§ Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Earl Winterton.]
§ Sir CHARLES OMANWe are now handing over the Church of England in India to the autonomous government of an extraordinarily mixed body, a body consisting very largely of newly-made Christian converts of extremely primitive classes and races, a very large body of Eurasians, and a minority of English-born and English-domiciled subjects of the Realm. At the present time, the whole of this very mixed body has a certain amount of solidity in its organisation by depending on the See of Canterbury. The proposal is that it shall be handed over to governance by a Church that is being rapidly Indianised. There are already a number of Bishops of native Indian extraction, although the majority are still, I believe, European-born British subjects. It is contemplated, I understand, that gradually the whole of the Episcopate, or a very large majority of the Episcopate, shall be Indian-born, that is to say, that several scores of thousands of Eurasian English-speaking people and some tens of thousands of persons with their domicile in England, English-born people, will be handed over to the governance of an Indian-organised Church in which the Indian element will have a large majority. I must confess that I do not look forward with equanimity to the religious management of tens of thousands of English and half-English members of the Church of England by a purely Indian Episcopate. The strength of this Church is not more than half a million, of whom the majority are very recent Indian converts, and I cannot look with equanimity upon those scattered bodies of English all over India and the Eurasians in India being handed over to purely native Governments.
The whole plan does not appeal to me. All through history the Eastern Churches have fallen into strange habits. I need only remind the House of the strange history of the Abyssinian Church, of the dreadful story of the Taiping soi-disant 532 Christian Church in China, of the so-called Ethiopian Church in South Africa. At the present moment the majority of the Bishops in India are English Bishops and there is no danger. But I do not think that at the present moment, when there is practically a very small educated laity and when it cannot be said that there is a learned Indian clergy either, the whole management of this Church in India should be handed over to Indians in a few years. The learned and educated Indian Christian classes, which we hope will come into existence as the ages roll on, are not in existence at the present moment. You have as yet neither got a learned Indian clergy nor an educated Indian laity. Is it safe to cut this little Church away from all its legal connections with Canterbury and with England and allow it to manage for itself? I do not intend to press this to a Division, but I desire to make my solemn protest.
§ Mr. E. BROWNThe hon. Member ought to be reminded that there is a passage in the Epistles which says that a Christian Church is a church
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free.A reflection upon that passage, to say nothing of others, would have tempered the very reactionary and unchristian observations we have heard as to the Church in China.
§ Sir C. OMANI was talking not of the existing Church in China but of the so-called religion of the Taipings in China whose leader claimed to represent one of the persons of the Trinity.
§ Mr. BARRI would like to say that the arguments used by the hon. Gentleman would equally be against giving any method of control or self-government to native races. He argues that they need to be learned. So far as I understand, those who managed the church in the beginning were unlearned and ignorant men and, according to him, they ought never to have had self-government at all.
§ Sir C. OMANDoes he say that St. Paul was an unlearned and ignorant man?
§ Mr. BARRIt is not learning that counts for so much in the church and it is not always the most learned men who are the most advanced in politics or otherwise. The great idea of the churches with which I am acquainted is to foster among their young converts the ideas of responsibility and self-government and I think that in that way you are building up a stronger church than if you manage it from England or Canterbury. It is better to give to the people who are brought into the Christian faith some share in managing their own affairs.
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton)Although I agree with everything that has been said by the hon. Gentleman opposite, I do not think the statements of my hon. Friend the Member of Oxford University (Sir C. Oman) should be allowed to go uncontradicted from the Government Bench. He talks about primitive classes and races in India in the Church. I do not know if he applies that term to the Bishops of Calcutta and of Bombay. He seems ignorant too of the fact that this was accepted by 87 votes to two in the Assembly in India and unanimously by the Assembly here. There is still going to be a union with the Church of England, it is not going to be cut off from Canterbury at all, it is merely the legal union that is affected. If I had more time nothing would have given me more pleasure than to have advanced some other arguments.