CLAUSE A.—(Repeal of Sub-section (5) of Section three of 4 and 5, Geo. 5 c. 91.) (Hansard, 18 August 1919)

§ Mr. SHORTT
On a point of Order. I think now the Amendment of the Title of the Bill has been rejected this Clause would be out of order.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
It is consequential, but it is not for the Chair to rule out of order an Amendment discussed in the other House. Either the Home Secretary or some other Member should make a Motion.

§ Lord H. CECIL
I beg to move "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
I am surprised that the Amendment is not accepted. I cannot help thinking it is due to a mere misunderstanding. This is described in the Press as being a reversal of the policy of Disestablishment. It is not so intended, and I do not think it is so. There is not the smallest desire to conceal our dissatisfaction with the Bill from the point of view of Disendowment. We have never desired to reopen the question of Disestablishment in any degree, and we regard it as being a settled question. This is only a matter of form, in order to carry out the decision of Convocation in a manner consistent with the recognition of the spiritual welfare of the Church. The position is this: Disestablishment and Establishment are legal matters, and in deciding the legal point you have at, the same time to readjust the spiritual relations.
2106 The Government, when they passed the Act of 1914, always professed with sincerity that they did not desire in the slightest degree to interfere with the independent spiritual life of the four Welsh Church dioceses or of the Church of England, and accordingly they put into the Act the provision that the relations of the See of Canterbury were not to be affected. But in dealing with Convocation we appear to have overlooked the fact that Convocation has a double character. In very rare, exceptional instances it is a body which takes legal action, but its more important character is that of a purely spiritual synod. It is a very ancient body, not established or set up by law, older than Parliament, and always existing down to the Reformation, distinct altogether from the State and only brought under the authority of the State by the legislation of Henry VIII. Therefore, all that we are desirous of doing is in the severance from Convocation of the Welsh dioceses, which is inevitable as a consequence of Disestablishment; that the thing should be carried out with due recognition of the fact that it is a spiritual body dividing itself, and not in its spiritual character being divided by the State. It may be said that this is a pure matter of form. So it is, but all question of reverence are matters of form. When Cromwell stabled his horses in a church he was only guilty of an error in a matter of form. All reverence or irreverence is that. The sole purpose of this Amendment is to carry out the severance of the Welsh bishops and clergy from Convocation in a manner which will recognise that you are dealing with a spiritual body with a spiritual synod, and that you are not imposing the severance by an Act of the State. I am sure the Prime Minister will fully sympathise with me in the extreme dislike which Churchmen feel—this is quite as much an English question as a Welsh question, because it affects the severance of the spiritual body—against being treated as though they were a mere secular organisation by an Act of Parliament. It is the view of the disestablisher that the Church is a spiritual body and ought not to have any connection with the State. If you accept the extreme position of the disestablisher and say that the Church is a spiritual body which should control its own affairs, surely it is reasonable to say that it should divide its own sacred synod and that it should not be the State that comes in and cuts it in two. 2107 With due regard to the legal character of Convocation on the one side and the spiritual character on the other, this Amendment has been framed by a very distinguished lawyer (Lord Phillimore) who used to be an advocate of Disestablishment and has always been a strong Liberal. In framing these words he has not the smallest intention of infringing in any degree the Disestablishment of the Church. His object is solely to maintain the Christian character of the synod and to effect the severance in a manner in accordance with its spiritual character.

§ Captain ORMSBY-GORE
I hope that the Government will give a little further consideration to this Amendment, more particularly in view of what has happened in Convocation. There has been practically a decision to set up a Welsh province, and to demand that the Welsh Church should be constituted a separate province. I know that some Welsh Members feel that unless something like this Amendment is put in it is something like a derogation of the national character of the Disestablished Church in Wales. I am quite sure that it is. As the hon. Member for Merthyr has pointed out I have no longer the right to speak for any part of Wales or as a Member of the Welsh Church, but I speak as one who was formerly connected with the Church in Wales, and who still has some little interest in it, and I want to see it as a separate province under its own archbishop, duly constituted under proper ecclesiastical authority, and Convocation is the ecclesiatical authority which has created provinces from the earliest days in the history of the Church in this country, and it was the old form of Church government in this country, before there was any connection with the State in this or any other country, and settled the forms to be observed. In carrying out the nationalisation of the Welsh Church, and in creating the new province of Wales you should adopt the new form recommended by Lord Phillimore, and supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of St. David's, and I hope to be contradicted on this point if I am wrong—I believe that he is sympathetic in this matter. I would like to know from the Government whether the Welsh Bishops have shown themselves to be hostile to this Amendment. I hope that they will give further consideration to the matter. It is merely a matter of form, but 2108 if they can be persuaded to give way even at the eleventh hour it will give satisfaction to a number of English Churchmen, and to a number of those who were Welsh Churchmen but are so no longer.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
I hope that my Noble Friend will not press this Motion. I quite follow his explanation, and well understand, after listening to him very carefully, why my hon. Friends from Wales regard this with a great deal of suspicion. I am sure that it is liable to be misunderstood. The Noble Lord has the gift of lucidity of explanation, but with all his gifts of clear explanation it was obviously a most involved matter, and we are a very simple people. It was not moved by a representative of the Welsh Church, and the insertion of an Amendment of this kind would be regarded as an attempt to continue the official connection which is dissolved by the Act of Disestablishment, and to continue Establishment to that extent. I trust that in the circumstances my hon. Friends will not press the Amendment, because it is one of those Amendments which, I think, the Archbishop admitted was useless—I am not sure that he did not say so—an Amendment that had no practical value for the Church.

§ Lord H. CECIL
I do not think the Archbishop said it had no value.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
I understand his words were something to that effect. I am only quoting what my right hon. Friend tells me from his recollection. But the Archbishop attaches no very great importance to it, and the Nonconformists regard it with a good deal of suspicion. I hope my hon. Friends will not press it, because we cannot accept it.