I rise to support the second reading of this Bill; and I will venture to state very shortly what its objects and provisions are. I think I may say that its principal object is, in one word, to give effect to an Act which was passed during last Session for the construction of a Ship Canal between Manchester and the sea. I may say at once that it is felt by the promoters—it has always been felt by the promoters— that the powers which are asked for in this Bill were necessary in order to carry out the construction of the works which were sanctioned by Parliament last year. The Bill itself is a very simple measure. It provides for the payment of interest during the construction of the Canal at 4 per cent per annum. It provides that such interest shall only be paid in respect of the time authorized by the Act of 1885 for the completion of the works thereby authorized, or such less time as the Directors may determine. It also provides that no such interest shall accrue in favour of any shareholders for any time during which any call on any of his shares is in arrear; that the aggregate amount to be so paid for interest shall not exceed the sum of £752,000; that the total amount of money which the Company are by the Act of 1885 authorized to borrow shall be reduced by an amount equal to one-fourth of the sum expended in the payment of such interest, and that such reduction shall be made from the last instalment of £500,000 by the said Act authorized to be borrowed; that every prospectus, advertisement, or other document of the Company inviting subscriptions for shares in the undertaking and every certificate of such shares shall contain a notice that the Company has power so to pay interest or dividend; and that the half-yearly accounts of the Company shall show the amount of capital on which and the rate at which such interest or dividend has been paid. I may say that the various provisions of the Bill which I have read to the House are all in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House in reference to this question. It may be very properly asked why the powers sought for by the Bill were not asked for in the Bill of last Session before it became an Act? My answer is that they were asked for, and they have always been asked for. Probably hon. Members are aware that the Manchester Ship Canal has been before Parliament during the last three years, and in every Bill introduced by the promoters this clause was contained. The first Bill was referred to a Select Committee of this House. On the second occasion the investigation commenced in the House of Lords, and there the Earl of Redesdale allowed the clause to go through the Committee, although, I believe, he had a personal objection to it; and it was passed by that Committee of the House of Lords on the one condition that the Earl of Redesdale should withdraw his opposition. When the Bill came before the House the Earl of Redesdale did not withdraw his opposition, and the Bill was ultimately lost. On the third occasion on which the Manchester Ship Canal Bill was introduced the Earl of Redesdale objected to the clause being put into the Bill, or if it were put into the Bill he proposed to enter such an objection to it that it would be fatal to the measure. As a matter of fact, when the Bill came before a Select Committee of the House of Commons there was no power to reinsert the clause, and the promoters were perfectly helpless in the matter. The object and intention of the promoters last year was, on the consideration of the Report in this House, to propose and ask for the power we are now asking for; but it will be apparent when I say that the Bill only came down to this House just before the close of the Session; that it only passed through the Select Committee on the 30th of July last year; and that it was impossible to ask the House, with any chance of passing the Bill, for powers which might be fatal to the entire Bill. The promoters, therefore, preferred to have half a loaf rather than no bread. That is the simple explanation why we appear this year in this form, when we should infinitely have preferred to have dealt with the matter in the clauses of the Bill of last year. We have always endeavoured to do so, and it was only owing to the peculiar circumstances of the case that we were not able to carry out our intentions. The assertion has been made that the promoters of the Bill have failed to raise the necessary capital; but I venture to say that that is not the case. It never was supposed for one moment that they would be able to raise the capital with the disability they now labour under, by the absence of the powers now asked for in the provisions of this Bill. References have been made on more than one occasion to the promises which were given when the Bill passed through Committee—to the strong assurances which are stated to have been given that the capital would be raised. Now I venture to say that there is no proof, and that no proof can be brought, that those promises were made on any other assumption than that these powers would ultimately be obtained by the promoters. I believe that the conditions under which it is expected that this capital will be raised will be the ordinary conditions—the conditions under which every Company, with few exceptions, is able to raise its capital. The fact is that there has been no large undertaking in this country ever started which, in some way or other, did not pay interest during construction, and it will be admitted that all existing Companies are able to pay interest during any extension. I do not think that will be denied. I could bring forward many instances to prove the truth of the statement I make; but I will only mention one—namely, the case of the Great Western Railway Company. It was stated at the last yearly meeting of that Company that they were paying a dividend of one and three-fourths of a million of money which the Severn Tunnel cost them, although that tunnel is not yet increasing the receipts of the Company in any way. Then there is the case of Limited Liability Companies. Limited Liability Companies are all of them able to pay interest during the construction of works, if they are so pleased. Then there is also the case of various Indian Railways. Indian Railways I believe, without exception, pay interest during the construction of works. All enterprizes abroad pay interest in a similar way, and there is no prohibition whatever. In point of fact, it is quite the reverse; for in France Companies are actually bound to provide capital for the payment of interest during the construction of works. Then we come to another instance which, I think, with Parliament ought to have a considerable amount of weight—that is the practice of getting contractors to finance works, and paying interest during construction. I would also refer to a precedent which Parliament itself established last year in the case of the Hull and Barnsley Railway Bill, which was specially introduced, and received the sanction of Parliament, for the payment of interest out of capital during the construction of the works. I think these are instances which should induce the House to permit the relaxation of the ordinary Rules. It cannot be expected for one moment that capitalists will come forward to provide capital for this great undertaking, especially when we consider the large amount which it is necessary to raise on an important undertaking like this, without they have some return for the money they advance, seeing that the Bill allows seven years to the promoters for the completion of the scheme. I do not think, when you come to consider all these exceptions which Parliament has made in one form or another, that you could expect the capitalists of Lancashire and Yorkshire to forego, in the promotion of a great work of this kind, the interest on capital which they are realizing in other directions, for a period of seven years. That is my answer to the charge that we are attempting to defeat the Rule of Parliament that interest on capital shall not be paid during construction of works. I now come to another point, and that is that it is asserted that a bargain or settlement was come to when the Bill was before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, and that we are attempting to get behind that settlement and bargain by the present Bill. That is the allegation which is made by our opponents; and it is stated that the provisions which were contained in the Bill of last year were not enforced by the Committee, but were voluntarily offered by the promoters of the Bill. The condition under which the Bill was passed is said to be that £7,000,000 should be raised before any works were undertaken or began with regard to the construction of the Canal. That is said by our opponents to have been a condition imposed upon us as a substantial test of the financial merits of the scheme. Now, I venture to deny that proposition altogether. It was not imposed as a substantial test of the financial merits of the scheme. I do not think that Parliament had anything to do with the question whether the capital could be raised for this undertaking or not. Certainly, Parliament ought to see whether the scheme was a substantial or a bogus one; and the Committee would have been very ill-informed if they had only sanctioned the scheme on the hypothesis that the works would ultimately be carried out. No doubt, there are many schemes which have received the sanction of Parliament which capitalists have not ultimately supported; but the real reason of the present opposition to the Bill is not that there is any desire to protect the capitalists, but to protect a great interest which it is thought would be interfered with by the action of the promoters of the Bill. The object of Parliament has been to prevent the public from sub-scribing to undertakings unless there was a fair prospect of the whole capital being subscribed. The desire was to prevent a small amount of capital being raised and works begun when, after all, the works thus commenced would never be finally carried out, and the money embarked in them would be entirely lost. It was to protect the public from embarking in undertakings of that kind that this condition was imposed. We are told by our opponents that we are breaking the guarantee which we gave when we obtained the Act of last year; but if we get the powers we are now asking for, and facilities to pay interest out of capital during the construction of works, I maintain that we shall give a greater guarantee for the success of the Canal, or, at any rate, for its completion, than we have ever been able to give before. I observe from the Notice Paper that the question of how this matter is to be dealt with in this House is to be raised by my noble Friend the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton); and it would appear that our opponents are not seriously going to discuss the question on its merits on the second reading, but are going to suggest that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. I believe that a complaint is made by them which they feel themselves debarred from raising in the ordinary way, and therefore they ask to be heard in an unusual and an unfair manner. All I can say is that, in the first place, our opponents are here to-day, and they can raise any objection to this Bill which they please. But, more than that, we have taken no step whatever to debar them from going before a Select Committee if the ordinary Rules and Regulations of the House will permit them to do so. We are perfectly prepared, if they have a right to be heard against the Bill which we now ask the House to read a second time, to meet them before a Select Committee; but we do not think that we have any right in justice to ourselves, after the large amount of money we have already spent, and the great delay which took place before we were able to obtain the sanction of Parliament to our Bill, to increase that amount of cost and that delay, in I order to place them in a position to be heard. Parliament has laid down certain Standing Orders which guide the practice of the House in questions such as this. If the interests of any Petitioner against the Bill are affected by the measure they will obtain a locus standi before a Committee; and if they are not affected by the Bill, I want to know why they should be heard? Now, I believe there is a great impression abroad that, in the introduction of this Bill, we are pressing a principle which is opposed to sound finance, and altogether contrary to the principles of what is called financial morality, and that we are endeavouring to make an exception from the principle already laid down by Parliament. I am not going to argue the question whether that principle has already been laid down by Parliament or not. I merely state my own opinion that I believe the prohibition to pay interest during the construction of the works has never been laid down absolutely by Parliament. The exceptions are so numerous in every direction that, certainly, it is a principle which the House may be fairly asked on a special occasion to give way upon. Nor has the principle been consistently applied. In the first place, borrowed capital on all these undertakings has always received interest, and that interest is paid during the construction of works, although no profit has been earned by the Company undertaking the works. Then, again, interest is paid on calls made in advance, and in that case Parliament has given its permission to payments being made out of capital as a return to those who pay their calls in advance. Once more, there are the Limited Liability Companies, every one of which, although the provisions of the Companies' Clauses Act are against this power, can at once take advantage of the power; and they have always received the authority of the Board of Trade as a matter of course. In the next place, there are great evasions of the prohibition, if such prohibition exists, by contractors and others, which I must admit are very prejudicial to the economy of most of our great undertakings. I may now be allowed for a moment to refer to the reasons why I urge upon the House the desirability of passing the second reading of this Bill on this occasion. The Act of 1885, which was passed after a three years' struggle carried on at enormous expense, will, I believe, be perfectly inoperative if this Bill does not receive the sanction of Parliament. I need scarcely say that this is not a bogus Company—that it is not a Company created by what are usually called promoters, however estimable promoters may be. I am not offering any opinion with regard to promoters at all; nor am I saying a word about them in a sinister sense; I am only saying that this Company was not got up by promoters. The Company may be more truly described as a great effort on the part of a great community to relieve themselves of difficulties of transit, and of the cost of that transit, which they feel to be very oppressive on the whole trade of the district. I do not mean to say a word against railways which have served the district well in the past, and which may serve the district well in the future; nor have I anything to say against the Port of Liverpool. There, again, Manchester has been very much indebted to Liverpool; but I do object that in these times of great depression and difficulty the people of the district should not have a right to come to Parliament, and, if they can, to suggest a mode whereby their productions can be sent to the consumers at a cheaper rate than that which at present exists, so that their trade may be improved, with a due regard, not only to the railway interests, but with due regard also to the interests of Liverpool. I think, on the contrary, that it is their right to come to Parliament and ask Parliament to give their sanction to such an undertaking; and I will venture to add that it seems to me that there is another claim on the House of Commons. And it is this. At the present moment, if there is one subject which is exciting the minds of commercial men and those engaged in industrial pursuits more than another, it is the great loss sustained in the country by allowing the waterways to be taken up and employed by Companies, so that, to a great extent, they are destroyed as a means of transit. Not only should we endeavour to open out new waterways, but, what is of more importance, we should endeavour to utilize and extend the advantages of a natural waterway which we have at present from Manchester to the sea; and I cannot help feeling that, in looking to the future, the efforts which are now made to reduce the cost of production and the cost of transit as one of the items in that cost are efforts which Parliament will be led to entertain and support. That every effort should be made to endeavour to extend and utilize the waterways of the country is important, because it is a well-known fact, patent to everyone, that when we have waterways once laid down the natural cost of their maintenance must be considerably less—probably one-half of what it would cost to maintain railways. Now, I venture to say that this is a Bill that has not been smuggled through Parliament. It has been three years before Parliament and before the country. I do not suppose that there is a single constituency in the whole of Lancashire and Yorkshire who do not know everything about it. Therefore, although Parliament ought to be truly jealous of giving its sanction to schemes of a bogus character, I do not think that any imputation can be thrown on the Manchester Ship Canal Company for anything that has hitherto taken place in regard to this scheme. After the criticisms and examination which the Bill received from six Select Committees, and the opposition it received in every stage, I think there is no danger, in the House of Commons passing this Bill, that any investment, however small, will be made under any misapprehension of the objects which the promoters have in view. I am in a position to say that if this Bill is passed, the capitalists, not only of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but of other parts of the country, will come forward and find the capital for the undertaking. I may mention many cases that I know of myself of individuals who have given small sums of £2,000, £3,000, and £4,000 for the purpose of putting them in this Canal as the result of what the opponents of the Bill have called a vigorous canvass. That vigorous canvass was nothing more than the employment of agents who were sent round to those who subscribed to the original expense of getting the Bill, asking them to subscribe further sums of money. The fact of the matter is that we went about the matter in a different way. We knew that we had a large sum of money to raise; we made our arrangements to ascertain how we could raise the capital; and our desire was to induce those who had given small subscriptions to pay the expenses which attended the promotion of the Bill to say what further amounts they were prepared to subscribe. There are, no doubt, many gentlemen in Manchester who have subscribed small amounts who are prepared to go to a much more considerable expense if this Bill is passed. I may mention the remarkable case of the Wholesale Co-operative Society, which has taken about £10,000 worth of shares; and I hope the House will allow me to mention what that Society is. I think the House will be surprised to hear that this Wholesale Co-operative Society of Manchester has a turnover of £3,000,000 a-year, and a turnover in its banking department of £16,000,000; and this Co-operative Society has already taken £10,000 worth of shares. It advanced 5 per cent upon its share capital; and the Directors naturally say—"Until we can offer to those for whom we act some similar interest during the time of construction we cannot take more shares or lock up more capital in this undertaking, which must be un-remunerative during the time of construction." I may mention another interesting fact—that the Salford Corporation have promoted a Bill in order to enable them to take shares in this undertaking to the amount of £250,000. They have just taken a poll of the ratepayers of Salford in order to ascertain their feelings in the matter, and the result was only announced the other day, when, out of 19,000 votes which were recorded, 16,653 were given in favour, against 2,440. Now, I venture to think that this is not a question which affects Lancashire and Yorkshire only. Our opponents have tried to make out that there was a bargain made before the Committee which passed the Bill, and that we made promises that the capital should be raised in Lancashire and Yorkshire. No such idea was ever in the minds of the promoters. The fact is, that those interested in the Ship Canal are very many more than those who inhabit the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. We believe that Ireland is very much interested in the success of this Canal; and it is interested materially in the transit of articles of a perishable nature by means of this Canal. They will be able to bring their productions rapidly to Manchester; and the same remark applies to every part of England which will show their appreciation of this scheme by taking shares in the Canal if this Bill is passed. I have only one word more to say with regard to the proposal that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee; and I will say at once that the reason why we resist that proposal is not because we are not anxious that our opponents should have fair play, but we think that they have had fair play. The Bill does not refer to those fiery questions we have had in regard to this Ship Canal; but the only reason why we approve this proposal is, that there has already been a large amount of money spent, and a considerable delay in commencing the important work we have in hand. I do not know whether the House is aware of the fact that no less than £250,000 has been spent in the preliminary stages of prosecuting the Act of 1885, and that no less than 175 days, or six months, were spent in proceedings upstairs, where, I am sure, our opponents had every opportunity of stating all the arguments they could bring to bear against the scheme. I do think, under these circumstances, that the time has now arrived when full effect should be given to the Act of Parliament passed last Session. If our opponents have a locus standi, they will have a right to be heard in opposition to the Bill; but I cannot consent to a new departure being opened to them, which will only result in materially adding to the cost and delay which will attend the carrying out of this scheme.

I rise with some regret to move the rejection of this Bill. I do so not only in the interest of those whom I represent, but also in support of the independence of Private Bill Committees in this House, and also in support of their decisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Houldsworth) stated that the Bill was introduced for the purpose of giving effect to the Act of last Session; but, as far as I can read the Bill, it was introduced not for the purpose of giving effect to the Act of last Session, but for the purpose of upsetting and reversing the provisions which that Act contains. Now, my constituents, the people of Liverpool, have opposed this scheme since its first introduction on one ground only. They are not afraid of competition in trade. They do not think that if the Canal were made it would have any considerable effect on the great trade of Liverpool; but what they fear is that if the Canal were made it would so interfere with the navigation of the estuary of the Mersey as to destroy the commerce of the port, and so cause ruin to hundreds and thousands who gain a livelihood by that commerce. I do not, on this occasion, propose to go into the engineering or the commercial merits of the undertaking. They were fully dealt with by the Committee, and it would not be right or proper to take up the time of the House in dealing with them now. What I wish to address myself to mainly is, the point of agreement arrived at by the Committee of last year at the instance of the promoters of the Bill, and the alteration in the capital powers now contemplated by the provisions of the present Bill. My hon. Friend says that the Bill of 1883 was introduced into the House of Commons and passed by this House without the clauses relating to the payment of interest out of capital being expunged. That is perfectly true; but when the Preamble was passed by the Committee upstairs, the opponents of the Bill withdrew their opposition for the purpose of carrying it to "another place." The Bill went to the House of Lords with the clauses which it contained untouched, and that House rejected the measure on its merits. In 1884 a fresh Bill was introduced in the House of Lords; and, as those who were in Parliament at the time are aware, the provisions providing for the payment of interest out of capital were struck out in that House, and the Bill was ultimately lost before a Committee of the House of Commons. In 1885 the Bill was introduced again in the House of Lords, and it contained a clause asking for permission to pay interest out of capital. That clause was struck out before the Bill went into Committee, and the Bill, after it received the sanction of the House of Lords, came down to the House of Commons and was discussed here; but no question was raised on the subject of the payment of interest out of capital. During the whole consideration of the Bill that question was never raised by the promoters, nor was it, directly or indirectly, alluded to by them. The investigations of both Committees of last Session were of a most painstaking character. The Bill occupied a large amount of attention, and what mainly struck the Committees of both Houses was this—the continued assertions of the promoters of the Bill that if the scheme were passed by Parliament they would be able without the slightest difficulty to raise in Manchester and the district the amount of money that might be required for carrying out the undertaking. Indeed, it was stated that Manchester itself would not only raise the capital required under the Bill, but a great deal more if necessary. I must, therefore, take exception to what foil from my hon. Friend in regard to that matter. I have a copy of the speeches delivered in Committee, and also the evidence of the chief witnesses called in support of the Bill. Now, what was it that Mr. Pember, the counsel for the promoters of the Bill, said? He said—

"I am not afraid that you will get any doubtful answer on the matter. The men who spent £1,000,000 on the Town Hall, upon a splendid toy, so to speak, merely to be the pride and boast of their city, are not likely to hesitate about finding six times or nine times the amount necessary for the construction of an artery which is to carry their commercial life-blood and provide for the development of their trade."

Then, again, he said, before the Lords' Committee—

"Do you suppose that we shall not find the money? Do you suppose that a population which has invested £100,000,000 of money in one industry alone, which is the case of the cotton trade, would not find £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 of money if it were wanted, which, after all, only comes to 10 per cent upon the capital to preserve an industry which £100,000,000 represents? Of course they would."

He said, further—

"Are you going to disbelieve these people, and to say that the caste which they represent, and in a measure who are worth hundreds of millions of money, invested in businesses which they see stagnating or pining, and they believe conscientiously to be in a decline, cannot find a tenth or a twentieth part of the money invested to save what they have already invested? The notion to me is too absurd for argument."

Let me turn now to the evidence of Mr. Adamson, the chief promoter of the Bill. Being asked if the promoters would be able to raise the capital, he said—

"I should be very much disappointed if a large excess of the capital required is not raised."

That was his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons. In the Lords' Committee in 1883 I find, these Questions and Answers in his evidence—

"You say that you are certain that you will be able to raise the capital? Answer—That is my impression.—Question—Then I suppose, as you would be able to do so, you would not see any objection to being compelled to do so?—Answer—Not to raise a very large portion of it I am quite sure."

When the Bill was before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1884 Mr. Adamson was asked—

"Do you think that there will be any difficulty, if this Bill passes, in raising the necessary capital to commence and complete these Canal works?"

His reply was—

"No; I think with Sir William Forwood, when speaking in Liverpool about a fortnight ago, that there will be no difficulty; and my own private impressions are that if the capital was £20,000,000, and Lancashire saw that there was a prospect of a reasonable remuneration, she would find the money for this great project."

Then he was further asked—

"You have not the least doubt of raising the capital if the Bill is passed through Parliament?"

and he replied—

"Not the slightest doubt."

Evidence to a similar effect to that of Mr. Adamson was given by the Mayor of Manchester, the Town Clerk, and others. Last year Mr. Adamson was asked—

"Have you any doubt that if the Committee see fit to authorize this scheme the capital will be forthcoming?"

His reply was—

"I have not indeed, or I would not have given my time and my money annually to the support of this scheme; and I think when the Committee have before them the fact that the great Corporations of Manchester, of Salford, and of Warrington, and all the other boroughs that are interested in this matter are supporting us, there can be no question of finding the money from 7,000,000 of people."

There can be no doubt that the statement was distinctly made that the people of Manchester were so largely interested in the undertaking that the general public would not be asked to subscribe a farthing. That statement materially influenced the Committee both in the Lords and Commons. The feeling was that it would not be right, when Lancashire or so large a portion of Lancashire was unanimous in asking for these powers, to reject the Bill; and it was, therefore, decided to pass the measure. At the same time, it was passed in a manner which is worthy of the attention of the House. It must be remembered that the objections to the Bill were urged in three successive years; and the various Committees to which the Bill was submitted were so much struck with the force of those objections that in passing the Bill they imposed on the promoters very stringent provisions, such as I do not recollect to have ever seen inserted before in an Act of Parliament. I may add that they were simply inserted for the protection of the opponents of the Bill. I rather think that it was at the invitation of the promoters, in the first instance, that a provision was inserted to require that £5,000,000 should be subscribed within two years of the passing of the Act before one sod of earth was turned; and that was exclusive of the sum of £1,710,000 which it was necessary to raise for the purchase of the Bridge-water Canal, which sum was also to be subscribed within the period of two years. The original deposit of £276,000, instead of being released on the passing of the Bill, was impounded, and it was actually to be impounded for three years after the passing of the Bill. Engineering works were also required to be carried out, not at the instance of the Port of Liverpool, but of other Petitioners. These stringent provisions were all accepted without demur by the promoters of the Bill; they accepted them gladly, and raised no objection to them. I have no doubt that the Committee thought they were prepared to abide by them; and, as I have said before, not one word was said about the payment of interest out of capital. On the contrary, the promoters assured the Committee that the capital proposed to be raised under the powers given by the Bill would be raised without any further clause to provide for payment of interest out of capital. What took place when the Bill passed? There was great rejoicing in Manchester; there was a magnificent pageant through the streets of Manchester. Champagne flowed, and there was a good deal of tall talk indulged in. "When everyone had been raised to the proper pitch of excitement, then Mr. Adamson commenced his canvass in order to raise the capital. The response was something magnificent. Out of a capital of £8,000,000 the promoters of the Bill actually succeeded in raising £750,000—rather less than one-eighth of the whole sum. Now, what was the reason of that? Was it an admission that Manchester is poor and impoverished? Poor impoverished Manchester! I am sure that Liverpool looks upon her with the greatest possible commiseration. Here is a work which we are told is necessary to save her existence; to protect her trade from stagnation and ruin—here was a measure in which there was at once to be invested millions of the capital of Lancashire, and which the people of Lancashire would freely support in order to save the money they had already invested; but when the time comes, and an appeal is made to impoverished Manchester, they only raise a sum of £750,000. But are they really impoverished? Does my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Houldsworth) look like an impoverished man? Does the hon. Member for Manchester, who supports the Bill on the other side of the House, look as if he was going through a period of privation and starvation? No, Sir; the reason why the money was not raised was very apparent to every man who has been behind the scenes in this matter; and I will briefly and graphically describe what it is. A short time ago a respectable artizan of Manchester called upon the Secretary of the Liverpool Dock Board, and he said that he would like to renew a Dock-bond he held, and which was falling due. "Ah," said the Secretary, "why not take them out and invest them in the Manchester Ship Canal?" With a knowing wink, the artizan replied—"No, Sir; I shouts for the Canal, but they see's none of my brass." That, Sir, is the whole question. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester "shouts for the Canal." My right hon. Friend who represents Blackburn (Sir Robert Peel), who appears to be so itching to speak, is about to shout for the Canal; but the Canal will see none, or very little, of their brass. The people of Manchester are a long-headed, a cute, and astute people; they know that this undertaking is unsound; and, knowing that, they will not invest their capital in it. What do they propose to do? They appear to be acting upon a maxim which has now become somewhat celebrated—that the people who have money and no brains were made for the people who have brains and no money. They come now to Parliament for power to pay interest out of capital, and then to go to the general public in order to induce them, under specious promises of paying interest out of capital, to invest their money in this undertaking, to which the people of Lancashire decline to subscribe. Now, I maintain that the principle of paying interest out of capital is unsound, in itself; but that is not the question which I wish to raise at the present moment. What I want to point out is that this is a breach of the solemn agreement come to between the promoters of the Bill and the Committee of the House of Commons. "What were the proposals in regard to the capital to be raised under these different Bills? In 1883 the capital was to be £8,000,000, and in the Bill of that year the promoters inserted a power to pay interest out of capital; but the payment of interest out of capital was over and beyond the share capital of £8,000,000. In 1884 they repented that provision; but in 1885, in addition to the £8,000,000, power was asked to raise additional capital, which would add £2 to every share, with the intention of devoting that sum to the payment of interest out of capital, the sum itself amounting to something like £600,000—that was beyond the £8,000,000 of share capital which the promoters declared to be necessary for the construction of the works, and which was admitted by the witnesses to be necessary. What does the present Bill propose to do? It proposes to pay interest out of the existing capital of £8,000,000 to the extent of £752,000, and to reduce the borrowing powers by £188,000; so that the promoters reduce the capital of £8,000,000 by £940,000, or, roughly speaking, by £1,000,000 sterling. Now, how can they come with an honest face to the House of Commons and ask for a reduction of share capital, when only last year, before a Committee of the House of Lords, they stated that the total sum of £8,000,000 was absolutely necessary for the due construction of the works? I think I have given some reasons why the Bill, on its merits, should be rejected on the second reading; but if the House in its wisdom thinks fit to pass the Bill, I would ask that we be allowed to be heard before the Select Committee. Had the promoters proposed before the Committee of last year that they should have the power of paying interest out of capital, we, the Petitioners, would have been before that Committee, and would have had our own locus standi. Since that time the promises held out to the Committee have been ignored, and the House has been cruelly deceived. What are we to do under existing circumstances? Are we, the Petitioners, with such enormous interests at stake, to be deprived of the advantage of being heard by counsel before the Select Committee? I do not believe for a moment that the House will perpetrate such an injustice, or impose such a manifest hardship upon us. We want to hear from the Chairman of Committees personally what his views are on this subject. We have already seen a Report, which comes from the Board of Trade, on the general proposal of the Bill, and I wish to make one observation in respect to that most remarkable Paper. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade received a deputation representing the promoters of the Bill, to which he very properly replied that he could give no opinion as to the Bill, but that he would do whatever was right. Subsequently he received a deputation from the Petitioners, and he received them, as the right hon. Gentleman always does, with the greatest courtesy. Having heard the statements of the deputation, the right hon. Gentleman said he would give due weight to what had been urged, but that he could not pledge himself to a particular course. But before the right hon. Gentleman heard that deputation what had happened? Why, it appears that that irresponsible authority—that Bismarck of Whitehall—Sir Thomas Farrer, had sent a document to the newspapers in support of the Bill. [Mr. MUNDELLA: No.] Surely it cannot be denied that before the right hon. Gentleman made his statement to the deputation on Friday last the document to which I refer was already in the hands of the Press! I make no charge against the right hon. Gentleman, but merely against Sir Thomas Farrer, who has adopted a course almost without precedent in regard to this Bill. I hope that the House of Commons, if they do not see fit to reject the Bill, will see that the Petitioners against it have a due locus standi, and that they are not placed in a worse position than they would have been if they had been heard upon this point before a Select Committee last year. Our Committees are proverbial for the impartiality with which they act in a judicial character; and I, for one, would never question the impartiality and integrity of the Members who discharge the onerous duties imposed upon them by the House; but I say that when, after three years, an undertaking was come to, after a protracted and painstaking inquiry, an undertaking was given by the promoters of the Bill, it is a monstrous thing for the same promoters, within four months of the passage of the Bill, to come to the House of Commons with a new measure asking us to upset the decision arrived at, and to introduce an entirely new principle, foreign, I am happy to say, to a great extent, to the Legislature of this country, in an attempt to raise money for the prosecution of a scheme which I believe to be ridiculous, and one which will never be carried out, and which is opposed to the interests of a large and important body of the community.

In rising to second the Motion of my noble Friend, that this Bill be read a second time on this day six months, I wish to say that I have no hostility whatever to the Manchester Ship Canal itself as an undertaking. My opposition is confined entirely to the payment of interest out of capital; and I shall heartily oppose any Bill, whether it is a Railway Bill, a Canal Bill, or a Dock Bill, which sanctions the payment of interest out of capital, and which is a payment of no interest at all, but simply a return to the investors of a portion of their own capital. I listened with great attention to the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Houldsworth), in the hope of finding out whether he had any arguments to offer in favour of the Bill; but I fail to find any argument at all. According to his account, all I could gather was that the House last year had sanctioned a Bill, and had sanctioned an appeal to the public to raise £8,000,000 in order to carry out the undertaking, but that the public have declined to find that £8,000,000. Naturally, that is extremely annoying to those who hoped to benefit by the expenditure of that sum of money; and, therefore, the promoters of the Bill now come to the House and ask to be allowed to offer new inducements, new baits, and new supposed advantages to the public, in order to make them find the money. Now, what are the inducements which the House is asked to sanction? What are their character? Are they such as would induce any sensible man to put his money into this undertaking, and would he feel inclined to do so without such inducements? Are they inducements of such a character as would enable a man of intelligence to look upon this undertaking as a good investment? Would they convert, if granted, a bad investment into a good one? What can any investor gain from the undertaking? It confers no pecuniary advantage on the investor. There is no glory or honour to be obtained in holding shares in the Manchester Ship Canal Company. If any man wishes to put £100 into this undertaking, would he be a richer man if this Bill is passed or not? It is a mere question, as the Americans say, of whether there is money in it. If there is money in it, I grant that this advantage must make the investor a richer man; but is it a genuine thing? If the inducement held out to him will not make the investor richer, then, I say, it is not a genuine thing, and it ought to be unhesitatingly condemned by the House. There are two considerations involved in this question. The first is—ought a Company to be allowed to return to an investor his own capital and call it interest? The second is—ought they to be allowed to increase the nominal amount of their capital by the payment of a further amount on account of interest? By this Bill the House is asked to do both of these things. We are asked to allow the Company to spend £750,000 in the shape of interest on capital during the construction of works, and to add that sum to the capital of the Company. If they are to add £750,000 to the capital so long as a shareholder holds his shares, it is a matter of no moment to him what the amount of the capital is nominally; but when he sells his shares he has an advantage in having marked on a piece of paper that a share for which he has only paid £90 is worth £95. But the ordinary public do not like to pay a premium for their shares; and, therefore, if only £90 is to be spent instead of £95, why should we give the investor a piece of paper on which £95 is to be marked? We are asked to allow this Company to pay interest out of capital during the construction of works, so that the shareholder who is induced to put his money into the concern should receive interest on an amount of each share which it did not really represent. It is not fair to put that before the public, because if it is done the public would see too plainly what the real issue was. They would understand that they were paying themselves interest on an amount of capital which had not been subscribed. The hon. Member (Mr. Houldsworth) said that the investors in Yorkshire could not afford to forego their interest for so long a time. Well, I have heard that very often before—that the investor cannot stand out of his money for such a long period as that which it will require to complete this undertaking. But in what way is he to receive his money under the system proposed in this Bill, and what advantage does he derive if he hands over his money to a Company and the Company pays it back to him? If this House were to order that for every £100 made up annually by the investors of this Company there should be handed in at the same time a signed and sealed packet containing four sovereigns, and that the Company should retain these four sovereigns without breaking the packet for a period and then pay them back in the shape of interest, everyone would see in a moment what a miserable farce it is. But that is not proposed. The Company are not proposing to do that. This is what they desire to do—to return a man his own money in another form. No money can be returned to a man but his own. The Company are earning none; they have no other funds; and I ask the House is there anything to induce an investor, if he is a sensible man, to put his money into an undertaking of this kind? Is there anything in the privilege promised him that he shall be paid 4 per cent interest out of capital? Is there anything in the privilege that out of the money he has solemnly paid in January and June he shall receive something back in June and January? Yet we are told that this privilege of paying money with one hand and receiving money with the other is so valued by investors that the public will find £8,000,000 on these terms for the construction of this Canal if they are allowed to do it, but that they will subscribe none if this privilege is not permitted them. I ask is the House willing that this arrangement should be allowed, and that this temptation should be held out to the public to subscribe their money? It is evident that the public misunderstand the nature of the operation. Is it right, I ask, that the House should allow these tempting advantages to be held out to the public when we know perfectly well that they are not advantages at all, but are arrangements which will tend to the disadvantage of the investors by causing a certain amount of their money to be wasted—by causing a certain amount to be distributed to them half-yearly, nothing being done in the meantime to earn money to supply its place? Several hon. Members have asked me why I have interested myself in this question. I will tell the House why I am interested in it. I have availed myself of the first opportunity of opposing the principle of paying interest out of capital while the undertakings are being carried out, because when I first had a seat in this House, in 1880, I spent a great many days in a Committee Room listening to the proceedings in connection with the Hull and Barnsley Railway and Dock Bill. I there heard it stated that the cost of the undertaking was so great as compared with any possible profits that it was extremely unlikely that any investor would ever receive 1d. of his money in the shape of interest. The conclusion arrived at then was that the capital would not be subscribed for the carrying out of that undertaking; but, to my great surprise, before very long I found that the money had been subscribed two or three times over, and I found, to my still greater surprise, that several of my own friends, whom I had always considered to be men of great intelligence in the ordinary affairs of life, had been foolish enough to invest their money in this undertaking. I made inquiries as to what could have been the inducement to these people to identify themselves with this scheme, and I found that it was the fact that interest at the rate of 5 per cent had been promised them during the construction of the works. I found that they had no real idea in their minds that this 5 per cent was, as a known fact, returned to them out of their own money. It was advertised that the dividends would be paid by the contractor, and the investors had some crazy idea that the advertisements set forth the real fact, and that this money would in some way be advanced by the contractor. They thought he must be gaining some advantage from the undertaking which enabled him to pay this interest. But that was an entirely mistaken idea. The contractor was paid by measurements—the engineer certified as to the amount of work done, and the contractor got the money for it; but it was not a fact that the contractor reaped any advantage which would enable him to pay interest out of capital to the investors. If these gentlemen understood that really the 5 per cent was their own money, and that the capital of the Company was paying compound interest in consequence, they would have thought twice before they put their names to such an undertaking. Many of my own constituents took shares in this Railway. The amount of money invested in the concern by investors from the district I refer to was something enormous. I do not know whether it was mentioned to the House before; but some hon. Members may have read the interesting pamphlet published by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Durham, in which it was shown that in 1881, in the way I have described, £20,000 was withdrawn from the money subscribed for the construction of the Hull and Barnsley Railway. Probably the money paid in this way would represent £100,000. When we see a number of working men, who, under ordinary circumstances, would put their money into the Savings Bank, subscribing money to an undertaking of this kind and losing it simply on account of the inducement held out to them that they would receive 5 per cent interest during the course of the construction—the interest received in the Savings Bank being no more than 2½ per cent—and when we hear Gentlemen speaking so glibly about the great amount of employment to be given to working men by this Bill, I quite understand that so long as you look upon an investor as a person walking about with a great deal more money in his pocket than he knows what to do with, you may regard his subscribing money under the circumstances I have pointed out with great philosophy; but when you see your friends, the working men who have painfully accumulated money by dint of great self-denial, putting the whole of their savings into undertakings of this kind, and being misled into these transactions in the way I have desbribed, you cannot look upon it with such philosophy. I, for one, feel very indignant that such misleading baits should be permitted to be held out to the public. If we have come to such a pass in England that labour can only be found for working men at the sacrifice of the savings of other working men by putting them into undertakings of this kind, I think we have come to a very bad pass indeed. I must apologize to the House for having detained it for so long upon this question; but I hope hon. Members will admit that, feeling as strongly as I do upon this matter, I could not very well have avoided rising to protest against a principle that I think has misled investors in the past, and which, if this Bill is passed, will inevitably do the same in the future.

I think it right that I should, at as early a period as possible, attempt to state the view the Government entertain on this question. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton), at the conclusion of his speech, complained of the Report which was presented to this House, and which he attributed to Sir Thomas Farrer. He spoke of Sir Thomas Farrer in language of complaint as the Bismarck of the Board of Trade. [Lord CLAUD HAMILTON: No; of Whitehall.] Well, as the Bismarck of Whitehall. Let me inform the noble Lord that we are not accustomed to lay any blame for any act done by any Department on the permanent officials. I take the entire responsibility for that Report on myself. It is quite true that last Tuesday that Report was sent to the Press. A rough revise of it, with my corrections, was obtained before bringing it under the notice of the House. But late on Tuesday night the noble Lord came to me, and asked if I would see a few Members of the House on the question of the Manchester Ship Canal Bill. It was decided upon at his request, and on Wednesday I telegraphed to him at the House that I would meet them on Friday. From the moment I made that appointment I suspended the Report, and it was not until after I had met the deputation which the noble Lord brought to me on Friday that the Report was considered by myself and the officials of the Department, and resolved on and placed in the hands of the Clerks at the Table at the latest moment it was possible that they could comply with the Forms of this House. There was nothing to complain of.

I at once withdraw all imputation upon Sir Thomas Farrer.

If anyone is to blame it is myself. I think, however, I did everything that is fair and courteous to the noble Lord. I withheld the Report to the last moment. I may say, further, that several of the gentlemen who came on that deputation on Friday had been with me a fortnight before, and had expressed the same views almost in the same detail. I had their printed statement before me before I decided on the Report; so that, in any case, there has been no haste in deciding on a question so important as that before us. Well, now, I should like to tell the House why we are of opinion that this Bill ought to receive the assent of Parliament. The promoters of the Bill appeared before this House in 1883, and the measure passed in that year—that is to say, it passed a Committee of this House with this clause in, and it was rejected in the other House. Next year it was brought in in the House of Lords, and then the Chairman of Committees objected to the clause, and in deference to him it was omitted. He opposed it as objectionable in principle, and substituted the clause (Section 214) which it is now sought to repeal. That clause inserted by the House of Lords applies in the general law to Railways, and not to Canals at all; and it is a hard thing on the Manchester Ship Canal Company to force this clause on them. I may point out that the clause of the Lords' Standing Orders to which I refer read thus—

"A clause shall be inserted in every Railway Bill prohibiting the payment of any interest out of capital,"

and so on. This, as I say, was inserted in the House of Lords at the instance of the Earl of Redesdale. The Manchester Ship Canal Company now ask us to relax the clause inserted in the measure, which properly only belongs to Railway Bills. What are the objections to this course? I have heard something about engineering and the navigation of the estuary of the Mersey. But we have nothing to do with those things. These questions have been settled once for all by Committees of this House. The noble Lord says—"Send it to a Select Committee; give us a locus standi before that Committee, and let us have counsel to plead before that Committee." But I would point out that the question is one for the promoters of the Bill and this House. I do not see what the London and North-Western Railway Company, from whose office these statements have emanated, have to do with the question at all. It is a question whether the House of Commons is willing to relax the clause and to bring the undertaking under another Standing Order, which is a very large relaxation, and one that has been recommended to be applied by a Committee of this House. It is said—"If you do these things great harm is likely to result." But there is a great deal of difference on that point. I think I can quote an eminent authority to show that great harm can result from the Standing Order. This Standing Order, if allowed to operate upon Bills of this kind, will have the effect of restricting enterprize in this country. It has done very much to help monopolies in this House. Surely the Railway Companies in this country have sufficient control over the waterways at the present moment, and they should not have that control extended. The hon. Member who has just sat down speaks with great emotion about the working men whose savings are invested. I give the hon. Gentleman all credit for consideration in the interests of the working men; but let me say this—I say the leaders of the working men; I say those who take a leading part in the co-operative movement in Manchester who are subscribing largely to this undertaking; I undertake to say that these co-operative working men are as shrewd a set of men as any in this House. They manage co-operative mills as well as many of their masters could do; and no doubt if they had railways to manage they would be able to manage them quite as well as many people in the country. I want to know why the House should enforce this harsh measure against this Canal Company? Railway Companies make their lines in sections, so that when one section of railway is complete, without respect to the remainder of the line, it can be worked, and can commence earning income; whereas in the case of this Company every farthing of capital must be expended—the whole undertaking must be completed—before any income can be earned. With regard to the statement that the rich men of Manchester have put £8,000,000 into the undertaking in consequence of their belief in the scheme, I would say that this is not a time when men are prepared to lock up their capital for seven years before they can begin to earn a farthing. The House must remember that the whole Standing Order is itself a matter of doubtful utility. It exists in no other country in the world. In France, it is necessary that the promoters of a scheme shall pay 4 per cent interest out of capital, and add it to the cost of the undertaking, because it is practically part of the cost. I want to ask what is the effect of this enterprize, so far as it has gone? It is impossible to deny that coincident with, and subsequent to, the introduction of this Bill, the railway rates for the conveyance of traffic in Manchester and Liverpool and the district have been reduced 25 per cent by three reductions, and now it is said—"Oh, that would have been done if the scheme had never been broached." Well, for my part, I think it is very clear that it was the broaching of this scheme that very much helped the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce in their efforts to get the first reduction, and more especially in getting the subsequent reductions. There have been three measures brought through this House, I think last year and the year before, in which this Standing Order was relaxed. I would refer the House to a speech made by the late Prime Minister (the Marquess of Salisbury) as recently as July 7 last, on the subject of allowing the Regent's Canal (City and Docks' Railway) Bill to pay interest out of capital. He said—

"There was no doubt that this Rule discouraged the employment of capital, and that but for its existence work would go on which it now stopped. The Standing Order must justify itself. It was supposed to protect foolish investors, and to prevent persons from investing in any enterprize which would not yield them a good interest on their money. If he were asked which of two things he would choose, whether he would refuse to protect investors from the result of their own incaution, and set up an obstacle to the expenditure of capital, in order that men might be able to invest their money without inquiring into the real character of the enterprize in which they placed it, or whether, on the other hand, he would incur the inconvenience of stopping the expenditure of money in support of labour at a time of extreme and almost unprecedented calamity and distress, he confessed that he would feel that the consciousness that he was sustaining a Standing Order of their Lordships' House would be no satisfaction to him when he reflected that, by doing so, he was preventing many an honest man from getting his living. He would go a step further. He did not believe in the system of protecting the foolish investor at all. In his opinion, all of their Standing Order legislation erred grievously in that direction."—(3 Hansard, [298] 1800.)

Again he said—

"It was the business of investors to protect themselves, and to examine for themselves the soundness of the enterprizes in which they embarked. If they failed to do so, they were generally in a condition of life in which they might fairly be expected to take the consequences. It was wholly unreasonable to provide securities for investors at the cost of stopping the flow of that capital by which alone the life and prosperity of industry could be maintained. It was a general error in the Standing Orders of both Houses of Parliament that they had bound industry up too tight in order that improvident and careless investors should be protected. It might be said that, whatever the General Rule might be, it ought not to be relaxed in any case when the Rule itself had not yet been taken up for the purpose of alteration. He believed that the General Rule ought to be altered."—(Ibid. 1801.)

I would refer, further, to an answer given by the noble Marquess the other day to a deputation of the unemployed, which waited upon him. He said—

"He believed that if the attention of the working classes was directed to efforts towards inducing Parliament to be more generous in giving facilities for the investment of capital, of which there was an abundance in the country, for the purpose of starting works of private enterprize which would give work to large numbers of people, that, to some extent, would meet the existing difficulty. He had done something last year to effect this in the case of the Regent's Canal Docks and Railway Bill, and the Northfleet Docks Bill. But in this matter they had had strong vested interests to contend against."

The noble Marquess seemed to think that one of the obstacles to enterprize in this country, and the development of new enterprizes, was the Standing Orders, which were altogether too much on the side of the capitalist. He was of opinion that, whenever anything had to be done for the labouring classes, there was a stiff battle to be fought with the vested interests. I think there is much to be said on this side of the question, and the Government believe the House will do well to relax the Standing Order and allow the Bill to pass. With regard to the suggestion that the Bill should be sent to a Select Committee, I would really ask the House to consider whether there has not been enough money wasted on inquiries before the Select Committee? I would like to ask the House whether it is fair that a Company, like the Canal Company, starting to work upon what is deemed to be an enterprize of great public utility, shall have to pit itself against rich Companies, like the London and North-Western Railway, who can give their £500 or 500 guinea briefs to gentlemen of the Long Robe? Is there, I ask, to be any more money wasted in this way? I trust the House will agree that this Bill shall pass, and that the House will not lay itself open to the condemnation of the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), who, when last the House rejected the Bill, went straight to Manchester, and, in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman opposite the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), said—

"It was an incompetent House of Commons that rejected the Manchester Ship Canal, and it is because of the incompetence of the House of Commons that we demand an appeal to the people."

I hope the House will pass the second reading of this Bill.

I am sure, after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, it is hardly necessary for me to prolong this discussion. I am sure that everybody in Lancashire interested in the great undertaking that we are now discussing will feel grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the manner in which he has broached the question to-day. It is quite clear that one of the motives of the hon. Gentleman—the noble Lord (Lord Claud Hamilton), I think, in the observations he has addressed to the House—was, that the Bill should be now read a second time and sent to a Select Committee. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite clearly pointed out that we have had enough Committees on this question. My noble Friend near me said that the Committee sat last year to consider it in the most praiseworthy manner. Well, I would remind him that there were not two Committees, but six, that sat upon this Bill; and if the Members who sat upon the Committee which considered the Bill are not here to speak in favour of the Motion which is now before us it is because the right hon. Gentleman who was Chairman of the Committee (Mr. W. E. Forster) was half killed by the labour of the inquiry, and because three other Members who served have none of them been re-elected to seats in this House. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) will, I hope, satisfy the House that this Bill ought to be passed. The hon. Baronet opposite below the Gangway the Member for the Brigg Division of Lincolnshire (Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson) says he puts his name down as an opponent of the Bill upon the highest motives. He says they ought not to pay interest out of capital during the progress of the works, and he endeavours to persuade the House that this is a novel principle. My noble Friend who sits near me (Lord Claud Hamilton) went further, for he made this statement. He said that the payment of interest out of capital was foreign to the legislation of this country. I should like to point out to the House, however, that it is very far from being foreign to the legislation of this country—as a matter of fact, it has almost always been the practice that interest should be paid out of capital during the progress of the works. All the great works in this country, not to mention foreign countries—as has been done—have been contracted and carried on on the principle of paying interest out of capital during the course of construction. There are the great railways of the country; and we hear the statement that the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, whose costly works in Liverpool are also connected with the new undertaking, have all been carried out under the principle of the payment of interest out of capital. I think I am justified in making these statements when I am told that it is unsound in principle to allow the payment of interest out of capital. I will only further allude to those works carried on by the Metropolitan Board of Works. Every work carried out by that Board is carried out under the principle held by those who support this Bill. I may say, also, that all the railways of India pay interest on their shares from the day of the commencement of their works. I will not detain the House longer, because I hope, after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, the House will be prepared to accept the second reading of the Bill. If we do agree to the second reading, I entreat the House not to yield to the suggestion of my noble Friend (Lord Claud Hamilton), and allow the Bill to go again before a Select Committee—before a Select Committee where the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Mundella) so well and clearly pointed out the rich Companies—the Railway Companies—with their 500 guinea fees, will be able to throw every obstacle in the way of a work which, I firmly believe, if it is carried out, as I expect it will be, will prove of immense advantage to the great City of Manchester.

I do not often trouble the House of Commons, and I think I have some claim to say a few words upon this particular question. I was a Member of the Committee of the House of Commons to which the question of the application of Standing Order 167 was referred in 1882, and three of the Members of that small Committee are now no longer Members of the House—Mr. Baxter was the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Salt was on the Committee, as was also Mr. Shaw. Now, at that time the Board of Trade were of the opinion that interest might be paid out of capital during the construction of the works; and I believe that the Board of Trade are still of that opinion; certainly my right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) has expressed himself in no undecided language upon that point. The question, however, was not so clear to the Committee as it was to the Board of Trade. The Committee considered that there were a great many points to be urged on both sides. Roughly speaking, there are two contentions in the matter. One contention is, that it is necessary that Parliament should protect people who desire to make investments—protect people against their own acts; that it is desirable, in fact, that Parliament should interfere to protect persons from the consequences of their own folly; and the other contention is, that the public are well able to take care of themselves; that investors must depend upon their own judgment; and that the most natural course—and the course which will lead to the best development of the country—is to allow speculation to find its own natural level. Well, Sir, upon these contentions the Committee came to a compromise, recommending that exceptions should be made in particular cases, and that each case should be decided by the House on its own merits. I promised the House I would not detain them long; and, therefore, I will, in a very few words, give the House my reasons why they should, at least, accept the second reading of this Bill. We have heard the case of the Manchester Ship Canal. I will not enter into the merits of the question, but simply say that this much is clear—that the Manchester Ship Canal Bill is not a small one; the undertaking is not a small one; but is, on the contrary, a very large and stupendous undertaking. It has been discussed all over the country; it has been thrashed out by two or three Select Committees of this House and of "another place;" and the consequence is that every man in the country—every individual who wishes or who is likely to invest his money in the concern—must have had every possible opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of its probable success or otherwise. For these reasons, I say that this Bill ought to be passed; but I will give a third reason, and it is this—that this undertaking, if it is successful, will prove of great advantage to Manchester and the surrounding district. Well, now, Sir, there is one point upon which I disagree with my right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella). As I have said, this Bill ought to be read a second time; but I think that it ought then to be referred to a Private Bill Committee. My reason for this is, that if you give this Company the right, which the former Private Bill Committees did not give it, to pay interest out of capital, you will affect the amount of capital which the Company ought to raise. It may be a proper question for a Private Bill Committee upstairs to consider whether a Company having obtained leave to pay interest during the construction of the works ought not to increase its own capital. It is on this point I think the Bill, after having been read a second time, should be referred to a Private Bill Committee. I hope the House will read the Bill a second time, because I think this House ought not to put any obstacles in the way of the promoters of the Company obtaining the capital which they now seek.

Sir, I do not intend to trespass very long on the indulgence of the House; but I do desire to make a few observations upon this matter, which vitally affects the interests of my constituents. I am glad that upon the first occasion on which I rise to address the House of Commons I should be required to speak upon a subject which is entirely free from any Party complexion. Now, I do not think that hon. Members will be likely, in the decision they arrive at, to be influenced very much by the remark of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Blackburn (Sir Robert Peel) that if this Bill goes to a Select Committee the labours of the Committee will probably result in injury to the health of its Members, or in injury to their future political success. It appears to me that the matter upon which the House is called upon to arrive at a decision is one of a simple enough character. I do not intend to go into any questions of a technical nature, nor do I intend to consider whether or not it is right, or prudent, or justifiable to pay interest at all during the construction of the works of a Company like this. But, Sir, the modest proposition I have to submit to the House—a proposition which, I think, will commend itself to the judgment of hon. Members—is this—that where a Select Committee of the House, after two or three years' contest, have given a Bill to promoters upon certain terms, this House ought not to take upon itself the very serious responsibility, without an examination of witnesses, without hearing counsel, without any financial investigation, of saying that those terms should be varied, and that £1,000,000 of the capital which the Select Committee thought was essential to the completion of the enterprize should be taken away. That, Sir, I submit, is a matter pre-eminently for the consideration of a Select Committee; and I wish to correct now, in the very few words I am going to make, a very serious mistake into which my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Houldsworth) has fallen, and to which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Mundella) appeared, to some extent, to be a party. I may inform hon. Members, though possibly it may already be within their recollection, that the capital which was sanctioned by the Committee of last year for the construction of these works was £8,000,000 in share capital, and £2,000,000 in loan capital. In the Bill which was brought before that Committee the proposal made with regard to the payment of interest was nothing like the proposal which is made in the Bill now under consideration—it was a proposal to provide interest in a wholly different way. By the Bill introduced in 1885 interest was to be paid by adding £2 to each £10 share—the capital of £8,000,000 was to be raised in shares of £10 each; and that £2, which was called added capital, and not permanent capital, was, I think, to last for seven years during the period of construction. It was to receive no interest and no profit, and it itself was to form a fund to pay the interest, and the moment the seven years were up that £2 disappeared. You will observe, Mr. Speaker, and hon. Members will observe, that that interest fund, so provided by the promoters in their plan of 1885, amounted to £1,600,000. That was in addition to the £8,000,000 share capital, and the £2,000,000 loan capital. By the Bill which is now before the House, and which the House is asked to adopt, it is proposed that the £2, a share mentioned in the Bill of 1885, and which disappeared in the Select Committee, should be omitted. The consequence is that the present existing capital of this Company is £8,000,000 share capital; and £2,000,000 loan capital, and what is proposed to be done by this Bill is that £752,000 is to be taken away from the existing share capital for the purpose of founding an interest fund. The loan capital is reduced by £188,000; and, as the noble Lord (Lord Claud Hamilton) who moved the rejection of the Bill to-night told the House, the result of these figures is to reduce the capital of this concern, this gigantic concern, which it is so important should succeed in the future, and which, if carried out, may grievously affect the great Port of Liverpool—the effect of the operation proposed to-night is to reduce the capital of this Company by the sum of £940,000, nearly £1,000,000 sterling. But let me call the attention of the House to some other charges which also bring the sum alarmingly under the estimate put upon it by the Select Committee. When the Bill was before the Select Committee, and you know it ran the gauntlet for three successive years, it was very fully discussed, and I am glad to think that the counsel for the promoters had some advantage, and that the heavy briefs were not altogether on the side of the Railway Companies, for I observe, with a certain amount of professional interest and enthusiasm, that the fees in the case amounted to the enormous sum of £150,000. That has to be added; and then, if in addition you have to float this Company on the London Stock Exchange, and not locally in Liverpool, you will have to pay the London financier something for his countenance and support. Now let us see what is proposed to be done by the House of Commons to-night. I have to submit to the better judgment of the House, and I think it is not an unreasonable thing to put to the fair play of hon. Members, that where a Bill has been remitted to the proper tribunal—namely, a Select Committee, where a Bill has been discussed with counsel and witnesses before that Committee, it is a very inconvenient thing afterwards for the House, without hearing witnesses, without the action of a Select Committee, to vary the terms at which the Committee arrived. When the matter was before the Select Committee last year, we all knew that there were strong arguments put forward that it would be difficult to work this Company successfully as a financial speculation; and it was suggested, and the suggestion had great weight with the Committee, as is shown by the alterations they made in the Bill—it was required by the Committee that stringent measures to prevent any injurious effect to the Port of Liverpool should be adopted. It was felt to be a dangerous thing that, in order to create a new Port, they should destroy or seriously injure the finest Port in the Kingdom, and, accordingly, the most stringent financial precautions were taken by the Committee. These precautions required that £5,000,000 of the capital should be subscribed in two years; and it does occur to some of us as a most extraordinary thing that a proposition should now be made that that precaution should be abandoned. ["Divide."] I thank the House very much for their kindness in listening to my remarks. I do not think I have trespassed at any unreasonable length upon the patience of hon. Members, and I am sure I am not going to show my ingratitude by trespassing on their attention any longer.

Although we have had very interesting and valuable speaking in the course of this debate, I am not unwilling that it should close without begging the House to allow me to offer a few remarks on the course which I think the House would be well advised to take, from the point of view of one who is neither concerned in Manchester or Liverpool, but who is simply desirous, as far as possible, of helping the House to come to a decision in accordance with its well-known principles of action. I am one of those who are most strongly in favour of jealously guarding freedom in regard to investments, and I altogether dissent from the opinion that we are able or that we can wisely take care of the investments of other people; and, therefore, I should go further, if called upon to do so, than the Standing Order. I should like to remind the House that the Standing Order is much more restrictive than some hon. Members appear to think. The Standing Order, which refers to Railways only and not to Canals, provides against the payment of interest on works, except such interest, if any, as the Committee to which the Bill was referred, might, according to the circumstances of the case, think fit to allow. So that the allowance of the payment of interest out of capital is, according to our Standing Order, a question to be decided by the Committee. Therefore, I am wholly averse to the notion that this Bill should be rejected now. There appears to be no reason why it should be rejected, and I cannot assent to the position taken up by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Claud Hamilton) that there was any broach of faith on the part of the promoters of this Bill in coming here and asking to have the action of last year set aside. The promoters may have gone the length of saying that they hoped to raise the capital without these powers; but there is no reason, having found that they could not raise it without, why they should not come to the House again, and ask that that provision prohibiting resort to these powers should be struck out. But the chief point which occurs to me is this—that a scheme for making this Canal as a certain financial basis was agreed upon by the House last year, having passed through Committee, and now it is proposed that that financial basis should be materially altered. The question is whether we ought to remit the question of the alteration of the financial basis to a Committee in the ordinary way — such Committee restricting their attention entirely to the alteration. Now, as it happens, this question of the financial basis of the Manchester Ship Canal has never been considered by a Committee of this House. That is a remarkable fact—it has never been considered by a Committee of this House. The first Bill which was brought into this House was passed on the Preamble, and this special clause was never considered by the Committee to which the Bill was referred. Last year it came down from the other House with this clause prohibiting the payment of interest out of capital in it; and the promoters of the Bill, feeling very eager to save their Bill, took it as it stood, running, perhaps, the chance of coming here again this year. Therefore it is that the financial basis of this case has never been considered by a Committee of the House at all. The question arises under the special circumstances of the Bill coming before us now with an altered financial basis. I confess I think that the House will be well advised if it agrees to refer the question to a Committee, carefully restricting the Reference to the financial basis; and if the noble Lord's Motion is defeated or withdrawn, I shall be prepared, if necessary, to move this proposition—

"That the Manchester Ship Canal Bill be referred to a Committee to be nominated by the Committee of Selection; that all Petitioners who have presented Petitions against the Bill within the time limited by the Standing Orders have leave to be heard by their Counsel, Agents, and Witnesses before the Committee, against so much of the Preamble and Clauses of the said Bill as relate to the payment of interest out of capital; and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against such Petitions."

I think that if this Resolution were agreed to, it would be in conformity with the spirit of the Standing Order.

I only wish to offer one observation with reference to the remarks of the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Courtney). No doubt the question which the hon. Gentleman has raised is a very difficult one. It is said the financial basis has never been considered by a Committee of this House. It was not considered by the Committee appointed in 1883, because the opponents withdrew. It may be well that the question should be considered by a Committee; but I hope my hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees will consider whether it is not possible to settle the point without the very long discussion which took place upon the proposal to construct this Ship Canal being re-opened. The consideration of the Bill extended over a period of 175 days, and my hon. Friend now suggests that everyone who presented Petitions against the Bill should be allowed to be heard before a Select Committee. [Mr. COURTNEY: Only on the financial question.] I do not see how, if everyone who has presented a Petition is to be heard again, we are to prevent the inconvenience we experienced before. I know something more about the difficulty of constructing Committees than most hon. Members. We had extreme difficulty in 1883, 1884, and 1885 in the construction of the Committee to try this case; and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Sir Robert Peel) did not exaggerate the case when he said that the unfortunate illness which had befallen my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) is in a great degree attributable to the overpowering labours of that Committee during the month of July last. Do not let us at present make any special order for reference of this Bill to a Committee. It is very well known that no work is better done in this House than that which is done on unopposed Bills by the Chairman of Committees, assisted by two experienced Members of the House. Unopposed Bills are, under the present system, most carefully watched in all their details; and I think, if this financial question is the one question to be raised, it could very properly be left to the judgment of my hon. Friend (Mr. Courtney) and two other hon. Members. If we refer the Bill to a Select Committee, we shall find that an appearance is put in by a large number of Petitioners, every one of whom would demand another long inquiry.

I hope the House will allow me to say a few words. I belong neither to one district nor the other; but it appears to me there are positive and evident grounds for not accepting the proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Courtney). All that the House desires to do now is to determine the narrow point whether interest should or should not be paid out of capital during the construction of the works; and I venture to submit that that is a question which the House is quite competent to decide for itself, and that we require no information from a Committee upon such an extremely narrow point. There can be no question that the promoters of the opposition to this Bill would be in no way prejudiced by not referring the Bill to a Committee. They have no locus standi upon this particular question. This is a question as between the House and the promoters of the Bill; and the opponents of the Bill have no particular right to be heard upon it. They have a right to be heard upon questions which affect their particular interests, such as an interference with the estuary of the Mersey; but they have no claim whatever to be heard upon this matter. With respect to the general question, I would point out, from long experience, that if you do not allow the payment of interest out of capital, you will cause the promoters to resort to very undesirable measures; and indirect arrangements for attaining the same end are practicable under the present law, but are very costly. There are, Mr. Speaker, other and more important reasons why every inducement should be offered to the promoters of this Canal to proceed as soon as possible with this work; and one is that there is, at the present time, a great deficiency in the employment of labour. Every month's delay in the commencement of this work prevents the employment of thousands of men in the construction of this Canal. The opponents of this measure allege too much for their own case; if, as they say, the undertaking will be un-remunerative, we ought to be grateful to those who, at such a time as the present, undertake a difficult and hazardous enterprize, which will certainly materially add to the amount of available work. But I am much more sanguine of the ultimate result; and, personally, I think we ought, on all grounds, to feel very much indebted to the promoters of this undertaking, and that no impediment whatever ought to be put in the way of its accomplishment.

With the leave of the House, I will make a suggestion which I hope will meet the views of hon. Members. If we are allowed a Committee, as proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Courtney), I would agree, on behalf of the Petitioners, to exclude from the Reference both the commercial and the engineering question, limiting the Reference to finance. I would also undertake, on behalf of the Mersey Dock Board and the Corporation of Liverpool, to merge their oppositions into one opposition, thus leaving only two oppositions—namely, that of the Corporation and Dock Board merged, and that of the London and North-Western Railway Company.

I hope the House will not entertain this proposal. I quite agree with my hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees that the Standing Orders to which reference has been made have no application to the facts of this case. We have been asked to remit this question to the Committee. Now, we cannot remit the question to the Committee; the Committee is extinct, and many of its Members may be so also, as far as I know. You cannot remit this question to the Committee on the Bill, and that is what the Standing Order states. You may, of course, create a new Committee; but it would not be the Committee on the Bill to consider the question of finance. The simple question of finance is whether you are to authorize interest to be paid out of capital; and whether you are to constitute a Committee for that purpose appears to me to be a question for the House to determine. As a general principle, the House ought to declare its own opinion; and this certainly appears to be simply an obstructive procedure to send the question to a Committee at all. Perhaps I ought not to object to this as part of the lawful gains of the Profession to which I have the honour to belong; and I can understand the advantage, in that sense, of multiplying these Committees; but a Committee, as I understand it, is appointed to inquire into questions of disputed fact, and there is no question of disputed fact to be referred to a Committee at all; and therefore I hope the House will decide upon the Motion itself, and not consent to refer the Bill to a Committee.

I have only one word to say in regard to this Bill, and it has reference to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House. He seems to be unaware that all Bills go to a Committee; and the only question we have to decide now is what this Committee shall be—whether the proposition of the Chairman of Ways and Means should be adopted, or that which has been submitted to the House by the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton). The Bill must, under any circumstances, go to a Committee; and the only objection I have to the ordinary course being adopted on this occasion is that we have no security that a very important question as to the relaxation of our Rule in regard to the payment of interest out of capital would be fairly fought out by the promoters of the Bill. If the proposal of the noble Lord is accepted, then all parties would have an opportunity of being heard; but we have no security that the case would be fairly argued unless the parties interested on both sides are heard upon the question. It seems to me that the House ought to allow the matter to be decided in the only way in which it can properly be decided; and the question is whether it should be decided in camerâ, by a Committee presided over by the Chairman of Ways and Means, or be fought out by counsel before a Select Committee.

I shall not interfere between the House and a division for more than a few minutes; but I wish to call the attention of the House to some remarks made by one of its most distinguished Members, whose absence we all very much regret to-day—I mean the senior Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). I wish to quote just three lines from his remarks which I think go directly in support of the proposition which has been made by the Chairman of Ways and Means. The question has been raised whether the Ship Canal Bill came technically within the Standing Orders applicable to Railway Bills. The right hon. Gentleman's (Mr. W. E. Forster's) words were these—

"I think we all of us feel that whatever were the grounds on which Parliament has made this concession to Railways, certainly, if they had foreseen such a Canal as this, they would have made the same restrictions for that Canal. It is clear it must be fought out on its merits, as a question going pari passu with railways."

These were the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman on one of the inquiries before a Committee of this House; and all that is now asked by the opponents of the Bill is that they may be put in the same position this Session as they would have been had the promoters introduced these provisions into the Bill of last Session. If you do not grant the Petitioners that modicum of fair play, you will be doing this—the House will be placing a premium on promoters to come to this House one year with clauses in a measure drawn in a certain way, and then coming again next year, as in this case, to cancel some of those clauses, when their opponents cannot be heard in reply. This matter, as was well pointed out by the Chairman of Committees, involves a serious inroad on the capital authorized by the Bill. The sum to be deducted from capital is £750,000, with something like £80,000 in the shape of commission to the Messrs. Rothschilds. I submit to the House that it is only fair that the opponents and the promoters of the Bill as well should be offered an opportunity of having this matter discussed in Committee on the question of the Standing Orders, as well as to the financial position of the Company itself.

I wish to submit a question of Order to you, Sir, before the division is taken. I have here a list of 15 Members who have a personal interest in this question. One of them is a Director of the London and North Western Railway Company; six are Directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company; four are Directors of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lancashire Railway Company; and four are Directors of the Midland Railway Company. Considering the nature of the Standing Orders of the House as to the pecuniary interest of Members in questions which may be brought before us, and also the fact that this is a proposal which is to facilitate the construction of a Canal which may affect the financial position of the Companies I have enumerated, and the dividends which the shareholders of those Companies may receive, I wish to ask you, Sir, if these 15 Members are entitled to vote in the division?

That is entirely a matter for the consideration of the individual Members concerned, having regard to the directness of their interest.

I beg to give Notice that if any Member who is in the position I have named takes part in the division I shall call attention to the matter again.

Sir, I now beg to move the Resolution of which I have given Notice:—

"That the Manchester Ship Canal Bill be referred to a Committee to be nominated by the Committee of Selection.

"That all Petitions against the said Bill already presented, or which may be presented not later than three clear days before the sitting of the Committee, be referred to the Committee; and that such of the Petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, Agents, and Witnesses, be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against such Petitions."

I am quite willing to exclude from the Reference to the Committee all questions relating to commercial and engineering matters; and that being so, I do not believe that the deliberations of the Committee would last more than two or three days. The Petitions, in point of fact, would be confined to two or three which have already been presented, and even in regard to them I believe that two will be merged into one. I therefore hope that, in accordance with the custom generally observed in this House, the House will not refuse to refer the Bill to the Committee which I propose.

I beg to second the Motion.

I hope the House will not agree to this proposal. It seems to me it runs altogether counter to the spirit of the decision we have unanimously arrived at in favour of the second reading of the Bill. The Standing Orders require that the Committee on the Bill shall, in such exceptional cases, fix the rate of interest to be paid during construction, and the time during which it shall be allowed. I may be under a misconception on this point, but it may be that these matters might be settled by the Committee of the Whole House; but if a Select Committee is to be nominated, certainly all questions which were debated at such length and deemed to be finally decided by the Committee which sat on the Bill last year ought to be excluded. I do not wish to repeat anything that has been said before in the course of this debate; but, on the part of the promoters, I want to say that it is not the case that any more capital would be required if a provision is made for payment of interest out of capital during the construction of works. I must point out that the amount of capital for that purpose has already been provided in the Bill which has been submitted to the House; and although the clause for the payment of interest out of capital was struck out, the amount was still left in; and, therefore, with all necessary deductions, the amount of £750,000 is still available, and sufficient to provide interest during the construction of the works. That is a matter for the consideration of the tribunal to which the Bill may be referred. I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Motion of the noble Lord, to insert, after the words "referred to a Committee," the words—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee to consider and determine only what rate of interest shall be allowed under Clause 3 of the Bill, and the time during which such interest shall be paid, according to sub-sections 1 and 2 of Standing Order 167."

The conditions attaching to the relaxations which may be given in certain cases in regard to Railway Bills are in most respects fixed; but in two subsections they are elastic; and they relate to questions as to the rate of interest to be paid, and the arrangement of the time during which the interest shall be paid. I beg to submit to the House that the Order of Reference should be strictly limited to these two subjects.

The right hon. Baronet proposes to move this Amendment after the House has decided to refer the Bill to a Committee; but the Question now before the House is that the Bill be referred to a Committee to be nominated by the Committee of Selection. The Amendment of the right hon. Baronet, therefore, would come in after the Motion of the noble Lord.

I am only desirous of saying one word, and that is on behalf of the Committee of Selection. We have no wish to shrink from any duty that may be cast upon us by the House; but I think it will be very unwise for the House to pass any Resolution of this kind. Leave this Bill, like any other Bill, to take the ordinary course. If there are parties affected by the Bill, they are entitled, by the Rules of the House, to become Petitioners; they will present their Petition, and such Petition will be heard in due course. In the first place, it would have to be proved that they have a locus standi; and if it should turn out that the Petitioners have no locus standi, then the Bill will become an unopposed Bill, and will be considered by the Committee presided over by the Chairman of Ways and Means. In that case the House will have sanctioned, by reading the Bill a second time, the principle of paying interest out of capital; and the one question to be decided will be the amount of capital on which interest is to be paid, and the rate of the interest itself. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth) says there must be a Committee, in accordance with the ordinary Rules of the House. No doubt there will be a Committee; but a Committee on an unopposed Bill consists of the Chairman of Ways and Means, with two Members called in to assist him; and I must say that most of these Bills, and the clauses which they contain, are more carefully scrutinized as unopposed Bills than they would otherwise be. With regard to the present Bill, I am quite sure that my hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means is fully competent to deal with it, with the advice of the Speaker's counsel and two Members of the House.

As representing a constituency which is greatly interested in the Bill, I should like to say a word or two in support of what has fallen from my right hon. Friend opposite. When we look at the Bill, and the noble Lord from whom the opposition comes, and who proposes to refer the matter to a Select Committee, we know that the proposition proceeds from those who are decidedly hostile to the measure. I can only regard the object which hon. Members who support this Resolution have in view, and I cannot conceal from myself that it has been suggested with a view, if possible, of smothering the Bill altogether. On that ground I trust the House will not agree to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, as proposed by the noble Lord. I do not see why we should give up any powers we have in order to allow it to go to any four Gentlemen to be nominated by the Committee of Selection. If it is not referred to a Select Committee, it will go naturally before the Chairman of Ways and Means as an unopposed Bill, and no one will have any further interest in opposing the Bill, except those who have a fair and proper locus standi.

I beg leave to move, Sir, that the vote of the right hon. David Plunket in this division be disallowed. He was the only one of the 15 Gentlemen who, after the Question I put to you, Mr. Speaker, about them and your expression of opinion, entered the Division Lobby.

Will you allow me to say, Sir, that I had the honour of going into the Division Lobby, and I am a North-Western Railway Director.

Will the hon. Member give me his name? Then, Sir, I beg to move that the votes of the right hon. David Plunket and Mr. Tipping in this division be disallowed. Both those Gentlemen are at present Directors of the London and North-Western Railway Company, and in that capacity receive a large pecuniary compensation for their services. That fact alone, I submit, constitutes a conclusive reason why neither of them should intervene in any division in this House concerning the pecuniary interests of that Company. The London and North-Western Railway Company are pecuniarily interested in the matter, for if the Canal is constructed the receipts and the dividends of that Company will be affected; and therefore these two Gentlemen, in addition to being interested as Directors, are interested as shareholders.

I am sorry also, Sir, to call attention to the fact that Mr. Houldsworth, Member for Manchester, and a Director of the Manchester Ship Canal, told in the division.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, I submit myself most humbly to the decision of the House, and I am not going to argue the question at all. I might, perhaps, say that as a Director, whose salary is fixed, this Bill can make no difference to me at all. But, being a Director—I am also a shareholder—and, as far as the hon. Member's (Mr. Sexton's) criticism is a just one, of course it would apply to me on this occasion; but I will only say this much to the House—that if I am an offender on this occasion I am a very old and a very notorious offender, because this precise point was raised against me three years ago by an hon. Member who sits close to the hon. Member for Sligo—I think the hon. Member for South Cork (Mr. J. E. Kenny). I submitted myself to the judgment of the House on that occasion, and a division was taken; and by a majority of 256, I think, against 36, the House, on that occasion, acquitted me. And if the hon. Member should go to a division now I humbly trust the House will acquit me again.

I looked upon the observations of the hon. Member below the Gangway (Mr. Sexton) as a threat—if he will allow me to use the word—as a form of "Boycotting," and I thought it was necessary for me to go into the Lobby at once, and I should do so again under such a threat.

I will ask the House to hear what the practice has been in this matter. I think it will be well to follow the Rule which certainly, for a great many years, has been followed. I find the following in Sir Thomas Erskine May's work on Parliamentary Practice—

"On the 16th of June, 1846, objection was taken to the vote of a Member who had voted with the Noes, on the ground that he was a Director and shareholder in the Caledonian Railway Company, and had a direct pecuniary interest in the rejection of the Glasgow, Dumfries, and Carlisle Railway Bill. Whereupon he stated that the sole direct interest that he had in the Caledonian Railway was, being the holder of 20 shares, to qualify him to be a Director in that undertaking; and that he voted against the Glasgow, Dumfries, and Carlisle Railway, conceiving it to be in direct competition with the Caledonian Railway, as decided by the Legislature in the last Session."

He had no salary.

Well, I presume he had. At all events, he was a shareholder in the Caledonian Company, and he voted against the Glasgow, Dumfries, and Carlisle Railway Bill. The report goes on to say—

"A question for disallowing his vote, on the ground of direct pecuniary interest, was negatived. On the second reading of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway Bill, 15th May, 1845, objection was taken to one of the Tellers for the Noes, as being a landholder, whose property would be injured by the proposed line. A Motion, for disallowing his vote was withdrawn. On the 15th July, 1872, objection was taken to two of the Tellers in a division who had voted against the Birmingham Sewerage Bill,"

of which the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Blackburn (Sir Robert Peel) will have a lively recollection

"on the ground of pecuniary interest, but was not sustained."

Then there is the note—

"And see case of London and North-Western Railway Bill (Mr. Plunket) 8th May, 1883."

Well, as far as the records go, these cases seem to be very similar to the present case, and I think it has not been considered by the House that this is the sort of pecuniary interest which is covered by the Rules. As these precedents seem to extend over 40 years I think that we ought to follow them. If the opponents of this measure are to be put under this ban, its supporters ought to be under the same ban. I think, under these circumstances, a truce ought to be declared.

I am now prepared to withdraw my Amendment to the second reading of the Bill, and I may, perhaps, be allowed to state the condition under which I am prepared to do so, for I am not quite sure that it was made plain when the question was last before the House. The Company have consented to introduce a clause into their Bill by which it will be provided that in every case of amalgamation or other arrangement with any other Company the terms of that amalgamation shall be submitted to the Board of Trade, and shall be considered by them, or by some tribunal to be appointed by them, whose duty it shall be to see that the terms of such amalgamation or arrangement shall be not only just, but advantageous to the public. The Midland Company are prepared to consent that that provision shall be submitted to the Select Committee which will have to consider the Bill, and the Committee must have power, of course, to insert such a clause. The terms are satisfactory to us, as well as, I hope, to the Board of Trade; and, therefore, so far as we are concerned, the Bill may now be allowed to be read a second time.

I will take the trouble, Mr. Speaker, to remind the House for a moment how this matter stood on Thursday last. The Resolution, or Instruction, which my hon. Friend has mentioned was proposed upon the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. Hickman) to read this Bill a second time on that day six months. Now, it is most undoubtedly the case that in 1872 the original Midland Bill was obtained from this House upon an absolute promise made to the Select Committee by Mr. Allport, now Sir James Allport, the manager of the railway—a promise made not only to the Committee of the House of Commons, but also to the Committee of the House of Lords—that there should be a lowering of the rates from the Staffordshire district. That promise was given most carefully in the words which were read by my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton on Tuesday last. But as soon as they had got their Bill that promise was utterly ignored. They entered into an agreement with the London and North Western and the Great Western Railways; and, instead of reducing the rates, the rates at the present time between Staveley and Wolverhampton and London, and Wolverhampton and Staveley and London, are such as give a very large preferential rate in favour of the two points that are most distant; in fact, with regard to coal, the rates between Staveley and London are 1s. 3d. less in favour of Staffordshire than they are in the case of Wolverhampton. We have, then, a promise clearly made to Parliament—a promise under which the Company obtained the right of entering into these arrangements and joining a line from Walsall to Wolverhampton to the main line; and we find that as soon as they obtained their Bill the promise was utterly ignored. Under these circumstances, my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton has moved that this Midland Bill should not be read a second time until that promise is fulfilled. A Resolution was then proposed by the hon. Baronet—[Sir BERNHARD SAMUELSON: I beg pardon; I moved nothing.] Well, at all events, there is a Resolution upon the Paper standing in the name of the hon. Member for Mid Oxfordshire. That proposition was put forward the other night; but those of us who were sitting at the other end of the House had considerable difficulty in hearing it. It was supposed to meet the difficulty which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton, and was in terms declaring that any agreement made under this Bill should be subject to the approval of the Board of Trade or a tribunal to be named by them. But that was not the difficulty in which we were placed. What we said was this—"You obtained your Bill and the support of the district around Wolverhampton and the South Staffordshire mining district. But you obtained that support on certain terms, for the people came here and gave evidence in favour of your Bill on your undertaking to reduce the rates, and that undertaking you have not yet carried out." Well, a clause which says that any future agreement made between the Midland and the London and North Western and the Great Western Railway Companies shall be under the surveillance of the Board of Trade does not meet this difficulty; and I think the House will be of opinion that I was justified in moving that the further consideration of the Bill should be adjourned until we saw more into it. But now the case stands on a different footing. On behalf of Staffordshire, I say that the Midland Company have frequently broken their promises. I know we were led to believe it was possible that we should have a good thing for the trade of Staffordshire from the action of the Midland. We rather believed, as they say in America, that "one railway spoils a town, two bring it to par, and three make it boom." We thought we should have trade reviving under the new railway arrangements which were to be brought about. But what I am coming to is this. I should not have given way upon this point—I should have taken the sense of the House upon it, because a more flagrant breach of faith I do not remember in the annals of Private Bill legislation—only the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Mundella) will introduce his Railway Rates Bill at no distant day, and I hope that that will include a clause to prevent any preferential rates from being given to one district over another, and to give to commercial bodies a locus standi to be heard with reference to those rates. If that is so—I think I see my right hon. Friend shake his head—but if that is so, and that Bill is to be brought in speedily, I will not press the case any further now; but it will remain for us to say, when we have heard him introduce his Bill, whether we will move that the consideration of this Bill which is now before us shall be further adjourned until we see what the general Bill for dealing with railway rates is like, or whether we will at once withdraw our opposition and allow the Bill to be read a second time, because the general measure is one likely to prove satisfactory to traders. I need not take up any more of the time of the House now; but this matter is one of the most serious and vital importance. If I were to go on with my case, I could point out how one very large firm in South Staffordshire—a Joint Stock Company—is now in a state of liquidation through having fallen a victim to the present rates upheld by the three Companies. Those rates cannot be cut except by the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mundella) is about to bring forward. Under these circumstances, and hoping that good results may be brought about by the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman is to bring in, I will not now take up any more of the time of the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for the Banbury Division of Oxford-shire (Sir Bernhard Samuelson) has raised a question of some importance. The Midland Railway Company, after conferring with the Board of Trade, have agreed to the insertion of a clause which will entirely meet the objection of my hon. Friend, which will make the rate charged a perfectly reasonable rate, and which will give the Board of Trade a proper control over any arrangement that may be made. Now, my hon. and learned Friend opposite (Mr. Staveley Hill) has complained of some breach of faith committed by the Midland Railway Company so far back as 1872. But this Bill does not deal with Staffordshire rates at all—it has no relation to any question affecting that district. It would be vindictive not to allow it to be read a second time because there is a grievance which ought to be redressed, and which only can be redressed by such a measure as that which I hope to introduce very soon on the subject of railway rates. I may say to my hon. and learned Friend that if an undue preference is given against any locality or Company, then my Bill will be found to deal with it and to provide a remedy. I hope, therefore, that he will not insist on opposing the present Motion, but will allow the Midland Railway Bill to be road a second time on the distinct pledge that a new clause will be introduced into it when it is before the Committee, which will provide for proper arrangements being made.

The matter which has just been referred to and explained by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade does not in any way affect the question which I wish to bring before the House. The question is not whether these preferential rates should be granted—that is not the question of which we are complaining. The question really is this—the Midland Company, in 1872, came to this House, and before a Select Committee made certain statements that they would give certain advantages if a certain Bill were passed by the House. The House allowed the Bill to be passed upon the distinct pledges made on behalf of the Company that these arrangements should be carried out. It is not a question of preferential rates at all; and, therefore, the Bill which has been mentioned does not meet the case at all. This House is always willing to listen to, and to sympathize with, the toiling multitudes of London and other places. But I would like to ask, Mr. Speaker, whether the House is willing to pay any heed to the burdens which are placed upon the toiling multitudes of the Midlands by this Bill, and in consequence of the Midland Railway Company not fulfilling their pledges? It is now suggested that we should be put off again. How? By a Bill which has yet to be brought in. What it may be none of us knows, nor do we know that it will ever pass. The Government may disappear long before their Bill comes to maturity, and the grievance from which we are suffering will not be dealt with and will not be removed. We are anxious that that grievance should be removed. The Midland Railway Company themselves admit the grievance. If you read the Report of the evidence given by Sir James Allport you will see that he admits the grievance in South Staffordshire. A certain number of ironmasters come together; they promote a Bill; the Midland Railway Company take up that Bill; the Bill is brought in entirely for the purpose of bringing competition into South Staffordshire, so that we may have lower rates than those which exist, and which are admitted to be too high. Sir James Allport then says—

"We will reduce the rates and allow the competition to come in. Your rates shall be reduced."

He goes on—

"We cannot tell how the charges will remain, or what the cost of certain items will be. It is impossible for us to fix any absolute rates, but you may trust us, because as Staveley is 148 miles off, and we only charge 10s. 6d. per ton, while Wolverhampton is only 124 miles off, and the present rate there is 15s., you may rely upon it that we shall put the Wolverhampton down to the level of the Staveley rate."

When asked whether Staveley had any competition he said—

"No. It is all in our system. We do it without competition, so you may surely trust us to fulfil our pledge."

Will the House believe it that up to the present time, though all this occurred 14 years ago, no change has been made? It was in 1879 that the line was completed. The ironmasters called upon the Midland Company to redeem their promise, and wrote to them; but then they forgot all those beautiful pledges they had given, and I hope the promises we hear to-day will not be broken in the same kind of way. Forgetting all the promises they had made, they said—"Oh, we have made a compact with the London and North-Western Company, and we cannot do it." In the evidence he gave, Sir James Allport admitted that the rates in Staffordshire were exceptionally high; but three years afterwards he said—

"We cannot do what you want, because we have made a compact."

How is it that the House allows these compacts to be entered into? How is it that trade is allowed to be crippled by them? Why is it that the toiling miners in Staffordshire and the traders are permitted to be checked by these annulling compacts? What I should like to know is, why do we not make the Companies keep their promises? We ought, I think, to insist upon this pledge being fulfilled, and allow me to say that there is no reason why it should not be kept. During the last debate one hon. Member admitted that the Midland, where there was water competition, reduced the rates. If they voluntarily, of themselves, reduce the rates where it suits them, surely we may ask them to fulfil their own pledge, which cannot be very onerous, and cannot be very painful to them. It has been admitted that they have reduced the rates where the water competition comes against them; and, therefore, Sir, I should very much regret it if the House is willing to give way on this question, and allow these Companies to go on in the old way, with their unsatisfied pledges still remaining unfulfilled. I should hope the House would not again trust to promises when giving new and additional powers to the Midland Company. I therefore hope that some check will be adopted to prevent the continuance of the present high rates. The case has been admitted ever since 1872. The Midland Company then admitted that the rates were too high, and they promised to reduce them. Wages and material never were lower than now, and therefore there is no excuse for the promise not being kept. I hope the House will Ray—"We insist upon these pledges being fulfilled." I will not trouble the House further; but I do hope that some other hon. Member will take the question up, and will not be satisfied to allow these matters to go on in this way. We hear very much of the claims of the labourers to consideration on both sides of the House. Why not the claims of the ironworkers? The agricultural labourers and the crofters are to be considered; surely the claims of the miners and the ironworkers ought equally to be admitted. Surely it is not because they are quiet bodies, who make no noise, that they are to be neglected. I hope hon. Gentlemen will not any longer allow these pledges to be unfulfilled.

With the leave of the House I withdraw my Amendment.

I hope the House will not give way in consequence of pathetic appeals as to toiling multitudes. Settle this Bill on common-sense and practical lines. The Bill is a very small and ordinary one. It is a very small Omnibus Bill containing no sort of controversial matter, dealing mainly with the creation of three miles of railway and a few deviations of lines and roads. It does not even seek to raise any capital. The hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Lloyd) will not advance the cause of the toiling multitudes if he rejects this measure, which has nothing to do with South Staffordshire rates. The Midland Company do not at all acknowledge the substantiality of the accusations he makes. The Bill to which he refers was not a Midland, but a Walsall and Wolverhampton Bill; and the evidence of Mr. Allport was given, not as a Midland Director, but on behalf of that Company. The Midland Company traverse entirely the assertions of the hon. Gentleman; but are willing to meet those assertions in the only place where they should be met—upstairs before a Select Committee. The Midland Company do not desire to throw any impediments in the way of the fullest inquiry—they are quite willing that the question shall be fought out before a Committee—but that object would not be gained if the House were to consent to so unusual a step as to reject this Bill on second reading.

May I add just one word? Mr. Allport, when giving the evidence which has been referred to before a Select Committee, was asked—

"Do you come here to express the views of the Midland Company with regard to this Bill?"

His answer was—

"I do."

, in rising to move the following Resolution:—

"That, as the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its professed object as a means of promoting the religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers to only a small minority of the population, its continuance as an Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly and an injustice which ought no longer to exist,"

said, that the Church of England prided itself on being the Church whose ordinances and discipline commended themselves to the majority of the people of the country. It might be that the Church of England commended itself to the majority of the people of that country; but, at any rate, no Church could justify its position as the Established Church of a country unless it was the Church of the majority. He now proposed to bring this question before the House, solely on the ground of the nationality of Wales and of the Welsh Church. So far as the English people were concerned, he did not intend to say anything with regard to their wishes. As a Welshman, representing a Welsh constituency, he well knew that, whatever the position the Church of England might hold in England as the National Church, it was not the National Church in Wales in any shape or form; and if the Welsh people had their way it would be swept away without any delay. The principles upon which a Church should be maintained as a National Established Church were well laid down by the present Prime Minister on a former occasion. The right hon. Gentleman, after stating that a Church should only be retained as an Established Church when it was the Church of the majority of the people and in sympathy with them, went on to say that—

"An establishment that neither did nor was doing work except for a few, and those few a portion of the community whose claims to public aid were the smallest of all, an establishment severed from the mass of the people by an impassable gulf and a wall of brass—an establishment whose good offices would be intercepted by a long unbroken chain of shameful recollections—an establishment leaning for support upon the extraneous aid of a State—a Church which had become distasteful to the people—such an establishment would do well for its own sake to devote itself, as soon as it might, to shaking off the trammels that surrounded it, and commence a new career without assistance from without, but seeking its strength from within."

He accepted that as the definite ground on which the Welsh Church should be disestablished, and he would show that in the case of Wales all the conditions laid down by the Prime Minister were entirely fulfilled. He should show that the Church of England in Wales had not fulfilled its duty, and that at the present day it was severed as though by an impassable gulf and a wall of brass from the Welsh people. As for many years there had been no Religious Census, they had no means of knowing exactly the number of members of the English Church in Wales. Some conception of the numbers could, however, be gained from a debate in that House in 1870. The discussion turned upon the relative numbers of religious denominations in Wales; and the Prime Minister stated, though not on his own authority, that the members of the Church in Wales were as one in four. Even one in four would not, he (Mr. Dillwyn) thought, justify the position of the Church in Wales; but his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Osborne Morgan) afterwards alleged, and he believed, much more justly, that the number was one in seven, and his own information went to prove that the proportion was much smaller than that. A letter appeared the other day in a North Welsh paper which gave the attendance at church, based on a careful analysis of the proportions between the two Churches, as one in eight. That was nearly his own opinion. But they did not rest their conclusions altogether on the estimates of others. The Nonconformists of Wales had made a very careful calculation as to the numbers of the different religious denominations of that country, from which it appeared that there were 253,016 Congregationalists, 250,274 Calvinistic Methodists, 144,307 Baptists, 78,506 Wesleyans, 17,767 Primitive Methodists, and 8,000 of different small sects, making a total of 751,944. Taking the number of Nonconformist children at 223,871, of those who professed no religion at 100,000, of Roman Catholics at 50,000, there would be a population of 1,125,825 out of a total Welsh population—according to the Census of 1881—of 1,343,227, leaving about 217,400, or about one-eighth of the whole, who were professed members of the Church of England. The case against the Church of England in Wales was really underrated by these figures, inasmuch as many of those who were dependent upon the territorial and wealthy classes were induced to curry favour with their masters by professing that they were members of the Church of England, whereas, in fact, they were Nonconformists at heart. A discount must also be made from the number of the Church of England members in Wales on account of the English foreigners who were resident in the country. The overwhelming majority of the Welsh population, therefore, consisted of Nonconformists. He was now speaking in the presence of Welsh Members. He hoped those hon. Members would speak in the debate. If they did, they would be able to say whether he was over-stating or under-stating the case. At all events, he had, as far as he was able, only submitted facts to the consideration of the House. He perceived there were two Amendments to his Resolution. One of those stood in the name of the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes), who opposed the Resolution with a direct negative. Then there was another by the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Albert Grey), who proposed to leave out the words after the word "population," and to insert the words—

"This House is of opinion that the time has arrived for introducing, without delay, into its organization such reforms as will enable it to adapt itself more effectually to the religious needs and wishes of the Welsh people."

His right hon. Friend knew little of Wales. If he knew as much about that country as he (Mr. Dillwyn) did, he would be aware that among the Welsh people there was no hostility between Nonconformists and Churchmen as such. The disinclination of the people was not towards the members of the Church, but to an Establishment at all, which was repulsive to their habits and thoughts. What was once said by the Prime Minister on this subject was quite true— namely, that a wall of brass had been raised between the Church in Wales and the general body of the inhabitants, who could never forget the long chapter of persecution which had characterized the Church in its relations to the people. For 200 years the Church had been in possession of Wales, and during that period, in spite of her power and status, she had undoubtedly betrayed her trust. The Church first came into existence there in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, but so disgraceful was the apathy, drunkenness, and vice of the clergy that the people took refuge in Nonconformity. Amongst the Church clergy in those times was a man named Henry, who denounced the scandalous and evil lives of the clergy, and who endeavoured, as far as he could, to introduce reforms. But what was his reward? He was put on his trial, and paid the penalty of his zeal and temerity on the scaffold. This was one instance of the persecution which attended efforts of reformers, and there were numerous cases of a similar nature. The evidence which he (Mr. Dillwyn) would now submit to the House, showing how the Church in Wales had failed completely in her mission, would not be drawn from Nonconformist sources, but from the testimony of Churchmen themselves. Those instances he would refer to in the briefest terms possible. The Prime Minister had said that the bitter and unhappy memories of the Church's history in Wales had raised a wall of brass between that institution and the people of the country. The Church had at all times so conducted her ministrations as to maintain that wall of brass. In 1681 a magistrate in Oswestry, addressing Nonconformists, reminded them that the magistrates had acquired power, which, by the grace of God, they would keep, and not allow to rust. That was not the tone by which the Church would recommend itself to poor people. Yet that was the tone which was adopted, and which finally had ended in thoroughly alienating the Welsh people from the Establishment. During the recent elections, and for some time previously, he had gone a great deal among the people of Wales, and he found that the utmost enthusiasm and unanimity of opinion prevailed among Welshmen on this vital question. He did not think that any attempt would be made to controvert the facts he had stated. One objection which had been raised was that it would be impossible to separate the Welsh and the English people, because they were practically one people, and that it would be impossible to abolish the Church without, at the same time, causing a separation between the two peoples. That objection had been raised in former years, and had been fully answered by Mr. Justice Williams, an able lawyer, who gave it as his opinion that the abolition of the Church in Wales was quite feasible, and that there would be no more difficulty in abolishing the Church in Wales than there would be in abolishing it in Norfolk, Lancashire, or any other county of England. Those who contended that Wales and England were practically one country did not really understand the character of Welshmen. In his opinion the Welsh were quite different from the English people in thought, character, and feeling, as well as in religion and language. No one could doubt that there were wide differences, and the differences of language, so far from diminishing of late years, was, he believed, rather on the increase than on the decrease. It must be remembered, too, that this country had acknowledged that there was a difference between the two countries. Within his memory he could remember that the Welsh had a different system of judicature from that of England; their Turnpike Laws were different, and their Sunday Closing Law was different from that which existed in England. He thought, therefore, that it could not be denied that Wales was practically, both in fact and by law, a separate nationality. In this matter of religion they appealed to the justice and the sense of fair play inherent in the English people. It was not a question of liberation, or of policy between one religion and another; it was a claim on the part of a weak and small country against a powerful ruling country. He need hardly point out that Welshmen were loyal and law-abiding. They had not given the authorities in this country any trouble; on the contrary, on all reforms and improvements favoured by England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, Welshmen had always been found ready to assist in carrying those amendments of the law into force. Neither had Welshmen given much trouble on account of any grievances from which they might suffer. They had been content to cast in their lot with the inhabitants of this country, and they were still quite content to do so; but the question of religion would not be allowed to stand where it was in Wales. The Welsh people were thoroughly in earnest about this subject; and although hitherto they might have been disinclined to force it on the attention of Parliament in consequence of other pressing business, they were now determined to press it, if they could, to a solution. Welshmen were deeply religious in sentiment; but they wished to have their own religion. A few days ago he observed the sale of an advowson in Liverpool, in which a living was sold, after a sharp competition, between High and Low Church. That system of handing over the entire population of a locality to the highest bidder was one which the Welsh people could not and would not tolerate. Some time ago a Commission was appointed to inquire into the subject of education in Wales. The Report made by that Commission was that the Welsh were a deeply religious people, and that they had covered the whole country with their chapels, which they supported and maintained. He would not now say any more. He was speaking in the presence of his countrymen, who, he hoped, would speak and vote on this question, and he would conclude by moving the Motion which stood in his name—

"That, as the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its professed object, as a means of promoting the religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers to only a small minority of the population, its continuance as an Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly and an injustice which ought no longer to exist."

He would ask Members on this side of the House, and he ventured to ask Members on the other side of the House, if that was a right state of things? They all, he knew, wished to do as they would be done by; and, that being so, he would ask Members of the Church of England, if such a state of things existed in England as existed in Wales, would they allow it to continue for a single moment? He would move the Resolution standing in his name on the Paper.

, in seconding the Resolution, said: I must own that I approach the subject which engages our attention this evening with some reluctance, because I know how difficult it is to discuss questions of this nature without giving some pain to good men whom one honours and esteems, and with whom we may be in sympathy on many points of higher importance than those which pertain to the externals of religion. I wish especially to avoid casting any opprobrious imputation upon the present members of the Church of England in Wales. If some of the things we have to describe in connection with the past history of that Church are grievous and scandalous, the responsibility does not rest upon them, but upon that system of ecclesiastical rule adopted and pursued by the English Government towards the Welsh Church—a system which, I think, presents as deplorable an illustration as can be found anywhere of the evils which flow from making a Christian Church a mere creature of the State, dependent upon its caprices, and subservient to its unscrupulous worldly designs. Like my hon. Friend, I am not going to argue this question on the abstract principle as to the justice, wisdom, or expediency of civil establishments of religion. My hon. Friend has put his Motion in a purely practical form. Our contention is, that the Church of England in Wales is not, and never has been, the Church of Wales; that it has failed to win the love and loyalty of the people, and has never discharged, in anything approaching a satisfactory manner, its own professed function as the religious instructor of the nation. For a large part of its history it has partaken very much the character of an alien institution, imposed upon the country from without for purely political purposes. A significant indication of this is afforded by the fact that to this day, in the common parlance of the people, it is known, not as the Episcopal Church, or the National Church, still less as the Church of Wales, but invariably as the Church of England—eglwys Loegr—a designation probably importing traditions of repugnance and hostility from the time when England was the enemy of Welsh freedom and independence, and the Church of England was the Church of the invader and conqueror. And, indeed, for generations the Church was employed, especially under Norman rule, as an instrument for the extinction of the Welsh language and the suppression of Welsh nationality. For this purpose English Bishops were forced upon the British Church—men of arrogant temper and boundless rapacity, whose sole inspiration was hatred towards the native Welsh. We have a very curious and a very touching illustration of this in the appeal, still extant, which was sent by the Welsh Princes to Pope Innocent, in the Reign of Henry III.—

"The Archbishop of Canterbury, as a matter of course, sends us English Bishops ignorant of the manners and language of our land, who cannot preach the Word of God to the people, nor receive their confessions but through interpreters. And these Bishops that they send us from England, as they neither love us nor our land, but rather persecute and oppress us with an innate and deep-rooted hatred, seek not the welfare of our souls; their ambition is to rule over us, and not to benefit us, and on this account they do not but very rarely fulfil the duties of their pastoral office. And, whatever they can lay their hands upon, or get from us, whether by right or wrong, they carry into England, and waste and consume the whole of the profits obtained from us, in abbeys and lands given to them by the King of England."

This stupid policy, of course, failed, as it richly deserved to fail. The hatred of the alien episcopate towards their flocks was cordially reciprocated. Some of them could maintain their position only by being surrounded with a body of armed retainers; and whenever the British arms prevailed the Norman ecclesiastics had to scuttle over the Border, while the people showed their detestation and scorn for them by burning their episcopal palaces. But how did it fare with the Welsh Church after the Reformation? Some of my clerical countrymen indulge in a fond historical dream to the effect that, after the accession of the Tudors, there was a golden age for their Church, when it was ruled by native Bishops, and enjoyed a season of great spiritual prosperity. But it is only a dream, with which the reality does not correspond. There was, no doubt, a certain number of Welsh Bishops then appointed—as many as 30 in 157 years. But that brought little improvement in the religious condition of the country—so far otherwise, that I venture to say it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the utter—one might almost say the contemptuous— neglect with which "Wales was treated during the early years of the Reformation. To begin with, what surely must be regarded as the first duty of a Protestant Church—that of supplying the people with the sacred Scriptures in their own language—how does the account stand with the Welsh Established Church in this respect? Dr. Llewellyn, in his account of the "Welsh versions of the Bible, tells us that—

"For upwards of 70 years from the settlement of the Reformation by Queen Elizabeth, for near 100 years from Britain's separation from the Church of Rome, there were no Bibles in Wales, except in the cathedrals and parish churches."

In the year 1563 an Act of Parliament was passed ordering the translation of the Scriptures into Welsh, the Preamble of which recites that—

"Her Majesty's most loving and obedient subjects of Wales, being no small part of this Realm, are utterly destitute of God's Holy Word, and do remain in the like or rather more darkness and ignorance than they were in times of Papistry."

Well, the same Act ordered the Welsh Bishops, under heavy penalties, to translate the Bible into the Welsh language within three years. But this was not done until 25 years later, and then it was done not by the Bishops, but by the simple vicar of a parish in Denbighshire, Dr. William Morgan, whose name and memory deserve to be held in lasting and grateful remembrance by the people of Wales. In the absence of the Scriptures, there was all the more need of an earnest personal ministry among the clergy. But what was the case? I believe for 100 years there was scarcely any preaching or teaching of the people in the churches. Strype, in his Annals of the Reformation and his Life of Archbishop Parker, gives us some curious and very melancholy glimpses into the state of the Welsh Church in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. He says that for two or three years Llandaff had no Bishop at all, and the great dilapidations had so impoverished the See that nobody liked to meddle with it. Bangor was out of order, there being no preaching used, and pensionary concubinacy openly continued; which was, allowance of concubines to the clergy by paying a pension, notwithstanding the liberty of marriage granted. In 1587 Dr. Hughes, Bishop of St. Asaph, was charged with misgoverning his diocese; and, an inquiry being made, it was found that he himself held 16 rich livings in commendam; that most of the great livings were in possession of persons who lived out of the country, and only three preachers resided on their livings. If we come down to the Reign of James I., we have the testimony of a most admirable man, himself a clergyman of the Church, known and venerated to this day in Wales, as Vicar Pritchard, of Llandovery. He says that in his time not one in a hundred of his countrymen could read the Bible; that no copy of the Scriptures was to be found even in the mansions of many of the gentry; that the country was sunk in ignorance and immorality of every description, while "the clergy were asleep, leaving the people to sin unwarned and unrebuked." If we come down lower still, we find that in the year 1623 Dr. Baily, Bishop of Bangor, paid a visit to the parishes, or some of the parishes, in his diocese, in Anglesea, Carnarvonshire, Merionethshire, and Montgomeryshire. His report of what he found is still partially extant. In parish after parish the reports are these—

"There have been only two sermons here for the last 12 months;" "No sermon here for five years;" "Never any preaching here;" "Only two sermons in a twelvemonth;" "The curate here spends his time in taverns, is a public drunkard and brawler."

We come down a few years later. In 1651 a clergyman of the name of Edwards translated an English book into the Welsh language. In his preface he deplores the neglect into which the Welsh language had fallen among the instructors of the people, and declares that among the Church clergy scarcely one in 15 knew how to read and write in Welsh. Following down the chain of evidence, we come to 1677, when another work was published, it is supposed by a clergyman of the name of Thomas, called The Welshman's Friend, in which he says—

"It pains me to be obliged to say that in each of the Welsh Bishoprics 40 or 60 churches may be found without anyone in them on Sundays, even in the middle of summer, when the roads are driest and the weather finest."

And this he ascribes to "the utter-neglect which prevails among us Welsh Churchmen." I have come down nearly to the end of the 17th century. Did matters mend at the beginning of the 18th century? In 1721 the Rev. Erasmus Sanders published his View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. David's, in which he draws a most deplorable picture of the state of things then. He describes several churches, which he specifies by name, as totally decayed—

"They only serve for the solitary habitations of owls and jackdaws. The Christian service," he goes on, "is totally disused in some places; in others half-served, there being several churches where we rarely, if at all, meet with preaching or catechism, or the administration of the Holy Communion."

Well, about the middle of the 18th century there arose in the Church a most admirable man—the Rev. Griffith Jones, of Llanddawror—who was the founder of the celebrated circulating schools. In one of his writings he speaks of the—

"Lazy vicars and rectors who have led a careless life from their youth, and have set their minds on keeping company and going unsteadily from tavern to tavern,"

and who are—

"as ignorant of their mother tongue as they are of Greek and Hebrew; and, therefore, without sense of shame, preach in English in the most purely Welsh assemblies throughout the country."

After the Revolution the English Government reverted to the old policy of attempting to extinguish the Welsh language and nationality by appointing only English Bishops to Welsh Sees. For 150 years not a single Welshman was raised to the Episcopal Bench in his own country. To understand the full significance of this fact, it must be borne in mind that during the whole of that time the overwhelming majority of the people were Welsh-speaking, and knew no other language but Welsh. The Prime Minister, in a speech quoted the other night by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, estimated the number of people in Wales now who speak hardly anything but their own tongue at 800,000. But, for the far greater part of the period to which I have just referred, the proportion of the people of Wales who spoke only Welsh must have been much larger than it is now, for then there was far less intercourse with England than there is at present, and there were very few schools in which the English language was taught. Now, I ask the Members of the Church of England in this House to imagine—if, indeed, so monstrous a supposition is conceivable—how they would have felt if for 150 years all the Episcopal Sees in England had been filled with Frenchmen, or Germans, or Italians, absolutely ignorant of the English language. What were the fruits of this extraordinary system in Wales? The alien Bishops, as a rule, lived wholly apart from the people, and even from the clergy. Some of them did not reside in the country, and one, at least, during the whole term of his episcopate, never once set his foot in his diocese. But while neglecting their spiritual duties, they displayed the most rapacious spirit as regards the temporalities of the Church. The apostolic injunction that Bishops should not be greedy of filthy lucre did not seem to have attracted their regard; but there was another precept to which they paid the most religious heed, that—

"If a man provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he is worse than an infidel."

They lavished honours and emoluments with the most shameful prodigality upon their own relatives and friends, to the utter neglect of the native clergy; and thus nearly all the highest offices in the Church were in the hands of men who were ignorant of the language of the people to whom they were to minister in holy things. The daring extent to which this system of nepotism was carried was almost incredible. So late as the year 1836, Mr. Benjamin Hall, afterwards Lord Llanover, stated in this House that in the diocese of St. Asaph a relation of the then late Bishop had 11 sources of emolument, producing between £6,000 and £7,000 a-year, and that the total amount enjoyed by the Bishop and the relations of former Bishops was £23,679, and exceeded the whole amount enjoyed by all the other residents and native clergy put together. At length this scandalous system attracted the attention of this House; and in the year 1835, by a small majority, a clause was inserted in the Pluralities and Non-Residence Bill, to the effect that no person who did not possess a thorough knowledge of the Wesh language should be appointed to any Bishopric or living in Wales. But the House of Lords, whose function it is, we know, to impose a check upon the rash and hasty legislation of this House, exercised their function on that occasion, and erased that part of the clause that related to the Bishops, as they did not think it necessary that the primary pastors of the Church should have any knowledge of the language of the people over whom they ruled. And so this system of alien Bishops continued until some 14 or 15 years ago, when the present Prime Minister, infinitely to his honour, broke in upon this dismal monopoly of incompetence by appointing, for the first time in more than 150 years, a thoroughly Welsh-speaking clergyman to the diocese of St. Asaph. I suppose that the other part of the clause referred to proved inoperative, for I find that in 1838 another Act was passed against the appointment of clergymen to vacant benefices in Wales without a previous competent knowledge of the language of the parishioners. But this led to a state of things in some respects worse than before. Englishmen were still presented to Welsh benefices, who, after a few months' study of the language, tried to preach in Welsh, but in the attempt committed such gross and ludicrous blunders as taxed to the utmost the gravity of their hearers, and turned religion into burlesque. In order to help them, a clerical agent in Wales sent round a circular to this effect—

"Sir,—We have been requested by influential parties to publish, from time to time, sets of sermons in Welsh for the assistance of the clergy in Wales. …. They will be very plain and practical, and translated in a popular, preachable style by an able translator, and one accustomed to instruct the poor. Owing to the extra expense necessarily attendant upon translations, &c, 12 sermons will be charged 30s. and single sermons 3s. each."

Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that everything fell into neglect and disorder; that the churches got into a ruinous condition; that even Sunday services were often omitted for weeks and months, and, when performed, were performed in a manner that provoked ridicule, and then something which I refer to with reluctance—the clergy themselves fell into disreputable courses. I do not like to dwell on this. They were my own countrymen; they were placed in circumstances that exposed them to temptations for which we must make great allowance; pone of their ecclesiastical superiors took the slightest interest in them, or exercised the slightest supervision over them—they were abandoned to themselves, and no wonder that they fell into habits I would rather not characterize. I will only read an extract from a speech delivered by Mr. G. B. Hughes at the Church Congress in 1879, in which he described the state of things as it existed within living memory—

"The Holy Communion was administered at most four times a year—rarely that. The churches were miserably out of repair, ruinous in some intances; always damp, mouldy, and unwholesome; the pews fast falling into decay, in many cases incapable of occupation; but, alas! seldom put to the test. …. The services were slovenly and irreverent, the congregation—what wonder?—miserably small. The singing was often confined to a painful solo, executed by the 'Amen' clerk. In one parish a woman was clerk. Save at the Bishop's visitation, the clergy were never brought together. The archdeacons never visited, and ruridecanal meetings were unknown. It is a painful and humiliating picture to present to you. I have not, I think, exaggerated it. No wonder to find Dissent in nearly every parish nourish and abound. …. What the clergy were I hesitate to say; but we are met to hear and speak the truth. If a clergyman was sober, moral, and respectable, it was, I fear, an exceptionally fortunate parish that claimed him."

Lord Aberdare followed this speaker, and a more competent witness could not be found, for he has been from his youth a steadfast and zealous friend of the Church in Wales, and has done much to promote its reform. He bore similar testimony, and said the account just given in no way exaggerated the state of things, such as he himself remembered them when a young man. The House will observe that all the testimony I have cited, from the Reformation to our own time, is testimony from members of the Church of England. I might cite the testimony of Nonconformists equally explicit; but I carefully avoid doing so, confining myself to testimony of members of the Establishment. Thus I have illustrated a period of 300 years; and during the whole of the time I maintain, and I think I have proved, that the Church of England has failed or disregarded its professed duty as the religious instructor of the Welsh people. Yet, in spite of all this, there is probably at this moment no part of the United Kingdom—I think I might say no part of the world—so amply supplied with the means of religious worship and instruction as the Principality of Wales And I think I may venture to add that the inhabitants of Wales are as intelligent, as religious, as moral, and as orderly a people as can be found in any quarter of the globe. To what is the country indebted for its Christian civilization? Beyond all doubt mainly to the labours of the Nonconformists. Nonconformity originated in Wales in the Reign of Charles I. by a few Puritan clergy, who were driven out of the Church for the excess of their zeal. During the short period of the Commonwealth they displayed great activity. But when the Restoration came persecution was renewed with redoubled severity. Nowhere was the penal legislation of the Reign of Charles II. more pitilessly enforced than in Wales. Mr. Arthur Johnnes, the author of a remarkable work On the Causes of Dissent in Wales, though a zealous Churchman, pays this generous tribute to the zeal and courage of their ministers—

"Even in the persecuting times of the Stuarts the Nonconformist pastors still continued to traverse the wild hills of the Principality, braving all dangers for the sake of their few and scattered followers. Their congregations still met in fear and trembling, generally at midnight, or in woods and caverns, amid the gloomiest recesses of the mountains."

And whenever there was a lull in the tempest they did more. They promoted education. They printed and disseminated religious books, and were specially active in the printing and circulation of the Bible. During the half-century following 1630 the persecuted Nonconformists published nine editions, consisting of about 30,000 copies of the whole Bible, and 40,000 of the New Testament alone. About the middle of the last century the Methodist revival arose, and added an immense impulse to the activity of Nonconformity in Wales; and their efforts to provide the means of religious instruction, which had been so grievously neglected by the official Church, were indefatigable. The Nonconformists were, especially in the early part of their history, for the most part a very poor people. Yet, have they not succeeded in covering the whole face of the country with the means of religious instruction? To show the rapidity with which this was done, let me cite the following figures of the number of Nonconformist places of worship in the Principality at five different periods. In 1742 there were 105; in 1775, 171; in 1816, 993; in 1861, 2,927; in 1884, 4,200. But not only have Nonconformists provided the religion for the people; they have provided the literature for the people of Wales. An interesting and exhaustive Paper was read at the Church Congress at Swansea in 1879—the production of a clergyman, the Rev. David Williams; and he, speaking of the periodical literature of Wales, said they numbered 12 weeklies, two quarterlies, and 18 monthlies; and out of that number the Nonconformists supported the two quarterlies, 16 monthlies, and 10 weeklies—

"The native Press is almost entirely in the hands of Dissenters, the proportion in publications being the same as in the populations between Churchmen and Nonconformists. Out of 32 Welsh periodicals the Church claims the significant number of four. This number is the exponent both of her history in the past and her strength in the present."

I am happy to add that within the last 25 or 30 years there has been a great improvement in the Church in Wales. I readily and ungrudgingly acknowledge that. Dilapidated churches have been repaired or rebuilt, and new ones erected, and the services are conducted with far more earnestness and zeal; and we have seen clergymen devoting themselves zealously to the duties of their high calling, ready to go forth into the streets and byways and compel wanderers to come in, and not unwilling to tempt a stray lamb from the Nonconformist fold. But it is too late. We are obliged to say to these good people—"Others have laboured, and ye are entering into their labour." In many parts of Wales the literal truth is, clergymen had nothing to do but to try and pervert Nonconformists. I turn to the latest official statistics—those of 1851, when Wales had a population of 1,180,944. The Established Church had provided Church accommodation for 301,897, or 30 per cent; the Nonconformists 699,232, or 70 per cent; and, assuming with Mr. Horace Mann that the Church should provide 48 per cent, it followed that the Church fell short of its requirements by 387,672, while the Nonconformists exceeded their supply by 2,879. The same Return showed in the attendance at public worship—Churchmen, 22 per cent; Nonconformists, 78 per cent; and the difference, I believe, is now greater than in 1851. A similar proportion existed in regard to Sunday Schools and general education. I appeal to the candour and justice of hon. Gentlemen opposite whether this is not an anomaly that cannot be tolerated? The only argument I have heard against the proposal of my hon. Friend is that, except for conventional purposes, there is really no Welsh Church—that it is only a part of the Church of England, and, therefore, cannot be dealt with alone. Well, I am not very much dismayed by this difficulty. We can remember the time when the same reason was urged to show the impossibility of touching the Irish Church. Properly speaking, we were told there was no Church of Ireland, but only the United Church of England and Ireland—the two Churches having at the time of the Union been joined together by a compact so solemn and binding, that Her Majesty the Queen could not give her consent to any measure for dissolving that compact without incurring the danger of committing perjury, and bringing her Crown into jeopardy. And as for providing legislation for Ireland distinct from England, the suggestion was scouted as an absurdity. Ireland was as much a part of the United Kingdom as Yorkshire or Lancashire, and must be governed by the same laws. The sense of justice, however, and the urgent necessity of the case, triumphed over these foregone conclusions as respects Ireland, as they will triumph as respects Wales. The Welsh are an eminently loyal people. Every soldier in Wales might be taken out of it, and the country would still be quiet and tranquil. If anything could disturb the loyalty of Wales and engender discontent it would be to be told that their union with England would hold them in bondage to this alien system. Therefore I say—"For your own sakes look fairly and candidly at this matter." I appeal to the justice and generosity of Englishmen to liberate the Welsh people from what they feel to be an anomaly that ought to be swept away, and they will gain a thousand fold by the gratitude and loyalty of my countrymen.

, in rising to move, as an Amendment, to leave out all the words after the word "population," in line 4, and to insert the words—

"This House is of opinion that the time has arrived for introducing, without delay, into its organization such reforms as will enable it to adapt itself more efficiently to the religious needs and wishes of the Welsh people,"

said, he had listened with interest and also with some surprise to the speech made in support of the Resolution by the Mover and the discursive historical lecture of his hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil. Those speeches had been directed against the past and the present form of the Establishment; but not one word had been directed against the principle of a National Establishment itself. That was a fact of great significance, considering that this was the first move of the Liberation Society in this Parliament. He understood the hon. Member for Swansea to say that what the Welsh people objected to especially was the establishment of a Church of England in Wales, and that they would not object to the establishment of a Welsh Church.

, interposing, said, the hon. Member had misunderstood him. He had said nothing about the establishment of a Welsh Church.

said, the hon. Member had confined his attack to the present application of the national principle in Wales; and this being so he would be wasting the time of the House were he to attempt to defend the principle of Establishment, inasmuch as it had not been attacked by either of the hon. Members who had spoken. If he should succeed in proving that the evils which the hon. Members attacked were the results of causes which were not essential to Establishment, and which were capable of being removed without recourse to the drastic remedy of Disestablishment, he hoped that the hon. Members would accept his Amendment, if they could do so without running the risk of being misunderstood by their constituents. He admitted the substantial accuracy of the facts which the hon. Members had adduced. He admitted that among the bulk of the Welsh people the National Establishment was regarded as an alien Church—as a Church of conquest which had supplanted their own native Church; as an instrument of conquest of which use had been made to try and win the Welsh people from their native tongue, and to Anglicize rather than to evangelize the people. It could not be disputed—and he made this statement with great reluctance—that the revenues of the National Establishment intended for the religious education of the whole people had been appropriated to the exclusive use of a small minority, chiefly drawn from the wealthier classes. The Dean of Bangor, speaking on this subject before the Church Congress at Swansea in 1879, said—

"The Church in "Wales has lost five-sixths of the Welsh-speaking people, and her strength survives among the English-speaking upper and middle classes."

It was monstrous and indefensible that the revenues intended for the religious instruction of the whole people should have been appropriated to the exclusive use of a small and wealthy minority. But when all this was granted, it by no means necessarily followed that a case for Disestablishment had been made out. It followed that there was an irresistible case for the immediate passing of such reforms as would make the National Establishment the "Welsh Church and not the Church of England in Wales. He entreated hon. Members opposite, inasmuch as it was impossible for them to controvert these facts, to give a little generous consideration to proposals of reform that might be made by a friend of the Church, because the existing evils were so scandalous and indefensible, that unless reforms were speedily initiated and pushed through the House, it would be almost impossible for any power in the House, either on the Treasury Bench or the Benches opposite, to avert for even a short period the Disestablishment of the National Church in Wales. He therefore accepted the first part of the Resolution of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn)—

"That the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its professed object as a means of promoting the religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers to only a small minority of the population."

Could he have anticipated the speeches that had been delivered that evening, for the words "Church of England in Wales" in the Resolution he would have proposed to substitute the words "National Establishment for the support of religion." He would have done this because the term "Church of England in Wales" was rather misleading. It implied a sectarian institution, irrevocably pledged to immutable forms, protected and privileged by the State because of its sectarian character, and governed by an ecclesiastical hierarchy independent of State control. Now, such a view of the Church was not warranted by the facts. What was called the Church of England in Wales was only the National Organization through which, under such conditions as Parliament might impose, religious ministrations were offered gratuitously to everyone willing to accept them. He agreed with the hon. Member for Swansea that the application of the whole income derived from Church property to support the religious services of a small minority was a monstrous injustice and scandal. What, then, it might be asked, was the difference between that hon. Member and himself? While the hon. Member thought that the scandal was one which could only be removed by Disestablishment, he held that it could be removed by a policy of Church reform. The hon. Member advocated the displacement of the National Establishment; he was in favour of its development by such reforms as would make it the Church of the Welsh people, to be controlled by them, under such conditions as Parliament might impose, for the religious advancement of the whole community. From what source were the large revenues of the National Establishment in Wales derived? He was sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Picton) was prevented from bringing in his Motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the revenues of the Church, and he hoped that although that Motion was blocked, it might still be brought on. These revenues represented the accumulated gifts of private individuals. [Cries of "No!"] Well, that was one of the interesting points which a Committee of Inquiry would clear up. His contention was that the revenues represented the accumulated gifts of individuals ranging over several centuries which had been handed over to the State for the support of the national religion. The position of the State was that of trustee, and two main conditions regulated its great and sacred trust. The first was that these revenues should be administered by the State for the spiritual education of the people at large; and the second, that they should be administered in such a way as to insure the greatest possible result. The State had from time to time changed the conditions regulating the administration of the funds of the National Church, and there was nothing to prevent its doing so again. There was every reason why it should do so whenever such charges as had been made that evening could be substantiated. He might be told that that was an Erastian proposition which could not be countenanced by true Churchmen. In this connection he might draw attention to a recent correspondence between the Bishop of St. Asaph and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Rendel) upon the subject of the Church of Wales. The Bishop in that correspondence said that he freely admitted that it was the duty of the Legislature to enact laws to promote the best use of ecclesiastical endowments for the glory of God and the spiritual welfare of the people. He would like to ask what care the State had taken in the past to see that these Church revenues should be properly administered? The House had been told by the hon. Member for Swansea that the State had so administered its trust as to divert the Church revenues from the mass of the people, and appropriate them exclusively to one-sixth of the people at large. That fact alone showed that the State had neglected and betrayed its trust. It stood up before the country in the character of a negligent and faithless trustee. It had taken no precaution to secure that the Church funds should be used in the best way to promote the spiritual well-being of the people at large. This was the the charge which was brought against the State; but so far from this charge being a justification for the abandonment of the trust committed to it, it was, in his (Mr. Albert Grey's) opinion, a reason why the State should see to the fulfilment of the trust it had so long neglected. The betrayal of a trust could not be made a reason for its abandonment. What was the present position of the Church in Wales and in England also? The people for whom the Church existed had no voice whatever in the management of the affairs relating to their own parish churches. The parson and the patron alone had power. The patron of a living might put any man he pleased into that living, and the people had no power to remonstrate; and the clergyman, when once appointed, had the power of doing whatever he liked. They had in the National Church an aristocratic and sacerdotal form of government, the result of which, in this democratic age, had been to turn the people away from the Church, and to prompt them to seek for the spiritual consolation they might require, not in the churches belonging to the National Establishment, but in Nonconformist chapels. How was that state of things to be remedied? By placing the churches in the hands of the people for whom they existed. The people should have some voice in the appointment of the minister, and they should also have some control over the minister when he was appointed. In Wales there certainly could be no question that the aristocratic form of government had absolutely failed. Let them, therefore, abandon this aristocratic form of government, and go in for a church democracy. It might be said that that would be a dangerous policy, and that license and riot might ensue. It would be easy to devise safeguards against this possibility. The law of the land carefully defined the limits within which the services of the Church should be conducted, and within those limits there were many different ways of conducting the services. His complaint was that at present the clergyman, who was an irresponsible and powerful autocrat, could alone exercise any choice in the matter. That was not right. The people, for whom the Church existed, in conjunction with the clergyman, should be allowed to settle what services allowed by law should be held in the parish church; whether the national service should be in Welsh or English; at what hour the English service should be held; at what hour the Welsh service should be held; what hymn book should be used, and all other such points There were two arguments which might be adduced against that proposal. One body of objectors said that that was too great a power to intrust to the people; while others said that the power was not sufficient, The first body of objectors, however, must remember that, even if the people in the parish were given the power now enjoyed by the minister, it would be absolutely impossible for them to overstep those limits which were carefully laid down by Act of Parliament. To the second body of objectors he would say that if, after the people had been enfranchised, after they had got the power of managing their own Church affairs, it was even then impossible for them to get services congenial to their own tastes and feelings, it would be in their power to bring pressure upon Parliament to relax somewhat the Act of Uniformity. He did not, however, wish to pursue that subject further. He only wished to point out that it would be in the power of future Parliaments, should the people desire it, to relax the Act of Uniformity in such a way as to allow of greater flexibility in the use of the Book of Common Prayer and the enrichment of it by additional offices He wished particularly to draw the attention of the House to the point that, whereas the hostility to the National Establishment in Wales had been owing to its aristocratic and feudal and Conservative government, if it was the desire to win back the people to the Church, they must be prepared to give them, under such conditions as Parliament might deem it right to impose, a share in the control and management of the affairs of their own parish churches. He might be asked what hope there was that such reforms as these would bring back the Welsh people to the National Establishment. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Richard) had delivered an interesting historical address; but he was going to quote against the hon. Member another Member of the House, whose opinion would be accepted on all Church matters as of great authority—the Prime Minister, whom, he regretted to hear, was absent through indisposition. In a speech the right hon. Gentleman delivered in 1870 he said that it appeared from history that so long as the sympathies of the nation were cultivated the Church had been perfectly acceptable to the people of Wales. The Prime Minister declared that the proposition was completely sustained by history that the people of Wales had been the staunchest Churchmen so long as their Church was administered in a spirit of sympathy with the national feeling. The fact was that the people of Wales had been alienated simply because the National Establishment, since the Revolution, had been working in opposition to the prejudices of Welshmen. Was there any reason, then, to suppose that if they gave to the people of Wales the management of their own Church they would not become the same staunch Churchmen as they were in the days of yore? In Switzerland formerly the Church was most unpopular. The patron, as in England and Wales, regarded his patronage as a means of making his son rich or the husband of his daughter rich. [Ironical cheers from the Opposition.] He did not understand the cheers of hon. Gentlmen opposite; but he might state that this interested dispensation of patronage in Switzerland alienated the common people from the Establishment; the clergy were out of sympathy with them, and the Church was hated by the majority of the Swiss nation. But now in Switzerland they had adopted democratic reforms in the Church; the people had a voice in the appointment of the ministers, and a control over the services of the parish churches. The result was that the ministers were in close sympathy with the people, and Dissent had almost disappeared. He hoped he had made his position clear. It was his hope that reforms of a popular and democratic character would be adopted in time by that House, which would transfer to the people a large share of the power which was now monopolized by the patron and parson. That policy was, he believed, infinitely more in accordance with the rising Liberalism of the present day than the destructive policy of Disestablishment. He stood at an advantage as compared with the hon. Member for Swansea. In his Amendment he proposed a policy liberal and democratic. What was the policy of the hon. Member for Swansea? He had listened in vain for any intimation of what the hon. Gentleman intended to do; and had the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil supplied the deficiency? Not at all. Was the hon. Member going to disestablish without disendowing? If he was, it would be an infamous act of robbery, because it would be depriving the people of Wales of a great national inheritance, and be giving money belonging to the nation to a sect. He was confident that neither the people of Wales nor that House would ever consent to this. Well, then, was the hon. Member going to disendow as well as disestablish the National Church in Wales? If so, how was he going to appropriate the endowments? Was he, as proposed by Mr. Justice Williams, going to divert them to secular purposes? The people of this country would never consent to the secularization of revenues and desecration of fabrics devoted to the religious education of the people. Well, then, if the hon. Gentleman was not ready with a policy, why not accept the policy which he had suggested? [A laugh.] Hon. Members might laugh; but he would say he compared favourably with the Mover of the Motion in that he had a clear and intelligible policy, while his hon. Friend had come without a scheme or a policy to ask the House to pass an abstract Resolution. He hoped the House would give his Amendment a favourable consideration, and that hon. Gentlemen opposite would recognize the importance of reforming the Church without delay. He had heard ugly rumours in the Lobby that if by the favour of the House his Amendment should be carried, hon. Gentlemen opposite would then vote against the amended Resolution. If they did they would render themselves liable to the accusation that they were not only against Disestablishment, but against all reform. There was nothing in his Amendment that need frighten hon. Gentlemen opposite. They need not read his views in it. The hon. Member for Swansea said that a wall of brass divided the Church of Wales from the people. Well, if they wanted to break down that wall of brass let them introduce the principle of local self-government; let them nationalize the Church; let them make what was called the Church of the English in Wales the Church of the Welsh; let them make it not only the Church of the clergy and of the wealthy minority, but the Church of the people, governed and controlled by the people in each parish, as the people acting through their representatives might decide, always provided such control did not conflict with the regulations laid down by Parliament. It was a Liberal and Democratic Amendment, and as such he, with confidence, submitted it to the consideration of that Democratic Asssembly. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment which stood in his name.

seconded the Amendment, and, in doing so, said, that everybody knew how unsatisfactory had been the position of the Church in Wales for ages past. The hon. Member who introduced this Motion had proved abundantly what little sympathy there was at present between the vast majority of the people of Wales and the Church as it now existed in that country. But as the House had listened to the two interesting speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution, and heard of the vice, drunkenness, and immorality in connection with the clergy of the Principality in years gone by, as well as the gross system of nepotism that prevailed, surely it must have occurred to many hon. Members that if the case had been stated mutatis mulandis, the same thing would have applied to other parts of the country besides Wales. And, therefore, perhaps the House would listen to a few observations from him, although he could not claim to be the Representative of a Welsh constituency. His hon. Friend below him (Mr. Albert Grey) acknowledged that the present state of things in Wales involved an anomaly and an injustice that must be dealt with. The question was, how the Church should be dealt with? This matter was not to be dealt with as hon. Gentlemen opposite were about to deal with it, by meeting the Resolution with a direct negative, but they should try to obtain a measure of reform that would meet the necessities of the case. They might be told, perhaps, that it was now too late—that the time was past for reform. Those were fatal words to write over the door of any institution, and any institution over which they were written was inevitably doomed. He trusted, however, that it was not too late to reform the Church in Wales. His reason for seconding the Amendment of his hon. Friend was because he thought that on this, the first occasion which any matter of Church discipline had come before a new House of Commons, it was well that those hon. Members who felt strongly on matters of reform should see one more effort made to introduce a scheme of reform—so bold, generous, and farreaching—that they might try whether in this matter it might not be possible once more to do good by amending and reforming rather than by destroying any institution in the country. It was for that reason he begged to second the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Northumberland.

said, he was sure that hon. Members on that side of the House would join with him in the expression of satisfaction at seeing the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) sufficiently restored to health to take part in this debate. He hoped to imitate the candour with which the Mover and Seconder of the Motion had handled their arguments. As to the Amendment which suggested Church reform as a universal panacea, it was really more embarrassing to him than the Motion, for he did not entirely disagree with the principle underlying it. But the proposition was not really germane to the subject now under discussion, and was only calculated to lead the House away from the real question raised by the Motion. He quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman who proposed the Amendment, that the second part of the Motion was exceedingly vague. The assertion that—

"The continuance of the Church of England in Wales as an Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly and injustice which ought no longer to exist,"

appeared to be characterized by intentional vagueness. Some years ago the late Mr. Watkin Williams brought forward a Motion which in its first part was very like the present Motion; but in the second part it declared that Disendowment ought to follow, and that the funds ought to be devoted to secular purposes. But the present Motion was so vague that it would be open to some of its supporters to say that they were not in favour of Disendowment; while others said that, though in favour of Disendowment, they were not in favour of applying the funds to secular purposes; and a third set of its supporters might assert that they were in favour of Disendowment and of the funds being applied to secular purposes. There was some ground for complaint that the Motion had been brought forward at all. He thought that, by common consent, hon. Gentlemen opposite were not to raise Church questions in the present Parliament. ["Oh, oh!"] He did not refer to individual Members; but there was conveyed to the minds of the Opposition the impression that, following the lead of the Prime Minister, the Liberal Party had taken up the attitude of postponing for the next few Sessions of Parliament the consideration of Church questions. ["No, no!"] At all events, a great many Members of the present Parliament owed their election to an attitude of that description. He feared he must describe the observations of the hon. Member for Swansea as being of too general a character. Nor did he think the hon. Gentleman went into the question with that closeness of argument which the House would have expected from him. He (Mr. Raikes) objected to his phrase, "Church of England in Wales." That phrase in this connection he thought misleading, and represented an opinion for which there was no foundation. It represented that the Church of England was regarded in Wales as an alien and intrusive institution. ["Hear, hear!"] There might be Welshmen who thought so; but he had lived in Wales for 35 years, and had heard many arguments against the Church, but never this one. He also objected to the reference of the hon. Member for Swansea to the fact that he was a Welsh Member, and that the Welsh Members generally were of certain opinions on this subject, as if upon this question a Welsh Member stood in any different position from that of an English Member. Retrograde as our policy might be in the future, we had not yet gone back so far as to regard Wales as a Principality and entity separate from England. It would be a fatal day for Wales if such a thing came to pass. The hon. Member pointed to the fact that Wales once had its own Chief Justice, though this office was now abolished; that there were Turnpike Acts which applied to Wales and not to England—but that was due to particular local circumstances not at all affecting the Welsh counties at large — and that a Sunday Closing Bill had been passed for Wales. But this last fact did not show that Wales was to be treated as a separate entity. It was merely due to the circumstance that the Welsh people were willing to accept it, while the English people were not. The hon. Member had referred to some remarks made by the present Prime Minister in 1869 on the Irish Church Bill; but in 1870, when speaking on Mr. Watkin Williams's Motion in favour of Church Disestablishment in Wales, the Prime Minister pointed out that the whole history of the case in Wales was entirely different from that in Ireland. Whatever view might be taken of the anomaly of the Established Church in Wales, it would be, said the Prime Minister, the greatest exaggeration to represent the attitude of the Dissenting bodies in Wales to the Established Church as similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland to the Established Church in Ireland. He need not dwell at any length on the interesting historical review which the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil had given them. The hon. Member was well informed on all Welsh questions, having paid special attention to them, and he always listened to him with interest. But when the hon. Member spoke of the Church in Wales as being an "alien institution," and the "Church of the invader and conqueror," the hon. Member was too good an antiquary not to know that the Church existed in Wales long before the English arrived there, or, indeed, in any part of this Island. The hon. Member must be aware that the ancient British Church existed in the mountainous districts of Wales before St. Augustine came to Canterbury, St. Patrick to Ireland, or St. Columba to Scotland. To represent the Church in Wales as the Church of the invader and the conqueror, appeared to him to be an entire misrepresentation, which, while no doubt unintentional, was calculated to mislead those outside the House who did not know the facts so well as the hon. Member. Reference had also been made by the hon. Member to English Bishops being forced on the Welsh under Saxon and Norman rule. He should like to know any instance of a Bishop being forced on the Welsh by Saxon Sovereigns, for, as a matter of fact, they were not able to establish their authority over the Welsh, who had their own Archbishop. But even if these matters were as the hon. Member represented them, he should like to know what practical bearing they had on the question before the House. As he did not wish it to be supposed that he had allowed anything to go by default, he would now state clearly the position he took. With reference to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Albert Grey), he should feel bound to vote ultimately against the Amendment of the hon. Member if it should become the substantive Motion, because it accepted the premisses of the first part of the original Motion. For his part, he was not prepared to assent to the proposition that the Church in Wales had failed to perform its professed object to minister to the religious interests of the Welsh people. He did not know what object it professed; but he could show that the Church had been far more successful in ministering to the religious interests of the Welsh people than the hon. Member would have them believe. Nor did he believe that the Church ministered but to a small minority of the population. He admitted the Church was in a minority; but he denied that it was in so small a minority as had been represented. Therefore, he objected as strongly to the admissions of principle conceded by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northumberland as he did to the conclusions of the original Motion. There was one contribution to the discussion of this question which should not be unnoticed in addition to the speeches they had heard that night. In November last an interesting contribution to contemporary literature on this subject proceeded from the pen of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies. In that paper he gave no uncertain sound in advocating the proposition now put before the House; and it was remarkable, having regard to the confidence which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in the views of the Welsh population towards the Established Church, that he had not recently seized an opportunity of being reelected. One or two subjects alluded to by the right hon. and learned Member he should like to notice. He stated that the chapels were crammed to suffocation, and that the churches were empty. On referring to a newspaper called Y Goleuad, one of the organs of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, he found various facts set forth with reference to chapel building. He could not go into all the figures, but he would select some of the instances given. In the parish of Trimsaran he found that a chapel had been built with 500 sittings at a cost of £1,200, of which £1,100 was unpaid, and the congregation numbered 40. At Blaenrhondda, which the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Richard) might know something about, as it was in his district, a chapel to seat 550 had been built at a cost of £1,740, and the debt upon it was £1,765. The number of the members of that congregation was 79. He could run through a long list of similar cases, but he would merely rely upon the last, which was at Penmaenmawr, where he found that a chapel had been built containing 230 seats at a cost of £1,200, of which £940 remained unpaid, while the congregation numbered 18. He ought, in justice, however, to remark that he was referring only to communicant members of the congregation; but he believed that if the communicants were multiplied by four, it would give a fair average of the attendants at the services; and 18 multiplied by four gave 72, which could hardly crowd to suffocation a chapel with 230 sittings, unless the Welsh were a very peculiar people. He had no disposition to throw discredit upon the very laudable and honourable exertions of the Welsh people to provide chapel accommodation for themselves, because they deserved the highest praise for the earnestness and zeal with which they had endeavoured to supply in even more than sufficiency their religious wants. He wished, however, to point out how unreliable the statistics were that had been put forward by hon. Members opposite, doubtless with perfect good faith in their accuracy. He wished now to come to the large and broad question of the possibility of separating the Church in Wales from the Church of England. Hon. Members opposite spoke glibly enough on the subject; but he doubted whether they could define what they included in the expression Wales. Was it a geographical Wales, an ethnological Wales, an ecclesiastical Wales, or the Wales that was included in the registration districts? Of the four dioceses into which Wales was divided two—those of Llandaff and St. Asaph—included portions of England. Were only those parts of those dioceses that were in Wales to be disestablished, and were those portions which were in England to remain established? With regard to the statistics put forward by hon. Members opposite, he absolutely declined to accept them as in any respect final or reliable, inasmuch as the allies of those hon. Members had frustrated the endeavours of Parliament to obtain an accurate religious census of the country. In such circumstances, it could not be right to accept the unofficial religious census which they had put forward, and which had been drawn up by irresponsible persons. These statistics were noticeable for the discrepancies which occurred in those put forward by different Nonconformist bodies. He wished to point out the original manner in which the number of Churchmen in this instance was ascertained by Dr. Rees and other gentlemen. They found that there were 253,000 Congregationalists, 250,000 Calvinistic Methodists, 144,000 Baptists, 78,000 Wesleyans, 17,000 Primitive Methodists, and so on; but, after going through the list in this manner, Dr. Rees found that he had got about 500,000 persons left. Instead, however, of making the Church a present of the residuum he was pleased to put all those persons down as of the non-religious order. Dr. Rees, having had his attention called to this curious feature of his calculations, was also apparently informed that there were some Roman Catholics in Wales; he therefore took off 30,000 for Roman Catholics. Having done this, he seems to have thought that, on the whole, the fairest thing to do with the 470,000 people left was to give 220,000 to the Church, and 250,000 to the non-religious order. But how, why, when, and in what manner he arrived at that distinguishing line which separated the parties in such nearly equal proportions could not be gathered, because, unhappily, Dr. Rees was no longer alive, and his statistics could not be explained by any living person, except, perhaps, the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Hussey Vivian). The hon. Member for Swansea, when he made his speech in 1883, estimated the number of Churchmen on somewhat the same principle, putting the number down as 142,000, and the non-religious 150,000. That evening, however, the hon. Member had estimated the number of Churchmen at 217,000, as against 100,000 non-religious persons. Taking the hon. Member's figures, therefore, the House would see that he himself had made out a very small excess on behalf of the largest Nonconformist denominations as compared with the number he was willing to allow to the Church. Even on the statistics which had been submitted to the House by hon. Members opposite—taking their accuracy for granted—he thought a fair case had been made out for assuming that the Church was still considerably the most numerous denomination in Wales. Dealing next with the failure of the Church in Wales, he stated that he had been at pains, in view of this discussion, to enter into communication with the clergy in North Wales as to certain points. A certain number of questions were put to the clergymen, and he found from the replies which had been returned to his inquiries that in 164 parishes in the diocese of St. Asaph there were 201 Church schools at the present time and 76 Board or British schools. He also found—and this was perhaps the most remarkable and instructive fact which could be found in connection with the attitude of Welsh people towards the Church—that since the Burials Act of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies had been passed, there had been celebrated under the provisions of that Act by Nonconformist ministers in these 164 parishes 666 funerals; while there had been 11,384 funerals according to the rites of the Established Church. He should say that those figures admitted of being largely supplemented, because of the parishes which sent in returns 16 had failed to send in the number of Church funerals. Another question which had been put to the clergymen was with regard to the attendance of Nonconformists on special occasions, such as harvest festivals, public thanksgivings, Christmas Day and New Year observances. He had found that without a single exception Nonconformists frequented the churches in large numbers, and, judging from his own experience in his parish church, he should say that the church, containing from 1,200 to 1,300 persons, was filled at a New-Year's Eve service with a great majority of Nonconformists. Then, again, with respect to the expenditure of the Church in the last 10 years. In the 164 parishes already mentioned be found that £159,550 had been spent on church building and restoration; £14,177 on mission rooms; the increase in endowments from private liberality being £69,963. In 272 parishes in North Wales he found that the total number of Church schools was 321, the number of Board schools 205; the number of funerals under the Burials Act of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, 1,441; the total number of funerals according to the rites of the Established Church, 20,598; the total sum spent in 10 years on church buildings and restorations was £249,046; on mission rooms, £30,740; and the increase in endowments from private liberality £124,349. Having received these statistics, and believing them as he did, he would be wanting in his duty if he allowed the statement to go forth unchallenged that the Church had failed in its object of furthering the religious interests of the Principality, or that it ministered to a mere minority of the population. Church progress had been even more remarkable in some respects in the populous diocese of Llandaff, the particulars of which might be found in the official Year-Book of the Church. The statistics relating to the diocese of St. David's were in nearly the same proportion as those of the diocese of Llandaff. He had one other great fact, which he humbly offered as a basis for computing by a positive method the number of Church people in Wales. He entirely repudiated the system adopted by hon. Gentlemen opposite in estimating everybody they could for their own particular denomination and leaving the balance to the Church. In nine parishes of the diocese of Bangor, not including the seaside towns, there were 1,227 communicants to a population of 9,028, and in a similar district of the diocese of St. Asaph the proportion in entirely rural districts was the same — about one-ninth of the population being communicants. In the diocese of Llandaff the proportion was a little larger, and in that of St. Davids it was about the same. From these figures it might well be judged that the number of the population belonging to the Church were something like one-third. But he did not stop there. In Wales there was a great many Nonconformists who were extremely unwilling that the Church should be disestablished. In Swansea, which might be regarded as the Mecca of Disestablishment, an unknown Conservative candidate polled 2,500 against a Member so long known and respected in that House. The returns of the last elections in Wales showed that the Church, which they were told claimed one-seventh or one-ninth of the population, brought up to the poll 67,593 voters, as against 98,593. It was, he thought, very desirable that their side of the case should be given, because it showed that the House could not accept implicitly the statement on which the Motion was based. He asked hon. Members to take a charitable and liberal and impartial view of this matter, and not to be led away by any question of sectarian jealousy, or denominational vexation, or personal feeling. They should look at the question, not as Welshmen, Cornishmen, or Yorkshiremen, but as Englishmen, and look at it as a great question affecting the greatest glory of our land and the greatest blessings of our people.

Sir, my hon. Friend's Resolution has come on so unexpectedly late this evening that I am sure that none of its friends will risk our arriving at a division upon the substance of it by prolonging this debate. It is, indeed, needless that we should attempt to set out the arguments for the Disestablishment of the English Church in Wales, partly because that has been already done to our complete satisfaction by my hon. friends who have moved and seconded this Resolution, and partly because we have reason to believe that the great mass of the Liberal Party already recognizes and accepts the fact that the Establishment in Wales is perhaps the most crying injustice that still calls for remedy at the hands of Parliament. But it is necessary that something should be said by the Welsh Representatives in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes) who has just spoken in opposition to the Motion. He has founded his main objections to the Motion—first, on the inadequacy and incorrectness of the statistics of my hon. Friend; and, secondly, on the supposed impossibility of dealing separately with Wales in this matter. Deeply as I should desire, in common with so many other Members from Wales, to enter far more fully into the merits of the case, I will trespass on the indulgence of the House only for the purpose of meeting to the best of my power the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman. Now, Sir, the House need not fear that I shall trouble them with statistics; indeed, I somewhat deprecate the use of ex parte statistics at all in this matter. I ask what end is really attained, what minds that are open are really convinced by the setting forth of such figures as the right hon. Gentleman has produced? He has, perhaps, amused his Friends with them, and at the expense of some needless pain to other people. But who supposes that a great question of this kind is going to be determined in this House by a nice adjustment of the exact ratio of Nonconformists to Churchmen in the Principality? Whether it is four to one, or six to one, or eight to one, will our decision turn on the exact proportion? Surely it is enough to say that the Welsh are notoriously a Nonconformist people. It is the Prime Minister himself, I believe, who has called them "a nation of Nonconformists;" and since an Established Church must at any rate be National, how can an Episcopalian Establishment be justified in Wales any more than it was in Scotland or in Ireland? The Welsh are too religious to be the enemies of the Church of England; but they are opposed to its establishment in Wales as an injustice and a spiritual monopoly. Their quarrel is not with the Church, but with its establishment, and they would be quite right even as friends of the Church in Wales to be the enemies of its establishment there, for nothing is plainer than that it was the Establishment that destroyed the Church in Wales. It was the civil and political control of the Church by means of Establishment which alone caused the Church to be used as an instrument of state for denationalizing and Anglicizing Wales. No Church and no people were ever more cruelly and more wickedly used than when, by means of an Establishment, the Church and the people of Wales were refused all religious ministrations by the State except at the sacrifice of their native tongue. In the result, as we know, the language was preserved, but the Church as a National Institution was destroyed. But, Sir, I should suppose that adequate evidence was furnished to this House of the numerical proportion of Nonconformists to Churchmen in Wales by the representation of Wales in this House. Out of 30 constituencies no less than 27 are in favour of Disestablishment. It is said that Disestablishment is not a question for the present Parliament, that it was not an issue at the late General Election; but that is not true of Wales at least, if even true elsewhere. My hon. Friends near me from Wales will all agree that the Disestablishment Question was in the very front rank at the last Election. In fact, it was the first, if not the sole, question at many places, and must continue to be so until that measure is conceded. The right hon. Member adduces figures to show that, after all, the Conservative vote at the General Election compares not so very unfavourably with the Liberal vote, and is a truer indication of the relative strength of Church and Nonconformity than Nonconformist returns of chapel and church attendance. But when the right hon. Gentleman put the Liberal vote at about 100,000 and the Conservative vote at nearly 70,000, he failed to remind the House that four Liberal Members were returned unopposed by some of the very largest constituencies in Wales. He thus omitted no less than 33,000 votes from his calculation. The right hon. Gentleman, however, considers that it is impossible to treat Wales as a separate country; but the House has been already reminded that Wales has been, in more than one case, treated individually and as a distinct country. There is not only the Sunday Closing Act—there is also the Intermediate Education Bill, and the much more important case, as it appears to me, of the County Franchise Act. Now, Sir, there is no doubt that had Wales been treated as one with England for the purposes of the franchise, Wales would have been far from entitled to retain the whole of her 30 Members, and the Prime Minister—whose absence on this occasion Wales has so much reason to regret—was careful, in introducing the measure, to lay down a principle under which Wales was to be entitled to treatment as a separate country for the purpose of the franchise. He said, in introducing the measure on November 6th, 1884—

"Further—and to this I attach immense importance—it must be equitable and liberal as between the great divisions of the country—and in speaking of these great divisions I have avoided the term 'the three countries' known to the Constitution, because it is not unnatural to substitute the number four for the number three, and speak of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales."—(3 Hansard, [293] 1126.)

If, then, Wales was entitled to be regarded as a separate country for the purpose of representation in this House, it seems clear that Wales is entitled to separate treatment for any purpose for which Parliament exists. I submit that the representative and Parliamentary rights of Wales being admitted to be rights belonging to her as a separate country, she is entitled to be recognized here as a separate country in all matters over which Parliament has control. The right hon. Gentleman considers that there is no clear line of boundary between England and Wales, and no plain and sufficient distinction; but it might be contended, on the other hand, that Wales is separated from England by a clearer and stronger barrier than Ireland—that is, not only by the barrier of race but of language; a separation which, for the purposes of religious ministration, is of the sharpest and most insuperable nature. No doubt the friends of the English Establishment are utterly opposed to any course which may lead to piecemeal or Local Option Disestablishment; but I earnestly ask the House to consider whether the friends of the Church of England are justified in supposing that Disestablishment in Wales would be any blow to the Church of England. People sometimes forget that the Church of England and the Establishment are not in the least coincident or co-extensive. The Church of England extends far beyond the Establishment—I am not now speaking of the Sister Churches such as those in Ireland and in Scotland and in America. I am speaking of the Church of England as a single Church. For example, the whole of the Colonial Church is one with, and is an integral part of, the Church of England. So much is this the case, that for a great many years it was thought that the Colonial Church was a part of the Establishment. It was in that belief that the Crown appointed the Colonial Bishops. I believe the Crown still appoints in the Crown Colonies. Not until Lord Kingsdown's judgment in 1862 did it appear by the decision of the Privy Council that Ministers and Parliament had been mistaken all along, and that the Colonial Church was not a part of the Establishment, though it was a part of the Church of England. Well, Sir, has the Church or the Establishment suffered in the smallest degree by this very important decision and change? So little is this the case, that I believe a great many persons are as ignorant as they are indifferent on the question whether this great and growing Colonial Church is or is not Established. You have its Bishops consecrated in this country by our Bishops, and, as we have lately seen in two instances, the Colonial Churches send their Bishops to us; so that not only do Holy Orders run interchangeably between the Unestablished and Established portions of the Church of England, but even the Home and Colonial Episcopate are interchangeable. How, then, would Welsh Disestablishment injure the English Church; or how should it be alleged that there is any insuperable difficulty in abolishing Estabment, so far as the Principality of Wales is concerned? Will the Church in Wales be one whit worse off than the Church in any part of our Colonies? Will it not, in fact, be enormously benefited, as it is in the Colonies, by being given the management of its own affairs? In no part of the Empire is it so necessary as in Wales that the Church should have the management of its own affairs, and be enabled to adapt itself to the special condition of the Principality, and, above all, to the bilingual difficulty. If, however, Wales is to be met by a simple non possumus; if the grievance is admitted by the great bulk of the Liberal Party and its Leaders, yet the interests of the English Establishment are to stand in the way of justice; if Wales, while remembering how the Episcopalian Church was long ago disestablished in Scotland, and was recently in Ireland, is to be told that she, with a nationality certainly not less pronounced than the Scotch or Irish, is nevertheless to submit to a gross and palpable grievance affecting her dearest and nearest—that is her religious—feelings and interests; and if Wales is to submit to this cruel wrong at the hands of, and in the interests of, England alone—nay, not in the interests of England alone, nor even of the great Church of England, but of those of an Establishment commanding the assent of not half of the English people—then I think the demand of Wales for separate treatment will and must grow more and more urgent. Wales is notoriously law-abiding, loyal, and even long-suffering. Wales is given to no violent courses, and is on the best terms with England; but in the circumstances, and without meaning thereby to convey the slightest appearance of threat—for the Welsh are not given to threats—I must declare that you are inviting, if not forcing, Wales to have recourse to those Parliamentary expedients by which the will of a compact and united body of Representatives may secure satisfaction. Wales is determined to have her national aspirations recognized, and is resolute that matters so intimately affecting her own welfare should receive the attention of Parliament. If Parliament rejects a claim enforced by 26 out of 30 constituencies, and Constitutionally urged in this House; and if the only ground for such rejection is the refusal to recognize any separate rights on the part of Wales, then you are inviting Wales to put separate recognition and separate treatment in the very forefront of her political programme, and to send up to this House men whose first, whose perhaps sole duty it would be to direct all their political action to this object. No one will regret such a state of things more than many of the best Liberals that Wales has. But I entreat the House to believe that the question of Disestablishment is not an artificial or superficial one in Wales. It is the one question — the burning political question—in every part of Wales; and I trust that the division to be shortly reached in this House will give Wales ample evidence that in this matter of justice she has the sympathy of this Assembly.

I may be allowed to say, with the Mover of this Resolution, that I do not view this question from a Liberationist point of view, although I am able to attest that the principle of complete religious equality is rapidly gaining ground every day. But I view it as a Welshman, and a Welshman that feels that the Church of England in Wales, for several reasons, has entirely failed to meet the religious requirements of the people. It has failed as an evangelizing agency, and it has failed to justify its nominal position as a National Church. In my own district, including Pontypridd — Pontypridd and the two Rhonddas—I find, by a Return made to this House in November, 1882, that in that year the Church only provided for the whole district, with its 100,000 population, 12 places of worship; while the other denominations provided no less than 87. This being so, is it not evident that the Church of England, in that part of Wales, has utterly failed to meet the religious requirements of the people? On the other hand, the religious wants of that district, with its immensely increased population, have been met, and fully met, by the Nonconformists. Had it not been so, the people, by thousands, would have been lapsing into heathenism; because the Church would never have thought of doing anything for them. But the Dissenters came to the rescue; for as soon as a colliery was sunk in any remote part of the district—for it should be known that it is a colliery district—a population rapidly sprang into existence. But even before the long rows of colliers' houses were built, a few earnest men met in the carpenter's shop, the engine shed, or, possibly, an old barn on the side of a hill, and these joined in prayer. As the population increased and became stronger, they would build a simple chapel, which, in a few years, would be enlarged, and ultimately attain the cathedral dimensions that characterizes a number of those edifices in that district. And in this manner, simple as it was, the Nonconformists met the religious requirements of the district; and it is they—and they alone—that we have to thank for saving the mass of people I speak of from infidelity. I would give the House some statistics to demonstrate the overwhelming majority of Nonconformists over Churchmen in the Rhondda Valley and Pontypridd district. The following figures of attendance at all the places of worship in the Ystrad and Pontypridd urban districts, on Sunday, March 4, 1884, were obtained by a committee, of which Mr. J. Griffiths, of Perth, was the secretary, and of which I myself was a member. The number of attendances at the morning services was at church 1,464, at chapel 19,238; and the attendances at the evening services were at church 2,485, at chapel 32,474. The total attendances, morning and evening, were at church 3,949, at chapel 51,712, which gives a proportion of Nonconformists as against Churchmen of 13 to 1. If the Church of England in Wales has failed to do its duty, it is not because it has been too poor to pay its clergy. This Church, which has so completely failed in Wales, has four Bishops, whose stipends amount to £17,000; it has Deans and Canons drawing £19,530, and clergy receiving £229,240. These figures give a total of £265,979. Yet, with all its wealth, this Church has lost the people. Certainly it cannot say now, as did the Apostle of old—"Silver and gold I have none;" neither can it point to the fact that by it the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Indeed, it would be hard to find that it ever, in Wales, made a profitable proclamation, except that which was to tax the whole country. One further point on which I wish to say a few words is that of language. It appears to me, as a new Member, that hon. Members have treated this matter somewhat indifferently. In addition to all this I have mentioned, the Church has omitted and neglected to provide means to teach the people the Word of God in language that they understand. I should like to be able to illustrate to hon. Members in this House the difficulty and the folly of trying to evangelize people in a language they cannot understand. What would hon. Members think if, before the commencement of our proceedings, the chaplain were to utter these words—

"Ein tad yr hwn urft yn y Nefœdd,

Sancteiddier dy enw-deled dy Deyrn."

They would think it a blasphemy perhaps, and yet it would be nothing more than the first words of that most beautiful of prayers of Divine origin—"Our Father which art in Heaven," and in the language of my countrymen. In the course it has adopted, the Church has forgotten the cardinal principle of getting at peoples' hearts through their understanding. Let me ask the House, seeing that it is the Free Churches, although unaided and unprotected by the State, which have done the work that the Church failed to do, is it fair that the Principality should still have that Church imposed upon it, and be compelled to contribute towards the support of that which has failed to do it any good, while also it is of the greatest importance that it should contribute handsomely to the support of those who really have done the work? At present the National Church in Wales is but one form of religion among the many. Its doctrines are disputed by other Churches, its services rejected, and its religious administrations available to a very small section of the people. And all that we ask for is that we should be placed on an equal platform with another branch of the Celtic race—our Irish brethren; and I appeal to the Irish Members here to aid us in attaining this desirable position.

I cannot agree with the facts of the hon. Member who has just sat down. They may be South Wales facts; but they certainly are not facts such as we are cognizant of in North Wales. The Nonconformists claim too much for themselves in thinking and saying that they have been the only propagators of religious truth in Wales. I know there are some hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House who think they are the legitimate successors of Cromwell and his band of patriots, who in times past made themselves extremely unpleasant to your Predecessors, Sir, and even ventured to lay violent hands on the "bauble." As a matter of fact, that pedigree is a very ill-established one, for the origin of Nonconformity in Wales is quite modern. The Wesleyan Body, which is, perhaps, the oldest, dating from 1735, was not firmly established until 1797; and the Calvinistic Methodists, which, I believe, is the largest of the sects in Wales, did not receive its Deed of Trust until 1811. So that, in reality, the origin of Nonconformity is comparatively recent; and I think, if that is the case, it is rather hard, when we call upon people to support the Church of England as a barrier against atheism and infidelity, that we should be taunted with the question—"Where would you have been but for Nonconformity?" We may as well say—"Where would the people of England and Wales have been throughout all the Dark Ages if it had not been for the light of the Church of England?" ["Divide!"] Hon. Members cannot deny that the founders of their own Nonconformity, the great teachers of Nonconformity, were Church of England men. Daniel Rowlands, of Llangeitho; Thomas Charles, of Bala; and John Elias—these were all Churchmen; and not only were they Churchmen, but they implored their followers never to forsake the Church of England. John Elias said—

"No Methodist is opposed to paying tithes or any such impost. No true, sincere Methodist can be opposed to the Established Church. Its ministers were the most celebrated instruments in the commencement of Methodism in Wales."

When circumstances arose which obliged Methodists to set apart some of the elder preachers to minister the ordinances, it was not intended to make an essential alteration with regard to the form and order of the Body. It was merely a setting apart of some to assist ministers of the Established Church; and everyone who was ordained was called on to confess and declare that he most truly, from his very soul, approved and accepted the present order and constitution of the "connexion." The translation of the Bible was the gift to you of the Established Church, as long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sir, I have to add my expression of regret to those which have already been made that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is not in his place; because I should have liked to appeal to him to support us to-night in opposition to the Resolution of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn). He did support us Churchmen in 1870, in opposition to Mr. Watkin Williams, and in doing so made some rather valuable statements in defence of the position which we occupy. It is rather late to-night to bring forward the statements which the right hon. Gentleman made on that occasion; but as allusion has been made in the course of the debate in some quarters of the House to the similarity between this Motion and the Motion for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, made some years ago, I would venture to ask the House to listen to what the Prime Minister said in speaking on the Motion of Mr. Watkin Williams in 1870. The right hon. Gentleman, whom we all respect in Wales, said that he had, on a previous occasion, clearly stated that the question of the Church in Wales was not at one with the question of the Church in Ireland. He said there were some points of resemblance; but he added that they were capable of great exaggeration; and then he went on to say that the last half-century had been a period of the most active religious life known to the Reformed Church of England. Again, the right hon. Gentleman on the occasion referred to appealed to hon. Members to support the position of the Welsh Church upon the footing that it was an integral part of the Church of England. Well, Sir, to those remarks of the right hon. Gentleman I need add nothing; but perhaps the House will allow me to quote the words of a great authority, and a man who, I believe, no one in England will consider a bigot. I allude to the Dean of Llandaff, who has said that the Constitution of England knows no Church of Wales but as an integral part of the Church of England. Sir, I think that the real strength of our case is that we are not anxious, whatever other hon. Members may be, for Home Rule. We are contented, and wish to remain members of the dear old Church of England. I am not here to deny that the time has been when the Church of England in Wales has been slack and has not done her duty; but that time of sloth and somnolence has long passed away; and, in spite of all that hon. Gentlemen opposite may say, she is now doing her duty in the Principality—she only wishes to co-operate in the cause of Christianity; she is spreading out her arms, and inviting all denominations to join her in her strife with error, infidelity, and atheism, and in her labours for the spread of Christianity. For that reason I invite hon. Members to pause before accepting the Resolution of the hon. Member for Swansea, which, I believe in my heart, will, if it be carried out, do infinite harm to the cause of Christianity which we all have at heart.

Sir, I am sure that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House will entirely concur in the regret expressed by the hon. Member who has just sat down, and others, as to the enforced absence of the Prime Minister to-night. There is perhaps no question upon which, eminent as the authority of the right hon. Gentleman is on all questions—["Oh!"]—well, that is my opinion, and even the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Kenyon) has invoked his aid to-night on behalf of the small Party to which he belongs and with which he acts; and therefore I hope, at all events, that in referring to the Prime Minister his name may not be received in the manner it was received in just now. Sir, I was going to say that upon no subject was the authority of the right hon. Gentleman more eminent than upon a question connected with Wales and connected with the Church. ["No!"] I should think that the hon. Gentleman who expresses his dissent from that opinion, is probably not a Welshman; if he were, he would not deny, I think, that the Prime Minister is an eminent authority on that matter. I will stand but a few minutes between the House and the division. I have only to say on the part of the Prime Minister how he regards the position that he would have to occupy with reference to this question. Now, Sir, I have no opinion whatever to express with reference to the merits of the Motion of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn). So far as it expresses an abstract opinion with reference to the condition of the Church of England in Wales—if the Church of England in Wales stood upon the same footing as the Church of Ireland or the Church of Scotland—that is to say, if there were separate Churches in separate parts of the United Kingdom, I confess myself I should not be here to argue against the proposition of the hon. Member for Swansea. I think he has made out a case which has hardly been disputed on the other side of the House. [Dissent.] Well, Sir, I have heard nothing against it worthy of the name of argument. My mind is formed on that point, and unquestionably it seems to me that the case of Wales with regard to the Church is at least as strong as that of the Church of Ireland. Therefore, Gentlemen opposite who take a different view as to the Church of Ireland may take a different view upon this question, and no one can complain of that. But equally they cannot complain that we should think that the Church which represents only a small minority of the people of a country ought not to be an Established Church in that country. But what is the view of the great majority of the people of Wales has been expressed in the speech of the hon. Member for the Rhondda Valley (Mr. Abraham), which I am sure must have struck the House generally as it struck me very much by its fervour, eloquence, and by its evident sincerity. Well, Sir, that being the case, I must also admit with my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Rendel) that in many respects Wales does represent a separate Nationality—that the people of Wales have a language and feelings of their own—but that they have not been up to this time, and are not now, separate in respect of the question of the Church Establishment. Therefore, however much truth there may be in my hon. Friend's view, this I think he will admit—that the Church of England in Wales is so much an integral part of the Established Church of England that it is not merely difficult, but I will say impossible, to raise the question as a separate one, and that you cannot deal with the one question—I do not mean by Resolution, but practically in legislation—without involving the other. I think that this is a proposition which will commend itself to every man's mind. If you raise the question of the Church in Wales, you raise the whole question. Now, what is the position, I do not say of all Gentlemen on this side of the House, or even of a majority of them—I am not speaking at all in their name; but what is the position which the Prime Minister took on the question of the Disestablishment of the Church at the recent Election by which this Parliament was called together. The right hon. Gentleman stated very distinctly that it was desired or intended to raise the question of Disestablishment. [Dissent.] I do not know that Gentlemen opposite have a particular claim or right to hold him to that statement, because they absolutely refused to receive it at the Election; and when they were beaten they said it was the question at the last Election, and that they would not allow anybody in opposition to say it was not. But, whatever may have been the position of hon. Gentlemen in that respect, the position taken up by the Prime Minister was that it was not the intention to raise the general question of Disestablishment as a question for the present Parliament. Now, Sir, I do not say that this in any way precludes my hon. Friend from making this Motion on the subject, and taking the opinion of this House upon it; but the position of Members of the Government with regard to it is somewhat different from his. The Government are not in the position in which private Members stand with reference to general Resolutions of this character; they cannot, according to the established and necessary proceedings of Parliament, support such Resolutions unless they are prepared to take upon them definite and early action. That has always been the practice; and no one has ever enforced it in this House with greater earnestness than has the Prime Minister, over and over again. Therefore, with reference to this question, it is quite impossible for the Government to take up the Resolution of my hon. Friend as a Government, and support it, because they are not prepared to give it early effect by legislation. Now, as I said before, if it had been possible to distinguish upon this subject as between England and Wales, in my opinion it would have been a totally different matter; but, for the reasons I have endeavoured to state, it seems to me that the two questions are incapable of being separated for the purpose of action; and, therefore, I do not find myself able to support the Motion of my hon. Friend.

Sir, I am not about to detain the House for more than a few minutes, because, in the debate which has taken place, we have listened to all that has to be said on this question by hon. Gentlemen from Wales, and it is the desire of the House that we should come as soon as possible to a division. I should not allude to the case of the last Election at all, were it not for the words which have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt), who said that the question of the Church was raised and decided against us at the last Election, although the Prime Minister had withdrawn it from the constituencies as a question for this Parliament. I should like to put ourselves right with reference to that matter. We say that the Radical Party raised the cry against the Church, and we say that responsible persons belonging to the Liberal Party joined in that cry; and we say, further, that when we defended the Church they found that the cry was not answered, and that when it was found that it was not answered the Prime Minister withdrew it. Sir, we have had from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer two statements which, I think, are worth remembering. He says that the Prime Minister knows all about Wales, and all about the Church Question. Therefore, I would strongly recommend to the consideration of the House the words of the Prime Minister in concluding his speech on the Motion of Mr. Watkin Williams in 1870—words which he would probably have used had he been in his place on the present occasion. The right hon. Gentleman said he would deal with his hon. Friend's Motion by a simple negative; that separate legislation would be mostguilty, most unworthy, and most dishonourable; and that the Government did not intend to go in that direction, and that they would regard legislation of the kind as a national mischief. I presume that these are the words to which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has referred to to-night. No one regrets more than I the absence of the Prime Minister from his place on the present occasion. I hope he has sent a copy of his speech to every Member of the present Government; and here I may say that I wish I could see the Members of the Government in their places. I want to know where they are? As the right hon. Gentleman suggests that the Prime Minister knows more about Wales and the Church Question than anybody else, I presume that when the Division Bell rings all the Members of Her Majesty's Government will vote as the Prime Minister said he should vote on the Motion of Mr. Watkin Williams. But, Sir, there have been one or two statements made which, anxious as I am not to detain the House, I cannot pass over without a few words of comment. I refer to some remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn)—if he will allow me to address him in that way, whom I have known so long—who said that there was not a National Church in Wales; that the question was not one of ordinance; that the hostility shown in Wales was against the Establishment; and that he based his argument on that ground. Now, I venture to say that a more unsound ground, or, rather, that a ground having less shadow of foundation, could not possibly have been taken. I shall also refer to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who seconded this Motion, because in the course of his speech he said that the Church of England in Wales was never known as the Established Church—that it was known and called by the name it had ever borne—that is to say, the "Church of England." Well, Sir, I say that that declaration is opposed to the words of the hon. Member for Swansea, which were that, because it is the Established Church, it is opposed to the feelings of the people of Wales. But this question is not a new one; it was raised in the course of the debate which took place in 1870, and it was specially alluded to by the Prime Minister in the speech which he then delivered. What the right hon. Gentleman said was this—

"It has not been a question with regard to National Establishments of religion that has had anything to do with the growth of Welsh Dissent. That is an historical challenge which I hold out to my hon. and learned Friend."—(3Hansard, [201] 1294.)

It is clear to anyone who knows the history of the Church in Wales from the beginning that no hostility to it was ever created from the fact that it was an Established Church. Well, we will come to the grounds presently as to how that hostility arose. There was another remark made by the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) which it is necessary for us to take notice of. He specially alluded to this being a question simply of Wales, and he put Wales forward separately as a Nationality. The hon. Member evidently wanted to divert the attention of the House from the great question of the Church of England, to which the right hon. Gentleman so pertinently alluded; but he could not refrain, before concluding his speech, from expressing a wish that Monmouthshire could be included. Consequently, his speech was not confined to Wales, for he wanted to include Monmouth; and it is obvious that what he wants eventually is to work round to the Disestablishment of the Church altogether. The Seconder of the Resolution gave a long historical account of the Church of Wales in the Saxon and Norman times. Now, when we come to the time of the Revolution I am willing to admit that the action, not of the Church, but the action of the State—the action of King William III.—was injurious to the condition of the Church of Wales. It was his action, because he knew perfectly well that the Welsh Church was devoted to the cause of the Stuarts—because it was an original Church and not an alien Church—that he made the mistake of forcing Bishops who could not speak Welsh upon the Church of Wales. It was from that action of the State that all the evils which afterwards existed in the Church in Wales are to be derived. Therefore, I am not concerned, any more than the Prime Minister was in 1870, to deny all the abuses which followed, from the action of the State, and not from the action of the Church itself. But I say that has nothing to do with the present state of things. I should like to take the House through the matter ["Oh!"] If this Church is worth attacking, surely it is worth defending; and I ought to be allowed to say a word or two in its defence. I only want to allude to the time when Bishop Thirlwall went to Wales. He was a great scholar, and a very learned man; he realized the position in which he was placed, and learned Welsh so thoroughly that he was able to preach in it as if it were his native tongue. Since that time Welsh Bishops have been appointed, some by the present Prime Minister, though the example was set by the late Earl of Derby. Then, again, if anybody will look into Church history and see the amounts that have been collected for the Church and for Education, they will be struck by the enormous growth of the Church since Bishop Thirlwall's days. In every diocese hon. Members will find how the Church increases in numbers, and how great is the number of baptisms, and especially of adult baptisms, which now takes place. I cannot help thinking that there is a good deal of jealousy arising from the action of the Church in Wales; it has become so active; it is doing its duty so well, that I cannot but think there is a great feeling of jealousy. From all the inquiries I have made—and they have been many—I do not believe that there is among laymen in Wales any feeling against the Church, although I think there is considerable feeling against it in the minds of many ministers of various denominations there. It is all very well to talk about the number of Members opposed to the Church of Wales returned to this House; but the statistics which were produced by the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes) as to the number of persons polling at the last Election for each side ought to be considered, if we are going to consider figures at all, and they are very significant. If a vote were taken on the question of the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales or not, I believe it would be found that the friends of the Church were in much greater numbers than hon. Members opposite would make believe, and that those who supported the Church were in the proportion of 67 to 98. When it is next proposed that a that a Religious Census should be made, I trust hon. Members opposite will not be afraid to have the facts brought out. I was somewhat struck with the manner in which the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) brought forward his statistics, counting all the Calvinistic Bodies first, then other denominations, and giving what remains to the Church. In regard to what has been said by the hon. Member for the Rhondda Valley (Mr. W. Abraham) and others who went into statistics, all I have to say is that, if we are to have statistics, let us have them in an authorized form. I was very much struck by the way in which the statistics were brought out by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Richard). If he will allow me to say so, it reminded me of the party who went out shooting, and when they returned they said to one another — "How many did you shoot?" Well, each of the guests said so many, and when the figures were counted up it turned out that the host had shot considerably less than none at all. The hon. Member for the Rhondda Valley has made an appeal to us. He has said that what the men of Wales want is to manage their own Church. They have got that; they have shown how they can do it. I have no doubt that at the present time those for whom we speak build and manage their own chapels and churches very well; but if Welsh Churchmen prefer another form of Church discipline and ecclesiastical government, I cannot see any harm in their being allowed to worship in their own way. If the Nonconformists of Wales have built their chapels, they do not ask for endowments for themselves. Why should they wish to deprive of their endowments those who are admittedly doing excellent work, not only in the interests of their own body, but for the cause of general moral teaching? I do not know whether anything could show the value of Church work more than the education she is giving. The accuracy of the statistics contained in the Blue Books issued by the Education Department on this subject is beyond question; and they show that in the diocese of St. Asaph there is accommodation in the Church schools for 31,127 scholars, in the Board schools for 15,698, in the British schools for 2,312, and in the Roman Catholic schools for 1,406 scholars. The average attendance in the Church schools is 19,389, in the Board schools 8,854, in the British schools 1,329, and in the Roman Catholic schools 882. The amount of the grant which all these schools collectively earned is by the Church schools £17,492, by the Board schools £7,373, by the British schools £1,149, and by the Roman Catholic schools £722, showing that the Church schools in this diocese are educating considerably more than half as much again as all the other schools put together. The average amount of grant earned per head on the average attendance has been by the Church schools 18s., by the Board schools 16s. 7¾d., by the British schools 17s. 3½d., and by the Roman Catholic schools 16s. 4¼d. I think, therefore, that I have shown that the Church in Wales is doing, and is capable of doing, great and good work. If we look at the importance of the work, I think I have a right to ask the House to agree with me in declaring that the Church of Wales is doing good work, which it ought to be allowed to continue. Therefore, if the other denominations are perfectly free to follow their own course, I do implore the House to stay its hand and to pause before it passes a Resolution of this kind, which was deprecated in 1871 by the Prime Minister, and which was then rejected by a large majority. I hope the House will take a similar course to that which it took on that occasion.