principles into all spheres. I do not understand the State giving a preference to any Church; I do not understand any religious denomination claiming any privilege on that basis. I say, "Religious equality in all things," and surely, if there is to be equality in political matters, then equality ought to obtain in religious matters. I have had experience in the Church of almost every office which is open to a layman, and I see the evil of the principle of Establishment. I do not want to go into the question, but I believe the real want of the Church to-day is home rule. There are evils existing which cannot be removed so long as she is an Established Church, and for that reason I support Disestablishment of the English Church in Wales, and shall, if I am here, support the Disestablishment of the English Church. The hon. Gentleman opposite has spoken about the British flag. Who would think of our establishing any Church in the Colonies under the British flag? The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to its honour, has done marvellous work in our Colonies, and it does not need an Established Church. It goes to the Colonies on the same legal footing as all other denominations. I hold that it is the healthier for it. In regard to Endowment, I accept the fact, in so far as I can read and learn, that many of the Endowments of the Church—not all, of course—are public property. During my election I was asked whether I would like to see the Endowments of such-and-such a church in the town I represent removed? "Certainly not," I said. Then I was asked why the Endowments of the Church in Wales should be removed? I replied that I firmly believed that this Parliament would take no private Endowment from the Church any more than they would fake my private property or anything that I had.
I believe that many of these Endowments, such as are mentioned in the Bill, are public property given at a time when the Church represented the people, and given to the Church as trustees. On another occasion I was asked during my election, "But were not most of these Nonconformists, who now dissent from the 1686 Church, members of the Church? I said," Certainly they were, but give another instance where members of an institution or a firm have retired from that institution or firm and left all their money behind them." It seems to me that honestly, fairly, and justly the people have a direct interest in many of these Endowments which have been given for the people to the Church. We know that the Church was the educational and Poor Law authority at one time in the State; the Church was the charitable institution, and those charities and these educational Grants were given to the Church for the people; to be returned to the people. As a Churchman, I firmly believe that all Churches should be on the basis of justice and equality. I am too independent, I have too much dignity, to ask for other people's money; I prefer to keep my own church. The hon. Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) stated the other day that the Churches in Wales would be continued, and that if this Bill passed there was not an individual Church in the Principality which would not be maintained in full. As a Churchman, I say "Of course, certainly. Would it not have been better, would it not have endeared the Church to many people who are now estranged from it, if the Church had undertaken to do this voluntarily, and not be forced to do it."
8.0 P.M.
In the town which I represent, the Church is, of course, out and away the strongest religious body. It is very strong and very wealthy. When we want a new church in Bolton, we build one. For instance, the Bishop of Manchester within the last six months of last year consecrated two new-large churches and one mission church, and we are building more. That is what Churchmen do in Bolton. We have pride in the Church as a democratic body representing all classes and taking an active part in their life, and by that means it is prosperous. Man cannot live by bread alone, and churches cannot live by Endowments alone, and I have yet to learn from my experience of many years that the spirituality of the Church is strongest where the Endowments are greatest. It is not so. Endowments at times do evil rather than good. As a Liberal Churchman I believe that Churchmen are beginning to take the view that they will not ask a privilege nor seek to be superior socially as members of an Established Church than their neighbours. I believe that co-operation between the different Churches is the very great need of the 1687 time. There are too many denominations, and one great means of reducing the number would be by amalgamation. That would be for the good of the Churches. But there would have to be Disestablishment and Disendowment, and all must be on an equality. You cannot have co-operation while one Church obtains the preference. My experience is that where Churches work under a voluntary system, such as I have described in the case of the Churches in Bolton, there is co-operation between the different denominations. Let me give another instance. We have renovated within the last six years the church which I have attended all my life at a cost of no less than £11,000. I have been and I am honorary treasurer, and it has given me pleasure to receive subscriptions towards the renovation of that church from Nonconformists. One morning I received a cheque for £250 from a Congregationalist for that purpose. That is the spirit I want to see growing, and that is the spirit that I believe will grow whenever the Churches are put on absolute equality. As I stated last year, the Church of England at this time is losing its life only to save it. It may appear that it is giving away its interests, but, on the other hand, it will be endearing itself to many people, and will bring many outsiders within its fold. I am confident that thousands and tens of thousands of Nonconformists would rally to the Church of England if it were a Free Church. I do not want to bring politics too much into this question, but Liberal Churchmen whose views are broader than those of hon. Members opposite in many cases are thinking for themselves and acting for themselves, and are puzzled to know how it is that many defenders of the Church take action in other matters against the interests of the people. Whilst this question has been about the defenders of the Church of Christ have been going about the country advocating the taxation of the people's food. That will never support the Church. The Church requires a broader spirit in the Church and a more liberal spirit, and to bring the Church more in touch with the people. As I said at home I say again, as a Liberal and as a stout, strong Churchman, that I shall never regret voting for absolute religious equality.
§ Mr. EVELYN CECILI could not help thinking as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. 1688 Taylor) was making his speech what a different kind of speech we would have heard from his predecessor who represented Bolton. I do not fancy that the opinions which the hon. Member has expressed are those which are widely held in Bolton. He spoke a great deal about the sacred principle of religious equality, but it does not occur to me that the way to carry out equality between the Churches is to take the property of one Church and treat it as Robin Hood might have done and leave the properties of the others. They are all Endowed and becoming Endowed, and it is the regular policy of the main Nonconformist bodies now. I believe it to be a good policy, and, so far from taking away Endowments which have existed for centuries, any more than you would take away Endowments which have existed only for five and twenty years and are thus secured to Nonconformist bodies, you ought to leave the Endowments of the Church if only because of the right which she has obtained through prescription. When the hon. Member talks of carrying out the whole policy of this Bill, and of desiring to take away the Endowments of the Church, and of desiring to take away its ancient churchyards and of desiring to remove curates without compensation, and, in fact, to take away two-thirds of the income of the Church which has been, I may say, consecrated to it by its prescriptive right, then it seems to me that it is fatuous and almost hypocritical to talk of the sacred principle of religious equality when, forsooth, there will soon be nothing sacred left except the sacredness of that principle. Hon. Members opposite say that the property they are taking belongs to the nation, but the Church of England has a better right to this property through the centuries than has much of the Nonconformist property at this moment belonging to Nonconformist Churches and chapels. I do not urge the taking away of that property. I think it would be wrong, and therefore the much more strongly do I feel that it is a much greater wrong to the Church to take away its property as is done under the present Bill.
A boast of the Chancellor of the Exchequer only the other day, in dealing with the Budget, was that he was not taxing the poor man, though he was budgeting for some £209,000,000, but yet he is not ashamed to take away £157,000 a year from the Church of England, and to 1689 take it from that portion of the Church which is the very poorest part of the whole. I urge, and I feel that it is all the more outrageous to do so under the Parliament Act when you are acting under a suspended Constitution, when there is no proper Second Chamber to revise or delay or reconsider or amend this Bill, whereas under any fair Government such a chamber would exist, and I venture to say that no matter how it was constituted the chances are that it would alter many of the important provisions of this Bill. Hon. Members opposite know perfectly well that even among their own ranks there are many who feel that many of the provisions of the Bill are very hard and unjust, and if that be so in this party-ridden House, I venture to say it is much more so in many parts of the country. Some hon. Members who have spoken have talked a great deal about Welsh nationality. We had a very eloquent speech from the hon. Member for Arfon, Carnarvonshire (Mr. William Jones) who largely dwelt on that topic. Indeed, I gathered that the whole gist of his eloquence really was that Welsh nationality ought to be trusted, and that if we did so we should approve of this Bill. But if Welsh nationality is to be trusted, why not English nationality, because this measure affects both parts of the Kingdom, and the Church of England in Wales and the Church of Wales in England is one. There is every reason why English nationality should be consulted and considered just as much as Welsh nationality, and if you took a division amongst the English Members only in this House, there is no question that this Bill would be rejected. But, if we are to take Welsh nationality as hon. Members have urged, I would like to ask which part of Welsh nationality. Is it to be the alleged minority, the defenders of the Church property, those who have among their numbers Nonconformist petitioners who desire that this Bill should not be passed in its present form, those petitioners who rare described by "The Banner" in the most offensive language, and who have been told by that Welsh vernacular organ that their action is a "disgraceful dodge" and a "shameful weakness," and which further stigmatises them in the following language:—
It is surprising to find any Nonconformist and Liberal of principle signing this petition. By so doing they at once sell their birthright and spit mockery upon the efforts and sacrifice of their forefathers in the fight for religions liberty. It, is easy to understand how a serving man or slip of a servant girl under the thumb 1690 of a Tory and Church master, or in the presence of the vicar or curate may stoop to the temptation of signing the petition. But when the petition is actually signed by the religious leaders of Nonconformist denominations and by persons who hold official positions with the party of progress, it is time to protest in the most emphatic way against treachery of this sort.If advances towards better understanding between different denominations are to be met and characterised by language of that kind in the way that is done by "The Banner," then I can only say that I have very little hope of the different sections coming nearer together for many generations. But if I am not to take that part of Welsh nationality which is called the minority, am I to take the other part and to take the opinion of the alleged majority who say they are a majority, but refuse to have a religious census for fear that it should be shown that they are not a majority after all, and who, in fact, in this House depend upon Irish Roman Catholic votes for their victories. I know that the Home Secretary has stated that it is not so, and I am astonished that he did so. Certainly it appears in the OFFICIAL RETORT of the 21st April, that the right hon. Gentleman said that:—There is no single occasion on which, if all the representatives from Ireland had been absent from this House, we should have failed to carry any single important provision of the Welsh Church Bill.I can only say that that statement is absolutely contrary to the fact. I looked up several occasions, and I think the Home Secretary will be bound to admit that he was wrong. For instance, on the 13th December, 1912, an Amendment was moved to the effect that all Church property except tithe should be left to it. Leaving Ireland out of account altogether there was a majority of eighteen in favour of that Amendment and against the Government. That certainly was one important provision that would not have been carried but for the Irish vote. Take again the 19th December, 1912, on an Amendment to leave the glebes to the Church. Leaving Ireland out of account altogether the votes were exactly equal, and again in the case of a similar Amendment on Report, the 4th February, 1913, there was a majority outside Ireland of twenty-four for the Amendment and against the Government.It being a, Quarter-past Eight of the clock, and leave having been given to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put.