said the subject of the Instruction which he was about to propose had been before the House on several previous occasions, and therefore he need not occupy much time in moving it. But there were one or two points to which he would especially like to draw the attention of the Chairman of the Committee of Selection. In 1899 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Watford accepted an Instruction which was moved in his absence by the hon. Member for Canarvon, and which provided that the Committee of Selection should give equal consideration to every Member on the ground of his private profession, business, or avocation. He understood that the right hon. Gentleman was not prepared to accept the present Instruction, although he had considerably modified it, as would be seen on comparing it with the Instruction he moved last year. He wished to assure the House that in bringing it forward he had no intention whatever of fettering in any degree the discretion of the Committee of Selection in appointing Members to sit upon Private Bill Committees. He wanted the House to understand that the object of the Instruction was to do away with any privilege enjoyed by any particular class of Members. When the Committee of Selection was first set up in 1839, there was no kind of privilege suggested for any particular class of Members, and Mr. Thompson, who in 1839 moved the Resolution upon which the present system was founded, distinctly laid it down that whoever might be chosen to act by the Committee of Selection must be prepared to do so, as no man had a right to take upon himself the office of Member of Parliament unless he was ready to discharge all the duties connected with it. But since then there had grown up, without any Instruction from the House, and without anything in the nature of a Standing Order, but by the action of the Selection Committee alone, the practice of exempting a particular class of Members. He wished to make this perfectly clear. Sir John Mowbray, the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Watford, once said, in answer to a Question, that no Member of the House had any right of exemption from service on Public Bill Committees, either by Standing Orders or by Instruction from the House. But it had been the custom of the Committee not to place on such Committees members of the learned profession actually engaged in practice. It was this action of the Committee of Selection against which his instruction was directed. It was authorised by no order of the House, and he believed there was a general feeling in the House against any such exemption, for he maintained that whenever a man took up the office of Member of Parliament he should make the duties of the House his first consideration, and that his private business or avocation should take a secondary place. He went further, and said that not only should there be no exemption from this drudgery in favour of the so-called professions, but that the members of that class were the very last to whom any exemption should be granted, because they made no sacrifice whatever, in coming to the House, such as the ordinary Member had to make. Through no action of their own they secured greater advantages by entering Parliament than any other Member. Again, they were more fitted to act on Private Bill Committees because of their professional experience. They knew the Laws of Evidence in a way which no ordinary lay Member of the House knew them. The ordinary man of business, when he became a Member of Parliament, was often compelled to neglect his business in the provinces and take up his residence in London for the greater part of the year, but as a rule the work of the barrister was done in London, and he, therefore, was called upon to make no sacrifice; while it was to be borne in mind further that the learned profession derived great benefit from the numerous judicial appointments at the disposal of the Government. He would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Watford, why, seeing that he accepted the Instruction moved in 1899, he was unable to agree to the one now being proposed. Further, he would like to be told why, having accepted that Instruction, he had not carried it out. He found, from a Return which had recently been presented, that Members actively engaged in the profession of the law had been called upon to serve on only two or three Committees, and he did not think that they had been given their fair proportion of the work. He begged to move the Instruction standing in his name.

said that, in seconding the Motion of his hon. friend, he wished the House to clearly understand that neither he nor the proposer had any desire to question the excellent way in which the Committee of Selection had always done their work. He thought the House owed a very deep debt of gratitude to the Committee for the consideration with which they performed what was not always an agreeable task. He seconded the Motion because the work of Committees in the House was shown by the Return to which his hon. friend had alluded to fall on a very few Members. They must remember too, that exemption was not granted to hon. Members who sat upon other than Private Bill Committees. That constituted a great hardship, because it resulted in a much larger amount of work devolving on some Members. The work really should be equally divided among all Members of the House. Incidentally he might remark that probably the hardest worked were the right hon. Gentlemen who sat upon the Front Benches. It was because he thought that equal treatment should be shared out to every Member that he desired to second the Instruction.

said that although it was perhaps useful occasionally to call the attention of hon. Members to this very important, though, he feared, sometimes rather irksome, part of their duty, he nevertheless ventured to hope that the House would not accede to the Motion of the hon. Member. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the fact that the present Instruction was a modification of the one he moved last year, and he had also asked how it was that, having accepted the Instruction of 1899, the Committee were not prepared to accept the present Motion. He would like to point out to the House that the Instruction of 1899 and the present Instruction were two totally different things. It was perfectly true, as the hon. Member said, that he brought forward an Instruction of a somewhat similar character last year, but he then failed to induce the House to adopt it. It was true too, he had modified it in the present instance, but to his mind the alteration went rather in the direction of making it more stringent than before. In his opinion the addition of the words, "and be called upon to serve" would very seriously hamper the work of the Committee of Selection.

My remarks referred to the modification I had introduced in the earlier part of the Resolution.

Unless I am mistaken, the earlier words are practically the same.

No, no.

said it appeared, to him at any rate, that the sting was to be found in the words added at the end of the Instruction. Last year the hon. Member chastised them with whips; this year he sought to chastise them with scorpions. The hon. Member had called the attention of the House to an answer given by Sir John Mowbray some years ago, in which he said that the practice had grown up in the Committee of Selection of exempting practising barristers, and he complained that after the House had passed a Resolution in 1889 ordering that equal considera- tion should be granted to every Member, the Committee had failed to carry out the Instruction. He could assure the hon. Member that he was entirely mistaken in that view. Whatever might have been the former practice of the Committee, it certainly had not in late years recognised any class as a class entitled to exemption. Their practice had been, as he told the hon. Member the other day, to consider each individual case on its merits, and they had not recognised that either barristers or merchants, or any other persons engaged in any profession or business, were entitled on that ground alone to exemption from this work. At the same time, he fully admitted that the Committee had endeavoured to carry out the work in such a way as to cause the least possible inconvenience to hon. Members who were obliged occasionally to serve on the Private Bill Committees. The hon. Member for South West Manchester, who seconded the Instruction, had referred to the fact that the Committee of Selection did not grant exemption from this work to hon. Members who sat on other Committees. That was perfectly true; as a general rule they did not consider, and, indeed, they never had considered, that service on the ordinary Select Committees of the House entitled an hon. Member per se to exemption from service on Private Bill Committees, and for this reason, that the ordinary Select Committees were composed of hon. Members who served entirely by their own wish and desire, and who were not bound, if it did not suit their convenience, to attend. These Committees also, as a rule, sat only twice a week, and therefore, if the Committee of Selection were to make a practice of exempting from service on Private Bill Committees hon. Members who were serving on Select Committees, he did not think they would find hon. Members generally ready to serve at all on Private Bill Committees. Still, each case was considered separately on its merits, and there were certain Committees in regard to which the Committee of Selection fully recognised the fact that if a member of them did his duty it was not right to call upon him to serve on Private Bill Committees. Take, for instance, the Select Committee on Public Accounts. That was a most important body. It comprised among its members some of the most experienced and skilled Members of the House, and the Committee of Selection had always recognised service on that Committee as entitling to exemption from service on Private Bill Committees. That was only one of many instances. They did not also recognise service on Grand Committees as a ground of exemption, and he thought it would be adopting a very dangerous course were they to pursue any other policy. He would like to point out to the House that the Motion, if carried, would deprive the Committee of Selection of its discretionary powers, and would practically establish what the hon. and gallant Member for West Newington had on more than one occasion advocated, a simple roster of names, every man on which would in turn be called upon to serve. He ventured to submit to the House that such a proceeding would be neither desirable nor practicable. He would like to remind hon. Members that the duty of the Committee of Selection was not merely to find men to serve on Committees. They were especially ordered to have regard to the qualifications of the Gentlemen whom they chose, and in Committee they discussed in the most confidential manner the qualifications of the men best fitted to deal with particular classes of Bills. Necessarily their deliberations in that respect were of a most confidential character, and he was proud to be able to tell the House that members of his Committee, when entering on their duties, put on one side all political predilections and prejudices, and sought solely to form the most efficient Committees for the service of the House. Since the Committee had been established, he believed there had never been a formal division taken, and that was a proof of the smoothness with which they worked. He deprecated very much the adoption of any measure, unless absolutely unavoidable, which would tend to prevent any class of men from becoming Members of the House of Commons. One of the great glories of that Assembly was that it was representative of all classes and all occupations and professions, and he would be sorry to see anything done that would tend to reduce the House to a mere preserve for what were sometimes spoken of as professional politicians. He believed the present system worked satisfactorily. The Committees of the House bore the highest character of impartiality and efficiency, not a breath of corruption had ever been suggested, and he believed that they would compare favourably with the Committees of any legislature in any part of the world. Under these circumstances he asked the House to continue to place confidence in the Committee of Selection. There was a growing tendency in this and other Assemblies to call in question the work of Committees, and he would point out that if that practice increased, it must inevitably bring public business to a deadlock. If the House were not satisfied with the composition of the present Committee, it had the remedy in its own hands. But whether it altered the constitution of the Committee or left it alone, he did ask the House to have confidence in the Committee, composed as it was of some of the oldest and most experienced Members of all parties. Let them continue to give it the generous confidence it had always enjoyed, a confidence which gave it authority and weight, and enabled it to discharge most arduous and difficult duties with credit to the House, and with satisfaction to those who came before its tribunals.

said he thought the hon. Member who moved the Instruction had evolved a grievance out of his inner consciousness, and one which only existed in his own imagination. He entirely endorsed the remarks which had been made by the respected Chairman of the Committee, who enjoyed the full confidence of the members of that body, and who was proving himself the worthy successor of one whose name was synonymous with everything high, lofty, and noble in public life. The hon. Gentleman had a grievance, perhaps, because the Committee had left him severely alone. He had during the last three years sternly refused to take part in any private Bill work.

No, no! The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. I have never suggested anything against the Chairman or any other Member of the Committee, and I have been willing to take my proper share of the work.

said he entirely accepted that statement, and he had no doubt that in future the hon. Member would be ready to take his proper share in the deliberations of the Committees upstairs. Some hon. Members took a rather different view of their responsibilities. Many of them were most anxious to serve, and only the previous day a distinguished young Member on the other side of the House expressed to him personally a wish that he could have some work to do, as he found his forenoons drag very heavily upon his hands. He could only repeat that the Committee in forming the Committees sought to secure the men best qualified to act, and he trusted that the House would continue its confidence in them.

said that as a member of the Committee of Selection, he would like to call attention to some of the difficulties with which that body had to contend. He feared that there was in the mind of the hon. Member who moved the Instruction, and perhaps of some other hon. Members, some jealousy with regard to members of the legal profession. The Committee had to face very considerable difficulties in regard to this matter, but he protested against the Instruction and he hoped the House would reject it, because he thought that the result of its adoption would be absolutely disastrous in regard to their proceedings. Instead of giving elasticity of treatment, the work of the Committee would be made purely mechanical. However the hon. Member might seek to explain his Instruction, it meant in King's English that every Member of the House should receive absolutely equal treatment, and be called upon to serve on Private Bill Committees. In a day or two the House was to be invited to discuss rules which were intended to make it more business-like, but if they adopted the present Instruction it would have the effect before many years were over of driving many business men out of the House altogether. The duties of the Committee of Selection were both arduous and difficult, but individually and collectively they had but one object in view, and that was to meet as far as they could the personal arrangements of individual Members, while at the same time forming efficient Committees. They did not treat any particular class of Member, as a class entitled to exemption.

said he also, as a member of the Committee, would like to give his absolute adhesion to the language which their Chairman had used as to the spirit in which they conducted their deliberations. They looked only to the efficient conduct of the business of the House, and, representing as he did the Irish Party on the Committee, he wished to say that he had experienced from his fellow Members as much consideration with reference to the convenience of his colleagues as he could desire. They had very delicate, difficult, and responsible duties to perform, and they ought to be unfettered in the discharge from them. While there was to immunity from service on the part of any man or any profession, it was quite impossible to conduct the business without having practical regard to the difficulties which men engaged in all callings might from time to time experience. He was not sorry this Instruction had been brought forward, because he thought there was in the mind of those who had not attended on Private Bill Committees as he had done for a great many years, in this and other legislatures, a very imperfect idea of the importance and interest of the work. It was indeed most important and most interesting, and he would be very glad indeed if Members, and especially young Members, would come forward more readily and volunteer for this work. He thought the House would be well advised to leave this matter in the hands of the Committee, which in the past had shown such good sense, great tact, and fidelity and loyalty to the interests of the House generally.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he can state the number of persons in the concentration camps in the Transvaal at the end of December, 1901, and at the end of January, 1902;and what number of women and children have now been removed from those camps to Natal and Cape Colony.

I have asked for the information and hope in a few days to lay a third Blue-book on the table containing all the latest information, including the mortality during January, which I am glad to say has greatly decreased.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether there is any objection to the publication of the intercepted letter from General Smuts to General Botha, in which the former reminded the latter that in regard to the transport of women he had instructed him to load them into the British lines.

I will lay the letter on the Table.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether he will state what the offence was of which Dr. Reinecke, a British subject residing at Ceres, in the Cape Colony, was suspected when he was arrested by the Military on the 27th August, 1901; whether he has since then been tried for such alleged offence; and, if so, by what tribunal, at what date, and with what result; and where is he now detained.

These matters are left entirely to the discretion of the local military authorities, to whom the hon. Member should address any communications he may wish to make.

When will the right hon. Gentleman be able to answer the latter part of the Question? Has he been tried, and if so, with what result?

I have further no information.

I will put the Question down for Monday. I think the House ought to have the information.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, what is the nature of the inquiries being conducted by the Departmental Committee at the War Office presided over by General Sir Reginald Gipps; does this inquiry deal with complaints made of the conduct of military officers or other officials employed in connection with the operations in South Africa; why is it deemed necessary to appoint this Committee: when was it appointed, and will its proceedings or recommendations be made public, and, if so, when.

The Commander-in-Chief appointed a Committee of a confidential nature to report to him on certain questions concerning Officers. The Committee is purely Departmental, and I am not prepared to make any statement as to its proceedings or recommendations.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether armed natives have been used in South Africa for scouting and for holding blockhouses; and, if so, whether such use is to be understood as coming under the description of self-protection.

No, Sir. Armed natives are not so employed, but they have been utilised as watchmen in isolated places between blockhouses on railways, and have been armed for their own protection, as the Boers had shot some of them in cold blood.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether, with the view of encouraging graduates from the Scottish Universities to enter the Army Medical Service, he will appoint a professor from one of the Scottish Universities upon the Army Medical Advisory Board as has been done in the case of the English and Irish Universities.

In selecting the members of the Board every care was taken to make it as representative as was consonant with the requirements of the Royal Army Medical Corps, which necessitated the personal attention of members of the Advisory Board to the interests of the Service. Dr. Galloway, a distinguished Scotch medical graduate, resident in London, lecturer at Charing Cross Hospital and formerly an examiner in the Faculty of Medicine in Aberdeen University, was selected to represent the interests of Scotland. I would, however, point out to the hon. Member that, in addition to Dr. Galloway, three of the military medical Members are graduates of Scottish Medical Schools, and Scotland is therefore exceptionally represented on the Board.

Can the right hon. Gentleman affirm that any of the gentlemen he has referred to have any present connection with the Scottish Universities?

It is impossible to make any alteration in the constitution of the Board. I have not the least doubt that the interests of Scotland are properly cared for.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, if an early opportunity will be given for debating the warrant for the reconstruction of the Royal Army Medical Corps, which he has promised to present to the House.

I am afraid I am not yet in a position to say when it is probable that the Vote for the Medical Establishment of the Army will be brought forward.

:I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether there will be laid before the Military Court of Inquiry on the conduct of the Remount Department by the Inspector General of Remounts all Reports received from South Africa with regard to the working of the remount system during the war.

A Military Court of Inquiry is guided by the instructions of the officer who convenes it—in this case the Commander-in-Chief. These Reports will no doubt be laid before the Committee.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether, without troubling the Staff in South Africa for additional Returns, he can himself give the approximate number of Regulars (Cavalry and Mounted Infantry), also the approximate number of Irregulars (Colonials and Imperial Yeomanry), now employed with the mounted mobile columns in South Africa; and whether Infantry and Artillery still accompany these columns

I could not give exact information without applying to South Africa, but the number of Cavalry and Mounted Infantry in South Africa is approximately 35,000, and of Colonials and Imperial Yeomanry 31,000. The answer to the last paragraph is that columns differ in their composition according to their objective.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the men of the volunteer service companies are paid only 1s. 1d. a day, while the Yeomanry and Colonial troops are paid at least 5s.; and, seeing that the recruits for the regular army, whose pay is the same as that of the volunteer service companies, have to be kept on the average at least a year at home at a cost of £50 before they are old enough for foreign service, while the volunteers are sent out at once on enlistment whether he will consider the desirability of giving some portion of this saving of £50 a man made by the country to the members of the volunteer service companies as a gratuity.

As I have previously explained to the House, the volunteers serve with the regular infantry, and could not be treated differently to them in respect of pay.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that MRs. Christian de Wet, after her home had been burned by the English troops, was taken prisoner and sent to a concentration camp; whether MRs. De Wet is now in a camp; and, if not, what course have the British authorities adopted in regard to this lady.

I have no specific information, but, as far as I am aware, this lady is in a refugee-camp.

Is she in the concentration camp now?

Yes, Sir.

Scandalous, most scandalous.

And Chamberlain laughs!

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a boy of 17 years of age, named James Lynch, of Angle Court, Dublin, has been enlisted in the Connaught Rangers without his parents' consent; whether his father has claimed that the boy should be discharged: whether he is aware that the father of this boy is in poor circumstances and has six other young children to provide for, and that the enlistment of the said James Lynch deprives him of help towards the maintenance of his family; and whether he will order the discharge of this boy from the Army in response to his father's appeal.

These matters are left entirely to the discretion of the local military authorities, to whom the hon. Member should address any communications he may wish to make.

Is it not illegal for a recruiting officer to enlist boys under 18?

Not if they stated their age as 18.

Has not this matter been already referred to the Commanding Officer and no satisfactory reply been given to the demand of the boy's father for his release, seeing that he is only 17, and enlisted without his parents' consent?

I cannot interfere with the discretion of the Commanding Officer.

Oh, no! What about Lord Roberts?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, in response to an invitation of the Chief Inspector, Royal Army Clothing Department, a tender was recently put in by an Irish firm for the supply of 5,000 yards of blue Army serge, and that the said tender was declined, and will he explain whether the non-acceptance of the tender was due to the price being too high or the time for delivery too long, and state any other cause of refusal.

I am aware that an Irish firm tendered for this contract; the tender was not accepted as the price was too high.

Will the noble lord consider the desirability of in future placing these tenders with Irish firms, whose serge is so superior—

Order, order!

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether he can state now long the "Irresistible" of the 1897 Programme will have been in building before she is in commission, and what is the cause of the delay.

The "Irresistible" was laid down at Chatham on the 11thApril, 1898; she has been commissioned this day at Chatham. The period which has elapsed between the commencement and the commissioning of the ship, is therefore 3 years and 10 months, which is 10 months in excess of the period anticipated. The delay arose in consequence of the late delivery of the propelling machinery by the contractors, the contractors for the machinery having gone into liquidation. There was also a delay in the delivery of the 12-inch gun mountings.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, with reference to the statement he made to the House on the 16th August last,†regarding the list then in preparation of persons entitled to Naval prize money, whether he can now state what is the exact period covered by the list; what is the aggregate number of persons whose names are set forth in such list; what is the aggregative amount of the sums ready for distribution; and whether the list contains the names of any of the Royal Marines, or only those of the Officers and crew of the vessels engaged in the operations for which prize money was sanctioned, who have failed or omitted to draw the amounts due to them.

The list referred to by my hon. friend will, when completed, cover the period of the China War of 1856, down to the date of the last Slave capture in May, 1897. I cannot at present tell the number of persons who will be included in the list when complete, but the numbers in that portion of the list

†See (4) Debates, xcix, 1147.

covering the period from 1856 to 1860 is about 3,090. The aggregate amount available for distribution in respect of the period from 1856 to 1860 is £6,980. Only those officers and men of the Royal Marines who did duty on board His Majesty's ships are included in the list, those who acted in concert with the Army at Canton, received prize money out of the fund assigned to the Army, and are dealt with by Chelsea Hospital. I may add that it is hoped that the list may be completed in about two months from the present time, but the work is exceedingly laborious and full of detail.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, if he can state in what manner the log-books of the missing "Condor" have been received by the Admiralty.

A complete copy of the log is forwarded monthly from every ship. The logs of the "Condor" up to the date of her departure from Esquimaut, have been received at the Admiralty.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the Foreign Consuls acting officially in Pretoria are now accredited to His Majesty's Government.

Foreign Consuls have no official position in the Transvaa and Orange River Colonies, but the British Authorities attend to any representations which they desire to make on behalf of their nationals.

:I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if his attention has been directed to a case at the Beaconsfield Petty Sessions, in which the justices refused a certificate of exemption under the Vaccination Act, on the ground that smallpox was prevalent; and if the Government propose to take any steps for the purpose of making clear to the magistrates what their powers are.

I understand from enquiries I have made that the newspaper report which the hon. Member has sent me, and which forms the basis of his Question is misleading, and that the Justices refused a certificate in the case referred to because after careful consideration they were not satisfied that the applicant had a conscientious belief that vaccination would be prejudicial to the health of the child. The Chairman said that the mere utterance of a formula of objection was not sufficient, especially considering the prevalence of smallpox in the neighbourhood. The evidence necessary to satisfy the Justices of a conscientious objection is a matter for their discretion, with which I do not propose to interfere.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he is aware that at the Ealing Petty Sessions, held on Thursday last, the justices constituting the court informed an applicant for a certificate of exemption under the Vaccination Act that, before his application could be complied with, he must show by doctor's certificate that one of his family suffered from some affection, or that vaccination had had a prejudicial effect on one of them; and if he will adopt some means of acquainting justices with their powers and duties under that Act.

I know nothing of this case beyond the terms of the Question which appeared on the Paper this morning. For reasons indicated in my answer a few minutes ago to the hon. Member for South Leicestershire, I do not propose to issue any instructions to magistrates in this matter.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Police Reservists forfeit any claim on the pension fund for the years spent on active service; and, if so, whether he will provide that compulsory service in the army shall count as service entitling a police constable to his pension, and that there shall be contributed from the Consolidated Fund such part of the pension as shall be proportionately attributable to the period of active service.

It is the case that in the event of Police Reservists returning to the Police Force after the end of their military service the period of service with the colours does not count for pension, though the constable can by the express provision of the Police Act, 1890, reckon his previous service. I am not in a position to promise legislation on the lines suggested.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if, having regard to the inquiry of the Select Committee on Alien Immigration throughout the sessions of 1888 and 1889, he will confine the reference to the new Committee to ascertaining whether the time contemplated in the Report of the former has come for legislation; and if he will move for the nomination and appointment of the Select Committee as soon as possible, so that it may proceed without delay.

I do not think it would be expedient, or even possible, to confine the inquiry in the manner suggested by my hon. and gallant friend. With regard to the last part of the Question, it has not yet been decided what form the inquiry shall take, whether by Royal Commission or Select Committee.

As time is pressing, will my right hon. friend hurry the matter on, so that an early decision may be come to?

Yes, Sir, I shall see that there is no unnecessary delay.

I will repeat the Question in ten days time.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether he can state the total number of cases of smallpox in the Metropolis since the present outbreak; and, whether it is the intention of the Government this session to bring in a Re-Vaccination Bill, in fulfilment of the pledge given by them in the session of 1898.

According to the Registrar-General's weekly returns, 2,656 cases of smallpox were notified in the Metropolis between 1st June, 1901, and the 25th January last. With regard to the second paragraph of the question, I cannot hold out any expectation that the Government will introduce a Re-Vaccination Bill during the present session. I am not aware that any pledge was given in 1898 as to the introduction of such a Bill, though the Government promised to consider the matter.

:Is not the present outbreak largely due to the invention of the "conscientious objector"?

No, I think not.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, if he would consider the expediency of adopting in connection with the present outbreak of smallpox in London the methods for procuring more general re-vaccination which were resorted to successfully in Glasgow in the year 1901, involving a house to house visitation of the community divided into manageable areas and the employment of all medical men willing to assist in the matter.

It would be impossible to adopt the Glasgow plan throughout the whole of London at one and the same time, but my right hon. friend has under consideration how far it might be practicable to adopt some such methods in particular areas.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that a telegraphist stationed at the Sevenoaks Post Office recently joined the Postal Telegraph Clerk's Association, and in consequence he has been subjected to annoyance on the part of the postmaster, and that he has been refused answers to official papers, being told that if he needed anything he must apply to the association officials in London; and, whether, in view of the repeated assurances that telegraphists have full liberty of combination, the Postmaster General will investigate the circumstances with a view towards protecting this telegraphist against official displeasure on account of his connection with the men's union.

From the full inquiry which has been made on this subject, it appears that the sorting clerk and telegraphist referred to is MR. E. D. Charman. This officer has frequently been under notice in consequence of the unsatisfactory performance of his duties, chiefly in minor matters; but the Postmaster General is satisfied that the reports made upon him by the Postmaster were not in any way due to his connection with the Postal Telegraph Clerk's Association. MR. Charman has not been refused answers to official papers, but there was some delay in communicating to him a recent decision of the Surveyor's on an application from him; when, however, the decision was communicated on the 20th ultimo MR. Charman expressed himself satisfied. The Postmaster General would regard with grave displeasure any unfavourable treatment of officers of the Department owing to their connection with any society such as the Postal Telegraph Clerk's Association and he is sure that the postmaster of Sevenoaks is well aware of this.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that there are 38 telegraphists with an average service of 27 years waiting promotion at the Newcastle-on-Tyne Post Office; and whether, in view of this stagnation of promotion, steps will be taken to facilitate the same by enforcing in future the Civil Service regulation with reference to retirement at the age of 60 years.

The Postmaster General is aware of the circumstances referred to by the hon. Member, but he would not feel justified in enforcing the retirement of any efficient officers for the purpose of accelerating the promotion of others.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been called to the fact that a number of telegraph clerks now employed by the Post Office were previously attached to the Royal Engineers; whether the record of such service with the colours is added to their Civil Service record when pensions are computed; and, if not, whether His Majesty's Government will make arrangements that all such service for the State shall be counted for purposes of pension.

The Postmaster General is aware that a number of telegraphists now employed by the Post Office were previously attached to the Royal Engineers. Their service with the Colours cannot legally be taken into consideration in computing the civil pensions awarded to them in respect of their Civil Service.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, if he is aware that the Collector of Inland Revenue at Leicester has issued notices threatening proceedings against those whose Income Tax is not paid by the 9th instant; and, whether, seeing that it has been usual to defer such notices to the end of February, he can explain why the period for payment is now curtailed.

As the Question only appeared on the Paper this morning, I have been unable to verify the facts, but assuming that they are as stated, they do not represent any departure from the usual practice. Income Tax is by law payable on or before the 1st January, and the instructions to Collectors prescribe that if not paid within 21 days from delivery of the Demand Note, the Collector should issue a second notice intimating that, unless the amount be paid within ten days, it will be his duty to authorise the local Collector of Arrears to obtain payment without further delay.

I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether he will say how many Junior Inspectors of Schools have been appointed during the Parliamentary Recess; and whether he will lay upon the Table a Return showing what experience as teachers in the kind of School they are appointed to inspect is possessed by the persons appointed, if any.

Twelve Junior Inspectors have been appointed during the Parliamentary Recess. The answer to the second paragraph of the Question is in the negative.

:I beg also to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether certificated teachers, who are members of a British University and possess experience of the work customary in public elementary schools, may be candidates for the post of Junior Inspector of such schools; and, if so, have any such been appointed since the grade of Junior Inspector came into existence.

The answer to both Questions is in the affirmative.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the Report of the inquiry into the claims of the Royal Irish Constabulary has been presented to the Government; will it be laid upon the Table; and do the Government intend to take any steps to carry out the recommendations contained in the report; and, if so, at what date.

The Report has been submitted to Government. It will be presented to Parliament, but no date can at present be assigned for its presentation. The Report is now engaging the consideration of Government.

Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to present the Report to Parliament before he takes any action on it?

Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to place any amount on the Estimates in connection with this matter this year?

The recommendations contained in the Report are of great interest and are receiving very careful attention. It is because I do not see my way to asking for a considerable sum in the forthcoming Estimates that I have thought better to defer for the present any decision in respect to the question of presenting the Report to Parliament.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can state whether the claims for turbary on the Ogilby Estate, near Omagh, county Tyrone, have been disposed of, and if the rental is yet settled; or is delay in selling to the tenants due to opposition on the part of receiver or incumbrancers, or because of insufficiency of staff of the Commissioners; and is he able to approximate a date when the sale of the land to the tenants will take place.

The rental is not yet settled, nor can it be until the claims for turbary have been disposed of. The delay is not due to any of the causes assigned in the question, but solely to the action of some two or three tenants who have resisted the claims of the remaining tenants to certain rights of turbary. A notice is about to be served on the former requiring them to state their objections, which will then be adjudicated upon by the Judge and the settlement of the rental proceeded with.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that for the past 12 months there was a house to house delivery of letters on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday each week to the residents of the villages of Carrahall, Rathnacreeva, Cloonflynn, Ballytaylor, Cortaphuill, and Parkashingaun, in the Ballyglass (county Mayo) postal district; but that at present letters are delivered only at houses within 300 yards of the public road; can he give any reason why the house to house delivery has been abandoned; and will he see that such practice is again resumed as the non-delivery at each house causes inconvenience to the public.

There is a delivery of letters three days a week from the Ballyglass Post Office to places on the road referred to by the hon. Member, and on a fourth day of the week the postman delivers letters at the townlands mentioned. The Postmaster General is not aware that there has been any recent change in the service, but he will have inquiry made on the subject. According to recent returns the cost of affording a more frequent service than that at present authorized is not warranted.

I beg to ask MR. Attorney General for Ireland, whether the Board of Trade, representing the Crown, have taken any steps in the direction of pressing their claims to the foreshore along the Coast of Connemara; and whether he will state what are the claims of the Crown in this respect.

I will answer this question. The Crown is prima facie the owner of the foreshore below high water mark of ordinary tides. The Board of Trade have taken steps to assert the title of the Crown in all cases in Connemara and elsewhere, where their attention has been called to any claim or act inconsistent with such title.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the judgments delivered in Dublin yesterday in reference to the sentences of imprisonment recently inflicted on two Members of this House and other citizens by two resident magistrates sitting at Gurteen and Ballinlough. Whether he is aware that the Lord Chief Baron held that the magistrates had no jurisdiction to hear the cases or to sentence the accused. And, whether, in view of the issues involved, he will lay copies of the judgments upon the Table of the House, and suspend the arrest and imprisonment of the accused until the House has had an opportunity of considering the action of the Executive Government in instituting these prosecutions before specially constituted Courts.

I have read newspaper summaries of the judgments delivered in the King's Bench Division. The decision of the magistrates was, it appears, upheld by three of their Lordships, the Chief Baron dissenting. I will lay copies of the revised and authorised reports of these judgments so soon as they can be procured. The Executive has no authority to arrest further legal proceedings consequent on a judicial decision of this character. The action of the Executive in instituting the prosecutions was discussed on the Address, and can be challenged on several Votes included in the Estimates.

Will the First Lord of the Treasury afford some early opportunity for the discussion of this matter? Certain Members of this House are about to enter upon sentences which will condemn them to prison as ordinary criminals. The Superior Court in Dublin has upheld the decision of the magistrates, but the Lord Chief Baron has held that these magistrates had no jurisdiction at all. The Chief Secretary has said that copies of these judgments will be laid upon the Table of the House, and I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he would afford an early opportunity for discussing the matter.

I understand that there are two questions raised, which it is important to keep apart, but which may very easily be mixed up. One is the action of the Executive, which it is perfectly proper to discuss in this House. The other is the decision of the Court, which was not absolutely unanimous, but in which there was one high legal authority against the majority. The judgment of the Court will be laid on the Table of the House; but the judgment is not, I think, a proper subject for discussion, and we will give no facilities for that purpose. The action of the Executive is, of course, always open to discussion, and the proper and convenient opportunity for the discussion would, I think, be on the Chief Secretary's Vote.

That altogether depends upon when the Chief Secretary's Vote will come up for discussion. If the right hon. Gentleman will put down Supply at once and put the Chief Secretary's Vote down for consideration on the earliest possible day, that will meet my wish.

I do not gather that the matter is one of immediate hurry, because, as I understand it, whether the Executive were right or wrong in the action which they took, the sentence has been declared perfectly legal, and it cannot be interfered with.

The matter is an extremely urgent one, because two hon. Members of the House are going to be put in prison next week as common criminals under this judgment. Questions regarding the action of the Executive in issuing the summonses are to be raised, and illustrated by the judgment of the Chief Baron, who condemned the action of the Executive in the strongest possible language.

I understand that it is impossible to put the judgments in the hands of Members for a few days, and perhaps hon. Gentlemen will allow me to consider the matter.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to a notice of Motion standing on the Paper in reference to his honour, MR. O'Connor Morris, County Court Judge for Sligo and Roscommon†; and whether he can afford facilities for its discussion.

Yes, my attention has been called to the notice of Motion standing in the hon. Gentleman's name. I do not think the discussion of the observations of judges is a course which should be adopted hastily, and as a matter of fact, I do not think it should be adopted. It may console the hon. Member to remember that the learned Judge's observations were directed, so far as I gather from the report, rather against the Government than against the hon. Member.

My hon. friend has not alluded to any particular

†The notice of Motion, which stood in the name of MR. M'Hugh, was as follows: "That this House resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House to consider the Report of an address delivered by Judge O'Connor Morris to the Grand Jury at Sligo on the 24th day of January, 1902, the complaints that have been made of the partisan character of that address, the action of the Grand Jury to whom it was delivered, the practice indulged in by his Honour of making pronouncements from the Bench in Sligo and Roscommon on questions of public policy, his Lordship's publication of partisan brochures on the land question in Ireland, and his fitness to hear and decide appeals from courts of summary jurisdiction in agrarian cases."

recent utterance. It has been a notorious practice of this judge for years to write pamphlets.

The hon. Member cannot go into that question.

I wished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will afford facilities for the consideration of the well-known practice of this judge.

I do not think I can afford facilities.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that never before has the Government denied the opportunity—

Order, order!

It has never been done before.

on behalf of the hon. Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin, I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether he will appoint a Town Holdings Committee with a view to introduce legislation for the protection of town tenants.

No, Sir; the Government have no intention of introducing legislation of this character.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can state whether it is intended to ask the representative heads of the various Non-conformist churches in the United Kingdom to attend the Coronation Service of His Majesty the King in Westminster Abbey; and if so, to whom the invitations will be extended.

I am informed that it is intended that invitations should be issued to representatives of Nonconformist bodies to such an extent as the limit of space will render possible.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will give during this session special facilities for passing into law a Bill having for its object the prevention of the sale of pirated musical publications.

I am afraid I can give no undertaking such as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the proposed New Rules of Procedure in regard to public business, he will appoint a Select Committee to consider and report what changes it is desirable to make in Standing Orders for Private Business in order to facilitate the earlier introduction and progress of Private Bills; and also whether he will consider the desirability of appointing a joint Committee of the two Houses to consider and report on the whole question of Private Bill Legislation, and the fees charged in respect of Private Bills.

The hon. Member suggests the appointment of two Committees, more or less running concurrently, on the subject of Private Bill Legislation. I quite understand the objects of my hon. friend, and I sympathise with those objects. I cannot help thinking that they would be better attained if, in the first instance, this House consented, and the other House consented, to a joint Committee to discuss Private Bill Legislation, and if that inquiry promised to be of so prolonged a character as to prevent our making the necessary arrangements to adapt Private Bill Legislation to the new rules, if the new rules are passed, then perhaps the course suggested by my hon. friend might with advantage be adopted.

When will the Committee be appointed?

I indicated in my speech in introducing the new rules that in my judgment it would be desirable to have a Committee to inquire into the Private Bill Legislation of this House. If the view I expressed is shared by this House and by the other House, then I think the sooner such a Committee is at work the better.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will cause to be prepared and circulated full information as to rules in force in foreign legislatures for the punishment of members guilty of offences against order.

I have telegraphed for information on this subject, but I do not know how soon it will reach me.

I rise for the purpose of making an appeal, in which I think I shall be sympathised with by the whole House, an appeal to those who are interested in the question which is coming before us. Sir, I do not make this appeal by any means at your request, but rather, if I must be frank to the House, against your desire. The House is well aware that MR. Speaker was indisposed yesterday, and I believe is not much less indisposed to-day. And, unfortunately, it has reached us that the Chairman of Ways and Means is also laid up, so that he cannot undertake to discharge his duty in the House. In these circumstances, as MR. Speaker is in a condition of health which makes it undesirable that he should be kept for any great length of time in the Chair, I venture to appeal to those concerned on either side in the question which is about to be brought before us that they should endeavour to bring the debate to a close at an early hour, before dinner, so as to give the Speaker an opportunity for rest.

I join in the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman. It will be understood that if the House takes the course which he has suggested, and I am sure that they will take it, we shall adjourn as soon as the first question on the Paper has been disposed of.

On behalf of those hon. Gentlemen with whom I am associated, we shall be glad to fall in with the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman.

I am greatly obliged to the House for its consideration, upon which I hope I shall make no serious demand.

The first business on the Paper, a Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Banffshire, will not be in order, there having been Bills introduced dealing with this question.

Upon a question of order, Sir, may I be allowed to submit that, although what is called a blockhouse system has been established, it is, perhaps, possible to get through the line of blockhouses by a precedent created in 1891, to which I venture to refer you, Sir. It was a case in which the hon. Member for Nottingham submitted a Resolution with regard to the question of local veto. There were, at that time, four Local Veto Bills upon the Paper—one for England, one for Ireland, one for Scotland, and one for Wales, and the question was raised whether the hon. Member would be in order in moving his Motion. Another hon. Member, who was in charge of the English Bill, withdrew his Bill in order to enable the hon. Member for Nottingham to proceed with his motion, and MR. Speaker Peel gave this ruling—

"The Resolution as drawn is in very general terms, and as it stands it applies to the whole United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. A few days ago there were four Local Veto Bills before the House, but the Bill for England has been withdrawn so as to enable the hon. Gentleman to proceed with his Motion. As the Resolution stands, however, if affirmed by the House, it would prejudice the consideration of other Bills, and especially of the Irish measure. It would therefore be convenient if the hon. Member were to confine the terms of his Resolution to England, and this may be done by the insertion of the words, 'in England.' That would not only obviate every objection on the ground of anticipation, but the Motion would not then prejudice any other Bills on the Paper that the House may have ordered to be read on a future day." [(3) Debates ccclii., 1637.]

The same thing has happened here. Yesterday, a Bill, applicable to the whole of the kingdom, was withdrawn, and I venture to submit that the only Bills on the Paper now, are two Bills referring to England alone, and have no reference to Scotland. It is quite true they are in general terms, but both the hon. Gentlemen promoting those Bills are in the House, and are prepared to say they only refer to England, and, therefore, in order to bring myself within the ruling of 1891, I beg to add to my Motion the words "in Scotland," so as to make it read as follows:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, a measure is urgently required in order that out of funds provided by taxation, or by local rating, better provision may be made for aged subjects of His Majesty in Scotland."

I venture to submit that if those two words are added, the two Bills now standing on the Paper would not block this Motion. The Bills are not yet printed. The House will surely agree that, if the Bills had been printed, the precedent I quoted would have been applicable, and the question therefore is, whether their not having been printed rules out the precedent. If that is so, it will be very unfair to Bills for Scotland and Ireland, because any English Bill introduced, even though the Members promoting the measure were prepared to say it only applied to England, would block any other Bill for other parts of the United Kingdom. If, on the other hand, the mere act of printing a measure has any mechanical effect, then I should like to draw attention to the fact that a mere mistake of the printer might have a very serious effect on the legislation of the country.

No, I think the hon. Member's Motion is out of order. I can only look at the title of the Bill on the Paper. That would authorize the introduction of a Bill to cover all parts of the United Kingdom. The Bill may be so drawn and printed as to limit it afterwards, but I can only look at the Order Paper. If I must go into the question of what are the intentions of hon. Members, of what they conceive will be the extent and effect of their measures, I might be landed in extreme difficulty and confusion, because, in the case of some complicated Bills, it is not every hon. Member who is aware of the real scope of his Bill. The hon. Member's Motion is out of order.

Before I move my Motion, I beg to state that I fully appreciate the appeal that has been made by my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition, and I will endeavour to do my utmost to respond to it. The Motion that stands in my name is in the best interests of the Welsh people and of the Church itself as it exists. In moving the Resolution I have no animus or spirit of hostility whatsoever towards the Church as a Church; and however imperfectly I may deal with this important matter, I deal with it in the full confidence that I have the majority of the Welsh nation at my back. The question is not the Church, but the State Establishment as distinguished from the Church. That Establishment is regarded by the Welsh nation as an in cumbrance which should be removed, for the sake of the Welsh people and their religion. The English Church Establishment in Wales was never the Church of the people. It has been called an alien church, and so called not by Nonconformists but by distinguished Churchmen. I remember reading a very famous speech delivered by the late Dean Edwards of Bangor, one of the most distinguished of modern Churchmen, at the Swansea Church Congress, in which he said that until the twelfth century the Church was the Church of Wales, but the Norman forces, by filling Welsh Sees with strangers, by maintaining Harvey at Bangor by arms, by subjecting St. Davids to Canterbury, by banishing Gruffydd, by rejecting Giraldus Cambrensis for Peter de Leia and provoking the appeal of the Welsh Princes to the Pope, changed the Church of Wales into the Church in Wales. It is true, perhaps, that the outward organisation, the externals of that Church, have remained unbroken from very early times, but in reality there is no line of continuity from the old British Church, and no real connection. The old Church was subjugated by an Establishment wholly unconnected with it. A very great authority, Professor Freeman described the exact state when referring to MR. Hadden's "Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland."

"We see a British Church and we see an English Church, but they stand to one another in no relation of identity, or even of parentage. The tale is a tale of conquest. Between British and English Christianity there is absolutely no continuity. British Christianity is first displaced by English heathendom, and it is then conquered by the Christianity which England learned direct from Rome."

The result to the Church and religious institutions of Wales has been no less than a calamity, destructive both to the Church and the Welsh nation. I will also quote the words of the venerable Archdeacon Price, in his History of the Ancient British Church:—

"The subjugation of the Welsh Church brought with it an awful evil which, perpetuated through so many generations, down to the nineteenth century, has rendered it almost impossible for Welshmen to realise the true nature and origin of spiritual jurisdiction. It was the policy of the Norman kings and their successors to stamp out the national character of the Welsh people, with a view to their thorough assimilation with their English subjects. The episcopate in Wales was made the instrument in carrying out this policy."

During several centuries the bishops in Wales were essentially a hostile garrison, bound to the British Crown by ties of gratitude in the past and of common hatred of the native Welsh. During that time there were petitions to the Pope against the jurisdiction of the bishops. The Welsh princes made appeal after appeal to the Pope against the appointment of alien bishops by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in one of those appeals, which was presented by Giraldus Cambrensis, in the reign of Henry III., they complained:—

"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. These bishops, as they neither love us nor our land, seek not the welfare of our souls. Their ambition is to rule over us and not to benefit us."

"What they can lay their hands upon, or get from us, whether by right or wrong, they carry into England."

But all these appeals were useless. The Church alienated the people, and the reformers burnt the cathedrals and the bishops' palaces. The religious life of Wales had fled from the churches and cathedrals into the monasteries and friar's houses, where the religion of the poor was taught and lived. Why were the Cathedrals of Bangor and St. Asaph burnt? Because the Church was not the Church of the nation, and had not discharged the important functions which make a nation great. Owen Glyndwr was the last of the great leaders of Welsh nationality, He was a statesman and a scholar, who made an appeal in 1406 to the King of France for assistance to further his schemes. He aimed at restoring the independence of Wales and of the Welsh Church, and he wished to establish two universities. No wonder Shakespeare said of him:

"In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;

Exceedingly well read, and profited

In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,

And wond'rous affable; and as bountiful

As mines of India."

He had seen the effects of the gradual conquest of Wales on the Church, the evils of that establishment, and the fearful abuse of spiritual power. But we will pass on to other times, more congenial to the Welsh people, in which the English Church establishment had its one great chance—during the Tudors. The Tudors were a Welsh dynasty, and if the State could have conferred any blessing or benefit at all on the spiritual powers of the Church, surely then was the time, when the monarchs and the State were in sympathy with the predilections of the Welsh nation. It is true they did appoint Welsh-speaking bishops—the greatest bishops the Welsh Church has ever had, great scholars like Dr. Morgan and Dr.Richard Davies. It was by Dr. Morgan, assisted by other scholars, that the Bible was produced in Welsh; but it should not be forgotten that they were compelled to this task by a Statute of Elizabeth (1562). Let it be remembered also that it was the layman William Salesbury who translated the New Testament; that he received no aid from Church or dignitary, and that it was the farmers of Llansannan who entered with him into a bond for its publication in 1567. That bond may be seen to-day in Gwysaney Library. However, the Bishops rendered priceless service notwithstanding the fact that 26 years elapsed after the Statute before their translation of the Bible was published. Was it used by the people? It lay comparatively idle until the Nonconformist revival of the 17th and 18th Centuries. The Protestant Reformation, during the Tudors did not penetrate deeper than the official mind of Church and State. It did not reach the Welsh people. I maintain, therefore, again, that wherever you read, wherever you study the history of the Welsh nation, there you will find that this Church, which has been said to be the National Church, the Church of Wales, has not really touched the people. If it had, would the Bible have been neglected for well nigh 150 years before the great stream of Welsh feeling took it up? Of course, there were able Churchmen who, by means of this translation, fostered schools—men like Griffith Jones, and others—but that was after the awakening of Nonconformity. And when that awakening came, what did we see in Wales? That only the landlords and the Church dignitaries had reaped the benefit of Protestantism and the Reformation. So the Reformation produced, as far as the Welsh people are concerned, little or no popular excitement. It was a series of Statutes drawn up by lawyers, and that practically constituted the reformed church, as far as Wales was concerned. It created no religious movement among the people whatsoever; they seemed to be plunged in a deep slumber, and they were not stirred by the Protestantism of this Tudor Church. The Establishment, therefore, simply continued the old wrong under a new system. It vouchsafed no attention to individuals like John Penry, who, touched with a vital religious spirit, tried to move the Welsh people to the flagrant abuses of the Church. But John Penry paid the penalty of this religious awakening. He was executed, and the man who signed his death-warrant was Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury. Apart from exceptional parishes and clergy there was a dearth of spiritual earnestness in the Established Church. With regard to the teaching of this so-called National Church of Wales, what did churchmen say? I would remind the House that I bring no quotations or facts from any Nonconformist documents whatever; all the facts I have already given are from the literature, or the speeches, or the books of churchmen, and I shall pursue that course to the end. What does Dr. Lewis Baily, the Bishop of Bangor, in 1643, say of place after place?

"There is never any preaching here; there have been only two or three sermons in a twelvemonth."

Dr. Erasmus Saunders, nearly a hundred years later, in "A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. Davids," showed how deplorable was the material and spiritual condition of the Church in Wales. He said—

"The churches were decayed, and do only serve for the solitary habitations of owls and jackdaws."

One glimmering of something good you will find. There was one lay impropriator or his tenant who had let one of these decayed churches to the neighbouring Dissenters. And it was these neighbouring Dissenters who fanned the spiritual life of Wales into a flame that has kept burning to this day. Then there is the testimony of Vicar Pritchard, himself a good churchman, and Griffith Jones of Llanddowror, but I pass them by with this remark made by Griffith Jones—

"That the people would not starve their souls to death for the sake of conforming, if their pastor (whose voice perhaps they do not know, or who resides a great way from them) will not vouchsafe to deal out unto them the Bread of Life."

This condition of things was aggravated by the fact that the population at that time were, by race and language, distinguished from those who ruled them, and still more by the fact that the Bishops and other dignitaries of the Church, who formed the more educated portion of the Welsh clergy, exercised little control for good in their spheres of influence. What was the result? The rise of Nonconformity, in 1639, with the first organised cause in Wales—it genesis, its growth and its ever-continuing progress. If hon. Gentlemen would like to read the account of a most important epoch of Welsh history, let them read the portion between 1700 and 1830. That was the period ofthe real reformation of the people, commencing with the advent of the great nonconformist missionaries and preachers. Who were they? Most of them were clergymen who had become sick and tired of the absence of ministrations from the Church, who resented the cold clammy fingers of the Establishment, who said that the Establishment chilled the hearts of Welshmen. These were the people who made a great secession from the Church similar to the great secession in Scotland. Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands, WilliamWilliams, of Pantycelyn, David Jones, and, at a later period, Thomas Charles, of Bala, were some of them. Some of them were scholars from Oxford, and had been ordained as clergymen, but, because the Church did not ministert to the people of Wales, they left the Church and went into the wilderness. But they did not long remain in the wilderness. Chapels were built along the countryside, on hill and in dale, and whereas at the beginning of the 18th century there were about 35 Nonconformist chapels, at the end of the 19th century there were nearly 4,000, built by the people themselves. There was a notable period contemporaneous with the Hanoverian in England. For nearly 170 years there was not a single Welsh-speaking Bishop appointed in Wales. Here are the words of Dean Edwards—

"For 150 years every teacher whose name lives in the hearts of the Welsh people has been almost without exception a Nonconformist.… Of the clergy, those who were educated knew no Welsh, and those who knew Welsh were not educated.… Those who had something to say could not say it to the people, and those who could say it had nothing to say."

Another writer tells us that from the time of George I., down to 1870, none of the Bishops appointed to the 4 Welsh seas were able to preach effectively in Welsh. The English Bishops took Welsh appointments with a view to English preferment. Take for instance these facts. George I. appointed six bishops to Welsh sees; all were translated to England. George II. appointed 21 bishops,15 of whom were translated to England; and George III. appointed 23 bishops, of whom 11 were translated to England. But that was not all. Clerical absenteeism was one of the greatest abuses. The Bishops of Llandaff were absentees from 1706 to 1820—for over a century. Members might be much diverted by reading letters from some of these absentee Welsh bishops, from the Lake District in Cumberland. Those were not the pastors of the people, but the nonconformist preachers, who, without money or tithe sacrificed themselves, and traversed the land with the eyes of true spiritual shepherds. Then, the system of pluralities was rampant. Everybody knows the notorious case of Bishop Luxmoore, who appointed many Luxmoores to the best livings in St. Asaph. Nepotism was one of the most glaring facts in the country at this time, and these Luxmoores received over £25,000 out of a total income for the whole diocese of about £39,000. That was the Church of the nation! Sir, this rise of Nonconformity was the new birth of a nation in a real sense, was the offspring of the Nonconformist revival. Then it was that the people were moved by the sanctity of religion, and the great Nonconformist preachers who led them were the heroes of the Welsh peasantry—the heroes who stirred and quickened the people to great acts of faith, of principle, and of conviction. What has been the result of that movement? One very important feature of the movement in Wales, in contradistinction to other countries of Europe is that whereas in them the renaissance preceded the religious reformation, in Wales the intellectual revival followed the awakening of the religious spirit of the people by the Nonconformist reformation. The fruits of that intellectual revival were the preservation of our native language, which was dying in the cathedrals, the literary activity of the peasantry in Wales, the rise of periodical literature, and the demand for education—which the Unionist Government sought to satisfy because they recognised the demand as national. But the great factor of all was, the religious faith of the people. This led to the development of an extraordinary mental activity among the people of Wales. Go where you like amongst the workmen of Wales, the quarrymen, and miners, and shepherds, and what do you find? Even during their dinner-hour you will not find them discussing sports and racing news, but rather sermons, political speculations, and educational topics. I know what Churchmen say to day. They say to Nonconformists—You have brought about a religious revival, you have quickened the life of the nation, while we are ashamed of the lethargy of our teachers. But you cannot go much further. We have all the means of organisation for developing and administering religious movement. We possess the scholarship and the intellectual equipment for moulding the future of Wales. I say "nay" to every one of those pleas. They say that our ministers are only semi-educated, and that they have no knowledge of theology; they say that the convictions of our ministers are not strong enough to influence their lives or their choice of religious systems; they also say that our ministers have not the higher virtue of sacramental grace and of sacramental authority which is derived in the lineage of Apostolical orders. But who are the best scholars to-day? Who are the foremost to-day in the field of biblical criticism, in the field of literature, in the field of periodical literature, and in every field of scholarship and education? Why, the greatest writers on these subjects are Nonconformists. Has any Church dignitary, whether bishop or dean, ever written anything like the "Essay on the Atonement" by Dr. Lewis Edwards, an essay which Bishop Thirwall described as the finest treatment of the subject he had ever seen. Has any Churchman in Wales ever written any thing like the "Commentary on the Corinthians," by the late Principal T. C. Edwards, which is classed by the most distinguished divines with the works of Lightfoot and Westcott. Who is the the best Hebrew and Semitic scholar of his year at Oxford to-day? Why, a young Welsh Noncomformist minister. And yet Church leaders say that we, as Nonconformists, have not the equipment necessary to mould the future of Wales! In this religious awakening the Free Nonconformist Churches began to organise. They started their monthly and quarterly meetings, and the result has been that the Welsh people have received a discipline which prepared them to fill public offices and to administer successfully local government in Wales. But what else is there? Sunday Schools have flourished, and there is a noticeable absence of crime. The Welsh peasantry are now paying £200,000 every year for Welsh native literature. We have in the Welsh language 32 magazines and 25 news papers, and how many of those are in hands of the Church people? Quite five-sixths are in the hands of the Nonconformists. Besides these, we have two quarterly magazines, two bi-monthlies, 28 monthlies, and 25 weeklies. A Welsh layman, the great Nonconformist, Thomas Gee, brought out "Gwyddoniadur," a Welsh Encyclopædia, which has gone through two editions and upon which he spent £20,000 which was only reimbursed to him just before his death, and this layman was said by a late Dean to have done more for Wales than all the Bishops and Chapters put together. In the moulding of modern Wales, Nonconformity is the great spiritual force. Bishop Jayne said with epigrammatic smartness that Nonconformity is all very well, but it is a mere parenthesis in the history of a nation. I would reply that the parenthesis developed into the most important chapter in the history of the Welsh people. Bishop Jayne also said there were many friends of the Church amongst the people of Wales who were afraid to speak their minds, and he said—

"Let them whisper their secret in the ballot box."

Well, the Welsh people have whispered in the ballot box, not their secrets, but the message of the whole nation, and they have sent an overwhelming majority to this House to ask that the Establishment should cease. I do not want to be unfair to the Church. The Church in Wales has been revived, and there has been true Church reform there, and it is still reforming I am glad to say. I am sure that every true-hearted Welshman, whether Nonconformist or Churchman, is glad of it. They have the assurance of our own gratification, and let them prosper. The Church has received its lessons from the work which has been done in Wales by voluntary effort, and clergymen are known to work successfully in towns where they receive no tithes. Let them do more of this, and let it continue, for the voluntary system will make the Church better and nobler. New buildings have been erected, cathedrals have been restored, and the clergy are multiplying. Many flagrant abuses have been remedied, although there are some subtle forms still remaining. Against some of these there has been a revolt of the clergy in St. Asaph diocese. That was two years ago, and it makes very interesting reading. It seems that the Bishop had been—

"Pursuing without restraint a policy which must sooner or later be fatal to the position of the Church in Wales."

I am quoting from the Record, which I believe is a Church newspaper. This report goes on—

"The hope of the four Welsh dioceses is bound up with their recognition of the Welsh. Steadily to anglicise the Church by pushing forward young and extreme men but little skilled in the vernacular, is suicidal."

There was a memorial got up and addressed to the Bishop, signed by 75 out of the 206beneficed clergy of the diocese. These clergymen were not the poor clergy who were thinking of themselves, but they were those who had the higher preferments in the diocese of St. Asaph. One of them was Archdeacon Montgomery, and another was Archdeacon D. R. Thomas, the historian of St. Asaph. When it was forwarded to the Bishop, it was explained that most of the clergy approved of it, but many had declined or asked to be excused signing it, on the ground that it would be injurious to their interests and hopes of preferment. The Bishop insinuated that the memorial was the work of disappointed hunters for preferment, and yet he declared that he had given or offered preferment to 30 out of the 75. It is a striking fact that some of the most prominent memorialists have been promoted by the Bishop himself; for instance, the Rector of Hope, £460 and a house; the Rector of Marchwiel, £550 and a house; Vicar of Colwyn Bay, £476 and a house; the Vicar of Rhyl, £423 and a house. The Bishop read a letter from the Rector of Marchwiel declining to attend a meeting at Wrexham, in which he said—

"In the absence of all explanation, justification or apology, for the slanderous insults you have heaped upon me and mine, I must decline the invitation. The only kind of meeting you deserve at my hands is the national one of cudgelling with a wild ash stick."

That is a nice state of affairs in the St. Asaph diocese. Of course, the words in Welsh are much more vigorous. They are pastwn onen wyllt. Then the very chaplain of this Bishop was going to resign. That was one of the revolts, but there was another and more serious one—a revolt of the best Welsh scholars of the Church, men who sympathise with the factor of Welsh nationalism, and long to co-operate with the Nonconformists. A manifesto was signed or approved by the Warden of the Diocesan School of Divinity at Bangor, the Vicar of Bangor, the Vicar of Welshpool, and the Vicar of Llanidloes, declaring their object to be—

"To put an end to the present intolerable situation, and to the disastrous conflict which is at present destroying our national unity and impairing our spiritual life."

How did they propose to carry out their object? By—

"Constituting the ancient British Church into a separate province, entirely distinct from Canterbury, and so restoring to her her ancient national character."

They went on to say—

"At present our leaders in the Church and Conservative Party are bewildered by the national awakening which we see on all sides in polities, in literature, in education. The whole stream of national revival is flowing past us."

There is an admission for Churchmen to make! I would give another quotation, from that most eloquent preacher Archdeacon Howell. In a sermon at St. Margaret's a few years ago he said—

"The weakness of the Church in Wales is due to the fact that so much of the best blood of the nation no longer runs in her veins. It is sheer folly to hide from ourselves the fact, that the most vigorous life of the Welsh people no longer wells forth from the heart of the Welsh Church. What is the exact proportion of the people to be found within and without the Church, is a matter of secondary importance. Far more important is the fact that so large a portion of the vigour and enthusiasm of the Welsh people is in full activity outside the Church."

There is a desire amongst the best Churchmen to co-operate and participate in the full life of the nation unchecked. Disestablishment is the only remedy. The future hope of the Church in Wales is Disestablishment. The Church of Ireland, after being disestablished, is more effective and more spiritual in her work. I was going to quote the words of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh, who is an office-bearer in the Church. He said he regretted that he had voted against the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, and that if he could he would now undo what had been done, because the believed the Irish Church at the present moment was stronger and more spiritual than it ever was before. A strange and curious fact is that the Anglican Church has never laid hold of any Celtic people. It tried its ministrations in Scotland and failed; it tried in Ireland and failed; the Irish people got a remedy in Disestablishment. It tried in Cornwall and failed, though the Wesleyans have flourished there. Ought not Churchmen to join the Nonconformists and ask for the Disestablishment of this encumbrance on the life of; the Church? As has been said, take away the privileges of the Church, take away if you will her endowments, but give her back a living ministry that can win the hearts of the Welsh people. We claim, in the words of my right hon. friend the Member for East Fife, who has done so much for this question, to be engaged in the holy and sacred task of redeeming the cause of religion, and of the Church itself, from obstacles and embarrassments which in the eyes of the Welsh people impede and discredit it. The Church has hopes, Nonconformists have hopes in the future Church. Let both Churchmen and Nonconformists give their full contribution to the life of the nation. Without any of the trappings of State Establishment, with no; pretensions; to superiority, but with concord and harmony, removing bitter sectional strife, let them work together for a Church truly national—making it more Catholic than Anglican, more Spiritual than Erastian, and more Christlike in all.

In seconding the Motion, I have in the first place to thank the hon. Member for Waterford for agreeing to the proposal made yesterday, in regard to the discussion of the new Procedure Rules, and thus giving the Welsh Members this opportunity of bringing forward the question now before the House. We have listened to a speech this afternoon which will enhance the reputation of my hon. friend the Member for Arfon. I have had the opportunity of listening to many speeches on this subject, but I never heard the historical side of the argument put as it has been to-day with so much grace and lucidity. It is said, however, by many of those who oppose the Motion, that the desire for Disestablishment is lessening in Wales. Well, the wish may be father to the thought, but the people who are competent to give an opinion on that are of quite a different opinion. The Bishop of Llandaff in the criticism which he made of a speech I delivered at Pontypridd some time ago was of a different character. He said the question was well to the front amongst the Welsh Members at least, and that it was to them the one great question. It is a question similar to the one that brought about the greatest majority the Liberals have obtained during modern times. In 1868, the election was fought on the question of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. The question of the "predominant partner" was not mentioned in connection with that question, for I find that the Liberals of England and Wales had a majority of 42. I venture to say that, if we were to fight the next general election on a similar motto—if we substituted for the Irish Church the Welsh Church, we would also bring about a grand majority. In 1868 it brought into this House one of the greatest patriots that ever appeared in it, in the person of the late Henry Richards. I am very glad that my hon. friend has been radical enough to depart from the old form of Resolution that the Church of England in Wales has failed to accomplish its objects, and that he has moved—

"That, in the best interests of the Welsh nation and of the Church, the State Establishment of the Church of England in Wales should cease to exist.

My position is that it is not a question of success or want of success. As far as the majority in Wales are concerned, it is a question of principle If the Church of England in Wales contained within its pale every inhabitant of Wales from my point of view, the case for Disestablishment would be quite as strong as it is now. I believe the Established Church in Wales is as successful as any Established Church can be, but I would ask if an Established Church ever was successful. My reading of history has not informed me of a single instance, and as far as we are concerned in Wales it has not been sucessful.

The Scottish Church is a great example at the present time.

The Church in Scotland is not Anglican. There are a number of people even in Scotland who do not belong to the Establish Church.

The majority of the Scotch people do not belong to it.

I think that is a complete answer to the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire. I have at once to say that many of the scandals in connection with the Established Church have been amended. I would say that we are very grateful to the Bishop of Llandaff, inasmuch as he has never appointed an English-speaking incumbent in a Celtic-speaking district. I have to say thankfully that there are many of the rank and file of the Church of England for whom I have the highest appreciation as regards their zeal, their devotion to duty, and the sacrifices they make in carrying out of their office. Their conduct might be an example to any branch of the Christian Church. We have heard something about the building of now churches. We are quite well aware of that. That is especially the case in the large centres such as Cardiff, where I live. Where they have little or no tithes, the Church has been a success, but just in the ratio of the height of their tithes, so in reverse ratio is the success of the Church. Last July, when one of the most prominent sons of Wales, Principal Viriamu Jones, died, there was a memorial service which will become historical, and among those who conducted the devotional services were the Bishop of Llandaff, and three of his Nonconformist brethren. That was an incident unequalled in Wales, and the Bishop's conduct on that occasion will never be forgotten by his fellow-countrymen. Why should that incident be unique? If you go to Canada you find Anglican clergymen associating with their Nonconformist brethren, and the same was the case in Australia, and in every State in America. We ask for Disestablishment on the ground that we are Nonconformists. And why are we Nonconformists? Because we are opposed to the State control of religion, and are opposed to a State Establishment. I believe Disestablishment would be good for the Church, and that if the Anglicans would only trust their people they would do well. But the State Church arrogates to itself a status which is insulting to Nonconformists, and we are determined that that inequality shall be removed as soon as possible.

I am sure that everyone in this House, and certainly all those on this side of the House, must recognise the grace, the power, the charm and in many respects the moderation of the hon. Member who moved the Resolution; but I should like the House not to be led away by his eloquence into missing the fact, that almost all of his speech was devoted to the historical aspects of the question, which must be admitted almost in toto by anyone who is against Disestablishment. If Disestablishment is desirable in Wales, what is one of the chief grounds on which the case should be based? It is, that the Church is not doing its duty now. It is not surely because the Church dispossessed Giraldus Cambrensis, or did this or that in the twelfth century. That was extremely interesting to listen to, and we can all echo the quotation from Shakespeare which the hon. Member recited showing that Owen Glyndwr was a very "worthy gentleman, and exceedingly well read."

I ask for Disestablishment because the State Established Church in Wales is not a National Church, and never has been a National Church.

These are "Words, words, mere words;" what we want is facts. What we want to know is the number of Churchmen in Wales, and that is what the hon. Gentleman and his friends will not permit us to ascertain. I remember when, nine years ago, the right hon. Member for East Fife moved his Suspensory Bill, his argument was that the Church had never been in touch with the Welsh people. The attack on the Church at that time was in fact that the Church was getting the people away from Nonconformity right and left. [Hon. Members: Oh, oh!] If the hon. Member can quote an insolent letter written by a clergyman to his bishop, we can quote letters to show how the Church is increasing and Nonconformity has been falling off. I merely make that point as an answer to the hon. Member when he says, as an argument for disestablishment, that there has been a dispute between a certain clergyman and a certain bishop. The hon. Gentleman told us that there was great literary power amongst Nonconformists, that it exceeded the literary power of the men belonging to the Church. I do not enter into historical comparisons of that kind, but the speeches of both the proposer and the seconder of the Resolution, although moderate and reasonable, shirked the real question which divides the two parties on this matter. They did not touch the subject of disendowment at all. That is a material thing, the hon. Members evidently consider, and not a spiritual. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion mentioned the interesting fact that the feeling between the Church and Nonconformity in Wales is improving; but that is no argument for disestablishment. I maintain that the Church is continuing to do its work well in Wales. What happened in 1749 or for years afterwards is neither here or there. No one denies that the Church neglected its work in Wales: so it did in England. No one denies that a great stimulus has been given to the Church by the spiritual work of Nonconformity. We welcome it, and are glad of it; but that is no argument for disestablishment, and for taking away the material advantages of which the hon. Members are so scornful, but which they are so anxious to obtain for their own purposes. [Hon. Members: Oh, oh!] I do not suggest that that is the only object of the hon. Members, and I fully recognise their zeal for the best interests of their country. The mover and the seconder of the Resolution avoided every serious difficulty which surrounds this question. They even neglected the geographical question, for they did not indicate what, for the purposes of disestablishment, is to be included in Wales. I have no right to speak on this question as a member of the Church in Wales; but the Church in England and the Church in Wales are one and indivisible, and the two must necessarily and logically stand or fall together.

It is now many years since this question was debated in this House; and, as at that time it fell to my lot to be the mouthpiece of the Government in the only practical proposal ever yet submitted to Parliament for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England in Wales, I think it would not be right if I were altogether silent on the present occasion, or if I refrained from expressing the grounds upon which I still retain with as much conviction and emphasis as before the opinions I then sought to convey. Hon. Members who support this Resolution might be well content with the controversy as it stands, and with a comparison of the speech of the mover of the Resolution and the reply which has just been made by the hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House. I think it would be a waste of breath to compliment my hon. friend the mover of the Resolution, whose abilities are so well known and appreciated in this House. But of my hon. friend's speech I will only say that it was one of the most charming and eloquent speeches I have listened to for a long time. I will venture to add that that speech, adorned as it was with so many natural and acquired gifts, is as good an illustration as any Welsh Nonconformist could desire of what Nonconformity in Wales can produce in these latter days, and, what is, perhaps, still more important in a controversy of this kind, of the temper and spirit, so often misrepresented, of Welsh Nonconformists. What does the hon. Member say in reply? The complaint is that my hon. friends made moderate and reasonable speeches. [Hon. Members: No, no!] Well, that was the main charge, except that they had shirked the question of disendowment. I do not know why my hon. friend should encumber an issue of this kind, involving a large question of principle, with a multiplicity of details. Everyone knows that disestablishment involves disendowment. No one proposes that the Welsh or any other Church after it has ceased to be connected with the State, should retain permanent possession of what we regard as national property, and my hon. friend, in concentrating the attention of the House on the principle of disestablishment, dealt with the essence and foundation of the whole matter. I shall deal briefly with two or three of the main points as they present themselves, not, perhaps, to a Welshman brought up in the atmosphere of Wales, and full of the sentiments and the prepossessions with which it is hardly possible for a Welshman to fail to approach a discussion of this question, but to one who has looked at the matter from the outside. It has never seemed to me that, in this matter of the Church in Wales, the abstract question of establishment is necessarily involved. It is quite possible for a man to hold that the question of establishment is a question of expediency; that the connection between the Church and the State is a matter of policy dependent on the necessities of time and circumstance. It is possible to hold, for instance, that the Church in Scotland ought to remain an established Church, or that the Church in England ought to remain an established Church, and yet to feel that in the case of Wales, the argument is so strong upon every ground of justice, policy, and expediency, that the maintenance of that connection can no longer be defended. It is a matter of notoriety and history that that was the case of the Irish Church 30 years ago; and that MR. Gladstone and the majority of those who supported him in the policy of disendowment and disestablishment of the Irish Church, would have resented and resisted many of them, with all their force, any attempt to apply the same treatment to the Church of England. That brings me to what the hon. Gentleman described as the bare facts. What is it in the state of things in Wales that differentiates the position of the establishment there, from its position in any other part of the Kingdom? We are often told that we are not entitled to deal with Wales in this matter, as if it were a separate entity, and with the Welsh dioceses as if they could be severed from the province of Canterbury. The English Church is said to be one and indivisible; and we are told that it must be dealt with, if at all, not piecemeal, not diocese by diocese, and province by province, but as a whole; and that view is very widely spread among churchmen in this country. I have seen it stated that you might as well propose to disestablish the Church of England in Yorkshire or Rutland as in Wales. I confess that the answer to that argument seems to be simple, manifest, and overwhelming. I will not press too far the analogy of the case of Ireland; but I think it is worth reminding the House of a fact which some hon. members may have forgotten—that by the fifth Article of the Act of Union, the Churches of England and Ireland were united into one Protestant Episcopalian Church, to be called the Church of England and Ireland; and it was solemnly stated that the continuance and preservation of that United Established Church was to be deemed to be an essential part of the bargain made by the Act of Union. That did not prevent Parliament, with the assent of both Houses and the Crown, from severing the union and disestablishing the Irish Church in 1869. It may be said that that was an artificial union, and that those whom Parliament has joined together Parliament may put asunder. It may be said that that is not the case with the Welsh dioceses or English Church. But is that so? The question can only be answered—and this is the defence of my hon. friend against the charge of the hon. Gentleman opposite, that he indulged in an historical lecture—by a reference to the past. It is quite true that these Welsh dioceses are formally incorporated in the province of Canterbury. But what is their history? History shows the broadest possible distinction between the origin and development of the Episcopal Church in Wales and the Episcopal Church in England. The Church of England, whatever may have been its beginnings—and no doubt the seed from which it sprang was sown from many different quarters—has been, in the main throughout its history an English Church, not an alien importation imposed upon a reluctant people, but a Church with its roots deep down in the soil, and growing with the growth of the nation. What has been the case in Wales? I need not remind those familiar with the subject that the Welsh Church is earlier in its origin than the Church in England. Before Augustine ever landed and brought the truths of Christianity to our Saxon ancestors, there was already a nourishing Christian communion in Wales. I remember reading or hearing that there is still a lingering tradition among the Welsh people—tenacious as they are of all these ancient national memories—that in some golden age of the past the See of St. David was a metropolitan See. What happened? One of the most remarkable and regrettable facts in our history. The Church which, in its origin, was a native Church, which by its history was a national Church, was de-naturalised and de-nationalised by a superior power. It was conquered and annexed by the Church of England; and since the Church of England has been in possession of the ground I do not think that its strongest apologists and admirers will assert that it has ever really succeeded in the task of assimilating to itself the sentiments of the Welsh people. Large, as I agree, have been the advances in zeal, unselfishness, and devotion in the Anglican Church during the last two generations, who will deny that that Church does not make an appeal—or at least an appeal which receives a full and hearty response—either to the religious or to the national sentiments of the people? It is necessary to dwell on these things, ancient history though they be, because it is only by looking at history we can understand the present. Very similar in its teaching is the origin and development of Welsh Nonconformity. My hon. friend has told us that history again to-day, and told it with a force and charm with which I will not attempt to compete. But what was its origin? It was not the envy of a body of sectaries outside the Church, competing with it in the task of spiritual propaganda, and finding themselves handicapped in the competition with a rival in enjoyment of national endowments and political power. It was not, as is often represented by persons who have not read the history of the case, and do not understand the question; the cupidity of men who, being out in the cold, desired to divide the spoil of which the Church was in possession. It is a remarkable fact that neither the Reformation, nor that great movement which is known by the name of Puritanism, ever had much hold on the people of Wales. In the ecclesiastical debates in this House I sometimes wonder what happened at the Reformation, or whether, indeed, there ever was a Reformation at all. Some hon. Gentlemen—over-zealous and, I think, not over-wise champions of the Church—seem to look upon the Reformation as if it were a kind of historical nightmare, a sort of morbid interlude which a person of healthy temperament, when he awakes, if he cannot disown, is at least anxious as soon as possible to forget. But the Reformation, without going into questions of doctrine or ceremony, both as regards England and Wales, had a vital and enduring effect upon the history of the Church and the relations of the Church to the people, which cannot be forgotten in connection with this question. The Reformation—or, rather, the legislation which accompanied and sanctioned the Reformation—produced three important results. In the first place it emphatically declared, with the assent both of laity and clergy, the absolute supremacy of the Crown over the Established Church. In the second place, it set up a secular Court as a final Court of appeal; and, in the third place, it supplied a parliamentary title, and asserted the power of Parliament to alter and modify that title, to every ecclesiastical benefice in this country. That, on its legal and constitutional side, was the effect of the Reformation. What has been the result in Wales? The Church in Wales, which, up to that time, had only a slender hold upon the affections and sentiments of the Welsh people, became every generation narrower and more contracted—a refuge which was chosen to send English-speaking bishops, canons, prebendaries, and rectors; an institution which failed in any true or living sense to be a teacher or spiritual consoler and help to the people for which it was intended. That was the origin of Welsh Nonconformity. It was not a movement of hostility from without, but of vitality from within. The men who founded Welsh Nonconformity were almost, without exception, ministers of the Established Church, who finding themselves restrained and constrained in every direction by the fetters of the establishment, sought to carry out the work of their ministry by preaching in the streets and on the hill-sides, and even in the unconsecrated buildings of their Non-conformist brethern. Because the Church would not allow them that freedom, and because the persons who indulged in such practices were regarded as outside its pale, that tremendous and gradually swelling exodus took place which, in the course of the 18th century, raised the Nonconformist congregations of Wales from 100 to 1,000—a number which has since been multiplied fourfold. It is impossible for anyone to understand either the feeling of the Welsh people to the Church or the real relations of these four so-called dioceses to the province of Canterbury who has not grasped the meaning of that chapter in history. I agree that there has been a great change in the temper and methods of the Church in the last century. But where has the change made itself most manifest? And where are its results most conspicuous and fruitful? Why, just in those very parts of Wales—mainly in the great towns and centres of urban population—where there are no endowments: where the Church relies not on that which she has inherited from the past, but on her own spontaneous energy and the voluntary co-operation of the people. There could not be, I think, a more striking additional proof, if additional proof were needed, that it is a voluntary form of religious association which is suited and appeals to the genius of the Welsh people. In reference to this revival of activity on the part of the Church, which everybody welcomes, it is one of the most tragic and certain facts in the experience both of individuals and of institutions, that you cannot by turning over a new leaf, blot out the ineffaceable pages of the past. If, as I have endeavoured to establish, Wales is in this matter entitled, as a separate entity to put these Welsh dioceses in a separate position of their own, what is the actual situation? When once that position has been conceded, will any one deny, that by any of the canons which have ever been applied to a question of this kind, an overwhelming case has not been made out for Disestablishment? What is the wish of the Welsh people? And as this is a Welsh question, primarily they are the persons entitled to be consulted. Their Parliamentary representation is, shall I say, in the proportion, I think, of something like seven to one. [Cries of "No, no."] Well six, or five, or four to one. Any one of them will suffice to show an overwhelming preponderance in its favour of Parliamentary representation in Wales; but I am perfectly certain that if I could get any one of my hon. friends opposite who represent Welsh contituencies into the Palace of Truth—I am not suggesting we are not in it to-night—there is not one of them who would not acknowledge to me that the fact that it is a part, and a necessary part, of his political creed to maintain the necessity for the continued Establishment and Endowment of the Church in Wales, deprives him of a large number of votes which he might otherwise have. If that is the case with the Parliamentary representation, what is the case of the people themselves? The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down repeated the familiar taunt, "Why do you not have a religious census in Wales?" That is a suggestion which has often been made and answered. The reason we do not have a religious census in Wales, or in this country, is because all experience has shown that it is the most delusive and untrustworthy way of arriving at the facts you want to ascertain. But there are means by which you can ascertain, with approximate accuracy, what is the position of the different religious denominations in Wales, and that is by seeing what is the number of their communicant members. I do not know whether the figures I am going to mention are or can be disputed, except in this sense—that they are greatly to the favour of the Anglican Church. The communicant members of the Nonconformist bodies—and I believe in this computation the Roman Catholics are excluded—amount to 460,000, and I do not believe that the most sanguine and optimistic apologist of the Church would put the communicant members of the Church at more than 130,000. I daresay that may be an over-statement, but I am putting it at the very highest. So that, if you work it out, you have a proportion of something like three or four to one. In that state of things, what is the position as it presents itself to the Welsh? Take the case of one of those small Welsh proprietors, of whom there are many, who is every year called upon to pay his quota of tithe rent-charge for the support of a ministry and of services which do not represent, and which are not adapted to, the convictions either of himself or of the great majority of his neighbours. Is this House, after our experience in other places and at other times, with the precedent which our own Legislature has set in the case of Ireland, prepared to say that, it is either politic or just, that that compulsory payment should continue to be exacted and enforced by law in support of the services of a Church which, upon the highest computation, does not number among its members more than one-third of the population? I ask one question, and one only. Who gains by this state of things? Does the Church gain? Does Christianity gain? Does religion gain? Does it promote, can it, in the nature of things, promote, those amenities and charities, that sense of brotherhood, that spirit of co-operation, which is the condition, and the only condition, by which all these various bodies—by different agencies and over different roads, professedly, at any-rate, working to the same end—can attain their object and get rid once and for ever of that scandal—for it is a scandal—to the religious life of Wales by which, in artificial jealousies and internecine rivalries, they are dissipating their forces and defeating their purposes? I rest my defence of this proposition, as I have always rested it, not on sectarian or ecclesiastical considerations, but upon the broad ground of national policy; and I say that experience shows that in the religious and social life of Wales the continuance of the Establishment in its present form is at the same time a hindrance to the Church and an injury to the State.

Whatever our views may be everyone will admit the hon. Gentleman who moved the resolution—in an eloquent, passionate, and fervid speech, such as he always makes—has given the House a most interesting and instructive account of the past history of the Church in Wales, but I associate myself entirely with my hon. friend, who I do not think is open to the charge levelled against him by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, who said that interesting as was the speech of the hon. Member opposite, it was not really an argument in favour of the course he asked the House to adopt. I associate myself entirely with many of the strictures which the hon. Gentleman opposite uttered in respect of the past history of the Church in Wales, and no one dispute the fact that until a comparatively recent period, certainly 150 years ago and even later than that, it was grossly negligent of its duties. I for one, have no hesitation in saying that, if I had lived in those days, seeing the Church which had privileges taking advantage of those privileges, and which had its duties but did not fulfil them, I would have been found in the ranks of Nonconformity. But, happily, those times are long since past and gone, and the hon. Gentleman himself spoke in the kindest manner of the work which the Church is doing in Wales at the present time. I imagine, although I did not gather it from his speech, the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that there may be disputes here and there between Bishop and clergy, as there are in all countries where there are Churches and dignitaries, yet the Church in Wales, is to a graat evtent, at any rate fulfilling the duty which rested upon it at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, referred to public opinion in Wales as evidenced by the votes which were given, and the number of members returned to Parliament in favour of Disestablishment, and said that the numbers were about six or five to one in favour of Disestablishment. Let us examine that proposition. In 1895, when the right hon. Gentleman brought forward a Bill for the Dis- establishment of the Church in Wales, there were in the House at that time 28 members for Wales in favour of Disestablishment and three members who were antagonistic to it. The Ministerial majority in the House at that time was only about 40 or 42, and occasionally it ran down to nine or ten.

Seven.

Almost immediately after that Bill was before the House Parliament was dissolved. A supreme effort was made in Wales to show that the Welsh people were staunchly in favour of the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. No effort was spared to induce the people of Wales to see of what enormous importance the election would be for the cause of Disestablishment. A manifesto vas issued by the Calvinistic Methodists—who, I understand, are in a great majority so far as the Nonconformists are concerned—from which I should like to quote a few words in order to show the efforts that were made. The manifesto stated—

"The crisis is one, the seriousness and importance of which can scarcely be over-estimated.… The Church Establishment in Wales has been a bar to progress, a fertile nursery of tyranny, violence, and wrong-doing in their most odious forms. It has generated the spirit of slavery, and has stimulated untruthfulness, immorality, and ignorance.…. Welsh Nonconformists must not relax their efforts as any reduction in the number of members returned at the next general election pledged to support of Disestablishment, or even in the number of votes recorded in their favour, will be greedily seized upon by Church defenders as evidence that Welshmen are changing their minds and are no longer as anxious for Disestablishment as they were."

:May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that is a manifesto by the Calvinistic Methodists?

Yes.

May I ask where and when it was published, because I think the right hon. Gentleman has been grossly imposed upon?

It was, I think, in a Church periodical that I saw it.—[Opposition ironical cheers.]—Do hon. Gentlemen opposite think so low of the Church as to suppose, that this respectable paper would publish as a manifesto from the Calvinistic Methodists that which was not a manifesto from them at all? Do they think so low of the Church as that?

Not willingly imposed upon, but I may assure the right hon. Gentleman that I am a Calvinistic Methodist myself, and that I never heard of it.

I daresay that a good many things occur among the Calvanistic Methodists which the hon. Gentleman does not hear of. I assert that this was published in a Church newspaper as being a manifesto of the Calvinistic Methodists, and that it has never been contradicted.

The Methodists as a whole, or some particular body?

The Calvinistic Methodists; I understand that that is a well-known body, composed of the majority of the Nonconformists in Wales.

Would the right hon. Gentleman give the name of the Calvinistic Methodist paper?

I will show the hon. Member the paper. I did not read that to show the opinion of Calvinistic Methodists as a Church; I read it to show the strong emphasis which this manifesto put on the necessity of all Nonconformists putting their shoulders to the wheel.

May I ask the date of the paper?

1895. As another illustration of the efforts made, I may read the following extract from the Manchester Guardian—

"The July elections in Wales, therefore, presented a plain, simple issue, and if ever the friends of religious equality in the country ought to have bestirred themselves it was then. But what has happened? The Church to-day holds, instead of one-tenth, nearly one-third of the representation."

Now, what were the numbers? In the Parliament of 1892, there were three Unionists with 86,000 votes, and 31 Radicals with 145,000 votes. In 1895, the election which occurred immediately after the right hon. Gentleman's Bill, and immediately after this fervent appeal to Nonconformists to do their best, there were returned nine Unionists with103,000 votes, and 25 Radicals with 146,000 votes. The Radical vote remained practically the same, but the Unionist vote increased by 17,000, and if seats had been apportioned according to the number of those who voted, instead of there being nine Unionists there would have been 14, and instead of there being 25 Radicals there would have been 20.

Would the right hon. Gentleman state the number of uncontested elections?