I am rather surprised that the Home Secretary has not offered us some explanation of this new Clause I think an explanation of his present proposals should have been given, because they differ very materially from those brought forward by my hon. Friend opposite, the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Gladstone), which we discussed a few weeks ago in Committee, and which I then had the privilege of seconding. These proposals are very largely different and are less favourable to the Church than the proposals which were then made and we have now to consider our attitude towards this matter of commutation as proposed by the Home Secretary. At the risk of repeating what I said on a previous occasion, I should like to make this observation, that in our view the plan of commuting the life interest is far more advantageous to the State than it is to the Church. It is far more advantageous to the State because it will enable the Welsh county councils and other bodies to wind up the affairs of the Church at once, and they would be able to make complete schemes for the administration of this money without waiting until one vacancy occurred later on. Instead of waiting parish by parish to deal with this money, they would have a lump sum which they could administer at once. The question arises whether the Church would be willing to enter into a business arrangement of this sort. I venture to say, and I think I will command the assent of my hon. Friends on this side, and indeed the assent also of Liberal Churchmen and others opposite, that the whole question was one of terms, and unless you give to the Church sufficiently good terms so that she can enter into this business without risk the Church will not accept a commutation scheme, which would be particularly for the advantage of the State. What are the terms which we have now to consider I We on this side have taken expert advice on the terms now offered by the Home Secretary, and I think it right to say at once so far as I am concerned, and I think I am speaking for the great bulk of opinion on this side of the House, that we cannot accept the new Clause in the form in which it is moved by the Home Secretary. Our view is this—the terms are such that the Church would undoubtedly be landed in a big loss. The risk is too great under the terms offered by the Home Secretary, and unless therefore he is prepared to very substantially modify the terms he has proposed, there will be nothing for us to do but to vote against this Clause, because we feel it would be infinitely preferable for the Church not to have a commutation scheme at all than to have this one which she is asked to accept.

What will be the position? The scheme is optional and not compulsory on the Church. The Church would be in an exceedingly awkward position if, with a scheme of this sort in the Bill, she refused to accept it. It would be open to the Welsh county councils, some of whom may be very hostile to the Church, by means of what I might call administrative friction, to make the position of the Church absolutely intolerable if she refused to accept the scheme. If the Church did accept the scheme on the lines proposed by the Home Secretary, there would be great risk of considerable loss. The point to which we take exception, and I have no doubt that the Home Secretary has anticipated this, is that the commutation is to be made on a 3½ per cent, basis. I cannot understand why the Home Secretary, after the Debate we had the other day, has put in a 3½ per cent, basis. He must have remembered the very able and con- clusive speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley Division (Sir T. Whittaker), who we all recognise as an expert in these matters, in which he said that no single insurance company he knew would enter into a scheme of this sort on a 3½ per cent, basis. Let the House remember the difference between an insurance company and the Church in a matter of this sort. Insurance companies undertake an annuity system as part of their general business. They do not exist merely for the sake of creating annuities. I am informed that it is not a part of their general business that pays very well in itself; on the contrary, it is more or less a by-product, and its use is largely a matter of advertising and getting the company and its operations known. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley Division granting that, and also that the insurance company docs a great deal of other business besides annuity work, said that even having their staff existing for other purposes they would not enter into a scheme like this on a 3½ per cent. basis. Take the case of the Church. The Church under this scheme will be acting as an insurance company, but simply and solely for the purpose of annuities. Having regard to the fact that the basis is 3½ per cent., and that the Church is dealing with a special class of lives, whereas insurance companies take all lives, it would be impossible for the Church to undertake this scheme without a very grave chance of loss, and I Hank, therefore, that the representative body will undoubtedly, on the present terms, refuse the scheme put forward by the Home Secretary.

Let me point out to him, because I think this point was missed the other day, where the loss would come in. The Home Secretary, in his speech the other day, assumed all through that the Church could invest her money at 3½ per cent., and he suggested that therefore there would not be a loss. I would point out that the loss would very likely come in on the realisation of securities in order to pay the annuities. Let me put the figures to the Home Secretary. He mentioned that the total capital sum would probably be £2,000,000. Three and a half per cent, on £2,000,000 would bring in £70,000 a year, but the annuities in the first year would amount to £160,000, and it follows that there would be a loss of £90,000 in the first, year. Ninety thousand pounds worth of capital would have to be realised in order to pay the annuities. Supposing there is a fall in securities. When you suddenly have to realise an enormous sum like £90,000, is it not probable that there would be a considerable loss? If there should happen to be causes operating in the money market which bring about a general depreciation of securities, the loss might be very heavy indeed, and that loss would continue year after year, very likely until the the last annuity had been paid off. I know the argument the Home Secretary used. He said that the Church would be able to obtain additional subscriptions to a sufficient amount to prevent it being necessary to sell securities in order to pay the annuities each year, but I put it to him, Is that a fair way of treating the Church? You are relying upon getting additional subscriptions to make up the deficiency. Surely the only fair way of dealing with the matter is to give the Church a sound scheme to start with, so that there will be no risk of loss. When the Home Secretary says that because in the case of Ireland there was no loss, because large subscriptions came in from the first, and it was not necessary to realise, therefore the same thing would happen in Wales, he is not comparing like with like. Although it is to be hoped that a large, subscription would come immediately from the Church, the Home Secretary has no right to trade upon that. He ought to give us a perfectly sound financial scheme ab initio. under which there would be no loss to the Church.

4.0 P.M.

Even in the case of Ireland the Irish Representative Body had to realise capital money to the extent of £l,500,000. The conditions in the case of Ireland were such, and the state of the money market and the value of securities was such, that there was no loss. In the case of Wales you have not put it upon a fair basis, and we therefore claim that the loss may be very heavy, and we are not prepared, so I am advised by those who have gone into the scheme, to take this risk, and the Church will not be prepared to accept the option and adopt the scheme unless it is materially altered. The 3½ per cent, basis is the chief cause of objection. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that in the plan put forward by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock the basis was a 3 per cent, basis, and, if I remember aright, the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the Spen Valley Division said that he thought that in order to make the scheme actuarialy sound, it ought to be upon a 3 per cent, basis. There are one or two other points in the scheme which in our opinion are not fair, and which would involve the Church in loss. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock suggested 5 per cent, for the cost of management. The Home Secretary suggests 2½ per cent. I am advised that that is insufficient, having regard to the fact that for this one business alone the Church would have to have a very expensive staff of actuaries. There, again, there would be a loss on the 2½ per cent. for management. Another point is that in estimating the commutation value of tithe rent-charge the Home Secretary makes a deduction of 12 per cent, for rates and Land Tax. It is rather curious that in the form in which this Clause was first put down 8 per cent. was the figure given, but since the White Paper was circulated the Home Secretary has altered that to 12 per cent. I do not know why he has taken this very large figure as the proper deduction for rates and Land Tax. I am advised it is altogether too large, and that there would be a considerable loss on that too. It represents a bigger deduction than the average outgoings for rates and Land Tax now paid by the Church, and I suggest to the Home Secretary that it would be far more fair to do what is done in the Fifth Schedule, namely, take the actual amount of the deductions in the last three years on (he average. You have to arrive at that for the purpose of the Fifth Schedule, and for the life of me I cannot see why it should not be put into the Fourth Schedule, so that we can get not merely an estimate of what these deductions ought to be, but the actual amount as ascertained on the average of the last three years. We are driven back therefore to this position: Churchmen in this House and in the country would like, on general principles, a scheme of commutation. We do not want to keep up friction between the clergy and the Welsh county councils for a day longer than is necessary. We realise that this Bill will produce a vast amount of religious bitterness. We do not want to intensify that; we want to minimise it if we can, and for that reason we think commutation would be an advantage both to the State and to the Church. But commutation must be judged upon its terms, and if you offer to the Church terms which, in the opinion of leading actuaries who have been consulted, in the opinion of men like the right hon. Gentleman (Sir T. Whittaker), in the opinion of men like the hon. Member (Mr. Gladstone), and of officers of the Church like the officers of the Ecclesiastical Commission and Queen Anne's Bounty, might land the Church in a serious loss, we would do far better without commutation than with it. Therefore, though for my part on general grounds I certainly should desire to see a commutation scheme in the Bill, this is not a fair commutation scheme. It would be better for the Church not to have one at all than to have one which, if it is in the Bill, we shall have to refuse later on. For these reasons, unless the Home Secretary can see his way materially to modify his proposals, I hope he will either withdraw them or that the House will reject them.

There is one observation which was made by the hon. Gentleman with which I agree, that is that the proposals made in this new Clause for commutation are not fair proposals. When we come to consider this question of commutation there is one fact that we must keep in mind, and that is that the proposals are optional for the Church, but they are not optional for the Welsh people. We know that in another place it will be possible, and indeed it is almost certain, that Amendments and alterations will be proposed in this commutatoin proposal, all in the interests of the Church. There will be no one to move any alterations or Amendments in the interests of the Welsh people, and if such an attempt is made we all know that it will be abortive. If and when this Hill becomes law, and if the Church accepts these proposals for commutation, as accept (hem she will, in spite of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, because I do not believe for a moment that her advisers will be so blind as to pretend that they are not to the real advantage of the Church, the Welsh people will have no option but to accept them too. The people of Wales have never been asked to accept commutation. In the Bill of 1900, and in this Bill when it was introduced, nothing was said about commutation. Indeed, the framework of the Bill, as I thought, was against the very idea of commutation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will remember the great demonstration that took place on Whit Monday when he was at Swansea. Over 100,000 people came from all parts of Wales to show their support of this measure, but the measure itself had no commutation proposals in it at all. Therefore the only Bill which has been discussed and approved by the people of Wales is one without any commutation proposals. I do not say that on that account this House is precluded from considering, and even from passing, a measure of commutation, but I appeal to my hon. Friends around me to be very careful in the way they move in this matter in view of the fact that the Welsh people have never been, and never will be, consulted about the terms of commutation, and to see to it that in their proposals the interests of the people of Wales shall not be unduly sacrificed.

We are all in favour of commutation, and it is only a question of terms. Commutation is, or should be, a business proposition based on actuarial calculations as to what is the real value of the life interests of the clergy in Wales. But when it comes to putting commutation into practice, I agree it is not so simple a matter, because hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are champions of the Church, quite naturally want to guard the Church against all risk, and then, once you enter into this cloudland of conjecture, opinions must vary very considerably. The only precedent we have for commutation is the precedent of the Trish Act of 1869, because in 1536, when the monasteries were dissolved, in 1559, when the Act of Uniformity drove out hundreds of Catholic priests from the Church, including two Welsh bishops, when the Act of 1662 drove 2.000 ministers out of the Church, and when in 1690 the Anglican Church was Disestablished and Disendowed in Scotland, no regard was paid to the life interests of the dispossessed clergy, and therefore no commutation proposals were made. Therefore, the only precedent we have is the precedent of 1869. Some three weeks ago the Home Secretary said that this Bill as it stands leaves the Church £103,000 a year of Disendowments. The Bill of 1869, as it left this House, did not leave a penny of the Endowments of the Irish Church. It is true that £500,000 was afterwards given to it in lieu of the private benefactions, but that was under pressure of the House of Lords, and it was done very reluctantly by Mr. Gladstone. We are entitled to keep that in mind when we come to discuss these commutation proposals. How do they compare with the commutation scheme of the Irish Act? We all know that that scheme was preposterously generous to the Church in Ireland. It has always been acknowledged on this side of the House, and I am not sure that there are not many Gentlemen on the other side who agree with it. The 12 per cent, bonus, as it has been called—I agree loosely and inaccurately—in the Irish Church Act was not in the Bill as it left the House of Commons. That, again, was accepted by Mr. Gladstone very reluctantly at the last moment, merely in order to induce the House of Lords, which had not then been muzzled by a Parliament Act, to accept the: Bill. We have a Parliament Act, and yet we have to pay exactly the same price to-day and more than was paid by Mr. Gladstone in 1869.

The 12 per cent, bonus was divided really into two parts. Seven per cent was the difference between computing the commutation sum on the ordinary life insurance annuity tables and computing it on the life of the clergy. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir T. Whittaker) a year ago said that 7 per cent, was considerably under the proper figure, and if the word "considerably" means anything, I suppose it means something substantial. I suppose, therefore, he will agree that it really should be represented not by 7 per cent., but by something like 10 per cent My right hon. Friend has made a somewhat curious discovery. He has found that English teetotallers and Welsh parsons have one quality in common—the display of far greater reluctance than is shown by more sinful people to enter upon that state of eternal beatitude which presumably awaits them in the world to come. But whether you take 7 per cent, or 10 per cent., that portion of the bonus is incorporated in these proposals because the commutation will be on the lives of the clergy, and not on ordinary lives in an insurance scheme; therefore, whatever that percentage should be, that portion of the bonus which was extracted at the last moment from Mr. Gladstone in 1869 has already been generously given away by the Home Secretary. The other part of the 12 per cent, bonus in 1869 was 5 per cent, for administration expenses. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir T. Whittaker) has been called a financial expert. I will accept him as a financial expert on the cost of administration. He is a director of an insurance company, therefore he speaks of what he knows. What he said was that the 5 per cent, which is given as a bonus in the Irish Act was much too high, and that 2½ per cent, was ample. I suppose "ample" means more than sufficient. I should say that 2½ per cent., which means £50,000, is not only ample, but preposterous as the expense of distributing £2,000,000 among a thousand clergymen, whose numbers will become less and less as the years go by. It only means sending a thousand cheques and letters twice a year to the clergy and receiving the receipts.

dissented.

It may be that there will be some other expenses in connection with selling securities, and so on, but I will come to that question later. The £50.000 which is given in these proposals as the expense of administration is more than ample to cover the cost of that administration, whatever that may be. Mr. Gladstone never introduced any proposal in his Bill, as it left the House, to provide for these expenses at all. It was only when he was pressed by the action of the other House that he introduced it at all. Therefore, we have 7 per cent, or 10 per cent, of the Irish bonus given here because this proposal is based on the lives of the clergy, and we have 2½ per cent, for the cost of administration. Therefore you have this position, that you get this 12 per cent, bonus incorporated in substance, though not in name, in the House of Commons, not in the House of Lords, in the middle of the fight, and not as part of the terms of peace. That is the position in which we find ourselves at the end of the Committee stage and the beginning of the Report stage.

May I trespass on the indulgence of the House to say a word in regard to the 3½ per cent, to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawcn) alluded? I do not think there is any man in this House, on whatever side he sits, who will dispute the proposition that if the Welsh Commissioners, who will have to find the £2,000,000 of commutation money, went into the market to-morrow to borrow that sum, they would get it under a percentage of 3¾. I do not profess to understand these matters; I have not been initiated in the mysteries of high finance like the right hon. Member for the Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker), but I have, made some inquiries, and I am told that you cannot borrow this under 3¾ per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "Six per cent."] That is what I am told you will have to pay if you borrow £2,000,000 on Government security to-morrow. If you cannot borrow under 3¾ per cent., surely it is not too much to assume that you can get 3½ per cent, upon the investment of it. Three and a half per cent, was the figure mentioned in the Irish Act, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary refused to assent to the proposition that the rate of interest has gone down, or, at any rate, altered since then. He said—and what is much more important than what was done in 1869 is what is fair to both parties to-day—you could invest your money three weeks ago-in Irish Land Stock and get £3 12s. 6d. upon it. I glanced over the financial columns of the newspapers to-day and found that the figure given by the right hon. Gentleman stands good to-day, and therefore, if the Church had to invest its money at £3 12s. 6d. per cent., why is it unfair that she should be charged an eighth less than she could get in Government Stock to-day? I am told by financial experts—I find that financial experts, like lawyers, differ—that you can invest, money to-day in trustee securities and obtain interest at the rate of 3¾ per cent., and even 4 per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "Over 4 per cent."] Well, why on earth is it unfair —I confess it passes my comprehension— when we borrow money at 3¾ per cent., and' the Church can invest it at 3¾f per cent, or 4 per cent., to charge her at the rate of 3½ per cent? I utterly fail to see the reason, logic, or fairness of the criticism.

I am told that the difference between 3½ per cent, and 3¾ per cent.—that is to say, ¼ per cent.—will work out on a conservative estimate at £40,000, and some gentlemen I have consulted tell me that it will work out at £60,000. The people of Wales on this one item alone stand to lose £10,000 in order that the Church may get what she has asked for, namely, commutation. My hon. Friends the Members for the Kilmarnock Burghs (Mr. W. G. Gladstone) and Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Bos-cawen) are the gentlemen who proposed commutation, and therefore if we, who represent the Welsh people, accede to their request, I do ask whether it is fair that we should be damnified by so acting. I am quite willing that the Church should be safeguarded in a reasonable way against loss, but I say that the difference between 3½ per cent, and 3¾ per cent, is sufficient to guarantee her against any possible loss and any fluctuations that may occur in the market. My hon. Friend the Member for the Kilmarnock Burghs is not satisfied. He wants the money at 3 per cent., which would add, I suppose, another £80,000 or £100,000 to the Church. My hon. Friend has played a conspicuous and prominent part in these Debates. He has achieved many victories for the Church, but he has never intervened once in the Debates except when there was a money question involved. He will go back to Hawarden, once the home and cradle, now the grave, of Welsh hopes, laden with the spoils of the people of Wales. He cloaks his design under a veil of fine sentiments, eloquently delivered. He does not condescend to particulars. It is only in the result that we discovered what the real nature of his purpose was in moving his Amendments. We all remember the touching and moving speech which he made on 10th January, when he proposed his Commutation Amendment. He seemed to us pedestrians of debate to soar aloft like an eagle in the empyrean, there remaining motionless with extended wings bathed in the sunshine of heaven, the very picture and symbol of serene and remote detachment from earth, and the things of earth, and then he suddenly swoops down from air with lightning rapidity, and with fierce beak and talon he fastens upon a poor stray lambkin, and while the shepherd carelessly plays his pipe the great bird sweeps off with his prey, a dainty morsel for his hungry family on the rocks.

It would be unfair to ascribe all the credit of this achievement to my hon. Friend the Member for the Kilmarnock Burghs, because my right hon. Friend the. Member for the Spen Valley must have a share in the credit for this performance. The Homo Secretary had not thought any more than Mr. Gladstone or the financial authorities that anything should be given to the Disestablished Church for the cost of management, but after the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs had spoken, my right hon. Friend the Member for the Spen Valley got up and uttered the blessed words, "Two and a half per cent." My right hon. Friend never seemed to take the slightest interest in this question or the Welsh Church until he hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs proposed that the Church in Wales should henceforth be turned into a sort of sanctified insurance company, and then his professional instinct were aroused, and he decided to take the Church under his protecting wing. When he said 2½ per cent., my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary replied, "Two and a half per cent., that is £50,000, a mere trifle," and so it is taken from the Welsh people and poured into the overflowing coffers of the Welsh Church. I con- gratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his victory and success. He has not always been successful. I remember times three years ago when the right hon. Gentleman used to come down to the House full of wrath against proposals in a certain Budget, but one scorching flash from the Chancellor's blazing eye used to send him tottering back into his seat with the manuscript of his undelivered master piece—

When?

In 1909 —with the manuscript of his undelivered masterpiece in the pocket of his tail, which in those days was generally between his legs. The whirligig of time has brought the right hon. Gentleman his revenge. It is now his hour to speak. He is Sir Oracle, and it is the Chancellor who remains dumb, turned to stony silence by the Medusa of Spen Valley. I deplore these concessions, but when I am distributing blame so freely I feel that I ought in common fairness to put a portion of it on the shoulders of the Welsh Members. It is the fault of no one in particular, and least of all of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Swansea District (Sir D. Brynmor Jones). It is the fault of the system which has gradually grown up. My right hon. Friend is the shepherd of a scattered flock. Five of them browse contentedly on the rich pastures of the Ministerial fold. Five of them are cooped up within the Labour party pen, and still others have strayed like lost sheep amid rocky places nibbling at scanty herbage, all the sweeter because of the peril by which it is encompassed. My right hon. Friend is not in the same position as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond). I believe my hon. Friend by nature, and indeed J by inclination, would prefer to play the part of a roystering blade below the Gangway, ready for any cut-and-thrust encounter that might befall, equally happy giving or receiving buffets, but an untoward fate has wafted him above the Gangway, where he sits burdened with the cares of high office, and therefore it is that on everyone of those critical occasions— for they are critical—when money is involved he has to play an impossible part. He has to try to cover with stateliness of expression and with courtly dignity of manner the arid sterility of the official policy of what is sometimes termed in sardonic mockery, the Welsh Parliamentary party. Therefore, though I deplore those concessions, enormous and over-generous, I agree that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been beset by Parliamentary difficulties, and, if he likes to say it is in order to overcome those difficulties he has made these concessions one after another, I have no more to say.

I have to acknowledge that he lacks the support of a Welsh party united, consolidated, organised, and disciplined, like the Irish party opposite, or like the Labour party. I know that he has had to contend against the untamable hostility of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and one or two others who still prefer to fight under his banner, and not under the banner of the Government. I know that he has had to meet the criticism of financial experts like my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley, and he has largely done so in this proposal, as I hope my right hon. Friend will admit. I know that he has had to endure the intolerable humiliation of being lectured and admonished by smooth young men on the second bench, who are private secretaries to his own colleagues in the Cabinet. I know that he has had to contend with flabby sentimentalists on this side of the House who are never tired of trying to imitate the generosity of the boy in the tale who was told by his mother that he ought to give alms to a beggarman in the street, and said to her, "Yes, mother, let us be kind to this poor man. I will give him sister's halfpenny." I know that he has had to contend against an Ecclesiastical Commissioner appointed by the Government, who has neglected to supply him with information which some Ecclesiastical Commissioners had supplied to the other side, on their own admission, five months before. I know he has been assailed by vituperation of bigots who have looked upon him as a mere heretic who confounds the persons and divides the substance. I know his difficulties, and if he tells me quite frankly that it is on account of those difficulties that he has been led to make these concessions, then I can only deplore the fact and bow to the inevitable.

But to be told that these enormous concessions are no concessions at all is merely to exasperate his friends without conciliating his foes. My right hon. Friend may be perfectly justified in what he has done up to now owing to the difficulties that he has met with, but the Parliamentary situation has changed con- siderably during the last two months. It is not the same now as it was when this Bill went into Committee. This Bill has had an educative influence in this House and outside this House. Hon. Members who two months ago were pressing for concessions tell me now, good loyal Churchmen as they are, that they are perfectly satisfied with this Bill, and think it is generous in its applicatian to the Church. Other Members, like the hon. Member for the Border Burghs and the hon. Member for the Morley Division of Yorkshire, have been surprised to find the intensity of the feeling and the enthusiasm that prevailed in their constituencies in favour of this Bill. They acknowledged it themselves at meetings which have been reported in public newspapers. The longer this Welsh question is open the more certainly shall we see the recrudescence of the old traditional Liberal demand for the separation of Church and State, not only in Wales, but in Scotland and England as well. Therefore I hope that my right hon. Friend is not going to give any more concessions. The Bill as it stands is more generous to the Church than the Bill of 1869 when it became an Act of Parliament. My right hon. Friend has none of the difficulties which confronted Mr. Gladstone, who feared another place in dealing with this question. He has a fair field before him. He has an almost solidly united party behind him, with the exception of two or three. As a Welshman, I have been greatly touched by the loyalty of the rank and file of the Liberal party in this House and outside it to this Bill. I know that we are a feeble folk. We are only few and scattered, and we could not hope to get the Bill through except for the loyalty of the rank and file of the supporters of the Government.

And of the Irish party.

Certainly. I am not ashamed to accept for this Bill the support of my hon. Friends from Ireland. They have had all the blessings of Disestablishment, and it would indeed be an extraordinary thing if they did not support for Wales a measure which had been so fraught with benefit to their own country. The only thing I am surprised at is not that Irish Nationalists below the Gangway support this Bill, but that hon. Gentlemen from Ulster above the Gangway, who have experienced the benefit of Disestablishment, should troop into the Lobbies against this Bill. I hope that my right hon. Friend therefore will not give any more concessions. The Bill is over generous as it is. He has now a different situation to face from that which he had to face two months ago. Let him therefore resist the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and all his works, and when the good ship comes safely into port, though I am strongly of opinion that valuable cargo was unnecessarily and prematurely jettisoned in the days of stress and storm, the right hon. Gentleman will earn the admiration of the Members who have followed his conduct of this Bill through this House and he will earn something more valuable and something more enduring, and I hope something more dear to his heart, the imperishable gratitude of the people of Wales.

Unlike the hon. and learned Gentleman who has preceded me, I will confine myself to the new Clause before the House. I am one of those who regret very much that the Home Secretary has not found himself able to put down more satisfactory provisions for carrying out the principle of commutation, which he accepted upon the Committee stage, and which I think it was evident was welcomed, or, if not welcomed, certainly accepted in every quarter of the House. I think that our discussion in the Committee stage brought us to the state in which it was generally admitted that commutation is a great improvement to this Bill upon public grounds of policy, not merely in the interests of one section, but in the interests of the community as a whole. That being so, it comes as a surprise and disappointment to some of us that the Home Secretary has not found himself able to place upon the Paper a scheme of which the Church can take advantage without risk of loss. I believe that as the scheme stands at present it is out of reach of the Church. In my judgment it is not far out of its reach. However that may be, for practical purposes the result is the same. If the Government adhere to their decision this scheme of commutation is dead and the Government will have killed it. In those circumstances I desire to offer one or two suggestions for the consideration of the House which are designed to make the scheme more reasonable and sound from the actuarial point of view, and therefore more possible of acceptance by the representative body. The first suggestion is not the most important, because it is not actuarial. I notice that the representative body is only given one month in which to decide whether or not to take a system of commutation. I hardly think that that is adequate. I think it would be more prudent to take not less than three months. It is, after all, quite possible to think of circumstances which might delay the setting up of the representative body. A General Election might do so, or the necessity for taking a judicial decision on some point of I the Bill, or even possibly some dispute a to the proper and legitimate formation of the representative body itself. In such eases circumstances might arise which would have the effect that there would be | no body competent under the provisions of I the Act to take up commutation on behalf of the Church before the option expired.

It would therefore be wiser to have a I more ample margin of time than one month. The body that has to decide in a hurry decides at a great disadvantage. If that suggestion is not favoured by other Churchmen in this House, of course I can-j not expect the Home Secretary to take it into consideration, but if it is favoured by other Churchmen in this House I may point out to the Homo Secretary that there is an Amendment on the Paper to that effect. My chief complaint against the proposals of the Government is as to the rate of interest in calculating the commutation money. The question of 3½ per cent, as against 3 per cent, is not one, I suppose, which can be decided merely upon political convictions. It is a technical question as well, and the advice of experts must be sought and respected upon the point. I, too, wish to allude to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Spen Valley Division of Yorkshire. Those who heard that speech in Committee will entertain grave doubt as to whether the Home Secretary has treated us fairly by offering 3½ per cent. On that occasion my right hon. Friend— who is admitted to be a financial expert by the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen Boroughs; and I hope that the hon. and learned Member will admit that he is an expert, with regard to the rate of interest—said that the Government would fail to find a single British insurance office that would undertake these annuities on the basis of payment worked out at 3½ per cent. There is no Member upon either side of the House whose opinion upon a subject like this is more worthy of attention. Moreover, let us remember that the representative body will not be unfettered like an insurance office in its choice of investment, nor will it be as competent as an insurance office to take advantage of the terms of the money market, or a bit more highly trained for financial purposes, and for financial purposes only. I am advised that an insurance office would not accept the business of these annuities, even at the rate of 3 per cent., if it was the only business that they were undertaking, and if it did not lead or tend to attract other business of a more remunerative character.

We are beginning to be afraid that the Home Secretary thinks that the 3½ per cent, is not an injustice to the Church, because the Church can rely upon voluntary offerings to make good any deficiency which might arise under the operation of this scheme, and that these voluntary offerings would suffice to make good any shortage in the funds available for paying the annuities. Very respectfully we would suggest to the Home Secretary that this is not a fair basis on which to found the scheme. We submit that the fair basis, and the only fair basis for such a scheme as this is, that the commutation scheme should be able to stand by itself, and that to stand by itself it should be financially and actuarialy sound. We submit that the only question we have to decide is what sum of money, taking into account, both interest and capital, will suffice to pay all these annuities. The question I submit is not what sum of money, taking into account the amount of the voluntary offerings, will do to relieve the Church in the future. Once you depart from the basis of a business footing, there is really no longer any impartial test by which you can measure the equity of any scheme such as this. After all, the Home Secretary might be pressed to put less into his scheme, and the loyalty and generosity of the Church might be relied upon to make good the difference; or pressed to put 2½ per cent. into it, on the ground that the I Welsh people were notoriously appreciative of education, and, if the county councils wanted to raise a fund to endow county scholarships, they could rely on voluntary offerings to enable them to carry out that scheme. Once yon depart from the high road of a financial business basis, you plunge into a jungle of guesswork, contradiction and dissatisfaction.

I do not wish to labour the point of 3½ per cent. I have no doubt there are many others who can deal with this technical and vital point with much more effect and authority than I can. Suffice it to say that we are advised by our skilled advisers that the Church would lose by this scheme if it is obliged to take it up at the rate of 3½ per cent. Why the Home Secretary, just at the moment when the Church will admittedly be undergoing a great transition, and a still greater trial and ordeal, should offer to us a scheme which experts pronounce to be unsafe financially and actuarialy, is something which I, for one, cannot understand, and which I, personally, resent very much. I should have thought it was not part of the functions of a Cabinet Minister in charge of an important Bill, upon the eve of the Third Reading of that Bill, to diminish or destroy the faith or the allegiance of any of his followers or of the Government which he represents. Such an achievement as that would not, I think, be directed by worldly wisdom, or by any wisdom. The scheme which the Home Secretary has put upon the Paper even since the time it first appeared upon the Paper, has been stiffened against the Church. Hon. Members may observe that in the Fourth Schedule the annual value of income derived from tithes has been arrived at for the purpose of commutation with, in the first place, a deduction in respect of the cost of collection; and, in the second place, in respect of the rates and Land Taxes. The system of taking a general average figures has been adopted in arriving at the figure of the cost of collection, but in respect of the figure for rates and Land Taxes there has evidently been a great deal of uncertainty. I say that advisedly, because on Monday the Home Secretary's own estimate of it appeared as 8 per cent., and by last Friday it had mounted to 12 per cent.

So far as we can judge the latter estimate of 12 per cent. is excessive, and we trust that the Home Secretary will be able to return to his original figure. It is rather strange that the Home Secretary should have conic to rest upon the figure 12 After all, I suppose it is desirable as far as possible to have some regard to previous calculations, and I understand that in the first White Paper is a Return from the Home Office in the name of the Under-Secretary to the Home Office, stating the amount of the Church's income and resources, and I gather from that Return that the deductions were calculated on the 10 per cent. basis. In view of the evident uncertainty as to the right amount, I desire to submit to the Home Secretary that it would be better to take the actual facts of each case, which I suppose can be obtained, without any real prospect of much dispute, from the local authorities. I venture to suggest that the Homo Secretary should either go back to the figure 8 or that the same words should be put into the Fourth Schedule of which the Government make use in the Fifth Schedule. There is already an Amendment on the Paper to that effect. When we allowed the Amendment on commutation to be negatived without a Division, we did so on what transpired to be a critical day in the Debates upon the Bill. Immediately afterwards, on the Amendment dealing with the curates' interests, the Government only secured a majority of forty.

Of course, if the Home Secretary had not accepted the principle of commutation, the majority would have been lower, possibly under thirty. Of course, we desire to impute no motive, but I think it is right to remind the Home Secretary of that fact. It may be that, after all, we were to blame, or perhaps we mistook the spirit, in which the Home Secretary took up this scheme of commutation and were too optimistic; but, be that as it may, we did entertain the hope and the expectation that the scheme which the Home Secretary promised to bring forward in lieu of our scheme would be one which, at any rate, would be sufficiently sound from an actuarial and financial point of view to permit of the representative body taking it up without risk at all. But now acute anxiety is aroused. We are advised by our skilled advisers that the Church cannot take this scheme up without grave risk of loss. We who believe in the Church think that we have before us a long and stern struggle to meet the obligations which already confront us under this Bill—a struggle which will grow harder when the feeling and attention that have been aroused by this Bill die down. I do not think, under those circumstances, and at such a critical moment of our existence, that the Church can be expected to take up this scheme, which is pronounced by experts to be actuarialy and financially unsound. I leave—having regard to these circumstances—the House to judge between us and the Home Secretary, and to say whether or not he is treating us fairly in offering us terms which experts pronounce to be financially and actuarily unsound.

I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) in his carefully prepared gibes, in which he has relied upon his imagination for his facts. If he knows anything about the reference he made to what I said or did in connection with the Budget, he knows that what he said has no foundation in fact; and I can only assume, there fore, that he did not know anything about it, and was simply talking out of the back of his head, and inventing as he went along. I say that what he said is absolutely untrue, and if he knows anything about the matter he knows it was not true. Consequently, I can only conclude that he did not know anything about it, and imagined it as he went along. The hon. Member may be a good lawyer, but he knows nothing of finance and nothing of actuarial calculations. As is usually the case under such circumstances, the ignorant man is suspicious. In connection with this matter, I only intervene on what is purely a business point. I have assumed, and other hon. Members have agreed, that commutation is of itself desirable. It is admitted that commutation would be desirable in the interests of the Church; and it is admitted that commutation would be desirable in the interests of the Welsh county council. It would give to them an accurate knowledge of the amounts they had to deal with, and enable them to formulate plans. I have accepted that position, and I have not attempted to discuss it. The only practical point before the House today, and to which the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs addressed himself very little indeed, is, are these terms of commutation fair and equitable, and when I speak of fair and equitable I mean fair and equitable not only to the Church, but also to the Welsh people. The suggestion was made that these annuities should be commuted on a 3 per cent, basis. I felt at liberty to indicate my view, having sonic knowledge that that was a fair basis on which to calculate those annuities, and I gave some reasons for so thinking. I agree with the hon. Member that, taking the Bill as a whole, it is a generous Bill. I desire that it should be a generous Bill, and I feel that it is a generous Bill, but that matter was not under discussion, and this is merely a discussion as to what would be a fair method of transforming these particular stipends into commutation. It is not, therefore, a matter of concession, but a matter of business. If anyone will go to the Government Post Office, or if anyone will go to the National Debt Commissioners, they will not get an annuity at 3½ per cent. The amount for management has been criticised. If the hon. Member had to manage this he would find that running over the long term of years it has to run, and taking into consideration all the expenses that will be connected with it, that 2½ per cent, is a fair, ample, and reasonable provision. The provision in the Irish Church Rill was 5 per cent. I think that was unnecessary, and that 2½ per cent. is perfectly fair. The Home Secretary has, I think, acted reasonably and fairly in making that concession. In connection with the rate of interest which can be obtained, it is true that at the moment Irish Land Stock can be obtained to pay £2 12s. 6d., and some other Trustee securities can be bought to-day to pay rather more; but if you are going into the market with £2,000,000 of money you may not find it quite so easy to pick them up, and when you come to sell them—and they will have to be sold—provision has to be made for risk of depreciation and loss in that connection. I ventured to remark in Committee that if this scheme had been adopted by the Church, or any other body, twenty-five years ago, the Church, or that other body, would have been bankrupt to-day owing to the depreciation that has taken place in that class of security. I do not anticipate any similar depreciation in future, since surely we have gone so far that none of them can go a similar distance. Still, these are facts to bear in mind.

On the other hand, I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock Burghs (Mr. Gladstone) and those who are interested in this matter, that if they will look into the Amendment as the Home Secretary has now placed it upon the Paper, although he has not conceded the point of interest and reduced that to 3 per cent., yet he has made other provisions in the Amendment, and liberal and considerable allowance must be made for those provisions. After looking into those and forming the best opinion I could about them, and it is not easy to form an exact opinion since you have to guess as to what may occur in many directions, I am disposed to think that the other concessions which the Home Secretary has made will to a very large extent balance the difference between 3 per cent, and 3½ per cent. If, at the time that the Church comes to consider whether they can accept this arrangement or not, they are able to make the investment of their money to yield anything like the rate which they can get today, under the Amendment as it is now suggested to be amended by the Home Secretary I venture to think that the Church will find that they can work this arrangement. It will be pretty close, but I think that the concessions which the Home Secretary has made are such as might be accepted as a compromise. You have to remember, on the other hand, that this does mean some loss on the one hand to the county councils, and on the other hand some to the Church. I do not think it will be much either way, and it may be none at all but it will be a great advantage to the county councils of Wales to know exactly what money they have got to deal with and to be able to lay their plans and arangements right away. That is a substantial gain, and it will also be a substantial gain to the Church to have these funds to deal with themselves. Therefore, looking at the matter as a business arrangement, I think both of them might take the little risk of loss there is on either side, and the arrangement, as now made, seems to me one which might be accepted.

I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken that we are dealing with a business question, and that it has to be approached from a business point of view. Let me say a word about what fell from the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams). It is quite clear that in his speech he travelled far outside business considerations, and repeated almost the identical words which he used during the progress of the Bill in Committee about certain Members on his own side and private secretaries. The hon. Member said the Welsh people had not been consulted on the question of commutation. If he desires that the Welsh people should be consulted as regards the provisions of this Bill, every Unionist Member will support him. It is what we want, and I agree with him that a Bill of this kind, before it is passed into law and becomes operative, ought in its final form to be put before the Welsh people in order that they may say "Yea" or "Nay," and, of course, before the electorate at large. We assent to that proposition, and in that respect the hon. Member was perfectly sound. His second proposition was rather a curious one. He talked about the educative influence of the discussions during the course of this Rill on Welsh opinion.

And English opinion.

I should like to know what about the educative influence on the electorate in the Flint Burghs where the result was to diminish the majority by I half. He referred to the private secretaries but he himself is like them. He I gets up and makes a speech, but will not give a vote which will make the views so expressed really effective. He is very courageous in talking, but when it comes to action I am afraid I must say he is not. Another remark he made was about taking money out of Welsh coffers, and he used I some tremendous allegorical phrases. I think it would be out of place to discuss that question now, but what you are dealing with under this Bill by its immediate purpose is the taking of money out of Church coffers which we on this side think is a system of plunder and sacrilege which ought not to be allowed. There was one other statement of the hon. and learned Member in which he was wholly and hopelessly inaccurate, and that was as regards the treatment in the Welsh Bill, and that in the Irish Bill. In every single particular as regards the compensation with which we are now dealing the Irish Bill is more generous in all its terms than the Welsh Bill. I will give an illustration. The poorest of the clergy and the curates are to have no compensation under the Welsh Bill. They were fairly, properly and generously treated in the Irish Bill. In the same way the poorest Church officials who do not have a freehold position are to have no compensation under the Welsh Bill, whereas under the Irish Bill they were all given fair compensation whether they had technically a freehold office or not. Nothing is more striking and nothing shows more clearly the inaccuracy of mind with which the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen Boroughs approaches this question in his desire to attack apparently some of his friends on his own side than that he should venture to make a statement of that kind, which is utterly out of accord with every Clause of the Irish Bill as compared with the corresponding Clauses of the Welsh Bill. In his higher flights of fancy I do not propose to follow him because one realises, I hope I do, though I do not think he does, that when you are discussing an important business subject of this kind under conditions of guillotine, one does not like, at any rate, to occupy time unnecessarily except as regards the particular point involved. Whatever bitter feelings I may have about other hon. Members, I do not think this is the time to indulge in recriminations of that kind.

Let me say a word as regards the business proposition. I agree entirely with what was said by the right hon. Gentleman as regards the 3½ per cent., but I differ from him in what he said as regards the other proposals which are now contained in this commutation Clause. It is quite clear, and I take it from the right hon. Gentleman himself, without you find compensation in some of the other provisions, 3½ per cent, is a wholly impossible basis. The right hon. Gentleman referred to-day to what he said the other day when he remarked, "I think you would fail to find a single British insurance company that would undertake those annuities on a basis of tables worked out at 3½ per cent." And what any British insurance company could not undertake it is quite certain that the representative body could not undertake. There are advantages in carrying on an annuity business in connection with an insurance business which the representative Church body would not have. I may also remind the right hon. Gentleman of his statement, that of all the business carried on by insurance companies the annuity business is the least satisfactory. He told us also that, although in his own office they carried on this business on a 3 per cent, basis, yet they found it so unprofitable that they had given it up. What does that mean? What is the representative Church body? It is not a body with any funds at its disposal for business purposes, and even if it desired to do so, it could not undertake commutation except on terms showing that it was really guaranteed against loss. It would be extremely unfair if it attempted to do so. What would be the position of the life interests to be compensated if the representative Church body undertook commutation and had not sufficient funds to carry it out? I think that that is a position which is bound to be faced. I certainly agree that, although commutation in principle is of great importance both to the State and to the Church, yet it is quite impossible for it to be carried out at all on a 3½ per cent, basis. It makes a difference of 14 per cent, as compared with the 3 per cent, basis. It is an enormous difference. Taking the right hon. Gentleman's statement that even on a 3 per cent, basis his own insurance office has given up this business as unsatisfactory, it is utterly impossible as a business consideration, however wise it might be to do it, for the representative Church body to undertake it on a 3½ per cent, basis.

I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will realise that when we as an insurance office had an annuity business we were bound to do it on the ordinary mortality tables. At 3 per cent. that does not pay. If we could have done it on tables representing the mortality of our temperance lives we might have carried it on; that would have meant that our rates would have been higher than those of anybody else. The point of my remark was that in the Amendment as put on the Paper the Home Secretary makes a special provision, and secures that the tables shall be calculated on the special mortality of clergymen. That will make a difference.

I was coming to that. I presumed that that was one of the points to which the right hon. Gentleman referred when he dealt with the scheme as a whole. Taking the explanation that he has given, it is much sounder to get your 3 per cent, right than to have the risk of your annuity tables being wrong; because it is the risk of the annuity tables being wrong, coupled with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the buying and selling of securities, that makes the annuity business a risky business in itself, and one in which considerable losses have, in fact, been suffered, although every possible calculation has been made within what was considered the margin of safety. It is of the essence of the annuity business that it is risky and unprofitable. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has worked it out, but I do not believe myself that any alteration as regards the annuity tables is the least likely in a case of this kind to make the difference between 3 per cent, and 3½ per cent. The proposals now put forward are less favourable than those in the Commutation Clause sanctioned by the Home Secretary before the alteration was made. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs (Mr. Gladstone), instead of 8 per cent., 12 per cent, is being taken off for rates and Land Tax. That is a very large difference indeed. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has considered the effect of that. I do not know whether in his view it is fair and right that you should take off an all-round 12 per cent, as against 8 per cent., or whether in his opinion it would be more fair and proper to take the particular average in each case. I think myself that the particular average in each case would lead to a great deal of friction and trouble. As an alternative to that, I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to give the 8 per cent, as against the 12 per cent, reduction.

It is utterly impossible to get a nice calculation upon this point. I have taken the trouble to make certain calculations. It is impossible to have sufficient data for all the calculations, but so far as I can ascertain, 8 per cent, is much more accurate than 12 per cent. Whether that is so or not, I appeal to the Home Secretary not to make the conditions worse by making a 12 per cent, reduction. Commutation being admitted in principle, what is the good of adjusting it upon a table which the right hon. Gentleman is told in the opinion of the actuaries who are advising Church people in this matter is one which they cannot adopt, because, if adopted, it would lead them to bankruptcy and insolvency? If the right hon. Gentleman will not take a 3 per cent, table, will he accept the suggestion that an actuary appointed by the Privy Council should decide as to what the table should be on which the commutation is founded? That seems to be a possible way of meeting the difficulty between those who are proposing 3½ per cent, and those who think that 3 per cent, is right. Looking at it on a business basis, it is no good whatever thinking that the representative Church body can be in the financial position to undertake a large financial operation when they are advised by actuaries cognisant of this class of work that they cannot do it because their funds are insufficient. I do not think that the Home Secretary means that his Commutation Clause should be merely a paper Clause which cannot come into operation. Therefore I appeal to him to approach the subject from a business point of view, and to put it on business terms which can possibly be accepted by the representative Church body, in order to carry out a matter which is to the advantage of everyone.

:I am accustomed to finding myself m a position which is not regarded as satisfactory by hon. Gentlemen on the other side and is not altogether easy for my hon. Friends on this side. In a matter of this kind, in which one's duty is to endeavour to do perfectly equal justice between two parties to a bargain, it is not to be unexpected that neither of those parties will be altogether satisfied with the proposal offered them. The hon. and gallant Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) stated that the Clause in its present form was so bad that he and his Friends would find themselves obliged to vote against it. If I understood him aright, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock Burghs made a similar statement. I hope the House will recognise that if this Clause, which has been introduced in order to meet the substance of an Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock Burghs and seconded by the hon. and gallant Member for Dudley, so far fails to satisfy them and their Friends that they would not even allow the representative Church body to have the option of refusing it, I do not think that I should be justified in pressing the Clause upon my" hon. Friends on this side of the House, who feel extremely doubtful, in fact more than doubtful, as to the merits of the Clause from the point of view of the Welsh county councils. I think I am obliged to say that, inasmuch as the Clause contains this option to the representative body, if it is so bad that hon. Members would not allow them to exercise that option, in view of the opinions expressed by my hon. Friends on this side, I do not think I should be justified in forcing s settlement upon the two parties, each of whom is strongly opposed to it. It remains only for mc to show hon. Members on both sides that the Clause is not really of the kind that they imagine. I can show my hon. Friends on this side that it does not work the injustice which they believe to the Welsh county councils; and I can certainly show hon. Members on the other side that they would be extraordinarily foolish if they did not allow the representative body to consider the Clause on its merits for themselves. The hon. Member for Dudley directed his argument almost exclusively to the calculation of the table upon the basis of 3½ per cent., and that has been the substance of subsequent speeches also. I cannot help thinking that there is an extraordinary misunderstand- ing as to what is meant by taking 3½ per cent, or 3 per cent, as the basis of calculation. The hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps) said that the difference between the two amounted to 14 per cent. Where on earth does he get that figure? Does he really mean to say that, assuming the life interest is worth twelve years' purchase, the difference amounts to nearly two years' purchase? All I can say is that the actuarial calculations that I have received altogether contradict that statement.

The difference between 3½ per cent, and 3 per cent, is about 14½ per cent.; but when you are reducing that 14½ per cent, from a long period to a twelve years' period it is proportionately reduced.

It altogether depends on the proportionate reduction. The hon. and learned Member stated that it made a difference of 14 per cent.; in other words, that on £2,000,000 it made a difference of £280,000. It is nothing of the sort. The actual difference, as I am advised, on a calculation of £160,000 a year would hardly amount to £100,000.

The right hon. Gentleman must not take the life interest in the one case, and the total calculation in the other. He must compare like with like, and then he will find that I am accurate.

What I am taking is this. For the purposes of discussion, and solely for the purposes of discussion, we have throughout these Debates treated these life interests as being worth approximately £2,000,000. I said that whether you take 3 per cent, or 3½ per cent, as your fixed calculation it would make a difference of about £100,000; you would have to pay £100,000 more on the 3 per cent, basis than on the 3½ per cent. That is an approximate figure. The hon. Member says you would have to take £280,000 more.

dissented.

If I have misunderstood the hon. and learned Gentleman I will withdraw everything I have said. Let it first be understood that the difference between the calculation of 3 or 3½ per cent. basis is worth about 5 per cent. It is not of that vital importance that is supposed when people take the large figure of 14 per cent. Let us try and look at the reason of this thing. What is the reason why you have 3 per cent, instead of 3½ per cent. My hon. and learned Friend behind me speaks of no insurance company taking this business except on a basis of 3 per cent.; what is the reason for it? In calculating life interests you have got to work by the necessary life tables. All life tables are obviously made by the experience of the past. The very latest life tables you may have—and I have consulted the very latest for this purpose— is a life table only made this year. It is the latest produced. It dealt with a period of perhaps the last twenty-five years. However much you may bring these life tables up to date you are only reckoning the average of life in past years. All experience shows that the longevity of the human race in all classes in this country is increasing. Consequently all calculations made upon tables based upon past experience have always proved under the mark.

It is in order to meet that certain loss which they feel sure they will have to encounter from their experience in the past that they deliberately calculate upon a 3 per cent, or a 2½ per cent, basis, although they know that they can invest their money at 3½, 3¾ or 4 per cent. It is in order to make good the loss which they feel sure is bound to arise that the insurance companies deliberately take a lower rate of interest knowing, it is wrong; they do it in order to compensate for an unknown loss consequent upon the continued increase in the longevity of the human race. What is our business in this case when we proceed to consider the life interest of the Welsh clergy? In the first place, we take the greatest experience we can obtain as to their longevity. The ordinary mortality tables of the insurance officers are no good here. The Government life tables are no good. They are based upon averages extending over the whole people. We have, on the contrary, taken in our Bill a life table based upon the tables of mortality of the Government life annuities, subject, however, to such allowance as may be determined in the course of agreement between the Welsh Commissioners and the representative body by the actuary to be the proper allowance to be made on account of the greater longevity of the clergy as compared with other classes of the community. The allowance which will have to be made upon that account is fully worth the other allowances which we make, and which I shall mention later. The allowance we make on the other account is fully worth the difference between calculating upon a 3 per cent, and a 3½ per cent, basis. It is so much more worth the difference that I feel justified, from information I have been able to gather, in saying that the further allowance which is to be made in this Clause will in itself equalise the difference between the calculation on the 3 per cent, and the 3½ per cent, basis. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman and the Member for Kilmarnock Burghs be so good as to look at the last words of lines 19 and 20 on the Report Schedule? They will see they are, "allowance is to be made on account of any prospective decrease in the death rate." Can either my hon. Friend or the hon. and learned Gentleman point to any insurance offices, or to any Government life tables, in which the calculation is made upon a basis not only of the tables appropriate to the particular life, but in which an allowance is to be made for any prospective decrease in the death rate? Of course they cannot. Nothing of the sort exists. Here for the first time we have made allowance for the prospective life of the particular individual whose life interest is to be commuted.

The words the right hon. Gentleman quotes were not in the original White Paper circulated.

How does that affect the argument?

Would the right hon. Gentleman give us some estimate what this change of words would mean to the Church in money?

It is impossible to say. They would certainly make a material difference. I would ask my hon. Friend to look at this matter purely as a matter of business and with a single desire to do justice between the parties. What is it that you commute—that you have got to pay for? You have to pay for the life interest of a particular individual in each case. You total the amount representing the total value of all those life interests. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthern Boroughs would surely agree with me, if we commute at all, we ought to commute on a basis of the life, interest of the Welsh clergy. We ought not to commute on the life interests of another class of persons who do not usually live so long. We do not wish the county councils to pay less than the full value of the clergyman's life. Looking at the tables, current to-day for a period of twenty-four years, we find that the Welsh clergy live now on an average longer than the tables made twenty-four years ago made for the same class of persons. Surely it is reasonable to expect that the next tables made twenty-four years hence will also show a greater length of life than the tables produced to-day. Consequently you must take into account the prospective greater longevity of the clergy, as of all other classes. That is what you have to pay for—the life interest of the individuals. That is what we propose to calculate the value of, fully and completely, the true life interests of the Welsh clergy. If you give the clergy the full life interest it would be monstrously unfair on the face of it to calculate a rate of interest less than you know that the representative body can invest its money in to-morrow on British security. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Yes, to-morrow the representative body can invest £2,000,000 in Irish Land Stock paying £3 12s. 6d. per cent. If this Bill is not to become law— I hope it will become law before the month is over—but I must suppose to the contrary—supposing this Bill does not become law until some time next year, I do not suppose any person in this House would object, if at that time, owing to the state of the money market, the rate of interest had either risen or had fallen, to an alteration in the figure to 3½ per cent. But I have put into the Bill now a figure based upon the actual rate of interest which anybody can obtain for British securities in the open market. I regret that my right hon. Friend the Member for the Spen Valley (Sir Thomas Whittaker) is not here. If he had been, I would have asked him whether with such life tables as these, and with such a calculation for the prospective increased longevity, whether the insurance offices would take this business of 3½ per cent.? I am pretty sure that he would reply that the additional words I have quoted, which we are allowing, and the other—that the two together are worth far more than the difference in calculating upon the 3 or the 3½ per cent.

I come to the second point, the question of the 2½ per cent, which is to be allowed for expenses. Here, again, there is a most extraordinary misunderstanding on both sides of the House. At the present time, under the Bill as it stands, without commutation, there would be certain work that the county councils would have to perform in respect of the property they will take over. They would be com- pelled half-yearly to pay to the existing incumbents their life interest. They would be responsible for the collection of the tenths. They would further have to supervise the several hundreds of bits of glebe in the possession of life tenants, who might be supposed to be not too friendly to the county councils. Dilapidation would have to be secured against. All that is work which the county councils will have to do under the Bill without commutation. If there is commutation the county councils get rid of that work. The representative body take over the whole of the work which would have been done by the county councils. The representative body, in addition, have not, as many think, merely to write out cheques twice a year. The representative body have to settle the amount of the commutation with each individual incumbent. In order to carry out that work the representative body will be obliged, for some time at any rate, to pay actuaries, to maintain an office, and moreover a considerable number of clerks. The first piece of work, the settling of the amount of commutation will undoubtedly cost the representative body a considerable amount of money. Once that is over then I agree that all the representative body will have to do will be to pay the amount of settled interest twice a year. How do we arrange as between the parties? We say that the county council that is relieved of the work should pay over to the representatibe body which has the new work imposed upon it the sum of £50,000; 2½ per cent., or £50,000 reckoning the commutation money to be £2,000,000. Is that an unreasonable sum? When we reckon how much the county councils are charging the Church representative body for the collection of the tithes, we charge 2½ per cent, for that; that is to say, on the same basis we charge about three-quarters as much for collecting the tithe as they charge us for doing all the work I have named. If the representative body can save money on £50,000, it is equally true that the county councils can save money upon their £37,000. The only question we have to decide is, whether, if the representative body has got to pay the county council 2½ per cent, for collecting the tithes, is it unreasonable to make the county council pay to the representative body 2½ per cent, for all the work? Is 2½ per cent, enough to pay the representative body? I believe it will prove adequate. My right hon. Friend, the Member for Spen Valley (Sir Thomas Whittaker), has been much quoted and he has very wide experience, and his view is that it will prove ample. I admit that actuarial advice can be obtained and very readily given to the effect that 2½ per cent, is not enough, but I have found whenever such advice as that is brought to my notice, that the whole of the facts of the case have never been kept in mind. We have got to remember that this new work of this fund of £102,000 a year which is to be distributed amongst the various incumbents, is only in addition to the work that the representative body have already in hand and in respect to which they will have to keep offices and employ clerks. Bearing that in mind I said 2½ per cent, will prove amply sufficient to remunerate the representative body, and, on the other hand, 2½ per cent, will amply remunerate the county councils for collecting the tithes.

Then my hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Carmarthen District (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) commented on the fact that under this Bill we were giving to the representative body an option to refuse the Commutation Clause, whereas no option is given to the county councils, but my hon. Friend overlooked this important point. Under the Commutation Clause we are transferring from the county council to the representative body the liability. The county council are relieved of the liability to pay life interest. The representative body under the Clause have the liability imposed upon them to pay this life interest, and it would be manifestly unfair to impose the liability upon the representative body without their consent. Is it necessary, on the other hand, to gain consent to the principle of commutation from the Welsh county councils? I submit not. If this scheme is accepted in principle by my hon. Friends and myself who have the honour to represent Wales, I think the Welsh county councils would have their views quite adequately expressed, and therefore it cannot be said that this is in any sense a one-sided scheme, merely because we leave the option of refusal to that body which has the new liability imposed upon it.

Yes, but we ought to be very careful in going into these figures, because we are acting on behalf of people not consulted.

I agree entirely with my hon. and learned Friend that in any examination of these figures we are bound to keep the interests of the county councils as much in mind as the interests of the representative body, but we are equally bound to keep the interests of the representative body as much in evidence as the county councils. I believe this scheme does perfectly equal justice between the bodies, and I believe an examination of the figures shows that to be the fact. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Gladstone) observed that once we depart from a business basis we should get into a jungle of guess-work in our calculations. But what is his business basis beyond merely preferring 3 per cent, to 3½ per cent.? What possible business basis does he put forward? He says that in the Committee stage I held out expectation of a better scheme than this. So far from that being the fact, this scheme is a better scheme for the Church than the one I held out in Committee. It it quite true that in Committee I made no suggestion to pay 2½ per cent, for expenses. In this scheme I do offer 2½ per cent, for the expenses of the representative body, but beyond that the terms which are now offered in calculating the expectation of life interest are far better than anything I outlined in the Committee stage of the Bill, and my hon. Friend has not the smallest justification for suggesting that in this scheme I have in any degree withdrawn from any promise I made in Committee.

I never said the right hon. Gentleman did that.

I understood my hon. Friend to say that I held out expectations in Committee of a better scheme.

These words were never used by me.

I am very sorry, but I took the words down that I held out expectation of a better scheme, and I wish to assure him, if he has any such idea, that so far from that being the case, this scheme, as my hon. Friends who represent Welsh constituencies complained, is better than offering to the representative body that which I suggested on the Committee stage. Reference is made to the deduction which I now propose of 12 per cent, from the annual value of the tithe rent-charge in respect of rates. It is true that originally we proposed, I think, 10 per cent.; we then reduced the 10 per cent, to 8 per cent., and we have finally raised that figure to 12 per cent., which would appear to show a certain amount of indecision in our mind. The history of that change is simply this. The original proposals made were from such figures as we were able to obtain of the average amount of rates in rural areas in Wales. I was then informed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners that in their experience of the deduction of rateable value of tithe rent-charge, the net deduction in respect of rates ought not to exceed 8 per cent., and I accepted their figure, and altered my original 10 down to 8. Later I had the advantage of obtaining from the Local Government Board the precise figures as to the amount of rates in rural areas in Wales, and after making all legal deductions I was unable to reduce the figure below 12 per cent. If anybody objects to 12 per cent. I am perfectly willing that we should have in the Clause the precise figure of the rates paid at the present time in respect of tithe rent-charge, but allowance must then also be made in respect of the Land Taxes. Twelve per cent, here is the calculation both for rates and Land Taxes. I am perfectly willing, and I do not think the county councils will lose under it, to substitute for 12 per cent, whatever amount is actually found to be paid at the present time.

I think I have now dealt with all the points raised with this exception: my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and the hon. Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) both argued that I had assumed that this scheme was a fair scheme, because the Disestablished Church would be able to pay any deficiency out of increased voluntary subscriptions. I never made any assumption such as that as a basis for the proper calculation of the life interest. It is quite true that in considering the advantage of commutation of the life interest, I argued, as I should argue now, that one of the great advantages of commutation to the Disestablished Church is, that having a fund in hand of such a large amount, they will have a good argument with which to go to wealthy neighbours and say, "If you only subscribe so much, we shall be able to maintain our Church as if it was never Disendowed at all." It is a useful argument, but the calculation as to the amount of the full value of the life interest, of course, could not be based upon any expectation of voluntary subscriptions that the Church will hereafterwards be able to have. I have treated the Disestablished Church of England in Wales, as a live Church, and that the lay members will be as willing to subscribe as the lay members of the Nonconformist Church. I believe the Disendowment will be a spur to the generosity of the laymen in the Church of England in Wales, and that they will be as well able to raise funds as the Nonconformist bodies, and I think commutation will assist the Church in that task. But in calculating the true basis of commutation and the right amount to be paid, I have taken only two things into account, namely, what is the value of the life interest or how many years is the present life tenant really likely to live, and at what rate of interest can the Church invest its money? I think I have given sufficient reasons to justify me in recommending to hon. Members not to be quite so imprudent as to reject this Clause without giving the representative body any opportunity of considering its value.

The experience of the past has not enabled us to place very much reliance upon the hopes of the Home Secretary with regard to the financial position of Churchmen under this Bill, Let me just put to the House the odious position into which he has endeavoured to manœuvre the Church by the speech he has just made. Let us assume—no doubt even he can assume—that we are right, and he is wrong; that is to say, that to take over this scheme of commutation would involve such serious risk of loss to the Church that she would not be able to do it. He wants us to take this Clause blindfolded, and to give the option to the Church to accept it. Just imagine what position that would place a Church in. Everybody knows, and nobody better than the hon. Member for Kilmarnock, that it is tremendously in the interests of county councils and the party opposite to get a commutation scheme through. [An HON. MEMBER: "We do not want it."] Yes, because it will enable the Welsh electors to see that there is money in it, and that he is getting something. I think that is quite obvious. The relations of the Church to the county councils in certain places may be very different under this Bill, and if the Church has the option of accepting this and does not do so, and the county councils wish it to accept it, then those county councils can put pressure upon the Church in every sort of way, and place it in the most odious and embarrassing position. That is not fair. In a way, which I do not think worthy of the situation, the right hon. Gentleman has threatened the representatives of the Church in this House that if we do not assent to this scheme he will withdraw it. I intend to make him a counter offer in order to see if he will accept it. One point which is perfectly clear is that it is not a question of principle between us, but one of terms. We all agree that it is in the interests of the Church as well as the party opposite that some commutation scheme should be arrived at. I do not mean to dogmatise like the right hon. Gentleman has done about the precise terms. I dare say I am as familiar with the fact as he is, but I am not going to dogmatise on them so confidently, because, after all, there is room for a fair division of opinion between the bases of interest provided for in this Bill. I want to show how sound the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker) was in regard to what he said about the 3 per cent, basis upon the last occasion. I find that no less than twenty-eight of the first-class life offices in this country do business in annuities upon a 3 per cent, and not a 3½ per cent, basis, and there are two companies which do it on the 2½ per cent, basis. That corroborates as fully as figures can do the opinion which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the House.

What life tables?

I am unable to say.

But that is the vital point.

I was referring to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley stated, and he was absolutely accurate, in fact, his figures give a margin in our favour. As I have stated, only two offices do business on a basis of 2½ per cent. If that is so, I say without hesitation that it is asking the Church to do more than she is competent to do to accept straightaway a 3£ per cent, basis. I am not forgetting the allowance made for a greater prospective longevity. Let me take the principle upon which the Government have proceeded, and of which they have boasted throughout these discussions. It is that they are going to indemnify the existing interests of the clergymen in Wales. If they are going to give them their incomes in annuities for the rest of their lives, surely it is perfectly right to say that the clergy are entitled to a Government annuity. If not, why not? I do not think anybody can say they are not entitled to it, and if they are let the right hon. Gentleman go to any post office and see whether he can get an annuity upon a basis of 3 per cent. I think he would find they would ask him 2½ per cent.

Will the right hon. Gentleman accept the Government annuity terms? If so, I will offer them at once most willingly, but this Clause gives far better terms.

What do you mean by a Government annuity?

Ordinary Government tables.

If that will give us a 2½ per cent, or a 3 per cent, basis we will accept it, but we will certainly accept nothing less than that. The right hon. Gentleman says that life insurance offices do it on a 2½ per cent, or 3 per cent, basis, but they do it on tables, and the right hon. Gentleman says that we offer substantial terms based upon the greater longevity of the clergymen. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the difference between 3½ per cent, and 3 per cent, is £100.000, but he does not know, and I do not know at the present stage what the advantage is in regard to this prospective longevity in the concession he makes. The right hon. Gentleman was directly challenged by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock, and he said he did not know himself. Can you trust the Home Secretary's accuracy in this matter, when with one breath he tells my hon. Friend opposite that he cannot tell what this concession is worth and in the next breath he says it is worth more than £100,000. The right hon. Gentleman professes ignorance at one moment and knowledge at another; he professes ignorance when it is in his favour and knowledge when it is not. That is not fair. I do not wish to be drawn into doing any such thing myself. I say at once I do not know what the value of that concession is. It must be worth something, but nobody in the world except a highly skilled actuary, after a considerable time, can give even an approximate estimate as to the value of this concession. If the Home Secretary wishes to deal with us fairly, let him consider the proposition I am about to make. I ask him to let the question as to whether 3 per cent. is a fair basis or not go before an actuary selected by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and let him take into account by the terms of reference what the value of the concession which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to make is in regard to the mortality tables. Surely the right hon. Gentleman will not contend that an actuary will not have a better chance of settling this question, and if the right hon. Gentleman will do this the Church will be content to abide by that decision. I think that is as fair an offer as can possibly be made. Obviously the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to make a concession without measuring what was the worth of it, and he has shown that he does not know what that concession is. Therefore let an actuary appointed by an impartial tribunal decide the matter between us. I could not make a fairer offer, and I would like to have an answer in regard to it, because the right hon. Gentleman's reply will be a most material element in enabling us to decide whether we shall divide on this Clause or not.

With regard to the expenses, my opinion is that 2½ per cent, is not a sufficient sum. I know that Mr. Gladstone proposed more, and he gave 5 per cent, in the case of the Irish Church. I do not ask for 5 per cent, here, because I agree that notwithstanding the difficulties which the Welsh Church will have in dealing with the subject, 5 per cent, is too much. My opinion, which I have fortified from the very best sources, is that 5 per cent, would indemnify them for the expenses they will have to meet. Let that question also go before an actuary who is thoroughly conversant with the subject. That, I think, would be a perfectly fair course, and let the right hon. Gentleman consider these two positions. Hon. Members on both sides agree that it would be in the interests of peace and harmony in the future, and would dissipate the possibility of friction' in the relations between the county councils and the Church, if some scheme of commutation were accepted. I press this most earnestly on behalf of the Church, and I think any rational man would press it earnestly on behalf of the State. I do not think it is creditable to this House that there should be a difference of opinion as to the terms upon which this should be done now that it has been reduced to such comparatively small figures. The figures are small to the nation, but they may be large for the Church. I do not think anybody should endeavour to manœuvre the Church into a position in which it should be compelled to say "Aye" or "No" in regard to terms which the man who offers them is really unable to see the full effect of, and which it is quite manifest that nobody on this side, after the continual chopping and changing which has taken place, can accu- rately measure at this moment. If there is an honest division of opinion upon this actuarial question between the two sides of the House, any honest and candid man will be ready to admit that there is fair ground for the position I have taken up in suggesting that we should let this matter go to an impartial umpire and allow him to decide. The Home Secretary has confessed his ignorance upon this matter, and therefore he ought to be willing to let it be decided by an impartial authority. I make that offer, and its acceptance or rejection by the Home Secretary will determine the attitude we shall take upon this question.

The right hon. Gentleman has assumed, and it has been assumed throughout these Debates, that commutation was not an Amendment put forward on behalf of the Church by those who are in favour of arranging a commutation scheme, and he said that it was agreed to by all parties in the House.

I did not say so.

Well, the right hon. Gentleman, at any rate, said that if we all agreed to commutation, it would be a good thing. When the Debate on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs took place, it is true that my hon. Friends and myself gave a general assent to the principle of commutation on fair terms, and we said that such a proposition would not be objected to by us, but there was no demand, and there is no demand, from the Welsh Members who sit on this side of the House and from those we represent for this Commutation Clause. In fact, so far as there is any feeling at all, it is rather the other way. It is looked on, I will not say rightly or wrongly, as a concession to something asked for by the Church. Although many of us would like to see this question settled in this way, it cannot be put to us that we should be ready to leave the result to be settled in a vague and indefinite way, not by this House in open Debate, but by some persons unknown in some manner which we cannot ascertain. That is really asking more than we feel inclined to do, and, if the right hon. Gentleman talks of voting against this Clause, may I appeal to the Home Secretary to withdraw it. We do not want the Clause, and, if the terms are not good enough, I hope he will withdraw it, perhaps with some regret, but at any rate so that we may avoid the absurdity of going to a division in which those who ask for commutation vote against it, and in which we certainly should not vote in favour of it.

There is, of course, a certain amount of difficulty in all actuarial calculations. Actuaries, like all experts, always produce the result the party consulting them require at the moment, and I have no doubt the more actuaries you consulted the more different results you would get. An actuary's business is not merely to be on the ordinary business side, but to be on what I call the "ultrasafe side," the sort of safe side in which nothing can possibly go wrong, and in which he guards himself against even the most remotest possibility of his calculations working out against his client. Therefore I am not impressed when I am continually told by hon. Gentlemen opposite that their actuaries advise them they cannot accept a 3½ per cent, basis. I do not think we learn much in this Debate by going back on what has happened to insurance companies in the past. We are face to face to-day with a state of the money market and a financial position very different from what we have had in past years, and anybody starting in business or annuity lines to-day, or with any of these insurance ideas, would have to adopt a very different basis indeed from what has been the case in the past. There is no doubt you can get a higher rate of interest for money invested in gilt-edged securities than has been the case for a considerable time, and the question which presents itself to me from a business point of view is this: Is this high rate likely to continue for a number of years, or is it not? It is really not a question of actuarial calculations so much as of speculation in the gold reserves of the world and the likelihood of the maintenance of or a decrease in the money rates of the big banks of Europe. I read a speech by the chairman of the London City and Midland Bank, Sir Edward Holden, the other day, in which he pointed out that as things were going there was not only a likelihood of the present Bank Kate being maintained, but an increase in this and subsequent years.

It is absurd to say you cannot invest two million pounds in gilt-edged securities without enormously affecting the price of them. You can spread the money over quite a sufficient number of trustee securities so as not to affect the price. This transaction has got to be carried through once only, and that probably within the next eighteen months or two years, and I think it is perfectly safe to work on a 3½ per cent, basis. If you were going to work an insurance company, I might be more doubtful, but here you have much more definitely ascertained facts than any insurance company has ever had or will have. You know the number of people and you know their lives. You could get a very accurate estimate, not merely of the people, but of the actual probability of life in each case. You have a limited number of people of a certain class at a certain date with the money market in a certain condition; and it all has to be clone in a short time. No one dealing with annuities has ever had anything similar. All these facts had to be taken into consideration by those who prepared the Clause for the Government. Government annuities and annuities of ordinary insurance companies are run on commercial lines. There is also a point which seems to me one which may be argued both ways. We are told you have to take into consideration the risk of depreciation. You have also to calculate the probability of appreciation. If you invest at a high rate of interest you have the advantage of a high rate of interest on your investment, and obviously the probability is not that your security will go down, but that it will go up. It is not likely that gilt-edged securities will go down much more, but if they do go down a little your rate of interest on any surplus you may have to invest will naturally be more. I frankly say the representative body or those who dealt with it will have to take some risk. I do not see how in a transaction of this kind you can take no responsibility whatever. The county council will also have to take some risk in accepting this, but I do not think it is an unreasonable risk, and it is absurd to speak of the possibility of insolvency in the matter. After all, the difference in the worst case is not a very large one; it is probably a trifling one.

When the Irish commutation took place, a bargain was made with the incumbents by which the amount to which they were entitled was largely diminished in the interests of the Church. I do not know whether a similar arrangement could be made here, but undoubtedly many possibilities are open under the scheme of commutation which I should have thought would far more than compensate for any slight financial risk. We are certainly not convinced, and I have heard no argument to convince me, that 3½ per cent, is an unreasonable figure in view of all the facts. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley (Sir T. Whittaker) admitted he considered the Clause a fair one. You can to-day buy Irish Land Stock giving you £3 12s. 6d. return; you can buy London County Council Stock giving you £3 15s. return; and the Public Trustee to-day obtains something like 4 per cent., or a little over, on the money which he has under his control for heirs, legatees, and annuitants. After all, a Public Trustee has to be just as careful as any other body, for he is dealing with funds belonging to heirs and annuitants over which he has public or official control, and he can obtain today about 4 per cent, or a little over. Surely, if that is the case, all this nervousness about 3½ per cent, is a little overdone. I think if 3 per cent, were taken, the representative body would make a very decent profit on the transaction, and would really make a good deal more money than hon. Members opposite wish them to make. I can only repeat, if hon. Members opposite do not take the view that this is a safe transaction, I think the only reasonable thing to do would be to withdraw the Clause altogether. Personally, I think if the matter was to be introduced into the Bill it ought to have been introduced at a much earlier stage. We, and I have no doubt hon. Members opposite, have had a certain amount of difficulty in dealing with a matter of such importance so late in the day and with relatively so little time to consider it in all its bearings. We were satisfied with the Bill as it was introduced, and we should be quite satisfied to go back to the Bill as it was introduced.

I think the hon. Member who has just sat down without intending it has made the strongest speech against the views he has endeavoured to put before the House. He has treated this question as if it were a case of a number of men engaged in a particular kind of business. I entirely agree with him, and at the present moment I should be very pleased indeed to join with him in starting a trust fund on such conditions, because I am sure we could invest the money with all the probability that we could do it on much better terms than those given by the Government. The hon. Gentleman himself, however, pointed out the real difference when he said there were risks involved in such a transaction. The representative body of the Church ought not to be asked to take risks which involve it in the possibility of loss in regard to a matter as to the principle of which the House is agreed. That is the whole difference of opinion. I was interested in the hon. Gentleman's business remarks, but some of them did not seem to me to be quite as strong as he imagined they were. He spoke, for instance, about insurance companies having no knowledge of the lives they have to take, but surely he is wrong. He says that with this limited number of lives we could find out all about them. If he has any acquaintance with any insurance company, he knows no one is taken until the most minute inquiries have been made with regard to him. More that that, an insurance company is not bound to take every life that comes before it, but here they would have to take them all. I venture to say, from the point of view of the representative body, as compared with an insurance company, the disadvantage is all on the side of the representative body. I really do not understand either the argument of the hon. Gentleman or the cheers with which the Home Secretary greeted it. Speaking of hon. Members on that side of the House, he said. "We do not want commutation; if you do not want it, then drop it." That is a very curious attitude to take up after the Government have accepted the principle of commutation. Why did they do it? They did it, I suppose, because they thought it was just. Other reasons may be imagined, but I will assume they did it because they thought it was just. They say there ought to be commutation; we admit it ought to be on fair terms. The terms have come suddenly upon us, and neither hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House nor we have had an opportunity of finding out what they mean or of being sure one side or the other. Surely, under these circumstances, it is not too much to ask before the House commits itself one way or the other that we should take some means of finding out what are the effects of the proposal of the Government. I quite agree you might get different opinions if you selected different actuaries, but, if they are selected by the Privy Council for the express purpose of deciding whether the terms are fair, surely they would be more likely to decide if they are fair than if the matter were decided in the spirit of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. That really is the whole question, and I am bound to say the, suggestion of the Home Secretary that you can take it or leave it seems to me not very worthy either of the Government or of the House of Commons.

That was not my suggestion.

I did not hear the right hon. Gentleman, but from the speech of my right hon. Friend (Mr. A. Lyttelton) I understood him to say—

The right hon. Gentleman could not have taken a worse guide of what I said.

May I ask what the right hon. Gentleman did say?

I said the best course would be to leave the representative body to decide whether they approved the scheme.

I am very glad to hear that. I understand, then, the position is this: It will make no difference to the action of the Government whether we on this side of the House vote for it or do not vote for it?

Oh, no; on the contrary, it would make all the difference. I accepted what hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite said on behalf of, or said as advocates, or speaking as representatives of the Welsh Church. I accepted their view and they have so expressed themselves. So also have we in the same way. I accepted the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock, supported as he was then by Gentlemen opposite, and I agreed to bring up a Clause. If that Clause is not acceptable to hon. Gentlemen opposite I shall not press it. I have pointed out that the Clause is a purely optional one for the representative body and will give them ample time to consider whether they will approve the scheme or not. I would suggest to hon. Gentlemen opposite that it is not advisable to reject the Clause without giving the representative body for whom they speak a chance of considering it.

The right hon. Gentleman in his few interruptions has convicted himself of inaccuracy as completely as any man could do. After saying that what my right hon. Friend had said was incorrect he repeated word for word everything that my right hon. Friend had said with regard to his speech. What is the position? The Government have agreed to give commutation. They have agreed because they think that in the circumstances it is just. We on this side of the House, we are not the representative body, we can only speak for the Church in Wales as individuals. We have no authority to speak for the Church as a Church upon these proposals, but we do say for ourselves that it is unfair and that if it were carried as it stands it would in our opinion put the Church at a disadvantage. The right hon. Gentleman says—and he apparently assumes it to be so—that he and his Government have no responsibility at all except to please their followers behind them, no responsibility to deal justly with the Church in this matter, and then he says to us, "Very well, if you do not vote for a Clause which we think is just, we will withdraw it." I say that is an unworthy position both for the Government and the right hon. Gentleman.

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman or his Friends have quite done justice to the proposal of my right hon. Friend. If they vote against this Clause they are not voting against the proposal of the Government, but against the proposal that the representative body should have a choice whether or not they will accept those terms. It is proposed to leave that choice to their own representative body. Yet they are suggesting that they will vote against leaving any choice to the representative body that is to be formed. The right hon. Gentleman, the Member for St, George's, Hanover Square, suggested that this was going to manœuvre the Church into an impossible position because it would put the Church into a position of having pressure brought to bear upon it by the county councils. I cannot see in what period of time that pressure' is going to be applied. Within one month after Disestablishment the representative body have got to make their choice, and until that one month is up the county councils will not know whether or not the Church body have exercised that option. There would be therefore no period of time during which the Church body had not-accepted during which this wrongful pressure could be brought to bear by the county councils. Therefore, the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman that the Church is being placed in an awkward position has no foundation whatever. There is no period of time during which the pressure can be brought to bear upon the Church body, and the Church body will not be placed in that position. It will simply have to determine for itself in the position in which it then is, whether or not these terms are good terms for the Church. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who do not know what the position or circumstances will then be, are going to vote now to deprive the Church body of that option in the future. They want to deprive the Church now, once for all, of the power of making this decision. It may be that when the times comes it will be of great benefit to the Church.

Personally, I hope that Gentlemen opposite will not vote against this Clause. I also hope that even if they do vote against it my right hon. Friend will not withdraw it, because, like many other Churchmen, I believe this is a businesslike proposition, which ought to go forward. Commutation on anything like a fair basis will be good for the Church and good for the nation. I do trust there will be some mutual forbearance and that some attempt will be made to get this Clause through. There is one difficulty I foresee. It is not only a question of figures, there is a question of principle involved. The point is, on what basis ought commutation to be made? Hon. Members opposite have said that the Church must take no risks, they have also said that there is a marked element of uncertainty in it; but if the Church is to take no risks, if we are to give a sum tinder which the Church will take no risk whatever, we will thereby probably deprive the county councils of a larger sum than the true value of the life interest. If you are to insure the Church against all risks you will have to provide a sum which will be higher than what we at present anticipate. I think the correct sum to give is the sum that at the present moment appears to be the exact equivalent in cash of the life interest, and not a sum which assures the Church against all risk and is therefore more than the cash equivalent of the life interest. Unless we can first agree upon that point, upon the point of principle whether it is to be the sum which involves no risk to the Church, or whether it is to be the exact cash equivalent of the life interest, which I think is what the Government have calculated, I do not see how we are to come to an agreement.

I quite agree with what the hon. Member who has just spoken said, that this is a case in which it is desirable the two sides of the House should exercise as much forbearance as possible. It is a question of an arrangement both in the interests of the Welsh county councils and of the Welsh Church, and there has really not been, so far as speeches have gone, any sign of difference of opinion being entertained on the point of principle. On that point of principle I think we are in agreement with the hon. Member that what we mean is that it should be on the basis of an actuarial expectation, that it should be according to the best actuarial commutation of what sum the life interest should be fairly commuted at. It has been admitted that the subject is a very involved and intricate one. No one oh either side of the House will say that it is easy to determine that the Clause as it now runs would or would not give the Church precisely what we all agree the representative body ought to have. But on this side of the House we are obliged to consider what the actuarial opinion is, and we find that the weight of the actuarial opinion we have is that this is altogether impossible; that the representative Church body could not possibly accept it; that it would not have a genuine option at all. The proposal is so bad that it could not be adopted by the representative body when the time came. That being so, we think it is unfair and unreasonable to put upon the representative Church body the onus and the odium of refusing what it is impossible to accept. It would mean they would begin their career in bad odour with the county councils. The county councils and the Welsh nation would probably at that time be in favour of commutation, and you would put the representative body in the position of being obliged to do an invidious and disagreeable thing. I do not think that is a fair position to put them in at the very outset of their career. I am not going to pronounce an opinion of my own; it would be impertinent for me to do so. Even the Member for Spen Valley admits that his view of the matter i3 that it would just do. What we suggest H that the Government should extend its machinery somewhat. I do not think it has been pointed out that the Fourth Schedule as it stands on the Order Paper might be used a little more extensively than the Government have proposed. In that Fourth Schedule on the Order Paper there is a proposal to allow the actuary to determine the question of the greater longevity of the clergy as compared with other classes and any prospective decrease in the death rate. Why, if you are going to allow the actuary to do that, should you not allow him to determine the whole matter I Surely that is a reasonable and conciliatory proposal. I cannot conceive what the objection is to allow an actuary appointed by the Privy Council to consider the whole matter and to decide as circumstances may require.

I think we have in this matter a striking illustration of the extreme inconvenience of legislating under the guillotine. This is not a highy controversial matter. It is a matter, we all agree, of business. It is a matter to be determined by the best business opinion. Everybody is agreed upon the principle that it ought to be an absolutely fair arrangement for the two parties, and yet in nineteen minutes we must come to a final decision one way or the other without any appeal, although this blessed Bill is likely to be before Parliament for another fifteen months. Under this miserable system of legislation you will have to decide, in nineteen minutes more, and irrevocably, so far as we are able to judge, a question which is strictly technical and a matter of business, and which can only be decided by careful actuarial inquiry and by the most impartial actuarial opinion. It is dumped down upon this House now for the first time by the Government, although they might have thought of it beforehand and put it into the Bill from the beginning. But here it is at the last moment, and we are put in the great difficulty of not knowing how to vote or what to do with it for want of proper expert information. I think the proposition of my right hon. Friend is the only possible way out of the difficulty. Extend the Fourth Schedule so as to allow the whole matter to be subject to actuarial decision, and that, we all suppose, will give us a skilled and well-formed decision. It is a proposal, I think, which all sides might accept.

In answer to the Noble Lord, I would say that I do not think it is well we should know where the matter stands at once. We all agree upon the actuarial relation of the question. But what is a fair actuarial basis? What would it be right to pay for the life interest? In this proposal of the Government we are taking into account both the longevity of the clergy at present and the greater longevity of the clergy in the future. It is not proposed to force anything upon anybody. I did not quite catch what the right hon. Gentleman said to the effect that there was no one on the other side who had spoken a word on behalf of the representative Church body. I should have thought there was somebody who could speak with authority.

What we are dealing with is the value of the life interest of the clergy. Nobody here can pretend to speak on behalf of the whole of the Welsh clergy.

I do not propose that anyone should pretend to speak on their behalf, but surely this is a business proposition. We are not here forcing upon anyone the results of actuarial investigation; we are merely giving them the opportunity of making up their minds and consulting experts upon this question. That is the real point. We are not forcing anything upon the Welsh Church or upon the representative body; we are giving them an option. It is only an option. They can accept it or not. The positions of hon. Members opposite I think is this: they say, "Your calculations are so far wide of the mark, so far wide of what is right in the circumstances, that we will take upon ourselves the responsibility of voting against it and of saying that the representative body is not to have an option." If they do that the responsibility is theirs.

No; what we said was that it was forcing the representative body into an odious position, in which the county councils would exercise natural pressure upon them.

Let us deal with that point. What is there odious in the relationship of the two bodies in this matter? No county council in Wales has ever asked for commutation, and they will not be disappointed if they get no commutation. I hope hon. Members opposite will remember that this is not a matter which concerns one county council in one particular county; it is a matter for the whole of Wales. No one county council will be aggrieved if commutation does not come off. Nobody could have heard this Debate this afternoon without coming to the conclusion that commutation is a principle much more popular on that side of the House than on this side of the House. So far as the Welsh electors are concerned they have made no representation at all in the matter. The House seems to occasionally forget that this principle of commutation was introduced, rightly or wrongly, by us in answer to a request from the other side. We genuinely thought that we were meeting the Welsh Church. It is quite true that the terms do not satisfy the Opposition, but the question is, not whether the terms satisfy you, but whether they satisfy the representative body. You say you have no right to represent the representative body, and yet you say you will take upon yourselves the responsibility of saying that these terms will not be accepted. The Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) says, "Let us go to arbitration; let us get the Privy Council to appoint an actuary." [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] We say we must take the responsibility upon ourselves. These are the terms which we think are the right terms, and no Government has a right to propose legislation, and then say, "We will go to an actuary." We take the responsibility for this Bill, and we say we are not going to transfer our responsibility to any actuary. We say that the terms we submit are fair, and it is for hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to say whether they think it represents a scheme which can be approved. How is it unreasonable for them to leave it to the representative body to take the responsibility of accepting or refusing it? If hon. Members opposite come to the conclusion that this is an option they will not trust to the representative body, we shall have to re consider our position. We do not wish to force the scheme against the wishes of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

The position which the Government are taking up in this matter is a most extraordinary one. Commutation, speaking generally, is the wish of every hon. Member. It may not be the wish of one hon. Member for Wales, but I think everybody else wishes it in the interests of the Church, and in the interests of the Welsh county councils. Commutation has been proposed by the Government at the request of a large body of hon. Members on the other side of the House, as well as of my hon. Friends on this side. In response to the strong feeling expressed in the House a few weeks ago, the Government have framed this Clause that we are now discussing. We are told by hon. Members on this side of the House and by hon. Members opposite, that the Clause does not meet the wishes of the Church. I believe that the Government hoped to have met the wishes of their own Friends and of my hon. Friends, but it is very much like a friend of mine asking me to dinner, knowing very well that I shall not be able to accept the invitation. The Government have agreed to the principle of commutation, but have done it in such a manner that it is impossible for the Church to accept it. I hope we are going to accept it in any case, but it is extremely unfortunate that the Government should have placed themselves in the position of forcing this scheme upon us, when it is demonstrated that there is a dispute in regard to how it works out in detail. My right hon. Friend (Mr. A. Lyttelton) has come to the rescue of the Government, and has asked them to refer this little matter of actuarial and financial difference to arbitration. I still hope that the Home Secretary will make this concession before we go to a Division. I am perfectly sure that everybody agrees upon commutation, and it is only a small matter of detail which divides us in regard to it. I make a final appeal to the right hon. Gentlemen to accept the compromise suggested by my right hon. Friend.

I advise hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to accept this Clause. There are two elements that enter into the calculation of annuities: longevity and the rate of interest at which the money can be invested. There are great risks in either case. So far as longevity is concerned, that can by the terms of the Clause be referred to an actuary appointed by the Privy Council. That gives you what you want on that point. There is a risk which I for one would not advise the Church to take. We have heard about annuities not paying. The reason why they did not pay in recent years was that for a long period, starting in 1893, the Bank rate stood at 7 per cent., and you could not get 3½ or 4 per cent., so much so that the insurance companies invested their money abroad. If this Clause is accepted, you will have time before the Bill is dealt with in another place to obtain actuarial calculations regarding it. I do not think you will have any difficulty in getting annuities on a 3½ or 3¾ per cent. basis. This may not operate for about three years, and by that time the Bank rate may have gone back again. I do not think the Church ought to take any risk upon this matter, and I do not know why you should not leave the Bill as it is, and let the clergymen get their annuities for life. I remember some years ago buying an annuity for an old lady for three years—that was until she was seventy-five, but she lived until ninety-five. I suggest that the Clause should be accepted now; it is reasonable as matters stand at the present time. On the whole, if I were the Church I would accept it.

I speak by the indulgence of the House. After hearing the speech of my hon. Friend opposite, and having considered the matter as best I can in the extraordinarily difficult circumstances, I venture very respectfully to advise my friends to vote for the Second Heading of this Clause. We shall have an opportunity of marking our sense of what we think is the unfairness of the Government's attitude by voting against the Fourth Schedule which contains the terms.

I beg to move to leave out the words "one month" ["If before, or within one month after, the date of Disestablishment"], and to insert instead thereof the words "three months." I (have already submitted one or two reasons why there should be a more ample margin than one month to enable the representative body to decide whether it is going to take up commutation or not. In view of the fact that circumstances might arise which would delay the formation of the representative body, I desire to ask the Home Secretary if he will extend the period to three months.

I beg to second the Amendment.

It must be quite obvious to my hon. Friend that long before this point comes to be considered by the representative body every actuarial view will be obtained, and all the materials will be before the representative body to enable them to form an opinion, not within a month, but within a single day. I do not wish to leave this question open.

I beg to move to leave out Sub-section 5.

The purport of this Sub-section is, after the date of Disestablishment, to break up the organisation of the Houses of Convocation as they exist at present and to exclude therefrom the bishops and clergy of what, if the Bill passes, will be called the Church in Wales. In my view the word "Convocation" is synonymous with provincial Synods, and I want the Home Secretary, when he replies, to say whether he agrees that, so far as this Clause is concerned, it would apply to Convocation in the wider sense in which it is ordinarily used, namely, as a provincial Synod—not that there is any distinction between the two, but the one word is properly applicable to both. Convocation is the recognised constitutional assembly of the clergy of the Church. That, of course, is the position. I only give what is laid down by Bishop Stubbs, the greatest authority, but all constitutional authorities would give the same definition. It is a matter of common knowledge historically that this organisation dates from the time of Edward I., and that there is no substantial difference whatever between its organisation as then constituted and its organisation at the present day; in other words, if we go back to the time of Edward I. we find it was the same monarch whom we know who laid the foundations both of our civil liberties— that is, the constitution of our Parliament —and what I may call our clerical liberties, the constitution of our Convocation, and since that date there has really been no difference as regards the fundamental basis either in one direction or in the other. Before what is known as the Act of Submission it is true that Convocation could be called either propria motu by the archbishop, or, in the first instance, through the King's writ; and there was this change introduced at the time of the Act of Submission, that, in all cases, before the archbishop issued a writ for the summoning of Convocation he had, in the first instance, to get the direction of the King. I want to make it quite clear, because there is often misunderstanding about it, that the writ which summons Convocation issues from the archbishop and is sent by him to the Bishop of London, who is what is called the Dean of the Province, and the bishops and clergy are summoned not what is called coram nobis—that is in the presence of the King—as in the case of the summons to Parliament, but coram nobis— that is, in the presence of the Archbishop himself—so that from beginning to end, and in the earliest times so far as the constitution is concerned, you had the writ issuing from the archbishop and Convocation, or the provincial Synod, as it is sometimes called, is summoned as head or representative of the Church.

I want to give one or two technical words from the writ by which Convocation is summoned, because I am not sure that even all Churchmen thoroughly understand how this position stands. In the first place, the writ which is issued from the King to the archbishop asks him to summon Convocation for this reason, "for the security and defence of the Church of England." You are here seeking to break up a constitution which has endured ever since the time of Edward I. without change of organisation, of which the first principle is the security and defence of the Church of England. It is a monstrous and outrageous proposal, even in a Bill of this kind, that this ancient constitutional assembly should be sought to be broken up in this way. The archbishop issues the writ by which Convocation is actually summoned. It is not summoned by the Royal Writ at all, but by the archbishop's writ, and he summons the clergy to come together, using the words of his writ, "to the honour of God and the good of the Church." Let me deal with another matter in order to show the real position of Convocation. When Convocation is prorogued it is prorogued by the archbishop, and he prorogues it in these words. He says, "He being by Divine Providence Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Metropolitan, President of the present Sacred Provincial Synod or Convocation of the Prelates and Clergy of the Province of Canterbury." The Metropolitan, dealing with what is called Convocation, refers to it as either a Sacred Provincial Synod or Convocation of the Prelates and Clergy of the Province of Canterbury. I want to know what right have we, merely as a statutory body, to intervene to prevent the archbishop issuing a writ to the clergy and bishops which has been issued from the time of Edward I., and which he issues at present, either to bring together what is called Convocation or the Provincial Synod. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us what reason there is, even in a Bill of this kind, why you should interfere with this organisation, which is the basis of our clerical representative constitution, and which, as far as I can see, might be left entirely alone as far as this Bill is concerned.

In the writ to the Archbishop there is one other word to which I ought to refer. He is told to summon the whole of the clergy, and the effect of this Clause will be that, instead of the whole of the clergy ever hereafter meeting together, as regards their Provincial Synod or Convocation, it will never be possible for them to assemble either in the one position or in the other unless I succeed in my Amendment. I only want to refer to one or two matters of history as regards the position of Convocation. Up to the time of the Reformation I probably need say nothing. Everyone knows the enormous importance of Convocation in those early days. In fact, one of the great contests between Archbishop Winchelsea and Edward I. was as to the constitution of Convocation, so that it might be independent in its spiritual capacity, and since the days of Archbishop Winchelsea down to now that position has never been controverted. To explain the importance of the Reformation period, I will take one illustration from the preface of the Prayer Book which we use now in our services: "We have good hope that what is here presented and has been done by the Convocation of both provinces with great diligence, examined and approved, will be accepted," etc. You cannot have any greater testimony, not only in the value of Convocation, but to the position that it has occupied when our Prayer Book, which we use every Sunday, is commended to our acceptance because it has been "with great diligence examined and approved by the two Houses of Convocation." Churchmen feel this matter very strongly. Churchmen feel extremely strongly that the body to which they have looked for spiritual guidance on all questions of doctrine of this character, the body which is responsible for the Prayer Book itself, should in a Bill of this kind be broken up by the exclusion of the Welsh bishops and clergy, though in our opinion there is no necessity for such act at all.

It is true that from 1717 to 1852, that is for a period of about 135 years, Convoca- tion never did meet for effective business purposes—one of the greatest scandals that ever occurred in the course of our Church history. Of course we know the reason of it was that the Whig Oligarchy in 1715 outraged all our doctrines of representative Government by presenting a Bill prolonging the existing Parliament for a period of seven years. The same Whig Oligarchy, however, managed, by what was really a most unconstitutional act, to prevent its ever meeting for a series of years for business purposes. Of course the underlying spirit of that is perfectly clear. It was that it would be impolitic for the Whig Oligarchy, who wanted above all things to support the Hanoverian Dynasty, to allow a Convention to be called under ordinary circumstances at that time. But what is the result? Through the whole of the eighteenth century the English Church went back. There never was a time when we had greater lethargy or a more unfortunate period as regards our Church history, and everyone will admit that there was no time when the national Church went back more quickly than during the eighteenth century, and most unfortunately the only great religious movement which is connected with the name of Wesley, and with which most of us thoroughly sympathise, was allowed under these circumstances to take place outside the Church instead of being a movement within the Church itself. I need not go into the rest of the history except to say that since 1852, from the time Convocation was again allowed to meet for business purposes, there has been enormous progress as regards the religious energy and development of the Church. I do not think anyone can possibly deny the splendid work which had been done by Convocation as regards the development of religious life in every direction during the last fifty or sixty years. Again, I ask: Are we in a Bill of this kind to have the great representative assembly broken up by the exclusion of the Welsh bishops and clergy when, in my opinion, it was never more needed than at the present day in order to deal with a large number of spiritual matters which affect the Church and all Churchmen?

What is the reason or excuse for the breaking up of Convocation? That is a question which has been asked more than once in the course of the Committee stage on this Bill, although we have never directly discussed this particular matter. What has been the answer? I think it is an answer which ought to have very little weight indeed with us. It is said that this is a dismemberment Bill, and that it differs from the Irish Church Bill and all other measures merely dealing with Disestablishment and Disendowment. We have our views upon that matter, and I am not going to discuss it at the present moment, but it is an entirely different method to seek by compulsory process to dismember a religious organisation against the wish and will, practically, of all its members. That is a matter which differentiates this Bill from every other Bill, so far as I know, which has dealt with Disestablishment and Disendowment since the date of the Toleration Act. The justification based upon this ground appears to be worse than no justification at all. We claim that dismemberment is a great injustice, and we point out that by dismemberment you are going outside the sphere of State action in dealing with religious matters. We say that everybody as regards religious organisation ought to have perfect freedom. We say that no Nonconformist community, such as the Wesleyans, could allow themselves for a moment to be dismembered as regards the organisation which they have selected for themselves, and I have not heard one effective argument during the Debates on the Committee stage by which dismemberment has been justified here, whereas on every principle of religious equity and tolerance it could not be considered in any ordinary case at all. Why are you seeking the dismemberment of the Church in these circumstances? If it is in itself an injustice, it is an additional injustice that you should do it by breaking up the ancient constitution of the Church by excluding the Welsh bishops and clergy. I may put it in this way: You are seeking to justify what appears to us an unthinkable injustice by a greater injustice, because you say it is necessary to break up Convocation in order to carry out a proposal of this kind.

Just think of the quicksand on which you enter by that casuistical argument if you seek to justify the proposal. You cannot justify an injustice because you wish to perpetrate an injustice. There is no greater argument against the proposal on which it is based. You cannot justify the Bill itself, and you cannot carry it out without doing a grave injustice to the spiritual and religious feeling of Churchmen in England by seeking to break up this old constitution which it has had ever since the time of Edward I. I cannot ' conceive that the Government have ever understood the outrage of dismemberment. When this Bill was first brought forward its supporters were constantly referring to the Irish precedent. There is no precedent for this in the Irish case at all. I am naturally, as everyone knows, a great opponent of Disestablishment and Disendowment, but if you want to discuss the question, you ought to discuss it as regards the Church as a whole. You ought not to select a particular portion for the purpose of Disestablishment and Disendowment, and above all, you ought not—for it is mean, petty and unjust—to select for the purpose of dismemberment that portion which appears to be weaker and poorer than any other portion. I have not heard a single justification from beginning to end of this reactionary bigotry of the most intolerant character, namely, not allowing religious people to organise as they like for religious purposes as members of one religious community.

There is only one argument on which I wish to say a word or two. The argument is, "We are bound to do it; it is necessary to do it, because of Welsh national feeling." The question is not whether it is necessary to do it, but whether it is just to do it, and whether national feeling in Wales is making a demand which ought to be conceded and allowed by this House. It is no argument at all to talk about necessity. When I say it is no argument, I mean that it is an argument which condemns the people who use it. You have to show that it is fair and right and in accordance with religious principle to dismember our old national Church on account of the national feeling which exists in Wales. I want to deal with that point quite shortly. In the first place, if national feeling is to determine a matter of this kind, you ought to be quite certain that the majority of national feeling is in your favour. That is quite clear. My answer is that the Welsh Members have disentitled themselves from putting that argument forward effectively. We have asked more than once that by means of a religious census this point should be settled and determined. The objection has come from those who are urging that national feeling is overwhelmingly in their favour. I beg to say if they really thought that national opinion was overwhelmingly in their favour, they would have been ready enough to allow a religious census, and I think until they have allowed a census, they cannot plead, or, at all events, plead effectively that they have got statistics with which they are likely to convince Churchmen that their plea is accurate. There is another answer which seems to me more effective on the question of nationality. Churchmen, of course, do not desire to do anything or to say anything that would be antagonistic to the aspirations of nationality in Wales, because—I say this quite frankly—so far as nationality is concerned, it is a matter outside of religious life, development, and thought. The area of Christian feeling has not been determined by nationality, and the particular forms of religious communities have not depended upon nationalities. In fact, the teaching of Christianity has in most districts come from outside Europe altogether, and one of its factors, one of its great teachings, is outside of nationality, and overrides nationality and geographical divisions.

If you are to go by nationality in this case, there are two nationalities. The Established Church affects English nationality as well as Welsh nationality, and you cannot dismember one Church when you have common members in two nationalities without considering the opinions of both. If you were to take the opinions of both, what would the result be? You would have an overwhelming majority against this proposal of dismemberment, and against the proposal to break up the old Convocation on the spiritual side of the national Church of England. You are not entitled in a matter of this kind to argue from one nationality; you must take into consideration the two nationalities to which Churchmen belong, and give the same consideration to Churchmen in England which you claim for Churchmen in Wales. Yon cannot justify the dismembering of a Church which runs into two nationalities by pleading the opinion of one of these nationalities only. This is a matter which arose early in the Debates on the Bill, but we have hitherto had no chance of concentrating our objections except as regards the proposal now made for breaking up Convocation. I urgently appeal to all Churchmen, whatever else they may think as regards the Bill, to concentrate, at any rate, upon this matter, and say, "We will not allow the old constitutional assembly of the clergy of this country to be broken up, because it is unnecessary to do so," for thereby you would cause the compulsory dismemberment of a religious community, and do that which since the Toleration Act is contrary to every principle of liberal feeling.

I beg to second the Amendment.

To me this seems to be one of the most important Amendments we have yet moved from this side. I can imagine that the only line of argument which can be urged against it is that Convocation is an antiquated assembly, and in some respects unrepresentative of the whole of the clergy; and that therefore there is no reason why we should attach great importance to the fact that some score of clergy from Wales should be members of the Convocation of Canterbury. That line of argument seems to me to be quite beside the point. Convocation may be an antiquated assembly, and it may be unrepresentative to the extent that for an historical reason the unbeneficed clergy are not members of it. But that argument could be just as legitimately urged against this House. My hon. and learned Friend alluded to a further reason why this Amendment should be accepted. He referred to the fact that for more than a century Convocation, although it met, was not allowed to deliberate, but he was perfectly right when he pointed the moral of that unfortunate state of affairs by saying that its being debarred from deliberating involved the Church of England in a period of lassitude and stagnation which we all regret. Those lines of argument might be urged if it was a question of the reformation of Convocation, but they cannot be urged in favour of the exclusion of the Welsh bishops and clergy from this ancient assembly. We attach importance to this Amendment for two reasons; we believe that Convocation is the outward and visible sign of the National Church's unity, and that it is the corporate assembly for expressing the Church's views and promulgating its decrees. On both those accounts we believe it would be a great calamity if that assembly were mutilated by the exclusion of the representatives from Wales. For more than a thousand years, with two brief breaks, the National Church has been one and undivided. I could go into a long historical disquisition, though I would not do so for a moment, to show that for more than a thousand years the Welsh and English dioceses have been one and undivided National Church. Then Convocation is a Church assembly. It is composed of representatives of the Church, and I cannot see how the fact that twenty Welsh bishops and clergy are members of this can inflict a grievance on anybody.

If the presence of these twenty Welshmen in this ancient assembly inflicts no grievance on any Nonconformist or anyone not a member of the Church, why should you not leave it as it is? That leads me to a third point. The English bishops and the English Church wish the Welsh bishops and the Welsh clergy to remain members of Convocation, and the Welsh bishops and clergy wish to remain members of it also. Why therefore should not you allow the Welsh Churchmen to remain members of an assembly when it is their wish so to do? The fact is that the Welsh and English Churchmen realise that the National Church is much stronger when it comprises representatives of both England and Wales. I quite realise the strength of the sentiment of Welsh nationality, but it is incontestable that Churchmen in Wales do recognise that they are much stronger owing to the assistance, for the purpose of consultation and deliberation, of their brothers and colleagues in England. I believe myself that the four Welsh dioceses are too small a unit to stand by themselves. In populaton they only amount to the population of the diocese of Manchester in the English Church. That is too small a unit to plunge into an independence it does not itself desire. In saying that, I am supported by the experience I believe of every one of the Nonconformist denominations in Wales. I believe without exception they desire to maintain their connection with their co-religionists in England. I am supported in that by a paragraph in the Report of the Welsh Royal Commission, in which the evidence of a number of prominent Nonconformists is adduced to prove that they desire to maintain the connection between England and Wales. I will read one or two extracts. I am quoting not from the Report, but from the Memorandum of the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil). The extracts deal with the evidence. The first is:—

"The Welsh Baptist witness quoted above did not think that the tenacity of the adherence of the 'strict communion' Baptists of Wales to their convictions militated at all against a close union between them and the Baptists in England, and added that several Baptist ministers from Wales occupied very prominent places in English pulpits."

Take the Calvinistic Methodists:

"The opinion of the financial witness of the Calvinistic Methodists was cited, who shortly before he gave evidence in cautioning the North Wales Calvinistic Methodist Association about chapel debts, reminded them that the Calvinistic Methodist denomination was in a sense an isolated one; it had no connection with any wealthy outside denomination in England or elsewhere."

He goes on to state the connection which has existed was of importance in his view. More marked still is this:—

"From a similar standpoint the Swansea Wesleyan witness, who belonged to the English Wesleyan District of Wales, was very clear that the separation of Welsh Wesleyan Methodists from the British Annual Wesleyan Conference would be injurious to Welsh Methodists.ߪ They got such help from English Methodists that I think it would be disastrous."

I could quote further evidence from Nonconformist witnesses. Side by side with that let me cite the evidence of the Bishop of Bangor. The Bishop of Bangor, like the Wesleyan witnesses, deprecated separation, and said:—

"I do not think we are sufficiently large a unit for efficiently working, and I think the benefits we get from being united in the Province of Canterbury very much increase the power of the Church. I should myself be exceedingly sorry to be separated from the Province of Canterbury, and not to have my seat in the Convocation."

In view of that evidence I cannot see why you should do in the case of the Church of England what you are not prepared to do in the case of Nonconformist denominations in Wales. Further, I cannot believe that you would venture for one moment to say to the Church in Scotland, which is also an Established Church, that you would interfere with its internal assemblies. Surely, in view of that, it does seem to be an injustice against the Church's will to mutilate Convocation as well as to prevent the Welsh bishops and clergy from coming to take part in its deliberations and receiving the assistance of their English brother Churchmen. Not only are you mutilating what is the outward and visible sign of an ancient Church's unity, but you are also interfering with its spiritual jurisdiction. My hon. and learned Friend (Sir A. Cripps) alluded to the fact that Convocation is a Provincial Assembly. Unfortunately, as one of the results of the Reformation settlement, this idea of Convocation has become somewhat confused. I think I am correct in saying that Convocation is really two assemblies embodied in one. In the first place, it is a spiritual, Provincial Synod. In the second place, it is part of the Constitution which was first recognised by the State as a means of taxing the clergy for the purposes of the Royal revenue. But that idea of Convocation in its civil aspect seems to me to have now become quite out of date, and all we are now concerned with is Convocation in its spiritual aspect as the accredited assembly of the two provinces of the National Church. And when you declare in this Bill that Convocation shall no longer direct what shall be its own membership, and you exclude from it certain representatives who for many centuries always had seats in it, you intrude directly on what is the spiritual domain of the Church. Here, again, I cannot imagine for one moment anyone venturing to do anything of this sort to a Nonconformist body. I cannot imagine your passing some Clause in this House interfering with the constitution of the Wesleyan Legal Hundred. It is a matter of supreme importance to us. It is not a question of fifteen or twenty Welshmen sitting in a particular assembly, but of a direct attack on the spiritual jurisdiction of the National Church. As such, it is a matter of the gravest moment to all of us here, not only to Churchmen, but to members of Nonconformist bodies as well, for I cannot but think that every fair-minded man must resent the unnecessary interference of this House in the internal organisation and management of the spiritual body to which he belongs.

First, we object to this Amendment because it attacks the outward and visible sign of the Church's union, and second, because it intrudes upon the jurisdiction of the spiritual representative body of the Church. In the past this body has been of the greatest value in expressing the Church's views and in promulgating its decrees. I could quote several instances in which it has been of the greatest value to the National Church during the last fifty or sixty years to have this representative body expressing its views. On that account we resent all the more the attempt to mutilate this ancient body and prevent the Welsh bishops and clergy from taking their proper part in the deliberations of the National Church. My hon. and learned Friend described from his great experience the methods by which members are summoned to the two Convocations. Let me ask the right hon. Gentleman to answer this question. As my hon. and learned Friend said, the Archbishop of Canterbury summons by his mandate the bishops in his Province through the Bishop of London. Under this Bill the province of Canterbury, as far as I can see, is left intact. No provision, apart from this Sub-section, interferes with the Province of Canterbury at all; in fact, the Archbishop's rights are in more than one case specifically reserved. If this Bill passes, the Archbishop of Canterbury will still receive the Royal Writ, will still issue his mandate to every bishop in the Province of Canterbury; the Province of Canterbury will be intact, and the Archbishop of Canterbury will therefore be compelled, through the Bishop of London, to issue his mandate to the four Welsh bishops. [An HON. MEMBEE: "No."] Who is going to stop the four Welsh bishops from attending Convocation? Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that there was a case in the year 1888 with reference to the election of Convocation, and it was then specifically declared that no Civil Court can review or reverse the Archbishop's decision, nor "interfere in any internal affairs of Convocation, an ancient body, as old as Parliament and as independent." I will therefore end my observations by asking the right hon. Gentleman, Who will exonerate the Archbishop from summoning the four Welsh bishops, and who will prevent the four Welsh bishops from coming to Convocation if they so desire?

Both the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and the hon. and learned Gentleman who preceded him seem, in the course of their argument, to have overlooked the fact that this is a Bill for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church in Wales. I insist upon what seemed to me that omission for this reason: The whole history of Convocation, so far as I have been able to follow it and make myself acquainted with it, is governed by the predominant fact that it has always, from its earliest stages, certainly from the date named by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, been in strict subordination to the authority of the State. With the leave of the House, I think it will be just as well to briefly trace the history of Convocation. I need not go back to' the time when Convocation originally consisted of diocesan assemblies for purely ecclesiastical business; or even to that other less remote but still far distant time when the provincial assembly met under the summons of the archbishop, also for the purpose of purely ecclesiastical business. When you get to the date of about 1280 or 1283, in the time of Edward I., by which period the constitution of Convocation was as it is now, you find that the King's business was transacted side by side with ecclesiastical business, and that half the business of Convocation was the taxation of the clergy by themselves, and the other half the promulgation of decrees and canons, and the transaction of purely ecclesiastical business. Passing from that period, I think I may say without fear of contradiction that down to the time of the Reformation there was practically no distinction really made in Convocation between the business which was transacted when they met under the King's writ and the business which was transacted when they met in consequence of the summons by the archbishop.

They never met under the King's writ.

They met in consequence of it, and so far I am perfectly willing to submit to the verbal correction. But when you come to the time of the Reformation there was a very considerable change in the legal aspect of Convocation. Everybody in this House is now acquainted with what is called the Act of Submission, by which the clergy themselves expressly declared that they have no right to meet for the transaction even of their ecclesiastical business unless they were summoned to Convocation by and through the issue of the King's writ. There can be no question about that whatever. You then come to this, that the assembly which was first of all an ecclesiastical assembly, passed, as to one side of its character, into a statutory assembly, depending for its authority and for its meeting on the King's writ, until, finally, it could meet neither for the transaction of King's business nor for ecclesiastical business without the Royal authority. Then you come to the later stage. It gave up—I think it was in 1602 or 1603—its power of taxation; it parted with it altogether by an arrangement made through means of the then archbishops. You come, therefore, to this phase of the system, that it has not only to meet for the transaction of ecclesiastical business, but it can only meet for the transaction of that ecclesiastical business under the authority of the King's writ. Therefore, all through the history of Convocation, down to the present time, you find the authority of the State authorising it, controlling all its actions.

It is in every sense of the word, not as the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite said, an assembly of those persons who had perfect freedom in an Ecclesiastical Court of jurisdiction, but an assembly of persons who were controlled in all their actions in ecclesiastical matters by the authority of the State. It is just as well in reference to what was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Hoare), to recollect that there is a considerable gap in its history during which Convocation never met for the transaction of business. The hon. Member said that there was perfect unity in all its transactions, but it is well to remember, in view of that statement, that the reason why it never met during 150 years was that it was so turbulent an assemply— that the Lower House was in such direct and fierce antagonism to the Upper House that on the few occasions it did meet prior to 1715 it had to be prorogued and dismissed in order to prevent quarrels coming actually to a head. It is as well to remember that phase of the history of Convocation, for it ought not to be forgotten. It is also well to recollect, in view of what was said both by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite and the Seconder of the Amendment, that Convocation represents only one aspect of the Church's history and the Church's views. In Convocation itself there is not only no representation of laymen, but there is no representation of the unbeneficed clergy—a fact which, I think, has not been mentioned in this Debate.

I mentioned it.

I regret I did not hear it; certainly it was not dwelt upon. The absence of the unbeneficed clergymen and of the laymen must rob Convocation of a great deal of the authority which it otherwise might reasonably claim to have. When one remembers that in its Parliamentary aspect, Convocation was of course the King's writ summoning it and the King's licence which is necessary to give sanction and authorisation to any canons or decrees, has now become, not a matter for the Sovereign, but for the Sovereign's advisers and therefore Parliament, and therefore the control and authority wielded over Convocation by this House. It is quite clear that in any Bill which Disestablishes the Church provision must be made that between the body, the controlling body, Parliament, and the Church which is Disestablished, there can be no statutory connection of any sort or kind.

What will be the injury done to the Welsh Church by the severance of this connection? There will be no injury done to the internal organisation of the four dioceses which are cut off. The bishops, the deans, the chapters will remain, and the organisation of the clergy of the English dioceses will be in touch. From that point of view there will be no material injury done to those four dioceses. Something was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelsea that the population connected with the Church in Wales would be too small to stand by itself. It stood by itself during 150 years, when Convocation practically never met. There have been four dioceses, and there has never been, so far as I know, any proposal from Churchmen in Wales to unite those four dioceses into two dioceses, or into one diocese, which would be strong enough to stand by itself. It seems to me that though the population of Churchmen in Wales may be small—and incidentally it is not to the advantage of the case presented to insist upon the smallness of the Church—

I was taking the population of the whole of Wales, Churchmen and non-Churchmen.

Taking Churchmen and non-Churchmen, it does not seem to me that a geographically compact population of two millions of people is a body too small to stand by itself. Reference, I think, has been made to the Free Church organisations in Wales. There is practically no overlapping in organisation. There is, so I am informed, some intercommunication between the Nonconformists in England, but in Wales the Welsh Free Churches stand on an entirely separate organisation and basis. [An HON. MEMBER: "Every one of them."] If that is possible in the case of Nonconformist communities, I see no reason why it should not be possible in the case of the Episcopalian and Church organisations. Then, though I do not dwell upon this very strongly, it appears to me that there are organisations in the Church of England outside Convocation which will still remain open to Churchmen in Wales. There is a great meeting annually of Churchmen, not only from all over the United Kingdom, but from other parts of the world. I refer to the Church Congress, where there is considerable debate and discussion and, though I do not pretend ever to have attended one of those gatherings, it has seemed to me from reading the discussions which have taken place there that nothing could be more full and free, and, from a Church point of view, more satisfactory, than the discussions which took place there, and I should have thought that for all purposes of debate, whether upon doctrine or forms, that the presence of the Welsh clergy at the Church Congress would have been a matter of satisfaction to them as well as to Churchmen in this country. Going from Convocation to the House of Laymen, which is a purely voluntary body, I see no reason why Churchmen in Wales should not attend the House of Laymen, and in answer to a question put to me by the hon. Member for Chelsea, I am informed there is no legal obstacle why, when the Provincial Synod meets, the clergy from Wales should not attend that gathering also. They cannot attend Convocation when it meets for the consideration of its business, but when it meets as a voluntary assembly there seems to be no reason why the Welsh clergy should not attend.

Let me deal with what I thought to be the purely hypothetical difficulty raised by the hon. Member for Chelsea, who said, "What is to prevent the Archbishop of Canterbury through the Bishop of London issuing letters summoning the four bishops in Wales, and, supposing they attended, what is to happen?" Any Act of Convocation, as I pointed out just now, has to receive the Royal Assent and to be approved of by Royal Licence. If it affects the Liturgy, then they have to come here for Parliamentary sanction, but the mere passing of canons requires the authorisation of the King's writ by means of a licence. If the four Welsh bishops attended Convocation, at which they are not legally entitled to be present, whatever other results there might be, it would be quite certain that the assent, the sanction, which was desired by Convocation for any of the business which it transacted, and for which authorisation was necessary, would certainly be withheld from them as being a purely illegal assembly. The persons who are entitled to attend are clergy of the Church of England, and the Welsh bishops in the Upper House would not be members of the Church of England, and therefore the assembly would become an illegal assembly, and would presumably run the risk of all the penalties which are attached. There is one other point as to that, and that is what material harm is going to be done to the Welsh Church. Are they going to embark on some heretical course? I do not see the danger of that. The Irish Church, which never had any connection with Convocation, has, so far as I know, not differed in doctrine or in ritual from the English Church from the date of its Disestablishment to the present time, and it does not now differ from the doctrines which are held in the Church of England. I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite will contend that it has.

It certainly has, but I am not saying rightly or wrongly.

In 1870 or 1871 it did consider and it did make a slight change in the ritual, but very slight change, unless I am completely misinformed. There was one other matter to which I should like to refer, and it is this. The hon. and learned Gentleman said, "Why do you not have a religious census?" More than once he has insisted on that point. I have endeavoured to point out if you had it would not necessarily give you the opinion of the people in Wales or in any part of England on Disestablishment, and for this reason. There are no doubt a very considerable number, let us accept the fact, of Nonconformists who are not in favour of Disestablishment. It is often asserted upon the opposite side that that is so. If you had a religious census which was to determine the question of Disestablishment or non-Disestablishment those persons would be counted from your census as being in favour of Disestablishment. Take the opposite case. There are a certain number, I know not how many, but decidedly a considerable number, of Churchmen who are in favour of Disestablishment, and in your census they would be counted against. The only object of the census would be to estimate the number of Churchmen against Disestablishment and Nonconformists in favour of it. If that is not the object of your religious census, what is the object? The Noble Lord opposite (Lord Hugh Cecil) says "Find out," but what are you to find out? You are to find out, presumably, what is the opinion of the people who are being enumerated, and you estimate Churchmen as against Disestablishment and Nonconformists for it. What else is the object of a religious census? I have never heard any other suggestion as to the use of a religious census except to assume that Churchmen are against and Nonconformists for Disestablishment. I shall be very glad to hear anyone give any other reason.

Would it not be important to find out how many Churchmen and Nonconformists there are in Wales without regard to their opinions?

We have had the respective numbers of what are called adherents in one Church and communicants in the other given to us by the Welsh Church Commission. If you go beyond that and have a religious census the result must be falsified for the reasons which I have given to the House. Then you say you want religious freedom. As long as you have got connection between the Church and State, a connection which is governed by Parliament, and always has been governed by Parliament, you cannot have religious freedom. That is the great difference and chasm which lies between this side of the House and the other. We have by this Bill proposed that that connection should cease, and cease permanently. We cannot have it revived in favour of one aspect of the Church's government, in favour of Convocation, which, by all its history from the earliest period to the present, shows that it is, and must be as long as it exists, an integral portion of the Government of the State as well as of the Church.

The right hon. Gentleman has made a very interesting speech, but I do not really think he has quite appreciated the case which has been presented from this side of the House against this Sub-section. For example, in connection with the religious census, my hon. and learned Friend used the argument that it was not fair to say that the Welsh Church as now constituted as part of the Church of England was not the National Church of Wales, because no one knew what was, without the help of a religious census, the true proportion of the various religious bodies in Wales, and until you count you cannot tell how many members the Church has in Wales, and, therefore, you cannot say that the Church is a national or non-national body. There is, then, the consideration whether you ought to consult the electorate before this Bill comes into law, and if you consulted anybody you ought to consult the people of England as well as of Wales, because both are interested in whether this Bill passes or not. But, so far as the question of determining whether the Church in Wales is national or not, all you need to do is to count and see how many members there are, as one of the elements to constitute a national Church, and see how many Wesleyans and Methodists and Baptists and other denominations there are. In that way you could really ascertain whether it is fair or unfair to say that the Church is not a national body in Wales. It is certainly very remarkable that Church people have repeatedly proposed that a census should be held, and it has been repeatedly refused by hon. Members opposite and by Nonconformists. A very remarkable thing took place before the Welsh Church Commission. After a time the question was thought, in the view of the chairman, to be too controversial and ceased to be put, but at the beginning Nonconformist witnesses and Church witnesses were asked if they saw any objection to assenting to a religious census. At first, and all through, the Church witnesses said they saw no objection, and at first the Nonconformist witnesses said they had no objection. After a time Nonconformist witnesses took another line and did object. It is impossible not to suspect that that objection was made by the later witnesses in response to some suggestion from their leader that the earlier witnesses had been indiscreet in assenting to our suggestion that a religious census should be held. The inference to be drawn is that there is amongst Nonconformist leaders a suspicion, a sense of timidity, a sense of uneasiness, as to what the results of a census would be. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Then why is it they are so reluctant to have one? It will be remembered that there was, and there is to this day, a census in Ireland. Upon the result of that census the case for Disestablishment was largely founded. It is not a little remarkable that the Liberal party never had any objection to a religious census when the result of the census would help Disestablishment; but they have the strongest objection to a religious census in connection with this Bill. The natural inference is that they are convinced that a religious census in this case would not aid the Bill or support the case they have made to the House. If that is not so, why did they ever consent to a census in the case of Ireland? Why was it fair in Ireland and unfair in Wales? I think the right hon. Gentleman must see that he was inaccurate in saying that the Welsh Church Commission or its researches can possibly take the place of a census. Communicants are not the same as adherents. Every Member must have in the circle of his acquaintances a great many people who are not communicants of the Church of England, but who would, nevertheless, if they were asked, say that they adhered to the Church. It is not fair to take adherents and communicants, and to say that the latter are equivalent to the whole support that the Church enjoys in Wales.

But these are rather side issues beside the main question affecting Convocation. The right hon. Gentleman surveyed the history of Convocation from a very early period. So also did my hon. and learned Friend. I think the right hon. Gentleman very much misapprehended and unintentionally misrepresented what took place under the Act of Submission. I do not think you can give much moral weight, apart from its legal weight, to the Act of Submission. It was, of course, extorted. What happened was that the clergy found themselves accused of having accepted Wolsey's legatine authority, and thereby incurred the penalties of Præmunire. In order to obtain the Royal pardon and escape the penalties of Præmunire-they were driven to make the Act of Submission. Whatever may be thought of Henry VIII.'s policy, it certainly did not carry any moral and spiritual weight; and it is not to be supposed that the moral and spiritual authority of the Church is to be for ever bound by the Act of Submission. That Act, such as it was, certainly did not constitute Convocation a statutory body. No one would say that everything that is regulated or controlled by Parliament ipso facto becomes statutory. The Crown was, in the same sense as Convocation, regulated and limited by the Bill of Rights; but no one would say that the Crown became a statutory authority from the date of the Revolution of 1688, although no doubt it was limited both in respect to succession and policy by that Act. Therefore it is not true to say that Convocation is a statutory body. What is true is that it is a body which has submitted to the authority of the Crown. A further point is that it was to the authority of the Crown as a spiritual person, as Head of the Church, and not to the authority of Parliament, that the submission was made. Henry VIII. did not dream that he was going to entrust to Parliamentary government the great powers which he claimed for himself in the Acts of Supremacy and Submission and other Statutes passed in the Reformation Parliament. He conceived that the powers belonged to him personally as King; as Bishop Stubbs said, Henry VIII. came to be Pope, the whole Pope, and something more than Pope. The powers of the Crown were to be what the Papal powers had been before.

Since that time a series of developments, partly by Henry VIII.'s laying down the full measure of supremacy, partly by the statute abolishing the Ecclesiastical Commission, partly by the Toleration Act and the policy of the Toleration Act, the whole character of the relation between Church and State has been modified bit by bit. At no subsequent period has the Church in any corporate capacity made any further concession to or recognition of State rights in respect to its spiritual character. Confessedly the relation between Church and State now in England and Wales is so far ambiguous that it is very difficult to say what is the precise authority of the State in spiritual matters which ought to be held to be binding by Churchmen in virtue of the concessions made by the Church in former times. It has come to pass—I do not quarrel with this part of the right hon. Gentleman's narrative—that all secular business has passed away from Convocation, and that Convocation is now a body purely concerned with spiritual affairs. I do not agree with the the right hon. Gentleman that that is on account of what took place before the crisis of 1717. There was then a great cleavage of opinion within the Church. The Lower House was High Church while the Upper House was Latitudinarian, and the Crown supported the Latitudinarian bishops. The effect was disastrous on the whole Church. Those 160 years are precisely the least creditable portion of the Church's history, and notably the least creditable part of the Church's history in Wales. When the right hon. Gentleman says that the Church in Wales stood on its own feet in those days without taking part in the proceedings of Convocation, he ought to bear in mind that there never was a period when the Church in 'Wales did worse than between 1717 and 1852.

I think these discussions of history are only relevant in so far as they enable us to say that Convocation is now, whatever it may have been at particular periods of its history, a body whose only effective and important work is that of a body for spiritual guidance—a body mainly exercising consultative powers. Although, as the right hon. Gentleman said truly, there are occasions on which the King issues Letters of Business, and Convocation may proceed to pass canons which have legal force and authority, the by far most important function of Convocation now is to give leadership to the Church by its discussions, and conceivably to give positive and definite pronouncements on questions of doctrinal teaching and the like, which might have very great weight indeed in conceivable circumstances. As far as these consultative functions are concerned, I really do not think anyone can make out any case for excluding the Welsh bishops from Convocation. There is really no reason whatever, if they think they should be summoned by the archbishop, why that should be. The right hon. Gentleman says that if they were summoned under the old law the proceedings of Convocation would be illegal. I do not think that that would be so. All that could be said would be that these bishops and clergy sat there but not as members; that they sat as spectators, or as persons invited by the archbishop, but not as legal members of the assembly. You might have, and as a matter of fact, would have, in a way that I shall show in a moment, an inconvenient discrepancy between the moral Convocation and the legal Convocation. I do not anticipate that the archbishop would actually summon the Welsh bishops and clergy to the legal meetings of Convocation. Archbishops are generally scrupulously careful to keep within the four corners of Acts of Parliament. But undoubtedly the archbishop would summon them to the voluntary meetings of what is called the Representative Church Council, and they would take part in the proceedings there. What would be the result? You would have two bodies, one the moral body and the other the legal body. You would have the bishops and clergy sitting in the House of Bishops and the House of Clergy; you would have the Welsh bishops and clergy sitting there; you would have decisions come to carrying all the moral authority of those clergy. In addition, you would have Convocation, as it were, high and dry, a mere legal body like the Ancient House of Congregation, superseded as the moral authority, and therefore gradually becoming less and less used; because it would be always more convenient to have the opinion of the whole Church rather than the opinion of a part of it. So that in the end the effect of this Clause may really be, would be, a very serious injury to the efficiency of the Convocation of Canter- bury. It may react upon the English Church in the most formidable way. More and more it will come to make the representative Church body a voluntary body, and less and less a legal body. I think that is a very undesirable thing. To begin with it is contrary to the purpose and plan of the Bill. The Bill has made no beginning with Disestablishment or Disendowment in England; yet by this Clause very serious injury is at once inflicted, not on anybody concerned in Wales, but on Convocation of Canterbury as a whole. Convocation of Canterbury as a whole ceases to have the spiritual authority of the past. Its legal character becomes separated from its spiritual character, so that you no longer have the old system, historically connected with the relations of Church and State, not only in respect of Wales, but in respect of England. Is that a reasonable thing to do?

What are the arguments put forward for it? It would not make any difference to the machinery of the Bill if this Sub-section were cut out. For all practical purposes the Bill would be unaffected by the change. Convocation would, if this Clause were left out, conduct its proceedings precisely as now. The Welsh Church, the Welsh bishops, and the clergy, would only have the authority in England that belongs to them now, and the English bishops and clergy would wish that they should have. The affairs of the Welsh Church would necessarily be still controlled, except in so far as they voluntarily submitted themselves to Convocation, by their own Synod, diocesan and national; so that the Bill would not be injured from the point of view of the Government. Is it treating the Church courteously or even fairly and justly to interfere with the character of her assemblies and destroy in respect of England as well as Wales, the character they have borne in the past? And to do that not in order to carry out any principle of Disestablishment or Disendowment, but solely in order that you may drive out of a strictly spiritual assembly members who are summoned there and welcomed there by the authority of the archbishops themselves. Further, you do make the concession on this point in respect to the archbishops' Metropolitan authority. Confessedly, it is a very difficult thing to separate the life of the Church of England from that of the Church in Wales. You meet that difficulty by conceding the point. You allow the archbishops to exercise Metropolitan authority over Wales if the Welsh clergy desire; you do not attempt to destroy the Metropolitan spiritual authority. But you do what is inconsistent in leaving that authority and by destroying the membership of the Welsh bishops and clergy in the provincial Synod. Surely it is a very reasonable attitude to take up that if the Metropolitan authority is worth maintaining it is unfair to the archbishops to do that which is an invasion of his rights by seeming to do anything inconsistent with his Metropolitan authority over the whole province! Why concede no interference with the Synod's rights, with the rights of the whole Synod of Canterbury, and cut out from that Synod the members of the Welsh Church?

My point, the right hon. Gentleman will see, is this, that the Clause is unfair to England and to the English Church. It does not merely do what the Bill proposes to do, Disestablish the Church in Wales; it interferes with the governing authority of the Church in the whole Province of Canterbury. You cannot cut out from an assembly without affecting the position, rights, and authority of the members who remain, and of the Church those members guide or govern. No one would suggest that this House will remain the same if the large number of the Irish Members are cut out. Everyone recognises that that is a matter of legitimate interest to the whole House of Commons, and affects the character of the whole House of Commons. Just in the same way to cut out the legal bishops and clergy from Convocation affects thewhole spiritual body, and in the same way affects the whole people of the Province of Canterbury, who regard Convocation as their spiritual guide and ruler. I cannot conceive why the Government should not make this concession. I do not believe that they will offend a solitary-Nonconformist in Wales or England. They would be recognising the spiritual independence of the Church—and, by-the-by, the right hon. Gentleman said it was impossible for an Established Church to be spiritually independent. A more unhistorical proposition could hardly be laid down. The person who invented, one may say, the conception of the relations of Church and State was the Emperor Constantine. No one who has studied the history of the period will say that the Church during the reign of Constantine was anything but spiritually independent. Certainly the conception of recognition by the State does not imply any degree of subjection of the Church to the State. On the contrary, it is a clear matter of arrangement as to what are the particular relations of the Church and State under Establishment. In Scotland we have an Establishment which in spiritual matters is an absolutely independent Church.

Therefore we cannot agree that there would be anything inconsistent in what is suggested with the spiritual character of the Church. Spiritual independence is a matter on which Nonconformists have always insisted. We have constantly been told that this will be given by the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. So far as the Church is concerned we have been told Disestablishment is the concession of spiritual independence to Wales, and so far as England is concerned it is the harbinger of spiritual independence. You are treating the Church—by this great invasion of its spiritual rights—in a way in which no Nonconformist body would wish to be treated. It is exercising the authority of Parliament in a manner inconsistent with the matter of spiritual independence. We can thus not only drop this Clause as not being inconsistent with the Bill, while to retain it is inconsistent with the Bill. To retain it is to make the Bill do what it specially professes it does not do: to invade the independence of the whole Church Province of Canterbury. We therefore appeal to the Government to make this concession. We believe—in so far as these Debates are followed at all—that all over the Church of England this concession will be warmly appreciated—I do not say by thoroughgoing opponents of the Bill—but that body of opinion which dislikes much of the Bill, and is not yet theoretically opposed to Disestablishment. Liberal Churchmen who theoretically advocate Disestablishment do not like this particular Bill, which is a matter of dismembering the Church and separating the provincial Synods into two parts. It would therefore not be impolitic and not inconsistent; on the contrary, it would be both politic and consistent if this concession were given: it would be appreciated. Is it too much to ask that the Government, exercising the great authority that they do over Parliament, having the matter fairly within their control, should leave us these provincial Synods, just now, whatever they may have been in historic times, a purely spiritual body, to leave them untouched to do that work that they have been accustomed to do for many years past?

I desire in the few words I wish to address to the House on this Amendment to enter a complaint which I think we are entitled to make particularly with regard to this discussion, and with regard to a great deal of discussion which has taken place in Committee on this Bill. That is this: that we ask for definitions, we ask for intelligent appreciation of terms, and we are fobbed off by certain parrot cries as though they were the conclusion of the whole argument. The whole question is treated as if it were settled by certain text-books or certain elementary questions, whereas what we are dealing with is really a vital matter affecting the religious life of a large number of people. These questions should be considered in the light of reason, and not as matters which are to be swept aside on the ground that the matter is concluded, and no argument is possible. Take, for instance, the point as to the whole position of Establishment. We are told at one time that it is a privilege, and in the next breath we are told it is a burden. It is impossible for us to make out on to which leg of that double-jointed position the supporters of the Bill wish to stand. When they tell us it is a privilege we say, "We will equally share our privilege with you." But they refuse and say, "We would not accept your burden for anything." That means they give away the privilege argument. If they say it is a burden, then surely it is for us to decide whether we shall be released from the burden. Continually hon. Members opposite try to force the position that it is a matter of reasoning and for thoughtful discussion, and we are always fobbed off with these words. We cannot get a reasoned and a logical analysis of what the position is as accepted by the other side.

Assuming for a moment that the position of establishment is a burden—and I take it that from the speech made by the Chancellor of the Duchy that it is on that leg for the purposes of this particular Amendment he wished to stand—that it is a burden from which the Welsh Church is to be released because they are to be no longer members of Convocation—if that is so, then you ought surely to consult the Welsh Church as to whether they wish to be released from the burden before you cut them off. You ought to give them an opportunity of saying whether this Communion and Convocation is a connection of a kind which they think would be to their spiritual advantage or not. You have no right to start the Welsh Church and to thrust it into the world with a certain impress put upon it which you £ay is for its good when the Welsh Church itself might disclaim that position altogether. In other words by this Sub-section you are contradicting a statement made in this House over and over again that what you wish to do is to give freedom to the Welsh Church. I should like hon. Members opposite to remember this. There are certain legislative enactments and proposals in this Bill which may be, from the point of view of what you call a paper constitution, satisfactory Clauses to be inserted in the Bill, but, after all, we are not legislating for paper men. We are legislating for religious men and women, and what you ought to do in a Bill of this kind is, irrespective of words, to try and get at the basic facts of the situation and to legislate for men and women irrespective of mere dogma or mere words, and in relation to the real facts of the situation. We are told over and over again from the other side that it is impossible for a Church, such as the Welsh Church will become if this Bill passes into law, to be in close communion or connection with an Established Church like the English Church will remain. Here, again, we are up against one of those propositions accepted merely, I think, because no attempt is made to analyse it. Why should it be impossible for the Welsh Church to remain in vital and actual connection with the English Church as it has done. Has that not happened in other instances?

Take, for instance, the Churches in the Colonies. A large number of the Churches in the Colonies accept the position that what is the law here is the law for them. Therefore to a certain vital extent they are members of the same religious community as the Church in England. We all know the great Anglican Congresses which meet every ten years, at which all members of the Anglican community are present, and whose pronouncements are of vital importance for the whole Anglican communion, not only for itself, but for the Free Churches in communion with our Church here. We know that with regard to Cape Colony there was doubt at one time whether that Church would accept the decisions in Council, but we know that nine out of ten of the Free Churches in our Dominions do accept these decisions, and are bound by the Church Law of this country as if it was the law they them- selves made. Take an instance that comes under our own eyes in these islands. Heaven forbid anything I should say here would in any way affect what I look upon as one of the most deeply governing religious movements going on in our time, and that is the tremendous rapprochementgoing on between the Established Church in Scotland and the Free Churches. They are joining together on what basis? Not that the Established Church should cease to be established—and I think the movement will be a great success eventually—they are purporting to join together, and the basis of discussion is that the Established Church should remain established and the Free Churches remain as they are.

Take another case, there is going on in India at this moment a tremendous movement, a rapprochementof religious bodies, a movement eloquently described in the pages of the "Daily Chronicle" in an article about a week ago, almost every word of which I cordially endorse. That article laid special emphasis on the fact that that was one of the most amazing religious movements of our day. Yes, but what is the basis of it? The basis of it is that the community of the Established English Church in India and the non-Established communities—Episcopalians and others—should join together on the basis of what? The basis of Disestablishment! Not at all. On the basis of co-operation, and if necesary some kind of legal combination for the purposes of common spiritual effort. Why, therefore, if you take the reason of the thing, is it not possible for us to contemplate co-operation and for certain legal purposes joint action between the Disestablished Church in Wales and the Established Church in this country. When the United Methodist body started on their way with what hon. Gentlemen opposite call a distinctly Parliamentary title, they were extremely careful to do two things, first of all to secure for themselves that their united body should be a body extending its work all over the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. They did not want any severance or dismemberment. There is in Section 30 of that Act a provision which was not considered to be of much importance, but which provided that the united Methodist body was to have power to unite with other Churches. Under that Act it secured the right to hold the property of the three or four pre-existing bodies on a distinct Parliamentary title. Supposing that body, with its Parliamentary limitations as to property, was to exercise its powers under Section 30 and link up with another Church, then clearly you would have a Parliamentary constituted body acting and co-operating with a non-Parliamentary constituted body, and that was clearly contemplated by Section 30 of that Act, and in the nature of the case I can see nothing whatever against it.

Supposing Welshmen like to take upon themselves this burden, why should hon. Members opposite object? If we come to look at the strict construction of Sub-section (3) I am not at all certain that they are not bound by this burden, though it may be in close co-operation with the English Church. By the burden I mean the Act of Submission of the clergy. In this matter everything turns on who are the members. I should like to ask if the right hon. Gentleman considers the Crown a member of the Welsh Church. If so, then the existing ecclesiastical law is binding between members and between the Crown, the bishops, and the clergy of the Welsh Church. If they summon themselves to Convocation, and they are bound to get the consent of the Crown before they can meet in Convocation, they have equally to get the consent of the Crown after passing their canon before that canon can be promulled. There is nothing in the Act to say the Crown is not a member. This is the point I was going to raise earlier in the Debates, but under the very attenuated opportunities given to us we have had no opportunity before this. Under the Irish Act there was a statement in the preamble of the Act saying that the Crown resigned all its rights and privileges in connection with the Irish Church. There is no similar statement in this Act, and I should have thought that the Law Officers of the Crown, who are supposed to be the protectors of the prerogatives of the Crown, would have looked into this matter, and if it is intended that the Crown resigns the prerogatives it should be clearly stated in the Bill. It is true that for one particular purpose the Crown is mentioned as giving up its right of patronage, but there is no provision in the Welsh Act to say that the Crown is resigning all its rights and privileges.

Under the Irish Act it was provided that Her Majesty placed at the disposal of Parliament her interests and other ecclesiastical dignitaries and offices in the Irish Church, but there is nothing of that kind in this Bill, and the presumption is that as the Crown is mentioned as giving up one particular right, namely, the right of patronage, the Crown does not give up the rights which are not specified and retains all its possessions and influence and prerogatives except in so far as they are expressly taken away. That being so, I wish to know if the right hon. Gentleman desires to maintain the position of the Crown as a member of the Welsh Church. Assuming the Crown is a member of the Welsh Church, I wish to know whether, under Sub-section (3), we do not get back to the position that as the Act of Submission of the clergy is partly the ecclesiastical law of the English Church, if the Crown is a member of the Welsh Church then the Crown is to have this very right of restraining the acts of Convocation authorising the promulgation of canons in the Welsh Church as in the English Church? If that is so, what is the burdens from the point of view of the Welsh Church of being subject to this restriction in company with the English Church instead of as a little affair of its own? That is a technical point I should like the Home Secretary to answer, but it is not my main point, and it is only one of the numerous difficulties which arise in the course of this Bill for want of adequate consideration and time for discussion.

My main point is this. Hon. Members opposite must makeup their minds whether they consider Establishment a privilege or a burden. If it is a privilege, as we have said over and over again, we will gladly share it with you. We should be foolish if we demanded more, and we should certainly be wanting in courage if we asked for less. Subject to that, we shall be glad to give any privilege which hon. Gentlemen opposite can demonstrate is at the present time a privilege of the Church of England and share it with Nonconformists, who, I admit, are doing splendid religious work in this country and in Wales. We have shown by our Amendments that we are in earnest when we say we would gladly share any privilege we have with the Nonconformists. If it is not a privilege, why do hon. Gentlemen opposite so strongly object to it? If you say it is a burden then it is for us to decide whether we wish to be relieved of it or not, and you have no right to bring into existence a young Welsh Church without giving it a voice as to whether it wishes to be bound by this burden. I do not know whether I have shown to the satisfaction of hon. Gentlemen opposite that there is nothing logically unsound or inherently impossible in the Welsh Church being allowed to remain connected by Convocation with the Established English Church. You have no right to bring the Welsh Church into being hampered by this restriction on the right of freedom of choice. It has been stated quite clearly and frankly on the other side of the House that hon. Members want the Church to have freedom of choice. If that is so, you must give her freedom of choice in this particular as in others, namely, whether she wishes to remain in legal and vital relation with the Church of England in the future as in the past. I can see no way out of that dilemma, and for the life of me I cannot understand what the objection of hon. Gentlemen opposite is to withdrawing this Clause. I am quite sure the course I suggest will assist in that very freedom of choice which hon. Members have so often emphasised, and I sincerely hope that even at this eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute the Government may see their way to withdraw this Clause.

I have listened with great interest to the speeches of the hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) and the hon. Member who has just spoken, and I could not help thinking when listening to them that they still cannot have appreciated what it is, and what it is only, that this Bill does. I took down their exact words, and I really hope I have understood their meaning. The Noble Lord said: "Leave us the Provincial Synod, which is a purely spiritual body." We do not take the Provincial Synod away. His final request, which ho directed to us in a very interesting, a very moderate, and a persuasive speech, was to leave them something which we do not take away from them. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken quoted to us the example of the Colonial Churches. He says the Colonial Churches in large part accept the binding authority of the law of the Church of England in this country. That is the model of which he approves, that is what he quotes as an example, and that is the argument he addresses to us now when we are Disestablishing the Church of England in Wales. We do nothing to prevent the Disestablished Church in Wales accepting the binding authority of the law of the Church of England.

I quite agree with the last sentence the right hon. Gentleman has used. I quoted the Colonial instance as showing there was nothing inherently impossible or illogical in having a connection between Free Churches and Established Churches. That connection may be of various kinds and take various shapes. That is only one element. There is no reason why it should not go further.

The hon. Gentleman repeats his argument, and he says there is nothing illogical in a connection between an Established and an Unestablished Church. We all agree with him. He need not force that argument upon us by an illustration drawn from the Colonial Churches. We leave power in this very Bill for the relations to be maintained between the Established and the Unestablished Church. The whole of his speech, was directed to a condition of things that has no relation to this Bill. The Noble Lord and the hon. Gentleman both spoke of the strictly spiritual authority of the Church of England which should remain unimpaired throughout the whole of the Church, including the Disestablished Church in Wales. We agree entirely. There is nothing in this Bill to prevent the strictly spiritual authority of the Church of England being maintained throughout England and throughout Wales. What is the single point of severance? There is a body called Convocation. Neither its constitution nor the authority summoning it, nor its work, is strictly spiritual. Convocation has got an element of the State in it, a civil element. It has no relation to spirituality at all. Convocation is summoned upon the issue of a Writ of the Crown. It is, therefore, a civil body in its summoning, and in its control and authority in the government of the Church it is strictly limited by Parliament. I am not going into the old controversy as to whether Parliament does in fact interfere with the spiritual authority of Convocation, or whether it only claims the right to interfere. I rather agree with the view taken by hon. Members opposite, that Parliament does not in fact interfere with the spiritual authority of Convocation, but that Parliament has the power to interfere is beyond dispute. I am sure we shall meet on common ground here. There is this power in Parliament, and, in consequence of this power, questions affecting the discipline of the Church can come up for discussion in this House. I am speaking within the experience of all of us. We all know that in consequence of the existence of that power Convocation has not got the authority it would like to have over discipline in the Church of England. Convocation cannot be treated upon the same footing as a Provincial Synod. It has no other than spiritual authority. What is it we do under this Bill? We leave it perfectly open to the two Churches to unite together upon all questions which are solely spiritual for the government, if they choose, of the united Churches, but we do not and we will not do what hon. Gentlemen do not ask for in so many words, but which is, nevertheless, necessarily implied in their speeches. We will not leave the Disestablished Church in Wales necessarily to be controlled by the authority of Convocation, and therefore ultimately brought under the authority of Parliament. It would not be Disestablishment if that element of Establishment were still allowed to remain. The hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps) is a fair-minded man, a sentiment which meets with general approval, even including himself. I appeal to him. If the Church, I will not say were Disestablished in England, because the mere mention of it is anathema to him, but if Convocation were free to control the discipline, the ritual, and the beliefs—the creeds—of the Church of England without reference to Parliament, would he not consider that an advantage and a gain to the Church?

I never did think Establishment or Disestablishment had any direct connection with that at all but as a matter of reform I should agree with him.

I will take the hon. Gentleman's own language. "As a matter of reform," he would agree with me.

Certainly.

I would ask him, for the sake of argument, to accept what he calls, and rightly calls from his point of view, "dismemberment" as a fact. Dismemberment having once taken place, that reform would accrue to the English Church in Wales. They would have that very advantage that in their own governing body, their own Synod, their own Convocation, or call it what you please, that they would be unfettered by the control of Parliament. What is the hardship, what is the loss that Wales suffers? It is cut off from the Province of Canterbury. That does not preclude Wales, if she so wishes, from accepting every decree and ordinance of the Province of Canterbury. It is purely and simply a matter for the judgment of Wales. If we accept this Amendment we deprive Wales at once of the reform and the benefit of that reform and of the liberty we give her to say for herself whether she wishes once again to go under the authority of Convocation, which is itself under the control of Parliament. I am not at all sure that if this House had consulted Welsh Church feeling, Welsh national feeling—that is much national feeling in the Welsh Church I am not at all sure that if this question were left to the Welsh Church, that the Welsh Church would decide with hon. Members on the opposite side of the House.

Why do not you leave it to them?

In fact we do. They can remain. They can attend the Provincial Synod. The only occasion on which they are precluded from attending is when Convocation meets to transact business ordered by the Letters of Business, but they can meet all the same in the Provincial Synod when that Synod is transacting what might be termed spiritual business, and the Welsh can share it. We cannot accept this Amendment without depriving them of the liberty of deciding for themselves whether or not they will be governed by Convocation as Convocation itself is governed by Parliament. The hon. and learned Member for South Salford (Mr. Montague Barlow) thinks he has put us on the horns of a dilemma from which there is no escape. He says that sometimes we describe the Establishment as a privilege, and at other times as a burden, and he asks, how can it be both? It can be both, and it is both. In some particulars the Establishment is a privilege, and in other particulars it is a burden, and there is nothing inconsistent in that view. Then he tells us, "So far as it is a privilege we will offer it to you." But he is offering the Free Churches something that they will not accept. They refuse his privileges because they believe it to be contrary to the interests of religion that these State privileges should be conferred upon any sect. It is no answer to us to say, "We will give you the same privileges" when we object to the privileges they enjoy. It is no answer because these privileges in the opinion of Nonconformists are contrary to the interests of religion. Now as to the burdens. He says the Church is willing to accept the burdens. Yes, the Church is willing to accept the burdens in repayment for the privileges, but we do not think that there should be privileges, and we say we will take them away and also take from them the burdens. So far as this Debate has gone I have not observed the slightest desire on the part of the Church of England to accept the burdens without the privileges.

The hon. and learned Member referred to the Scotch example, a most extraordinary example for him to take. "Here," he said, "we have a remarkable religious development. We find a union taking place between the Established Church in Scotland and the Unestablished Churches, and they are joined together on a basis that the Established Church shall remain Established and the Free Churches remain free." That precisely is the union which we suggest might taken place if the Welsh Church Bill so wills it hereafter. Under this Bill, the Welsh Church would be a Free Church; the Established Church in England would remain Established. It is open to them to make exactly the same union upon the basis that the Established Church should remain Established and the Welsh Church should remain free. No, Sir, the pretext which is really put forward in support of this Amendment is that the Welsh Church can be hereafter governed by Convocation. It may be that the Welsh Church hereafter would desire to be governed by Convocation; would desire that the rules which are accepted by the Church of England in Convocation shall be binding upon them. It may be. I do not think it will be myself, but there is nothing in this Bill preventing it. All we are anxious to do is to make the Welsh Church free, and that the Welsh Church shall have liberty to decide for itself whether it will or will not come under the rule of Convocation. One last point. The hon. and learned Member asks me pointedly whether the Crown is a member of the Welsh Church. The Welsh Church will not be an Established Church; the Crown is by necessity a member of a Church as by law Established. The Welsh Church will not be by law Established. I think I have given the hon. Gentleman sufficient ground for an answer to his question, but if he be not satisfied let him turn to Clause 13, where express power is given to hold Synods, and where there is express power of that nature the hon. Gentleman, able and learned lawyer as he is, will know that it will overrule any point as to whether or not Synods shall be held. I hope I have given sufficient ground for satisfying hon. Members that the anxiety expressed with regard to the exclusion of the Welsh Disestablished Church from Convocation has no serious ground upon which to proceed.

The hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. L. Williams) in his speech just now said that these Debates had a great educative effect in the country. It would be odd if they had not, seeing the courage and skill with which this Bill is being fought on this side by a small band of Members. One result of the educative effect is that at a meeting of the hon. Member's own constituents the smallness of the attendance was explained on the ground that as the Government and the Welsh Churches were taking away the Endowments of the Church and cutting them off from Convocation they could hardly with any sense of fairness be occupied in raising Endowments for themselves. That educative effect has certainly extended to the Home Secretary, because he has just said that there is a great deal that is national about the Church in Wales. That shows a great progress in his education. I have always up to the present understood him to deny that the Church in Wales as a national institution.

I said national feeling. A great deal of national Welsh feeling amongst the members.

If Welsh national feeling does not constitute a National Church I confess I do not understand what language means. The right hon. Gentleman's distinction is far too fine cut for me, and I dare say hon. Members on this side are much of the same opinion. They cannot be accused of missing any point in connection with this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman in his answer complained of what had been said about Convocation being taken away, and he said that the provincial Synod remains. I do not know any argument that could not be met with an answer of that character. No answer to it could be more thoroughly unsatisfactory to those who complain of the loss of Convocation. I understand him to say that under this Bill, if Sub-clause (5) is retained, there will be nothing to prevent one spiritual unified life from prevailing as before in the Church in England, and Wales. He says the objection to the continued existence of Convocation as part of the Disestablished Church of Wales is that Convocation contains a civil element. In what respect does Convocation exercise that civil element now? It may possess certain power, but what is the exercise of it upon which the right hon. Gentleman bases his objection to the omission of this Clause and the retention of the position of the Welsh Church as a member of the Province of Canterbury and Convocation? I confess I do not understand that. Convocation is summoned by the archbishop, who is a spiritual authority. The business it carries on is of a spiritual character. The answer of the right hon. Gentleman in that matter is as unsatisfactory as when he offers the retention of the Synod as sufficient compensation for the loss of Convocation.

If he is unsatisfactory in his answers to those who disapprove of this Bill, the Chancellor of the Duchy was far less satisfactory. He said that the hon. and learned Gentlemen on this side who have addressed the House have forgotten that this is a Disestablishment and Disendowment Bill. He evidently considers that once you have a Bill of this kind every minor ill—the removal of Convocation and all the pains and sufferings which will occur to the clergy and to laymen by the Bill—follow as a matter of course. He says you must put up with the loss of Convocation or any losses which follow upon a decision to Disestablish and Disendow. That is a satisfactory argument for the leader of the legions, but it is no answer to the able speeches delivered to-night upon this subject. The right hon. Gentleman said that Convocation was an imperfect body. That is no reason for destroying it if those who are members of it are satisfied with its imperfections or its merits counterbalanced by its imperfections. He says the Churchmen in Wales have a way of looking upon Church questions in Wales different from that which obtains in England. I dispute that. I have seen no difference between the way in which Churchmen regard questions connected with the Church in Wales and the view taken by Churchmen in regard to similar questions in England. I believe the same view would be taken in both quarters with regard to the Amendment now before the House. The right hon. Gentleman said that if the Welsh bishops and clergy, after the law is as he proposes to make it, seek to sit in Convocation at Canterbury, it will make it an illegal assembly. Supposing the hon. Member for Tower Hamlets (Sir Stuart Samuel) sat and voted in this House, which he might do at a pecuniary peril, that would not make Parliament an illegal assembly. His vote would be invalid, but not Parliament. If the Welsh bishops and clergy attend Convocation on their own account, it would not make it an illegal assembly, and even if they voted, only their votes would be invalid. That is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman.

I should like to ask the Home Secretary what harm would be done to any Free Church by omitting this Sub-section and leaving the position of the Church as regards Convocation what it is now. What Free Church would be a penny the worse from any material or sentimental point of view if the existing position were allowed to continue? No speaker on the opposite-side has addressed himself to that subject. I see an hon. Member for one Division of Glamorgan present, who long balanced one foot in the pulpit and one on the platform. Being a man of great experience, and having now abandoned the sacred for the profane, if he addresses the House perhaps he will explain what harm would be done to any Free Church in Wales by leaving the position of the Disestablished Church in respect to Convocation what it is now and what members of the Church wish it to remain? The fact is, that it is not for the good of the Free Churches, but in order to do harm to the Church that it is desired to make this alteration. One of the speakers on this side, arguing the value of Convocation to the Church whether Established or Disestablished, said that the period when Convocation did not meet was notoriously one of the worst in the annals of the Church. That is no doubt the case. Macaulay points out that during that period the clergyman, both in England and Wales, was the parasite of his patron, and generally the suitor for the hand of the maid of the patron's wife, which he seems to have considered proof of exceeding great degradation, although in classical times Horace was of the opposite opinion, which he was at pains to explain in one of his Odes:—

"Ne sit ancillæ tibi amor pudori."

There is no doubt that it was the worst period in the history of the Church when Convocation did not sit. Under this Bill, it will never have any opportunity of sitting to deal with the affairs of the Disestablished Church. All the evidence of history has been to the effect that Convocation has been a good influence upon the Church, and that during the period it did not sit the Church fell to a lower ebb than it ever had before in Great Britain. That does not seem to be an argument for taking the bishops and clergy outside the jurisdiction of the Convocation of Canterbury.

It was argued that this was a matter in which Welsh national feeling was very much at stake. I would recall the fact that in 1907, when the United Methodist Church Act was passed, it took no account of geographical boundaries of Wales. Neither do any of the Free Churches limit their circuits to Wales. Under the very Act to which I refer one circuit set up was South Wales with its capital at Bristol, and another North Wales with its capital at Liverpool. It was argued in that case that the Free Churches of Wales benefited, and I believe they do, by being part of a larger organisation not concerned with a small Principality, but overleaping its borders and bringing each Free Church into immediate contact with and under the government of a body with a larger outlook and more authority than would attach to one which was confined to the Principality. I think it is a material point in view of the arguments which have been brought forward during this Debate.

Then with regard to the census, it is perfectly clear at present, without a census, that the Free Churches do not represent half the population of Wales. That, at any rate, we know, and I could not understand the argument of the Chancellor of the Duchy that the only use in a census was to find out from each individual resident in Wales what were his view about Disestablishment. As I understand the object, that was not it at all. The object was to find out how each individual in Wales describes himself, whether as belonging to the Church of England or to any one of the several Free Churches. That I always understood, was the object with which the census was made in Ireland and has been repeated since Disestablishment. That is the object, I believe, with which it should be taken, as I believe it should be taken, in Wales. The question of the nationality of the Welsh Church was referred to by the Home Secretary, who says there is a good deal that is national m the Welsh Church. Not only is that not the case, but I believe if anyone in the House familiar with recent history in Wales was asked to find out some one man or woman who, perhaps, was the greatest exponent of Welsh nationality and had illustrated it in a manner which to some people might appear excessive, they would choose, not any Free Churchman, or Churchman, but a distinguished lady who was absolutely the foremost exponent of Welsh nationality and one of the keenest and most devoted Churchwomen in Wales. I speak of the widow of a past Member of this House, Lady Llanover. There you had Welsh nationality and a Welsh Church combined together.

She is a Calvinistic Methodist.

No; the hon. Member is quite mistaken. She was, to the core, a member of the Church. The movement for cutting the Welsh bishops and clergy off from Convocation is only a piece of the excessive Erastianism which illustrates this Bill. The intention is to lower the pride of the Church, to impair its dignity and to lessen its power for dealing in future with the problem with which it is admittedly so satisfactorily dealing. I was not familiar with the instance from India which an hon. Member behind me quoted, but I can say, from the experience of the British Government in dealing with religious endowments in India, that it compares most favourably with that which is now the policy of the Government at home. They invariably abstain from dealing with endowments. They have always held that they should be administered, and that the bodies who administer them and which deal with their spiritual dogmas should not be interfered with, and everything is left, under the British Government, as it was under the Government from which it inherited those Endowments, which in kind are very similar to those with which the House is now dealing. Having heard the whole of the Debate from beginning to end, and the one which preceded it, I cannot see that any good reasons have been given whatsoever for cutting off the Church in Wales from the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury.

I thank the hon. Member for his kind reference to my being able to balance first on one foot and then on the other. I assure him I can never hope to rival his achievement as a political acrobat. I must confess that I found it very difficult, while listening to him, to remember that he was the same Parliamentary candidate with whom I went to the Montgomery Boroughs on a political campaign.

My information was that the hon. Gentleman informed each candidate that he was supporting him, but ho had no vote himself.

I should have thought the hon. Member would have looked up the register. I suppose he has not forgotten that I travelled all night and that he thanked me. I have in my possession a letter from him. Moreover he does not forget that I was on his platform.

Indeed.

What base ingratitude. More than that, some of the most eloquent speeches I have heard were from the hon. Member. He had just returned from India. He confessed, in his opening speeches, that he did not know much about politics.

Hear, hear.

And we all agreed with him. He made that obvious in his first speech. But he told us—and the speech is still in existence, recorded in the local paper—that he quite understood the demand of the Welsh people for religious equality and that if he were returned for Montgomery Boroughs they would always find him ready to vote for it. I will give him credit for this. He carried out his promise. He voted for the Bill of 1909, a much more drastic Bill than this, right through and came down to the Montgomery Boroughs and claimed full credit for it. If I had known I was to have the privilege of following him in Debate I would have brought some cuttings, because nothing more bitter against the Established Church has ever been said in Wales than was said by the hon. Member, and it is a well-known fact that although he wobbled on most things he never gave the slightest indication of wobbling on this, and to this day there are some people who still believe that he is heart and soul for Disestablishment. It is the faith of human nature I know. I admit that when I hear speeches from the hon. Member (Sir A. Cripps), from the hon. Member (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen), from the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil), or the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil), when they speak about the Church and show such passion for it I am prepared to give them full credit. They believe in the Church. But if the hon. Member wishes me to believe the same thing about him I must forget some years of my previous existence. He has told us to-night that he finds no difference between Churchmen in England and Churchmen in Wales as to their attitude and way of thinking. I wonder if he forgets that the president of the organisation that adopted him as Liberal candidate for Montgomery Boroughs was, and is, a Churchman. I wonder if he has forgotton that some of the clergymen in Montgomery-shire at the time of his election declared that they were in favour of Disestablishment provided they were given a Free Church.

dissented.

I remember. My memory is not so short. We promised that if Disestablishment came in the Church in Wales should be free from the jurisdiction of Canterbury. I have given the hon. Member more attention than I ought to have given him, but the moment I hear his voice it brings back to me happy memories of the past. Let us come back to the Amendment. The hon. Member will not think me offensive if I say I fail to see any bearing of his speech on the Amendment. The Amendment was moved by the hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Cripps), seconded by the hon. Member (Mr. Hoare), and supported by the hon. Member (Mr. Barlow), and each of them urged quite different reasons. The hon. Member (Sir A. Cripps) said, "If you sever the Church in Wales from the jurisdiction of Canterbury it will be a great disaster, it will be a calamity." He based his Amendment on that. The hon. Member for Chelsea said that Wales is too small a unit for ecclesiastical independence, and then the hon. Member for South Salford asked, "Why do you not allow Churchmen in Wales to remain in close and vital connection with the See of Canterbury?" Let me answer these points. In the first place, I shall deal with the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps). He is a great believer in the connection between Wales and Canterbury, but he did not tell us how it took place originally. He is a learned historian as well as a great ecclesiastical lawyer. From the very outset of that connection the people of Wales were opposed to the jurisdiction of Canterbury. When the first archbishop came with Augustine, who founded the See of Canterbury, he sent an appeal to the Welsh bishops to meet him in order that he might ask them to come into communion with Canterbury. What happened? The Welsh bishops consulted a famous monk. They asked him for advice and guidance, and this is what he said:—

"Do you contrive that the archbishop may arrive first with his friends at the place where the conference is to be held, and if at your approach he shall rise up to you, listen to him submissively; but if he shall despise you by not rising up to do you honour, let him also be despised by you."

The archbishop remained seated. He would not stand up to us then, but some of his followers have always been standing up since. They refused to come into communion with Canterbury, and because Borne sent Augustine to establish the See of Canterbury, and to establish the Saxon Church, the Welsh people were so annoyed with the See of Rome that they remained in isolation for three centuries. I am sure the hon. and learned Member was aware of these facts before, but he had forgotten them for the moment. I should like to quote Archdeacon Pryce, the author of the "Early British Church." He says:—

"It was the policy of the Norman kings and their successors to stamp out the national character of the Welsh people with a view to their thorough assimilation to their English subjects. Unhappily the episcopate in Wales was made the instrument for carrying out this policy. During several centuries the bishops in Wales were essentially a hostile garrison, bound to the English Crown by lies of gratitude for the past, and of common hatred towards the native Welsh."

I would remind the House of another historical matter—the petition of the Welsh Princes to the Pope in 1198, which said:—

"Be it known to your fatherly goodness, the great sufferings and the danger of living souls that have fallen upon the Church of Wales since by Kingly oppression, and not by the authority of the Bishop of Rome, she became subjected to the authority of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury."

All through its history the Welsh people have been opposed to the jurisdiction of Canterbury. Even in 1203, Archbishop Hubert said:—

"Unless therefore the barbarity of this tierce and lawless people—"

Hear, hear.

The Junior Member for the City of London believes that we are a barbaric people. I am sure, if he will attempt to change his constituency he will find a little more civilisation down our way—

"Unless therefore the barbarity of this fierce and lawless people be curbed by ecclesiastical censure and restrained by the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose Province they are subject by law, they will rise in frequent and unbroken rebellion."

I wonder if the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks is prepared to say, as Archbishop Hubert said, that it is necessary for the preservation of law and order in Wales that we should be subjected to the jurisdiction of Canterbury. Does he think that the Archbishop of Canterbury could exercise any jurisdiction whatever over my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London realises that that is not possible. If he cannot, then the original ground for that jurisdiction in Wales has gone away. We can live apart from the Archbishop of Canterbury. We do not require him for the preservation of law and order. As to the statement of the hon. Member for Chelsea, that Wales is too small a unit for ecclesiastical independence, I should like to remind him of the fundamental distinctiveness of the nationality of Wales. Wales is as much a nation as Scotland or Ireland—I do not care what standard you apply. Both parties in both Houses realise that. In the domain of education, agriculture, local government, and insurance, the nationality of Wales has been recognised. When the Insurance Bill was before the House, no one got up and said that Wales is too small to have Insurance Commissioners of her own. The hon. Member spoke of the Free Churches—the Nonconformist bodies in Wales. I wonder if the hon. Member for Chelsea has been to Wales? He knows very little about the Nonconformists in Wales. The Nonconformist bodies in Wales have organisations of their own quite apart from those in England. A few years ago the Wesleyan bodies had no such organisation. There was one body in South Wales, and another body under the jurisdiction of Liverpool, but the Wesleyans established ' a Wesleyan Assembly for the whole of Wales, and the Welsh Wesleyans are now under the jurisdiction of their own assembly. The hon. Member opposite (Sir J. D. Rees) doubted whether there was any such thing as a national feeling on the part of some of the clergy. He seemed to think that what the Welsh Church people wanted was to keep in communion with Canterbury. I should like to quote the words of one of the most learned of Welsh clergymen. He says:—

"As the result of the subjugation of Welsh by English Christianity seven centuries ago, the Welsh Church officially ceased to exist. She became merely four dioceses in the Province of Canterbury and as integral a portion of that Province as any other four contiguous dioceses taken at random, so that to-day, although Canterbury recognises the Church of Ireland, the Church of Scotland, the Church of the United States, and even the negro Church of Liberia, yet the Church of Wales is officially non-existent. There is no Church of Wales in the eyes of Canterbury, only a Church in Wales, although that Church existed centuries before Canterbury was created."

That is the whole position. We are asking that the Church in Wales shall be separated from Canterbury in order that she may be an embodiment of the national entity in Wales. You have already recognised it in regard to the bishops. The late Dean Howell objected to the denationalisation of the Welsh Church. He said that Englishmen had been appointed to Welsh bishoprics, and the Church had become denationalised. Today even Tory Governments have recognised the distinctiveness of Welsh nationality. We have got as bishops four Welshmen appointed by a Tory Government, and everybody will admit that their Welsh nationality was a factor in their promotion. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for the Home Office called the Archbishop of York to account the other day because he referred to the Bishop of St. Asaph as the controversial greyhound, and the Bishop of St. David's as the fighting terrier. With all respect to my hon. and learned Friend he quite missed the force of the allusion of the archbishop. It was not in reference to the sleuthlike qualities of the one or the pugnaciousness of the other, but to the purity of their Welsh pedigree, which has helped to secure for them their episcopal position. I am glad to think that we have got four Welsh bishops to-day who could not deny their nationality even if they would. Every time they speak they proclaim their nationality, a thing for which we Welshmen are politically grateful. I only wish that their sentiments were as Welsh as their accent. I do appeal to hon. Members opposite to join us in pressing home this fact to a practical issue. You have recognised our nationality to this extent. Go one step further and allow the Church in Wales to be on the same footing as the Churches in Scotland and Ireland, because I am sure the Leader of the Opposition will admit that Wales has as good a claim to nationality as Scotland. For that reason I trust that the Government will resist the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member.

I cannot help feeling that certainly during the last half hour the House has wandered a very long way from the important Amendment which a great number of Churchmen think a very serious and far-reaching Amendment. The House will do well if it recalls the epigram: In essentials we ought to have unity, in non-essentials we ought to have liberty, and in all things we ought to have charity. The question whether or not the Welsh Church should remain in the Province of Canterbury is not to be settled by the political history during the last few years of the hon. Members who has just addressed the House in a very amusing and interesting speech, or whether he associates himself with the hon. Member for East Nottingham, or whether the one or the other supported Welsh Disestablishment. There are Churchmen in this House who feel that this matter goes far deeper, and we desire, in supporting this Amendment to strike a note that is far deeper and far more serious that that suggested by the light and amusing speeches recently delivered. The point is not going to be settled by reference to the ancient history of Wales, or the ecclesiastical origin of the Church in Wales, or by reference, happy or the reverse, to the ancient See of Canterbury; and whether or not in the year 1198 some Welsh Churchmen felt aggrieved at the action of the See of St. Augustine matters very little in what we are considering at present. We want, and hon. Members opposite I know want to give a fair measure to Churchmen and to start the new Church, or the new incorporated Church, as it has been called, with a fair opportunity of doing the good work that lies before it, and we do not want to provoke controversy in the future, because we may regret that history records the fact that there were controversies in the past.

I do not complain of the speech of the Home Secretary upon this occasion. I rather welcome it. It was interesting because I have seldom listened to a speech which contained so much confusion of thought and so limited an idea of what are the functions both of Parliament and of Convocation. The ground on which he resisted this Amendment was that at the base of Convocation there was a connection with the State. Therefore he said if you are to have any relation with Convocation you can look behind Convocation and find the State lurking somewhere in it, and therefore you must have nothing to do with Convocation. I asked him to go a little deeper into this question. Let us assume that the representative body has got its property handed over to it. We all know that the Free Churches have got their property. You will find that at the base of the property which they hold, at the base of the rights which the members of the Church have inter se at the base of the conditions under which that property is held in trust, you necessarily must find the State. You must find the power and authority of the State behind every Church, however free she may be from Establishment, and when we find the Home Secretary saying that he cannot answer my hon. and learned Friend—he must admit that the writs of Convocation are issued by the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury—he says if you go behind these writs somewhere or other you will find the King's name. So you may, and so you will in any matter that concerns the authority of the State over the property that is held by every Free Church throughout the length of the country, whatever it be. Another extraordinary proposition of the Home Secretary requires an answer. He says that Parliament at the present time has control over the Established Church and its beliefs and creeds. That is one of those astonishing statements which you find made. I must not say anything disrespectful of him, but I think I might argue from it the Home Secretary has paid but little attention to the views of Churchmen upon such a vital subject.

Does the Home Secretary really believe that the Church of England by law Established—to use the full phrase—consents to have its beliefs or its creeds set up and determined by this House? It may be that the House may claim to exercise a discipline, a very indirect discipline, in matters of ritual. But the statement that the beliefs of the Church or its creeds are regulated by this House is a statement which would be resented by every Churchman who knows anything at all about it, and will be protested against by those who do not hold a strong view, an Erastian view, of what the condition of the Church is or ought to be, and by all who are sincere and loyal Churchmen and members of the Church of England. The suggestion is that you are entitled to segregate Wales from the Province of Canterbury. I have dealt with the general suggestion by the Home Secretary, that because you can find lurking behind it some reference to the State in the form of the writ or something of that sort, therefore you are to get rid of Convocation. But what is Convocation at the present day? May we leave the controversy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and sentative body which has to undertake the functions of the Established Church? I think if any hon. Member were to ask any member of Convocation at the present time what the primary duty of Convocation is when it has assembled together, the first answer he would receive would be that the primary duty of Convocation was for the clergy of the Church to meet together for the purpose of prayer. That is the primary duty, and I think every member of Convocation would say so. When you recognise that as the true foundation and purpose for which Convocation meets are you going to say that the bishops from Wales ought not to be entitled to meet their brethren in Convocation? It is all very well to suggest that Letters of Business have been presented to Convocation, that some work may be done which may be of more or less important or of effective character.

10.0 P.M.

It may be important as binding on the members and upon the Church, but effective from the point of view of the State it cannot be until legislation has been passed in respect of it. But hon. Members completely fail to understand it. Members of the Church feel that they receive increased spiritual power and draw benefit from the fact that they are united together. Just as we believe the members of the Welsh Church will be sorry to be cut off from the Province of Canterbury, so will the Province of Canterbury be sorry if the Welsh Church should be cut off from it. It is from that community we all draw spiritual power, and the answers of the Home Secretary and of the Chancellor of the Duchy wholly failed to grasp that. What is the good of the Chancellor of the Duchy telling us that Convocation was turbulent in the seventeenth century? What good is it to anybody to remember it? We look forward to a peaceful future. We do not recall those old times. We might recall the state of Wales, even of Europe, in the seventeenth century. Historically it may be interesting, but here we are opposing a proposal which is to have a great and abiding influence upon the future, not only of Churchmen in Wales, but also upon the future of the Church of England. It is on that ground we regret a step which would be imposed on no other religious body. I am quite sure that if the position were reversed and we were endeavouring to impose this sort of restraint upon the Wesleyan body we should hear loud protests, and very right protests, made from the other side against conduct so arbitrary, so unnecessary, and so unworthy. It is on these grounds that I support the Amendment of my hon. Friend. No answer has been given to the point that Convocation exists for spiritual purposes. No answer has been given as to why a branch of the Church in Wales or in England should be deprived of the support which one gives to the other. No answer has been given except some loose arguments from history, which really do not bear upon the point; and it is because we wish the Church to have more spiritual power and strength that loyal Churchmen very strenuously and very deeply resist this proposal and support the Amendment.

The hon. and learned Member at the outset of his speech struck a note which found a response in all our breasts; but when he descended to the plain of controversy, I cannot help feeling that the dust of the fray somewhat blinded his eyes. He found fault with the Home Secretary because he placed emphasis on the fact that as Convocation could not at present be free in consequence of the issue of the Royal Writ. He said the Home Secretary went back and found lurking behind the scenes the authority of the State. But it was something very much more than that to which the Home Secretary referred, and I think the hon. and learned Member was hardly fair to the House when he failed to realise that it does mean something very much more than that, because, unless Letters of Business are issued, a great deal of the most effective work of Convocation could not be done at all and he is aware that those Letters of Business are issued after the decision of the Cabinet, and not just by the authority of the Church. That, surely, is a very important matter, and I think we on this side of the House, in resisting this Amendment, may feel that we are really giving to the Welsh Church a charter of freedom. We believe that in every matter the Church in Wales will be able to be in full communion with the Church in England, just as is the Church in Ireland and the Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Church in Wales will be able to accept all the decisions of Convocation when she feels truly bound by them, and at the same time claim national freedom of her own just as the Disestablished Church of Ireland retains her national freedom. We really believe that this Amendment if it were carried would restrict the freedom of the Disestablished Church, and would force the Welsh Church to be less national.

I cannot help feeling that the fact that during a large part of this Debate there were very few Members present on the other side and I think hardly at any time during the Debate one Member representing a Welsh constituency, surely shows that Welsh Churchmen do not feel strongly on this point, and that their sympathy, if it could be freely expressed, is probably rather with the Government in resisting this Amendment, because they feel that if the Welsh Church in future is to be free she ought to be independent of Convocation. I think I may appeal to English Churchmen whether they themselves do not recognise that among the parties in the Church there is dissatisfaction with the existing constitution of Convocation. We see proposals put before Convocation and in the newspapers from time to time, and I think there is not a single party in the Church which is satisfied with Convocation as it is. Why bind a Free Church to this obsolescent body, for such it is. It is no part of essential spiritual life itself. We can be sure that the real spiritual life of the Church will continue and grow in the future far more freely, because it is left unfettered by this Bill which you are about to pass. I am quite sure that no one here wishes to resist that unity which will still subsist between the Church in Wales and the Church in England. There is no obstacle any of us wishes to bring against the bishops and clergy and laymen meeting together in prayer and meeting together for discussion and mutual edification. It is simply the legal nature of Convocation that is the obstacle. It is only so far as Convocation is a legal body that we wish to pass this proposal, which will really be for the benefit of the Church-in Wales, in our opinion; and it is because we wish to see the Church left free to be a really National Church in future, as it was in the past, that we all of us unite in resisting the Amendment.

I cannot help thinking hen. Members opposite do not quite realise what must be the effect of omitting this particular Sub-section from the Clause. The first part of the Clause down to Subsection (4), which has been passed, contemplates that the Church in Wales, when it has been Disestablished, will have the full right, not only to settle its own organisations, but also to alter its existing regulations, doctrines, rites and rules; because Sub-section (2) of Clause 3 says that the then existing regulations, doctrines, rites, rules, discipline, and ordinances of the Church of England, shall be subject to such modification and alteration, if any, as after the passing of this Act may be made therein according to the constitution and regulations for the time being of the Church in Wales. Clause 13 substantially says that nothing in any law or custom shall prevent the bishops, clergy, and laity of the Church in Wales from holding Synods or electing representatives, or from framing constitutions and regulations for the general management and good government of the Church in Wales. Let us follow what would happen if this Sub-section were omitted. In that event a certain number of the clergy of the Disestablished Church of Wales would still be called to Convocation by order of the King's Writ. The wording of the King's Writ appears in a very able book, "Law and Custom of the Constitution," by the Senior Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson), and if the Church were Disestablished, that writ would still go to the bishops and clergy of the Church in Wales if this Sub-section were omitted. The writ runs:—

"Present the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council.

"It is this day ordered by Her Majesty by and with the advice of her Privy Council that the right hon. the Lord High Chancellor of that part of her United Kingdom called Great Britain do, upon notice of this Her Majesty's order, forthwith cause writs to be issued in due form of law for electing new members of the Con vocation of the Clergy, which writs are to be returnable —"

The Archbishop of Canterbury is commanded to call together the bishops and clergy to meet in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul—

"to treat, to agree to, and conclude upon the premises and other things which shall then at the same place be more clearly explained on our behalf."

If any one of the bishops does not attend on that summons, he is guilty and subject to canonical punishment for contumacious non-attendance. The same authority tells us the legislative powers of Convocation are confined to making, repealing, or altering of canons, and the effect of those canons, unless Parliament confirms them, is to bind the clergy only. The result would be that on the writ issuing to the bishops in Wales, they would go to Convocation, and, ex hypothesi, they have their

I beg to move, in Subsection (1), paragraph (b),after the word "vested" ["all property not so vested"], to insert the words—

"not consisting of property which has been annexed to any such office or corporation by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners by way of grant, and had previously been transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners from an ecclesiastical office or cathedral corporation in the Church in England, and all property which is the produce of, or is, or has been derived from such property."

As there is no time to Debate this Amendment I move it merely with the object of asking the Home Secretary a question. It deals with certain property which formerly belonged to the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester and Westminster which has since been annexed to various benefices in Wales. We had a Debate upon the subject a week ago and the impression we then took away was that in responding to the observations then made not only upon this side of the House but on the other Side as well, the right hon. Gentleman was going to meet us and was going to allow the Church to retain some £2,000 or £3,000 a year of property which is not Welsh but English in origin. I therefore formally move this Amendment to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of saying how he intends to deal with what we were under the impression was almost a pledge which he gave that the Church should retain this property.

I beg to second the Amendment.

The hon. Gentleman quite rightly says that this matter was a subject of discussion in Committee. As I promised then, I had already entered into negotiations with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in order to satisfy myself as to the total amount of property which should be reckoned as belonging to the ancient Welsh Episcopal Capitulary Estate. I have since referred to my language, and I see that I made it perfectly clear at the time that the inquiry could not possibly be concluded before the Report stage of the Debate. I then said that before we got to the last and final stage of the Bill, and I referred particularly to the operations of the Parliament Act, I trusted we would be able to agree to the Report of the Commissioners as to what is the true basis of payment between the parties. I have, as I stated, already seen the secretary for the Commissioners, and I find that it would be necessary for him to trace certain questions as to what had been the basis of dealing with Welsh property, and I cannot therefore now give the actual figure. What I then said, and what I still adhere to, is that there ought to be, and I have no doubt there will be, a final settlement between the officials and myself as to what would be the true total of the Welsh ecclesiastical property. I think the hon. Member will agree that I could not accept this Amendment now, which, upon the face of it, makes no allowance for the admitted Welsh property which has been appropriated to English benefices. It is admitted that Amendment does not allow for the Welsh property which is devoted to English benefices. I am not sure that there is not another and larger question behind. As I said before, I accepted, at the time, as complete, the figures of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as to what was Welsh episcopal property. The Commissioners have now withdrawn from one item only, but I feel myself bound in consequence to examine personally into the whole of the figures, and until I have made that examination I must adhere to the information laid before the House by the Commissioners themselves. But I assure the hon. Member, if I am satisfied, and I will bring a perfectly fair and open mind to the question, that this £5,000 gross and £2,000 net belongs to the Church of England, I will accept an Amendment before the final stage of the Bill.

And it being Half-past Ten of the clock, ME. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 28th November, 1912, and 30th January, proceeded forthwith to put the Question already proposed from the Chair.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."

My object in moving this new Clause is to bring the procedure at jury trials in the Sheriff Courts in Scotland in civil cases into line with the procedure in the Court of Session, namely, trial by issue or issues, instead of questions being proposed to the jury and the jury in giving their verdict having to give specific answers to those questions. The form of procedure proposed has worked very satisfactorily in the Court of Session since 1870. I am not sure if I have drafted my Amendment in the correct form to secure the object I have in view, but I take it in the event of it being agreed to the Lord Advocate, with his great legal experience, will find the correct legal phraseology. Prior to 1907, jury trial in the Sheriff Court in Scotland in civil cases was unknown. In answer to a demand put forward both by employers and workmen, it was introduced into the Bill of 1907, and the jury trial in the Court of Session was taken away. The framers of the Act of 1907, however, instead of following on the lines of the well-tested procedure of the Court of Session, introduced a new form of procedure. This new form of procedure was in the nature of an experiment, an experiment which has been proved to be a complete failure. To such an extent is this the case that jury trial in civil cases in Scotland is now practically nonexistent. When the Act of 1907 was passed it was seriously questioned by many of the legal men in Scotland whether it was a wise or prudent thing to substitute for the Court of Session issue questions prepared by the sheriff, and immediately the new procedure was put to the test these fears were found to be well grounded, and a number of the cases that were tried under the new system were appealed to the Court of Session and the views of the judges in the Court of Session regarding the new system are worthy of consideration by this House before we agree to another change being made which is in the nature of an experiment. In the case of Taylor v. Sutherland, which was appealed from the Sheriff's Court at Wick to the Court of Session, the Lord President of the Court of Session, Lord Dunedin, said:—

"The whole difficulty arises from the provision as to questions. And certainly if it be permissible to question the wisdom of Parliament, one may well regret that with the experience of the English system and the Scotch system, which each in their own different ways have worked fairly well, the framers of this Act must needs devise a new plan, unfortified by experience, which very little consideration would have shown would be full of difficulty and consequent risk of miscarriage."

The Lord Justice Clerk, in the case of Adamson against the Fife Coal Company, which was appealed from the Sheriff Court of Dunfermline to the Court of Session, said:—

"I must say this is a most unfortunate case. The record is most unfortunate; the questions which were put to the jury were most unfortunate, and I am afraid that the whole result of the case may well be described as unfortunate."

And again, in the case of McColl against the Alloa Coal Company, which was appealed from the Sheriff's Court at Stirling, the Lord Justice Clerk said:—

"This is the second case that has come before the Court under the Jury Trial Clauses of the recent Sheriff Court Act of 1907. It would hardly have been, conceived that a second case could present a more unfortunate instance of miscarriage than did the first, but I must say with regret that the case now before us is much more unsatisfactory than that which was disposed of a few days ago. The record is unsatisfactory, the questions put are unsatisfactory, the directions given to the jury are unsatisfactory, and as a necessary consequence of all these regrettable circumstances the verdict of the jury is unfortunate. If such cases are conducted in the Sheriff's Court as this one has been, instead of jury trial in that Court being a blessing to litigants, it will prove something very different to the unfortunate litigants who either come into Court as pursuers or are hauled to Court as defenders."

This Bill is introduced by the Lord Advocate to repeal the provision in the Act of 1907, under which the Sheriff prepares the question of fact to be proponed to the jury. I regret to say that in Committee he accepted an Amendment which, in my opinion, is again in the nature of an experiment, and, if given effect to, in the opinion of many legal gentlemen in Scotland, will simply perpetuate the chaos that has arisen as a result of the provisions of the 1907 Act in the jury trials in the Sheriffs' Courts in Scotland. I hope the Lord Advocate will see his way to accept this new Clause. If he does not-so strongly do I feel that the provisions of this Amending Bill will continue to bear very heavily against working-class litigants, that I shall have no-alternative but to divide the House on the Question, and I hope I shall get a sufficient amount of support to carry this new Clause.

I beg to second the Motion.

I desire to support the new Clause. As the Mover has indicated, when this measure passed its Second Reading it did not contain Clause 6, so> that we can take it that the matured judgment of the Lord Advocate and of the Scottish Office was that Section 32 of the Act of 1907 should be done away with. But in Committee the acute mind of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wick Burghs (Mr. Robert Munro) suggested Clause 6 as it stands to the Lord Advocate, who, with the suavity that characterises him, accepted it, I think too hurriedly. Section 32 of the Act of 1907 runs as follows:—

"Where jury trial has been ordered the Sheriff shall after hearing parties, if he shall think that necessary or desirable, issue an interlocutor setting forth the question or questions of fact to be at the trial proponed to the jury."

Before that date cases of workmen's compensation had always been tried by the Court of Session, but when the cases came up there the judges put to the juries a simple issue:—"Did the workman sustain injury?" and, "Was the employer to blame?" They were asked to answer simply "Yes" or "No." By the Act of 1907 the possibility of having cases of this description tried before the Sheriffs' Courts was introduced, and a new system was also introduced of dealing with the cases in those Courts, namely, the system of asking the Sheriff to propone various questions of fact to the juries. That system has proved a complete and an arrant failure and the Lord Advocate "was of that opinion when he introduced this measure, because he removed altogether from the Statute Book Section 32 of the 1907 Act. The questions and the method of stating these questions have been condemned by practically all the judges. A distinguished ex-Secretary for Scotland has said that those questions are full of difficulty and that what a judge of the Supreme Court, after years of experience finds it hard to do, is supposed to be easy for the Sheriff-Substitute, who has had little, if any, such experience. The Lord Justice Clerk, the second highest judge in Scotland, said the questions which were put to the jury were most unfortunate. All the Lords of the Court of Session have condemned the questions put by the Sheriff-Substitute in the Lower Court. By Clause 6, the Lord Advocate has reconstituted this system of asking questions on the part of the Sheriff. T think he has erred in this respect, and I hope he will accept the Amendment or, at any rate, revert to his former position, and delete Clause 6 entirely from the measure.

The hon. Member has unwittingly attributed to me credit in connection with this Clause which entirely appertains, if any credit is due in connection with it, to the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger), who moved it in Committee. I supported him on that occasion, and I desire to do so again to-night. It is well that the House should clearly understand the distinction between the two rival proposals. If the hon. Member's (Mr. Adamson) proposal is entertained, the question which will be put to the jury will be an entirely general question, namely, whether on or about a certain day and at or about a certain place, the pursuer was injured through the fault of the defenders. If, on the other hand, the proposal which has been embodied in this Bill is accepted, the Sheriff may, if he thinks fit or if he is asked by either of the parties, will be directed to put to the jury specific questions with a view to ascertaining what the particular fault which the jury find proved may happen to be. I think from the point of view both of the pursuer in the action and of the defenders that is the preferable proposal. If the verdict is returned in answer to the general question which my hon. Friend (Mr. Adamson) proposed, neither the pursuers nor the defenders will have the remotest idea as to what the precise fault which the jury affirms may be. I think that will be a disadvantage from the point of view of the pursuer. It will result in this: If a specific question is put and a specific answer is returned the pursuer will have affirmed that a certain fault has been proved against the defenders, and the defenders from the most sordid point of view, namely, the point of view of their pocket, will be induced to put that matter right in order that they may not be again sued and damages recovered from them on the ground of that particular fault. It will also be an advantage from the point of view of the defenders because they will ascertain what the particular fault which the jury has affirmed may be. I think they have a right to know what that fault may be in order that they may avoid in future any such action as has been brought against them in the past. I think therefore from the point of view both of the pursuers and of the defenders the proposal in the Bill is more of an advantage than the proposal which is embodied in the Amendment. My hon. Friend has suggested that this is the same system as is at present followed in the Court of Session. That is quite true, but then in the Court of Session if any judge thinks it proper or right in any particular case to get a specific answer to a specific question he puts the specific question. I know quite well from the experience I have had of Lord Dunedin he has often put specific questions to the jury to answer in order that he may know what their view is; but with all respect to the Sheriffs of Scotland I venture to think that, unless directed by Statute to put these questions, they will not take the responsibility of doing so, and accordingly a general question and a general answer, unsatisfactory to both parties, will be returned. My hon. Friend has said if these questions are put the result will be unsatisfactory. So far as that is concerned, the only criticism levelled by Lord Dunedin and other judges of the Court of Session has been with regard to the system under the Act of 1907. That Act requires that the questions shall be framed upon the pleadings, that is to say, at a stage before the evidence has emerged and before the Sheriff or the jury is fully acquainted with the case. No doubt that system has proved a failure, but the proposal of the Bill is that the questions shall not be put until after the evidence has been led and until the Sheriff is about to charge the jury. There has been no criticism of the system of questions, but only as to the stage at which the questions shall be put. Experience teaches that the present system followed in the Sheriff Courts is unsatisfactory, and that the system proposed by this Bill is more satisfactory whether you regard it from the point of view of the pursuer or the defender in (he action. In either case their interests will be better served by the proposal in the Bill than by the proposal which my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife makes.

As I was responsible for moving the Clause in Committee perhaps I may be allowed to express my view. The charges made against the Amendment by the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Mr. Watt) are directed to a totally different point altogether. They were quite proper, but they do not in the least affect the proposal now made. It surely stands to reason that both employers and employés

I have no hesitation whatever in responding to the appeal made by the hon. Baronet opposite, and in adhering to the Clause as it stands in the Bill. The reasons have been so admirably and briefly stated by, the hon. Member for Wick Burghs (Mr. Munro) that I think it is unnecessary to detain the House by reciting them. It is perfectly true that in the Bill as originally introduced I proposed to delete Section 32, and so get rid of the procedure therein described, which I do not for a moment deny, led to the chaos and confusion to which the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Adamson) referred. But this Clause which stands in the Bill and which is quite properly regarded as an alternative to the new Clause moved by the hon. Member for West Fife, relieves us entirely of the difficulty found in connection with the wording of Section 32. I should not have accepted this new Clause even if Clause 6 had not been inserted, because the result would have been to lead to a general issue which really sheds no light whatever on the case, and I am satisfied that Clause 6 will be a clear and decided advantage, not only to the employer, but also to the worker, and for the reasons which have been so admirably expressed by the hon. and learned Member.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (l), paragraph (c), after the word "expenses" ["interest and expenses"], to insert the words "or is being tried as a summary cause."

The object of this Amendment is to give effect to the intention of the proviso to Section 2 which prevents any appeal to the Court of Session from the Sheriff Court, where the cause does not exceed £50, and which should include all summary causes. The purpose of the Amendment is to make it quite clear that the proviso applies to all causes tried as summary causes. There is a provision in this Bill extending the definition of summary causes further than it was under the Act of 1907, so that it includes also causes exceeding £50 in value where both parties consent to the cause being tried as a summary cause. By the Bill there is a portion of Clause 8 of the 1907 Sheriff Court Act repealed, which would leave summary causes in their new and extended definition still open to appeal without the leave of the sheriff. It is therefore necessary to meet that possible case, by inserting these words.