, this day four weeks, to call attention to the recommendations contained in the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws so far as it affected unemployment, and move a Resolution.

, this day four weeks, to call attention to the question of land in Wales, and move a Resolution.

asked leave to introduce a Bill "to terminate the Establishment of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire and to make provision in respect of the Temporalities thereof, and for other purposes in connection with the matters aforesaid."

It is almost exactly fourteen years since I asked the Members of the House of Commons of that day to read a second time a Bill designed for the same purpose, and framed substantially on the same lines as the Bill which I desire to ask leave to introduce this afternoon. The case for Welsh disestablishment rests in all its essential particulars on the same foundations now as it did then. New facts have, indeed, emerged, which, though they may not have added to the general argument, an argument which in my opinion needed no reinforcement, do at the same time indicate and account for the growing urgency of the Welsh demand, and show that, in our opinion, the speedy compliance on the part of Parliament with that demand is a matter at once of justice and of policy. But the case, as I said, is not a new one. Its origin lies far back in the annals of Wales. I am not going to-day to rehearse at length the detailed historical narrative with which on that occasion I troubled the then House of Commons. But it is impossible for anybody who has not familiarised himself with the outline at any rate of that history to understand either the actual position of the Church in Wales or the feeling and sentiment of the Welsh people in regard to it.

The Church in Wales, I may state as an indisputable historical fact, existed not perhaps as a highly organised institution, though there are, I believe, traditions of a Welsh Archbishopric of St. David's, but it existed undoubtedly as a living and a working Christian agency some considerable time before the mission of St. Augustine to the Saxons. It is in no sense an offshoot or a missionary development of the Church of England. It had an independent origin, and for a long time—probably for some centuries—it had an independent existence. When by a series of historical incidents, which I need not dilate upon, the Principality of Wales was, for political purposes, incorporated into or annexed to—I am not sure which expression will most suit the sensibilities of my Welsh friends—but when at any rate it became part and parcel, for political purposes, of the Kingdom of England, contemporaneously or consequentially the ancient Church of Wales was incorporated into or annexed to the Church of England. The English Government succeeded in doing with the Welsh Church what it could never do, and never has succeeded in doing, with the Welsh people—it denationalised it. It is no exaggeration to say it is one of the commonplaces of history that for centuries the English Establishment in Wales—that is to say, the old Welsh Church as transformed by the English rulers of the Principality—was used for political purposes as the organ and instrument of the English Government.

From the time, I suppose, of Henry II., to a time which is almost within the memory of people now living, the great places of that Church, and the small places, too, the bishoprics, deaneries, and, also, the ordinary parochial benefices, were occupied by persons out of touch with Welsh feeling, with little knowledge of the Welsh people, and often ignorant of the Welsh language, and those prizes, be they great or small, in the ecclesiastical organisation of Wales at that time were regarded as the appanage of English clergymen and the favourites of English Ministers, and were filled up with almost systematic disregard of the real spiritual requirements of Wales. That is, as I believe, the absolutely unexaggerated and uncoloured history of the Welsh Establishment for many centuries after the incorporation of Wales with the kingdom of England. But there is another historical fact, which is by no means irrelevant to these discussions, that should be borne in mind and fully appreciated, and that is the origin of Welsh Nonconformity. Welsh Nonconformity was not the product of puritanism. Puritanism never obtained any very great hold of the Principality of Wales. Welsh Nonconformity was the result of a revolt within the boundaries of the Church itself, by the best and finest spirits of the Church at. that time, the eighteenth century—a revolt not based upon dogmatic differences, or even upon disputes on questions of ceremonial, but a revolt against the condition of things by which this great State organisation, the accredited organ, from the political point of view of the spiritual side of the community, proved itself to be hopelessly out of touch with the mass of those for whom its mission was intended, and to whom its message ought to have been delivered. The great founders of Welsh Nonconformity were the men who would have gladly remained within the Church, who wished to try, so far as their opportunities allowed to make the Church in practice, as it was already in theory, the actual oigan of the conscience and religious sense of the nation, but who, when they heard that for that purpose it was necessary that they should conduct the services in the Welsh tongue, that they should go out into the streets and highways and on to the mountain sides to carry on their ministrations in unconsecrated buildings, were told by the short-sighted rulers of the Church of that day that they were guilty of a breach of the great ecclesiastical traditions of the body to which they belonged, and were, as we know, refused ordination and expelled or excluded from official admission to the Church itself. The result was that not only were they driven out from the Established Church, but also that which was the most vivid and fertile factor of its strength; and as a consequence of that policy we have had growing up in Wales the ever-increasing power of these great Nonconformist organisations, which, finding themselves in actual touch and sympathy with the wishes and ideas of the great bulk of the population, gradually absorbed and accumulated within their own boundaries practically the whole spiritual vitality of the Principality. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ancient history!"] Yes, certainly, ancient history. I am very glad that it is so. Everybody knows that during the last 70 years, at any rate, in the Church of England and Wales there has been opened a new chapter, a new, beneficent and fruitful chapter, in their history. She has learnt, alas too late! the lessons of the past. She now, by every means which an enlightened ecclesiastical statesmanship, and a strong spiritual devotion to the best needs of the Welsh people could dictate, is overtaking, or endeavouring to overtake, the arrears of the past. Yes, but you cannot rewrite the history of an institution in its old age. The past is the past. It has left indelible traces on the minds, consciences, traditions, and convictions of the Welsh people. Nobody can understand, or properly appreciate, the attitude of those people to the establishment in their midst who does not recognise, or realise the force of the historical facts with which I have been endeavouring to occupy the attention of the House. To start then with this matter—with the historical facts. Start in the first place with a record extended over long centuries of the church, an original, an indigenous, and a native institution, alienated and denationalised by foreign influence. In the second place, in consequence of that fact, we have to take into account those great Nonconformist bodies going out independently and starting for themselves, upon voluntary principles a new form of spiritual teaching and organisation, and capturing—as nobody doubts they have captured—every- thing that was best and most progressive in the religious life of the people.

These things must be taken into account if you are to truly realise the proportions of the problem with which we have to deal. No one, of course, no responsible statesman, would rest his case for the removal of an ancient institution, like the Anglican Church in Wales, as a political institution—as one of the religious institutions of the country nobody proposes to remove it—merely upon ancient history, or even upon recent history.

I come now to the second chapter in my narrative. That deals entirely and exclusively with contemporary facts. I ask the question: Supposing these four Welsh dioceses were not technically in league, as legally they are part of the Province of Canterbury, is there any fair-minded listener, who, in view of the actual facts, with regard to the religious and ecclesiastical life of Wales, who would maintain that they should be, or were entitled to be, the Established Church of the Principality? You may carry that argument—an argument which used to be much used—I do not know whether it is used now—as to the integrity and inviolability of the Church of England as a whole—you may carry it when dealing with a country like Wales to very dangerous lengths. If that argument is logical it would be so if there was not a single adherent or communion of the Church of England in Wales. If you admit that you cannot carry it to those extreme lengths, that to do so would be absurd and extreme pedantry, then you have got to consider the facts which I am dealing with as to the degree and extent to which in these dioceses the Established Church does re-pjesent the consciences and religious feelings of the community. Let us consider what these facts are. More recently made, I think they are more conclusive in their effect than those which were available when I last dealt with this question 14 years ago.

The population of the Principality of Wales, according to the census of 1901, is 2,000,000. I believe we may take it now, in 1909—we are on the eve of a new census—as 2,250,000. That is the population with which you are to deal. These are the actual inhabitants of these four Welsh dioceses. Now let us see how, from a religious and ecclesiastical point of view, they are distributed. I take first of all the communicants of the two sets of Churches. The figures' which I am giving are the figures which have been given in evidence before the Royal Commission. They are accessible to everybody. They have been published in the newspapers. There is nothing confidential about them. They are the figures for the year 1905. In 1905-the Nonconformist communicants numbered 554,000; the communicants of the-Established Church numbered 193,000. This is a proportion of very nearly—as the House will see—three to one. Take another test, in some ways perhaps a better one: The criterion of that which constitutes a man a communicant may vary very much in laxity or rigidity between one church and another. Therefore, although I think it is safe to assume that each church will state its communicants at the highest figure they can conscientiously do—although that may be fairly assumed—yet as a criterion the figures may be accounted variable and flexible, not uniform and rigid, and they may be said not to be altogether a satisfactory test. Let us therefore go to another, which I think, on the whole, is a more trustworthy indication of the actual distribution of the population—that is the accommodation provided in places of worship. Taken as a whole, the accommodation provided in Nonconformist places of worship is 1,500,000; in the Established Church 458,000, a proportion of three to one—in this case rather more. Take for the purpose of illustrating and developing that argument, the case of one or two particular counties. Take the great industrial population of Glamorganshire. The Nonconformist provision in the shape of accommodation is 565,000, against the Church accommodation of 120,000—more than three to one—more than four to one. Take again another great industrial county, which, although it is not technically and legally part of Wales, has, for this purpose, always been included in it, I mean Monmouthshire.

It is in the diocese of Llandaff.

Yes, it is in one of the four Welsh dioceses. Take Monmouthshire. With a population of 320,000, it has 175,000 Nonconformists as against the Established Church accommodation for 56,000. If you take the great city of Cardiff, which I suppose is the biggest urban community in Wales, the Church of England accommodation is one in 12 of the population, or take the accommodation provided in the city for the Welsh and English speaking congregations, you will find, in round numbers, 52,000 Nonconformists, against 16,000 Church of England. I might multiply illustrations by referring to the more rural counties, but the result is always the same, and I am certain I am not exaggerating when I say the Nonconformist communities in Wales provide in the proportion of at least three to one, and more than three to one, accommodation for those who resort to their chapels as compared with the accommodation provided by the Established Church. Now I pass to the third criterion, by which I mean the criterion of voluntary contributions, in regard to which, it is obvious to anybody acquainted with the facts, that the Established Church, containing, as it does, in all countries, and in Wales no less than others, a larger proportion in regard to its total adherents of wealthy and well-to-do people than Nonconformist congregations, it might well be expected to realise a better result. What are the facts as regard voluntary contribution? I take the year 1905–6. Voluntary contributions for Church purposes—religious purposes—in this year appear as follows:—In the case of the Nonconformists £818,700, and in the case of the Church £296,400, again three to one or thereabout—a very remarkable correspondence in the figures. And lastly,—I will not weary the House with more figures than I can help—take that institution which, from the religious or ecclesiastical point of view, is perhaps the most characteristic of Welsh institutions—the Sunday school. We do not know in this country—we do not realise what the Welsh Sunday school is. People go to Sunday school in Wales from the time they are three years old until they are 70, not necessarily graduating from the position of scholar to teacher, but even continuing as scholars up to late in middle age, and of all the great organisations and religious developments which the Nonconformists of Wales, when they left the Church, discovered and evolved, I do not believe there is any one that has given them greater hold on the population than these institutions of Sunday schools. Well, now, take the Sunday school. In the case of the Church—and I think the figures are both for scholars and- teachers in both cases—in the case, of the Church—I am taking the very latest figures, and they are from the highest authority, namely, the Bishop of St. David's, and from a speech made by him in the Church House, not far from here, as late as 21st March this year, in which he stated that Bible classes added to Sunday schools—and I am not, at any rate, understating, so far as the Church of England is concerned—Nonconformist numbers in regard to Sunday schools amount to 592,000—that is for 1905, for all I know they may be higher to-day—whereas the Church schools, adding the Bible classes, taking these great figures of the Bishop of St. David's, amount to 178,688; so there again you have more than 3 to 1 in favour of the Nonconformists.

These are facts undisputed and indisputable under all these heads as regards actual distribution of Welsh feeling and Welsh religious attachments and Welsh religious generosity between the different ecclesiastical communities. One cannot ignore, in a matter of this kind, the repeated reiterated demonstrations of Welsh electoral opinion in favour of the disestablishment of the Church. There are 34 members returned to this House from Wales and Monmouthshire, and out of these 34 members for the last 20 years—I go back 20 years to 1886 or 1887—never more than five have voted against disestablishment. In the Parliament of 1902 to 1905, when I introduced the previous Bill dealing with this matter, never more than three voted against it, and in the present Parliament the whole 34 Welsh Members are absolutely united on this subject. Suppose it were any other community or any other part of the United Kingdom. I will not speak of England, I will not even speak of Scotland, I will take Ireland. If the Irish Members of all colours and complexion sitting upon those benches opposite, suppose the whole of the Irish Members—hon. Gentlemen whom I see above the Gangway on the other side, together with those sitting below the Gangway, were to come to this House united as one body in their demand in regard to a matter of purely Irish concern, can anyone conceive this House or any Parliament in this country refusing their demand. But that is the case of Wales. Wales, through her accredited representatives here to-day, says without one dissenting voice; "We, the representatives of the Welsh people, demand the disestablishment of the Church. Are you going to refuse? How can you refuse on any ground consistent with democratic spirit?" And, further, these 34 Welsh Members are not all Nonconformist. Some of them are Churchmen; some, I believe, are Roman Catholics. They belong to every possible creed. They do not prosecute this demand in the name of a sect or as enemies of the Church of England. They come here as representatives of the Welsh people, and tell us, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, it is the opinion of Wales, the unanimous opinion of Wales, as expressed by the enormously preponderating number of its electors, and it is the unanimous opinion of the Welsh Members, the time has come for the disestablishment of the Welsh Church. I do not believe that a case so strong and so irresistible has ever been presented to any Legislature in the world. The case of the Irish Church was not comparable. I am not saying—Heaven forbid I should—I am not saying that the case of the Irish Church was not overwhelmingly strong. It was. It had the enormous advantage of being presented to England and the people of this country by the greatest statesman of our time, but you never had anything like that unity of the Irish representatives, nor in considerable parts of Ireland, at any rate, had you ever that enormous preponderance in numerical strength. Now, Sir, that is the case. I have stated it as shortly as I can—first, historically, and then in regard to contemporary facts, with regard to religious opinion, which makes it seem to the Government that the time has come when we ought to ask the House of Commons to deal with this matter, and deal with it in a practical sense. I come now, for a few moments, to explain the provisions of the Bill which I am about to ask leave to introduce. I shall not occupy—or should I say waste?—the time of the House by making abstract arguments as to the justice—the political justice—of dealing with the national Establishment and its endowment in the manner which we propose to do. We have the classical case of the Irish Church before us. There it stands upon the Statute Book. Every argument that can be used with regard to sacrilege, spoliation, and all the other topics of prejudice with which a matter of this kind is naturally encumbered, those arguments were used to the full, and they were pressed to the last extremity in the case of the Irish Church, and yet the Irish Church Act, with the assent of Lord Salisbury, passed its second reading in the House of Lords and obtained the Royal Assent. I will add that I do not believe there is an Irish Protestant, an Irish Episcopalian Protestant, now who desires to go back to the state of things that existed before the passing of that Act. I do not believe there is a single intelligent and convinced member of the Irish Protestant Church who does not feel that the prosecution of its spiritual mission has been enormously assisted by divesting itself of those prejudices and antipathies which so long as it was in a position of privilege and State preference it invariably had to suffer from.

The proposals we make, which may be briefly described, fall naturally under two heads. I will take first disestablishment, which deals with the legal status of the Church; and next disendowment, which deals with the allocation and disposal of its revenues. As regards disestablishment, the area covered by the Bill is that of Wales and Monmouthshire, or, in other words, the four dioceses which are now called the Welsh dioceses. Within that area there are 1,083 parishes, 24 of which are in three English dioceses outside the Welsh ecclesiastical boundary. Eleven of those 24 are in Wales, and the remaining 13 are partly in Wales and partly in England. There are special subsidiary provisions for dealing with these cases. The date on which we propose disestablishment should take effect is the 1st of January, 1911. On that date, if the provisions of the Bill are carried into law, all ecclesiastical corporations, whether sole or aggregate, will be dissolved, and all the legal incidents of establishment will come to an end. From that date no bishop of any of those Welsh dioceses will sit in the House of Lords, and the total number of spiritual peers will be reduced from 26 to 22. Of course, from that date, also, the ecclesiastical law in Wales will cease to exist as law, but the law, articles, rules, ordinances, and so forth, of the Church of England will operate in Wales by agreement, subject to any future authorised alterations by the representative body of the English Established Church. Full power is given by the Bill to hold synods and conventions and to form a church representative body, about which I will say a word or two in a moment, for the purposes of dealing with the government, doctrines, and property of the Church when disestablished. There are minor provisions on which I need not dwell for filling vacancies between the passing of the Act and the date of disestablishment, but no new vested interests can be created after the passing of the Act. So much for that which may be said to be the more formal and legal side of the matter.

Now I come to disendowment. Three bodies will be created assuming, as we do assume, that the Church will constitute a representative body of her own for the purposes of administration. In the first place there will be a temporary body, whose function we propose should only continue to December, 1915, or, if necessary, some short extended period after that called the Welsh Commissioners. They are constituted by the 8th and 9th clauses of the Bill, and I will say something about their functions in a moment. Next there is the Council of Wales, and in this respect the Bill itself differs from the Bill of 1895. We propose to constitute a body called the Council of Wales, a central authority consisting of members appointed by the councils of counties and county boroughs, and of any boroughs and urban districts having the required minimum population. So the House will see that the Council of Wales is in the strictest sense a representative body.

Thirdly, there is the Church representative body, which under clause 13 of the Bill the disestablished Church will have the power of creating, and which under the same clause the King may, by charter, incorporate, with power to hold land without licence and mortmain. Those are the three bodies I would ask the House to keep in view when I proceed to describe the manner in which we propose that ecclesiastical property shall be dealt with. First of all—the preliminary step—the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty are to ascertain and declare what portion of the property vested in them is or has been derived from property situate Li Wales, and what property, though not vested in them, is situate in Wales, but attached to English benefices. This property is described in the Bill as Welsh ecclesiastical property. The whole of that and all other property which can be described as Welsh Church property is to be vested, in the first place, for the purposes (HE administration, allocation and division in this temporary body, which I have described as the Welsh Commission, subject, of course, to all existing charges and interests.

Now, suppose the vesting in the Welsh Commissioners has taken place. The next step is that the disestablished Church appoints its representative body, and that body is incorporated under the provision which I have just read to the House. Immediately after its incorporation all Church plate, furniture, and movable chattels belonging to the churches will vest in them as the representative body. Then the Welsh Commissioners are to transfer to the Church representative body the following categories of property, to which I will venture to ask rather close attention. In the first place, the Commissioners will transfer to the representative body four cathedrals, the chapter houses, cloisters, and so forth. In the next place, they will transfer in the same way all churches, chapels-of-ease, and church buildings. The House may, perhaps, know, or would like to be reminded, that there are over 1,500 churches which fall under this category, in the building and erection of which very considerable sums of money voted by Parliament have been spent. Thirdly, the Commissioners will transfer to the representative body all ecclesiastical residences, bishop's palaces, deaneries, and the parsonages. There are no less than 800 parsonage houses in Wales to which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty have contributed for the purpose of erection and so forth considerably over £300,000. Fourthly, there will be included in the transfer all closed burial grounds.

And, lastly—which is, of course, a matter of the highest importance to those interested in the fortunes of the Church—all benefactions which date since 1662. In our previous Bill of 1895 the date was 1703. [An HON MEMBER: "But it was amended."] Yes, that is how it was originally drafted, but I rather think I agreed, in the course of the Committee stage of the Bill, to put back the date. At any rate, we have now put it back to 1662. That, Sir, exhausts the categories of property which the Commissioners will transfer to the representative body. In the next place, they will transfer to every existing incumbent during his incumbency, first of all the glebe. There are 38,000 acres of glebe, with an annual rental of £43,500; and next the burial grounds—that is to say, the open burial grounds. They transfer those to the incumbent during the term of his incumbency and no longer, and after the expiration of his incumbency these two categories will be vested in the council of the appropriate boroughs, districts, or parishes, according to their local situation.

Thirdly, the Commissioners will transfer to the county council in the county where the land is situated first the Welsh tithe-rent charge—and when I say land I mean the land out of which the tithe-rent charge arises—subject to the payment of the stipend of the existing incumbent; and next the tithe-rent charge of the Welsh Church issuing out of land elsewhere than in Wales will be transferred to such county council as the Welsh Commissioners decide. And, lastly, all or any other property vested in the Commissioners will be transferred to the Council of Wales, and all property transferred is to be held subject to all existing public and private rights. Now I come to the application—a very important point—of the property which has passed—I am assuming the process of transfer is complete—out of the hands of the Welsh Commissioners, and which has not passed into the hands of the representative Church body. In the first place the parochial property will be applied according to schemes made by the county council for the purposes specified in the first schedule of the Bill, which I had better read to the House. It is somewhat modified since the Bill of 1895, because some of the purposes which were then provided for have since received other provision at the hands of Parliament. The enumerations is as follows:—"The erection or support of Cottage or other hospitals or dispensaries or convalescent homes, the provision of trained nurses for the sick poor, the provision and maintenance of public, parish, or district halls or institutes and libraries, technical and higher education, and charitable or eleemosynary purposes of public, local, or general utility for which provision is not made by statute out of public funds." But we hate added to that the very useful and novel addition that each scheme is to provide that one-tenth—this is a new form of tithe—is to be paid to the Council of Wales. This one-tenth and all other property in their hands will be expended first in defraying the cost of the Act, and next upon higher education in Wales in accordance with schemes of the Council of Wales to be approved by His Majesty in Council, and laid before both Houses of Parliament. I need not go into the minor provisions of the Bill with regard to compensation beyond saying that full provision is made for compensation being paid to lay patrons and the holders of freehold offices. There is also a provision for exchanging life compensation annuities according to the scale in the schedule. I purposely have not gone into minute details. The Bill will be in the hands of Members very soon, but I think that I have sufficiently indicated the general lines of the scheme.

Assuming what I endeavoured to prove in the earlier part of my remarks—assum- ing that in point of principle a case is made out for disestablishment and disendowment in Wales—we believe that the procedure which I have now outlined does justice to all existing interests, is generous in the extent of its transference to the new representative body, and provides for the best application of the property that remains in the interests, general and local, of the people of Wales. I am afraid that I shall hardly be believed—I am sure that I shall not be universally believed—when I say that this measure is not, either in its principle or in any of its provisions, inspired by any animosity to the Church of England as a whole or to that part of the Church of England which is organised in the four Welsh dioceses. I said a few moments ago we have witnessed in our lifetime a marvellous transformation in the methods and the attitude of the Church in Wales. Yes, Sir, but where, and in what degree, in this, her latest and best phase, has the Church of England in Wales been most successful? The answer is obvious and undeniable. She has been most successful just where and just in so far as by developing institutions like the Sunday Schools, and by throwing herself upon the voluntary effort and enthusiasm of the people, and when she has descended into the arena without either the advantages or the drawbacks of privilege and endowment, and when she has taken her place side by side with her Nonconformist sisters in a splendid and even rivalry upon a common field.

In our opinion—certainly it is my honest and deliberate opinion—freed from her burden of past traditions and of present encumbrances, she will find that she has gained more than she has lost, and she can appeal as she has never done before to the hearts and the sympathies of the mass of the people of Wales.

Motion made and Question proposed: "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to terminate the Establishment of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire, and to make provision in respect of the Temporalities thereof, and for other purposes in connection with the matters aforesaid."

moved, as an Amendment, to leave out from the word "that" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House, recognising the embarrassment to which the Government are admittedly exposed in the framing and conduct of the measure owing to the absence of official information on the questions which have been submitted to the Royal Commission on the Church in Wales, declines to give leave for the introduction of a Bill to disestablish and disendow the Church in Wales until the Report of the Royal Commission has been published and circulated."

I did not say "party policy." I said "public policy."

But I say "party policy." What I desire to point out is that if this Bill is advanced in the interest of party policy we can understand the reason why the Government should not wait for the Report of the Royal Commission, but if, as the right hon. Gentleman contends, it is introduced in the interest of public policy, surely some better arguments might be used to show how it is going to benefit the cause of religion in Wales. With regard to party policy, I would remind hon. Members opposite that the Rev. R. J. Campbell, in a speech, said that the Free Church Council was nothing more than a party caucus. But if that is not the case (and I believe that some of the hon. Members who are advancing this Bill seriously believe that it will be for the benefit of religion in Wales), then I say that we ought to have some better proof as to how it is to benefit Wales in this way. Although they have disclaimed any animosity against the Church, you have only got to look at the local papers to see that the arguments advanced in favour of disestablishment in Wales have frequently been accompanied by the very greatest animosity against the Church, and very often by the very greatest misstatements on the subject. One of the arguments used, and used by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, is that the Church of Wales is an "Alien Church," and I think the Prime Minister also said to-day—and here, I think, his history was a little at fault—the Church in Wales has been denationalised. He said "Parliament had not been able to denationalise the people of Wales, but it had denationalised the Church." As a matter of fact, the union between the Church in Wales and that in England took place before the political union of the two countries, and, therefore, I do not see how he can sustain that argument. As it is the oldest part of the Church in Great Britain, how can it be said, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, that it is an "Alien Church" it. In 1870 a similar Bill was introduced by Judge Watkin Williams, and he said "the Church established in Wales is an ancient and venerable Church, and it is not like the Church in Ireland, an alien Church forced upon the people by a conqueror and an oppressor." Though I contend the Church in Wales is very far from being an alien Church, I should like to ask are the Nonconformist bodies so far from being alien bodies? What is the Welsh name for Methodist, Baptist, and Wesleyan from which these words have been translated into the English language? Have they originated in Wales? If so, what are the Welsh names? Perhaps hon. Members will supply me with the Welsh names for the Wesleyans, the Baptists, the Congregationalists, and other Nonconformists. It has been said that the Church is anti-national. Well, I suppose that three of the things which are of the greatest importance to any nation to preserve its nationality are language, history, and literature. I go so far as to say that the thing which has done more than any other to preserve the Welsh language in the Principality has been the action of the Church by the translation of the Bible and the Prayer Book into Welsh—the Prayer Book by Bishop Davies, and the Bible by Bishop Morgan.

Does the hon. Member not know that Queen Elizabeth had to pass an Act to compel the Bishops to do it?

I do not quite see what difference that makes. What is of importance is that it was of great advantage to Wales. Whatever the hon. Gentleman says he cannot deny that Bishop Morgan did translate the Bible into Welsh and that Bishop Davies did translate the Prayer-Book into Welsh, and they have done more than anything else to preserve the language of the country. Now I turn to the question of history and literature. I suppose Members from Wales will admit that the Eisteddfod has been of the greatest importance to literature, music, and poetry in Wales. I am quite sure the hon. Member sitting opposite (Mr. William Jones) will admit that. Well, Bishop Burgess, another Welsh bishop, was the principal person who started again and gave a fresh impetus to the Eisteddfod, which up to then had been declining. He put new life and vigour into the national Eisteddfod. Of course, if by an anti-national Church is meant a Church which by its union with the Church of this country stands in the way of Home Rule for Wales, or separation in another form, then I submit that it would be equally just to pass a Bill for separating the Nonconformist communities in Wales from those in England, and preventing them from acting together in (he same way as the Church in England and the Church in Wales act together. But supposing that argument is held by hon. Gentlemen opposite, I say that it is another argument which leaves the religious question entirely on on side. Then we are told that this Bill is to promote religious equality. How is this equality shown when a title of 25 years is enough to establish the right of dissenters in a chapel to the endowments of their chapel and anything used for 250 years—anything over 250 years—is to be disallowed as property of the Church. Where is religious equality in that? Chapels are established by Parliament in that right to enjoy property which they have used 25 years and, although the qualification of 25 years is enough for them, you here say that 250 years is not enough qualification to pro-protect the property of the various Churches in Wales. I know there are some people who say that this disendowment is going to revive and to stimulate the work and energy of the Church—is going to prove a great stimulus to further voluntary contributions, and a great inducement to people to find still more money for Church purposes. Very well, if that is so, the argument is equally good for dissenting bodies. How are you to explain the extraordinary self-denial by which they have denied themselves this stimulus in the Bill? Where is religious equality in that? Surely if it is necessary to take away endowments in the Church of England in order to stimulate energy, in is necessary to take away endowments in other religious bodies? We have had a few words about the analogy of the Irish Church. Mr. Gladstone, speaking of these two cases in 1873 in this House, said the cases of Wales and Ireland were distinguished widely on every point without exception on which they could be brought into comparison. What has occurred since then to make the comparison any closer? Mr. Gladstone, in a famous speech, spoke of the Church in Ireland as one of the branches of the great Upas tree which poisoned Ireland, and he said if it was lopped off—that and the other two branches, the question of education and land tenure—then Ireland would be restored to a state of contentment. Has that been the case? Is it the fact that the animosity which previously existed between the early Protestants and Catholics in Ireland has modified or disappeared, or has it in any way added to the contentment of the people in Ireland? I think that is a very questionable point. One of the arguments used—not by the right hon. Gentleman, because he has had the advantage of reading a carefully-prepared summary of the report of the Royal Commission, which we have not been able to pick up except by occasionally reading accounts in the newspapers—is that the work of the Church in Wales is declining. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the great evidence shown by the Welsh Members being unanimous in favour of this proposal and by the Welsh people being unanimous—which was quite untrue. The Welsh people cannot be unanimous—

Who said they were unanimous? I said that they were in favour of it in enormous and preponderating numbers.

I accept the right hon. Gentleman's statement. I certainly took down the words I have used. But I say that if the people are strongly and preponderatingly in favour of it, it is because arguments have been used before them, which the right hon. Gentleman does not use, about a dwindling Church. I have here a quotation from a speech by the Rev. Evans Jones, President of the Swansea Free Church Council, in which he said:—

"The State upheld and tolerated the privileges and the emoluments of the Church a dwindling minority—while Free Churchmen, the bone and sinew of the-country, were tolerated as undesirables."

I was not going to deny that the Free Churches possess bone and sinew; but the Rev. Evans Jones said the Free Churchmen were tolerated as undesirables, while the State upheld and tolerated the privileges and the emoluments of the Church, a dwindling minority.

Has the hon. Member read the other portions of the speech?

Order, order. I am sure the House will be ready to hear the hon. Member when he speaks in reply.

Yes, I have read the other part of the speech, and I cannot reconcile the two. He gave figures in which he said that the total number of churchmen in Wales only amounted to 155,000, while the Prime Minister has quoted partly from some figures which he possessed and partly from the Bishop of St. David's, and partly from the evidence he had got from the Commission—

The information is open to the public.

He did not give the authority for most of his quotations, but at any rate his facts entirely contradict what the Rev. Evans Jones said at Swansea, and he must bear in mind that, although he has these right figures, there are people in Wales going about giving wrong figures and wrong impressions all the time, and creating this feeling, which he thinks he is bound to listen to, on this question. Why is it that the people of Wales have steadily refused a religious census, which we have always asked for? Why is it that we are not allowed now to have the Report of the Commission, from which we can draw our own conclusions, not only with regard to the numbers and attendances, and so on, in the Church of England, but in the chapels and elsewhere? It is really asking us to swallow a great deal to tell us that the evidence of the Commission is open to us or that it is easily accessible. We may have picked up a little from the newspapers, but it has never been put before us in a form in which we could possibly follow it, or follow the arguments now advanced with regard to those figures. I do not think that they were sufficiently made clear by the Prime Minister, or that the extraordinary progress which the Church of England in Wales has made during the last few years, was made clear. Confirmations have increased in Wales in 30 years by 56 per cent., and communicants in the diocese of St. David's, of which I happen to possess the figures, have more than doubled in the 25 years from 1880 to 1905, having increased from 30,129 to 63,731. The Sunday school scholars also have increased by 19,000. At the same time, it is said that the progress has only been made in the towns, and that in the country districts the Church is falling further and further behind. Here are some figures which I think will show that in the rural parts that is not so. In the diocese of St. David's the population decreased by 31,540 between 1881 and 1901, while in those very parishes where the population had decreased by this 31,000 the number of communicants increased by 10,781. That does not show that the Church is falling behind in the rural districts. Now with regard to the clergy. In 1831 there were 726 resident clergy, with 369 parsonages, holding 1,346 Sunday services in 1,090 churches. To-day there are 1,543 clergy, more than double, 820 parsonages, more than double, holding regular Sunday services in 1,869 churches and mission rooms. Moreover, in St. Asaph diocese alone, 12,193 people were confirmed from 1860 to 1869, while from 1899 to 1906, a period of only seven years, 39,775 people were confirmed, more than three times the number in a decade 40 years ago. That, of course, shows very plainly that the Church in Wales is making enormous progress at the present moment.

Mr. Gladstone said in 1891:—

"Undoubtedly the Established Church in Wales is an advancing Church, an active Church, a living Church, and I hope very distinctly a rising Church from elevation to elevation."

and nothing has occurred since which has not emphasised and increased the truth of Mr. Gladstone's remarks. I also hope that it will be remembered, that on the occasion 14 years ago, when this Bill was under the consideration of this House, Mr. Gladstone withdrew his pair in favour of the Bill, and, therefore, we may conclude, entertained the same opinions then that he had for so many years entertained of the undesirability of disestablishing the Church in Wales. But the Prime Minister said in his speech, after referring to the bad state of the Church in Wales centuries ago, that it was too late now. Those were his words. Too late now for them to make this progress He said that they made progress now, but that it was too late. Why is it too late? Can the Prime Minister say what is the reason why it is too late, for the Church having made this progress now, to save itself from the act of spoliation proposed by this Bill? Why is it too late? It is only too late, because the Church is showing such activity, that those who are hostile to her, are determined to seize the first opportunity they can, for fear that they should never have another opportunity, of crippling the Church in the work in which she is engaged. There can be no religious reason why it is too late. There can only be a political reason, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to give anything but a political and a party reason for saying.

that it is too late. I know that a great many more arguments have been used in favour of this proposal, but none of them more important than those to which I have referred, and I cannot see in any one of them any justification for the proposal which the right hon. Gentleman has made. If the Report of the Royal Commission is going to produce some further facts which we do not know of in favour of the disestablishment and disendowment especially of the Church in Wales, then, of course, we should always be prepared, whatever those new facts and new arguments might be, to examine them; but unless the Royal Commission does produce in its Report or in the evidence before it some better arguments than those which have been advanced, and certainly better and truer arguments than those which have been used to the people of Wales, then, I say, it is monstrous to introduce such a measure as this into this House without waiting for the Report and evidence of the Royal Commission.

I know it will be said that I am not a Welshman. That is a matter which, no doubt, hon. Gentlemen opposite will congratulate themselves upon and condole with me, but my Constituency is very seriously affected by this Bill. The Prime Minister did not tell me what would happen to Oswestry, the principal town of my Constituency, which is in a Welsh diocese, as well as to ten or twelve other parishes, which are of considerable importance there. We are, I suppose, to be made to join some other diocese, which has already got more than it can do in the way of work. I live near enough to the borders of Wales, I think, to have a very fair perspective of what is going on there, and to hear a good deal from various sides of Welsh politics, both with regard to this and other matters, and therefore I think I have some right to speak on this matter and to claim some knowledge of the way in which this political agitation, as I consider it, has been fostered and brought forward. I say to begin with that the seed has been sown in ignorance among people who did not know the real facts, and has been watered by mis-statements with regard to the Church and its work. It has been ripened by the very unnatural heat and violence of language used on the platform, and if the harvest is ever reaped it will be a disastrous harvest for religious life in Wales, and will do so much to impoverish the soil of religion in Wales as to make it unable to be productive for many years to come, and I do venture to ask Members of this House to consider this Bill from the point of view of religion and not from the point of view of party politics. I say that this question of religion in Wales, or in any other great and important part of these islands, is one of far more importance than the existence of any political party, and one which ought to be considered as a national question and considered on national lines. I know that hon. Members opposite have persuaded themselves, many of them, that they are doing some benefit to religion in Wales, but have they contemplated what the loss of these endowments will mean to the Church in Wales, have they taken into consideration the fact that the bad state of the Church in Wales, to which the Prime Minister referred, in previous years, was largely due to the poverty of the Church? It is perfectly simple, and possible to prove that, if the House wishes to be detained by the attempt to do so. But it is well known that the livings were miserable in those days. Six pounds a year was a common value for a living in Wales, and, of course, that meant that several livings had to be held together, and that one person had to do a great deal more work than he could do properly.

That difficulty has to a large extent been overcome, and now you want to plunge the Church back into the state of poverty in which it existed and to plunge it back into all those evils which come with poverty. It will be impossible, if these endowments are taken away to maintain the number of clergy which are maintained now and the people of Wales will not have the right to claim the ministrations of a resident clergyman in times of sorrow, trouble, or distress. In many parishes, hundreds of sick people will have to go without the services of a clergyman. The dissenting bodies are unable to fill the gaps of resident clergyman. We all know that. [Ironical cheers.] They have not got them. It is no use interrupting in that kind of way, it is absurd to say that they have. Everyone knows who is in this House that there are not enough resident dissenting Ministers in every parish in Wales. That is an elementary truth, and they cannot fill the vacancies which will be created by this Bill, and I say that hundreds of sick people will have to die without the services and the ministrations of the resident clergyman—hundreds of people will die without being able to get the comfort of religious ministrations. I do, therefore, beg Members of this House to look at the religious side of this question, and to remember that the cause of religion can best be built up by working together in the purity of love, and by promoting a constructive and not a destructive policy. I ask them to pause for one moment before they inflict upon the country of Wales the curse of sacrilege, for I consider it nothing else, and a stain which, in my opinion, it will take years and years to blot out in the history of the Welsh people. I said just now I could not speak as a Welshman, but I speak with some knowledge of the subject, and I say emphatically that I represent scores of thousands of the Church people in Wales, and I represent thousands of the most religious and most conscientious Nonconformists in Wales, who view with alarm this increasing association of their leaders with political caucuses, and who realise that the best course they can pursue, and the course they wish to pursue, is one of united action with the Church. Many Nonconformists loathe this attack upon the Church endowments, and for those I speak, who, with the Church people, wish to go forward in Wales side by side in the cause of a common Christianity.

The time at our disposal for this discussion is short, some of us think unduly short, and I propose to follow the admirable example of the Prime Minister and to bring my observations within sufficiently reasonable compass to enable other Members to take part in the Debate afterwards. In order to do that it is not necessary that I should attempt a general examination of the proposals which the right hon. Gentleman has foreshadowed, but confine myself to a few points which particularly struck my attention in the point of view which the right hon. Gentleman presented. First of all I regret very much what I cannot but think was the wholly inadequate treatment that he gave to the complaint that the Bill had been introduced without waiting for the Report of the Commission. I feel myself some special grievance about that, because a month or six weeks ago I put down a question to the Prime Minister as to whether the Report of the Commission would be in the hands of Members before the Bill was introduced. The answer was perfectly explicit, and was given by the Home Secretary on behalf of the Prime Minister, that the Report was expected very shortly, and would be available before the Bill was discussed. A moment's reflection must show that the Government is face to face with a very difficult dilemma. Either the consumption of valuable time, including the time of the Solicitor-General, and the expenditure of money has been necessary or unnecessary. If it was unnecessary many persons have been encouraged to spend time over a futile purpose. If it was necessary in order to guide the Government to a decision and to assist the House usefully to criticise that decision when arrived at, it ought to have been in the hands of Members when the Bill was introduced. Could there be a more unsatisfactory performance than that the Prime Minister should quote one set of figures, which are no doubt given him in perfect good faith, but which may or may not be reliable, and that my hon. Friend here should quote other figures inconsistent with them, and we are unable to point to any authority which will be recognised by all sections of the House, and say these are the real figures established after we have spent more than two years in having these very facts determined by an impartial tribunal. Nothing could be more futile than to make the answer that one can read in the newspapers from day to day the proceedings of such a Committee. That observation can be met by the simple criticism, "If it is well founded, why have a Report at all?" All that has appeared in the daily Press is that a certain witness made a certain statement, and you would not have the only real advantage of appointing the Commission, which is to know what view the men whose characters and attainments justified their appointment have formed, after observing the demeanour of the witnesses as to the value of what they have established in their evidence.

Many reasons make it desirable that the Commission should have reported before the House proceeded with the discussion. Selecting from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that one of his arguments which seemed to be the strongest—that again was a point on which the Report would have assisted us—that part of his speech which seemed to me to produce the greatest impression, was that in which he dealt with the alleged zeal and enthusiasm and unanimity of the Welsh Members in favour of disestablishment. As far as I gathered his view, it was that they were possessed to-day, as they had been for many years, of a unanimous and unquenchable determination that Wales shall enjoy the blessings of Welsh disestablishment at the earliest possible date. I am so fortunate as to have been able to test the accuracy of that claim in the light of an authority which the House will readily recognise. The hon. Member for Denbigh Boroughs was lately interviewed by, I think, the "South Wales Gazette" on this very point, and he made a reply to the reporter which throws no small light upon the somewhat extravagant claim which I think he has put forward. This is what he said about the enthusiasm and unanimity of his compatriots. The reporter asked him:—

"Are you confident that the Welsh party will do their duty?"

"Spontaneously, no. But when the Welsh Constituencies in the course of a few weeks have been quickened into an acute appreciation of the real position, then I believe every Welsh Member will be glad to fall into line and do his duty."

"But why do you not think they will do their duty?"

"That is rather a delicate question, but I should be lacking in moral courage if I did not frankly face it in a moment of supreme crisis in our national history. Undoubtedly the Disestablishment Bill is going to cause considerable inconvenience, if not serious difficulty, at certain stages to the present Liberal Government. Now, look at the Members of the Welsh party. Apart from the Labour Members, most of them have been the recipients of the spoils of victory. Political gifts inevitably produce political nepotism, which under normal conditions may be innocent and venial, but which are serious in a great crisis."

He proceeded to point out that the only chance of his colleagues doing their duty in this House and pressing forward the claims of this Bill, on behalf of which, according to the Prime Minister, they are consumed with so holy a zeal, and inducing them really to press it forward, is that their constituencies will compel them seriously to take notice of the urgency of the crisis. Then he proceeded to discuss with a good deal of knowledge the position of the actual members of the Government who represent Welsh constituencies—the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Solicitor-General—and he referred to them as—

"ambassadors sent by Wales into the secret councils of the Empire. There they remain as ambassadors to serve the Welsh nation. It is for the remainder of the party at this moment to strengthen their hands. They will be face to face with a good deal of indifference and lukewarmness on the part of their Ministerial colleagues."

I do not know whether that is the Prime Minister or not.

"If you palter with this question, you run the risk of Wales ceasing in her entirety to be a reliable support to the Liberal party."

We are indeed face to face with grave considerations, but there is one other argument certainly well worth the attention of the House, and that is, when he pointed out an arrangement of a somewhat singular character which apparently the Welsh party have made with the Irish party—an arrangement the character of which, I think, will be appreciated by the House as a whole:—

"I purposely omitted Ireland for a special reason. A few months ago Mr. John Redmond came to speak at Wrexham, and in response to some criticisms which I passed upon the attitude of the Irish party on education and in reference to future support of Home Rule by Welsh Nonconformists, he gave us a public pledge that the Irish party should march shoulder to shoulder with the Welsh party on behalf of disestablishment and disendowment."

The hon. Gentleman observes with simplicity and enthusiasm that that is true. I was quoting it as being true, and was courteously accepting it as being true. But what kind of argument does that give you on principle why the House as a whole is to support Welsh Disestablishment? Because the Welsh party have made a bargain with the Irish party, which does not even depend on the abstract merits of Home Rule or Welsh Disestablishment—because they have made an arrangement for mutual logrolling, therefore the House is to pass Welsh Disestablishment. I make no comment upon the result of that bargain except to say that although I understand hon. Gentlemen opposite below the Gangway are prepared to carry out their part of the bargain so far as Home Rule is concerned, I condole with them on the extraordinary failure of their colleagues below the Gangway on this side, as far as this Debate is concerned, to give them their countenance, which was their part of the bargain.

I could not help observing that there was a general tendency in the House to think it was really not necessary to treat this Bill seriously, and I do not ever remember hearing the right hon. Gentleman, who is a master of lucid exposition, introduce a first-class measure with more lukewarmness and lack of enthusiasm. The explanation which has been given of that is that it is notorious that this Bill is not intended to pass through all its stages in the House of Commons or to be sent to the House of Lords. I must warn my hon. Friends that any sanguine anticipation which they might base upon that expectation really rests upon an unsound foundation. In May, 1907, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was consulted by a correspondent in Wales, who was very indignant indeed at the continuous postponement of Welsh Disestablishment, as to what the intentions of the Government were, and this is what the right hon. Gentleman wrote:—

"Ton ask me whether, if this Parliament runs its normal course, it is the intention of the Government to pass a measure for the disestablishment and dig- endowment of the Church in Wales through all its stages in the House of Commons. To this I can give an unqualified answer in the affirmative. I have just Been the Prime Minister [that is the late Prime Minister] and he sanctions the above as an accurate interpretation of his views and intentions."

The House is face to face with the fact that this Bill is going through all its stages in the House of Commons. I hope the hon. Gentleman who cheered that statement will help me to distinguish between that process of ploughing the sands and the precisely similar stage which took place when a Liberal Government had lost the confidence of the country some few years ago in identical circumstances I am not going to discuss the abstract principle of disestablishment at all. I pause for a moment to dissent most warmly from the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman that everyone in Ireland is now agreed that the disestablishment of the Irish Church was a great success. I was only reading two days ago the criticisms on the result of disestablishment in Ireland which were made by the Archbishops and the Bishops of the Protestant Church in Ireland, and with one single exception they all unanimously expressed their conviction that the result of disestablishment had been profoundly injurious to the work and to the activity of the Church in Ireland.

I will give the House one illustration. It is a point which was raised in the observations of my hon. Friend. In the old days before the Church in Ireland was disestablished it was practicable to have one clergyman in every small parish. One result of disestablishment which followed all over Ireland has been necessarily the amalgamation of parishes. The result is that you have a large number of parishes now amalgamated, and quite inadequately served by a single curate, whereas before the days of disestablishment there was a curate or a clergyman in almost every parish. That is a consequence which is quite certain to happen in Wales if you disestablish the Welsh Church. I would ask the plain question, whether it is not endowment by universal consent which interests the people of Wales? If this Bill were put forward as one for disestablishment without disendowment you would not have one really strenuous supporter on these Benches. You would not have the support of hon. Members from Wales if it was divorced from the disendowment question. I do not wish to use any provocative language, and I put it moderately when I say that the hon. Gentleman is quite correct in stating that a consider- able majority at present in Wales support disestablishment. The explanation of that is to be found in the constant and consistent appeal which has been made by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway to the lowest motives of cupidity in the Welsh people. [Cries of "No, no."] That statement is challenged, but I will justify it. Not merely have statements been made by responsible persons, who are not Members of this House, but arguments of that kind have been addressed to the Welsh people even by Members of this House. Let me take a speech which was addressed to Welshmen in London by the hon. and learned Member for Anglesey. The hon. and learned Member said:—

"This Bill will mean bread and butter to the estimated value of £10,000 a year to the people of Anglesey alone."

The hon. and learned Gentleman did not tell us the paper from which he quoted, but from whatever paper he is quoting I wish to state that it is absolutely wrong. I was arguing the question of disestablishment from the point of view of principle, and thereupon an irresponsible person in the audience said:—

"Never mind about principle. Is there any bread and butter in it?"

Thereupon, I sought to justify it not only from the point of view of principle but from the material standpoint. I said it was the restoration to the Welsh people of a national inheritance, which had been for centuries used exclusively for the benefit of one sect.

The distinction drawn by the hon. and learned Gentleman does not deal with the essential part of the quotation. I will tell the hon. and learned Gentleman at once the paper I am quoting from. I am quoting from "The Churchman."

May I say that there was no reporter from "The Churchman" present at the meeting. It was probably taken from the "Western Mail," a Tory Church organ in South Wales.

It is not worth while discussing the source of the quotation when I accept the explanation which the hon. and learned Gentleman has given. I did not gather that he denies that he said that the Bill will mean bread and butter to the estimated value of £10,000 a year to the people of Anglesey alone.

I do dispute it, and I contradict it.

I quite accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's explanation, but he further said—and perhaps he will deny the accuracy of the report in the same way—

"If the funds arising from disendowment of the Church of England in Anglesey went to supplement old age pensions for the county the pensionable age in Anglesey could be reduced from 70 to 65 or even 60."

The paper is not likely to have invented that statement.

No, I think that is probably accurate.

Of all the novel arguments which I have heard put forward for a cause which has certainly been presented on even loftier grounds in this House, I think that put forward by the hon. and learned Gentleman deserves a high place. If these things are said about disestablishment and disendowment by a person so deserving of respect, and of the responsibility of the hon. and learned Gentleman, what is being said in Wales by persons who are not so responsible for the gravity of their utterances as members of this House? The proposal of the hon. and learned Gentleman is that when the disestablishment of the Church takes place the endowments will increase old age pensions.

It is, perhaps, hardly worth while discussing this matter further, but what I said was that part of this fund originally belonged to the poor, that the Church had taken away what belonged to the people, and that it was only just that the Church should restore to the people again what originally belonged to them.

He was arguing a highly controversial case, and stated that Wales would get old age pensions at a cheaper rate if they got disendowment. It is, therefore, not unfair to say that the hon. and learned gentleman supported his case by the bread-and-butter argument. The hon. and learned Member for the Denbigh Boroughs, aiming at a more attractive metaphor, with perhaps a greater knowledge of his fellow countrymen, said, "The cup is being dashed from our lips when our lips are being held out to drink from it."

I am really afraid that is not a correct quotation.

Do I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the cup is not being dashed from their lips? I do not think that he denies having used that expression. I do not speak in this House as a convinced adherent of the Church of England. I speak as one who was brought up a Nonconformist, and I state what strikes me in regard to this proposal to disendow the Church in Wales. I tell the House that I cannot distinguish this from any other act of common peculation so far as the right to take away property is concerned. My hon. Friend raised the point in regard to the period within which endowments are to be treated as sacred. Why has that limit been introduced? Is it to secure the Nonconformist churches in the possession of their endowments? The law relating to property will protect the owner to the possession of it if it has been enjoyed for a certain period. In dealing with Nonconformist property long enjoyment is protected by the Bill, but very long enjoyment of property by the Established Church is not to protect its property. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that these endowments originally belonged to the Welsh people, and that they ought to be restored. A more astonishing misrepresentation than that was never presented to any audience of enthusiastic Welshmen in London. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will condescend to tell us what part of the possessions of the Church the Welsh people once enjoyed. The only suggestion that I have ever heard made was that there was such a breach of continuity in the corporate existence of the Church at the time of the Reformation as to make it right to take the property with which the Church was endowed before the Reformation. That is an argument which has been explicitly, and I venture to say with complete historical accuracy, repudiated by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said in 1905:—

"I am not one of those who think, as used to be currently assumed, that the legislation of Henry VIII. transferred the endowments of a national establishment from the Church of Rome to the Church of England. There has been. amid all these changes, a substantial identity and continuity of existence in our national church from earliest history to the present time."

If that is so we must look elsewhere for the justification for taking away the property which the Church has enjoyed for so many centuries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking at Liverpool, said:—

"Does anyone imagine that the Welsh Nonconformist peasantry will go on paying a one-tenth part of the produce of their own toil towards maintaining an ecclesiastical institution which they would repudiate?"

Until the present Government came into power it was not usual for Cabinet Minis- ters to go about the country advocating a tithe war, and the precedent set up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is one which I do not think anyone will approve. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had consulted any lawyer in the Liberal party he would have found how little foundation there was for this statement. Lord Selborne has pointed out that: "It is quite certain tithes were never the property of or payable to the State." Sir William Harcourt said in the debate on the last Bill:—

"It is a fallacy to say that tithe is a tax upon land. Everyone who prebased land chargeable with tithe paid so much less for it than he would pay for it if it was tithe free."

Let me give one or two instances:—Bettws Ivan, Cardiganshire, farmer—Two pounds a month towards maintaining Methodist Chapel; Llanwrda, a farm, pays £5 a year towards Taber Chapel; Miss Griffith, Pen-cnycan Farm, in Cardiganshire, pays £1 every week towards Methodist Chapel Capel y Drindod. Are these persons the victims of plunder or not, and if they are not so to-day, when will they become BO? I suppose the suggestion will be made that it will be possible, without injury to rights which ought to be protected by the House, to carry out the disendowment of the Church.

What are the dates of these cases?

They are all modern. They are to protect Nonconformist endowments by Act of Parliament on the ground that they have been possessed for 25 years. When it is pointed out that the church tithes have been enjoyed from time immemorial, and that the Nonconformists now enjoy tithes which with time will themselves possess the strict sacredness of the lapse of time, they reply, "these tithes are modern in their character." But I suppose that when they become old they will not be prepared to give them up. The case of glebe lands is even stronger. That is the case of property given by persons who were entitled to dispose of their property for sacred purposes, to make it possible for a vicar or rector to attend to his duties and live in a parish. What right have you to interfere with them? The only case made is that they have enjoyed them for a long time. Can anyone suggest any other ground or principle? Does not everyone in this House know that if hon. Gentlemen were strong enough they would do what they wish to do and intend to do—deal not only with the Church in Wales, but also with the Church in England. As Mr. Gladstone pointed out:—

"as regards the identity of these Churches, the whole system of known law, usage and history has made them completely one. I think, therefore, it is practically impossible to separate the case of Wales from that of England."

What is the date?

I think it was 1895—it was in the last Debate. I have got it from a book on the subject of disestablishment. Does the Solicitor-General suggest that Mr. Gladstone changed his views that the case of the Church in England and Wales is one, and that you cannot separate the one from the other? The policy which is now being commenced is one which I venture to say will have this deplorable result—in an age of growing indifference you are attacking one of the few surviving sources of national idealism both in England and Wales. You are deliberately weakening morality. You are divorcing the State from that constant and high standard of conduct which everyone will admit springs from association with a Christian creed, and you are relaxing the standard of public integrity in dealing with sacred endowments. A more dangerous precedent than that I could not imagine. As far as we are concerned with the challenge given us in Wales and in England we will accept that challenge. The sooner the line of battle is deployed over the whole line the better pleased we shall be. Hon. Gentlemen have raised an issue in which compromise is quite impossible, and it will be most bitterly contested both here and in the country by the hon. Gentlemen among whom I sit. I cannot reply better to the whole case that has been made than in the remarkable language of the great Archbishop Benson. In the year 1891 he went to the Church Congress at Rhyl to encourage the Churchmen in Wales, and be said:—

"But you who are our eldest selves, the founders of our episcopacy, the primeval British dioceses, I come from the steps of the chair of Augustine, your younger ally, to tell you that by the Benediction of God we will not quietly see you disinherited."

Allusion has been made to the continuation of the Welsh language as an argument in support of the establishment in Wales. No argument could be more unfortunate. If the continuance of the Welsh language was left to the Church of England, there would not be a man to-day talking Welsh. I am very glad to find that Gentlemen on the other side are thinking of what Mr. Gladstone said. You will find him very often resurrected lately. But Mr. Gladstone, in 1894, speaking with regard to Welsh Disestablishment, in his latest utterance, said:—

"I do not say that the case of the Church in Wales is a repetition of the case of the Church in Ireland, but I say it is a repetition of the case of the Church of Ireland in two vital and determining points, into which, apart from the general abstract principle of Establishment, it is not necessary for me to enter at this time. In two vital and determining points I cannot deny that the case of the Welsh Church corresponds with the Church of Ireland. In the first place it is the Church of the few against the Church of the many (cheers); in the second place it is the Church of the rich against the Church of the comparatively poor. Those broad features are so stamped upon the case that, in my opinion, it is impossible to deny them. In that state of facts have the Welsh people given their judgment upon the question? I cannot deny that, upon the whole, not in a very rigid sense, but still in a somewhat substantial sense, it remains a proposition coining not very far from the truth to say that the Nonconformists of Wales are the people of Wales—undoubtedly the bulk of the people of Wales."

The right hon. Gentleman who seconded the Amendment said that there was a desire to take away private donations. I do not think there can be a man of any degree of honesty who would wish to rob the Church or anybody else of anything given by persons. But the tithes have been enjoyed by a portion of the Church—the Church of England—for many centuries past, and not by the nation. We say that the tithes are the property of the nation, and should be used for national purposes, and I trust not for any purposes that could be met by the rates. However, that is not a matter to go into now. But coming to the matter more immediately before us now, I want on behalf of my colleagues to thank my right hon. Friend for introducing his measure for the establishment of religious equality in Wales. Without going into ancient history this has been the test question in Welsh politics for the past 40 years. The first question put to an aspiring Liberal candidate is: What is his position with regard to the liberation of religion from State control? To the Welsh Nonconformist this is not a political question. It is essentially religious, and is the logical outcome of his Church polity. That was the opinion held by him in the day of oppression, when not a single voice was raised on his behalf in the House of Commons. That is his opinion to-day, when every Welsh constituency has returned a Member pledged to disestablishment.

We are often told by members of the Established Church: "You do not now suffer for conscience sake." We are charitable enough to grant them sincerity, but no one outside of the pale of the establishment will for one moment assent to such an assertion. True the persecution and oppression endured so long in our country is gone, and I believe gone for ever, and I may ask whom have we to thank for that immunity? But to say that in rural districts throughout the Principality Nonconformists are equally treated with members of the Church of England is to say something that is unfounded in fact. Much the same in lesser degree may be said of the urban and industrial communities in Wales. What the Dissenters of Wales have endured in order to uphold and maintain their principles, furnishes a page of history such as, I believe, was never surpassed for wanton oppression in any country in the world. The result of the persecution is that to-day we are practically a nation of Nonconformists. For a long time we have been tolerated to con-, duct our religious observances as dictated by our religious convictions. That is very kind, of course. But what does that mean? It means there are two parties—the party of the superior persons and the others. Well, that kind of thing may have done before the reign of majorities—but to-day it is obviously out of date, and especially in a country where every member of Parliament is a living protest against such a badge of inferiority.

Parliament has another opportunity of dealing with this question, and I believe this House will meet the demand in the generous spirit it deserves, and pass the measure through all its stages in the present Session. The Welsh people have been very patient, but there is abundant evidence that their patience is fast approaching vanishing point. Especially is this the case with the younger generation. An Established Church in a country like Wales is such an anomaly that no legislature, having any regard for representative government, could for one moment withhold from its people the redress indicated in the measure introduced by the Prime Minister. It must be remembered that dissenters are not alone in demanding disestablishment. A substantial number of both lay and clerical members of the Church of England are anxious to free their Church from State control, and who desire the same freedom to govern and conduct their Church affairs as is enjoyed by their Nonconformist brethren.

Many others who to-day are bitterly opposed to the striking off State fetters will be prepared to say in after-time much the same as was said to me some 20 or more years ago by a member of the disestablished Church of Ireland. At that time I was a member of a Select Committee on Tithes. Among the witnesses called before the Committee was a leading Irish land agent, Mr. Hussy, who when at home was under police protection. I took the opportunity after the Committee adjourned to question him as to the effect of disestablishment in the Irish Church. I asked him, "Has disestablishment been a blessing or otherwise to the Church of Ireland?" He replied, "It has been a blessing. First," he said, "it drove out the drones. In the second place, disestablishment made it 'our' Church, and inspired us to make sacrifices in its support. And now we laymen have a word to say in its management." Then, warming up to the subject, he said:—

"There was not a man in all Ireland who fought more bitterly than I did against disestablishment, but if I were offered its renewal to-morrow, I would fight as hard against that as I did against disestablishment."

I believe that disestablishment would be a blessing to the Welsh Church, and I will give my ground for such a conclusion. We have been told that the Church of England has advanced her position in the immediate past. That I gladly acknowledge, and am only sorry that the increase in her communicants has not been greater. The awakening in the Established Church is most marked, and we know at what period it began. It began when the Church was threatened with disestablishment. Now, if the threat could work such a marvellous change, what a blessing would be disestablishment! It is a remarkable fact that where the Church has been most successful is in those places where she has copied the methods of Nonconformists, where she has trusted entirely to voluntary contributions, and members of those congregations are drawn from the same classes as members of dissenting chapels. Perhaps that is the reason why they view the proposed disestablishment with so much equanimity. It is only the landlords and their friends who fear disendowment, and them I commend to Providence and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

May I briefly summarise what Wales owes to Nonconformists? To them we owe the revival of religion in our land at a time when the established ministry was a scandal to Christianity. It has been brought out before the Royal Commission that they have provided sitting accommodation in places of worship for 15 out of 18 of the inhabitants, three years old and upwards. Nine-tenths of our literature, religious and secular, is the work of Nonconformists. And to them we are indebted for the initiation of higher and secondary education in the Principality. Such are the people who make this demand at the hands of the Legislature. And why do we make this demand? Because the establishment divides our country into-two hostile camps, and we wish to remove the wall of partition which now divides us, so that all who minister in holy things may unite in uplifting fallen humanity.

The hon. Member for East Glamorganshire concluded his very interesting observations by an eulogy of Welsh Nonconformists. I am not at all concerned to dispute the admirable work which has been done by Nonconformists in Wales; I do not dispute it any more than I understand it is disputed that the Church of England in Wales also has done admirable work. But when the hon. Member goes on to say that the religious bodies are still in a position of religious inequality, and implies, as I think he did, that there was some superiority in the position of the Church of England in Wales, I find it difficult to follow him. The only series of public events which has recently come to our knowledge is the relative treatment of Church teachers and Church schools and the schools and teachers favoured by Nonconformists in Wales, and in that matter the position has been one of oppression by the Nonconformists of the members of the Church of England. The hon. Member also spoke of a badge of inferiority. I know of no such badge. ["Oh."] The hon. Member for East Glamorgan may, but I really do not know what he is referring to when he talks about the badge of inferiority on Nonconformists. I know of no such badge in England—["Oh"]—and I really do not know in the least what is meant by a badge of inferiority imposed upon Nonconformity by the establishment or endowment of the Church. I listened to the Prime Minister and the hon. Member opposite to hear what is the case really supposed to be made for this Bill, and I say with perfect truth that I have never in my life listened to a more inconclusive set of arguments than that presented by the right hon. Gentleman and his follower. The Prime Minister did indeed refer to the Irish precedent. I do not propose to go into that. It appears to me that the position which prevailed in Ireland before the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church was so different from the conditions which prevail in Wales that really nothing whatever can be drawn from the precedent. Indeed, I adhere to what at any rate was the earlier opinion of Mr. Gladstone, that the two Churches were so absolutely different in every respect that it was utterly absurd to argue from the Irish Church to the Church of England in Wales. Beyond that, what did the speech of the Prime Minister amount to? There was a long historical account, not at all tedious but very interesting, of the Welsh Church and Welsh Nonconformity, in which he explained how very badly the Anglican Church had behaved in Wales, and how the result has been the growth of Nonconformity. We all admit that; no one who has read history denies it for a moment. But what possible bearing has it on this Bill? What is the argument sought to be drawn from that historical survey? I am utterly at a loss to know what is sought to be proved thereby. If the Prime Minister had gone on to say that the Church of England now fails to discharge its duty I should have understood what he meant; but, on the contrary, he paid a perfectly just but not too warm tribute to the admirable work which is being done by the Church of England in Wales in the present day. Therefore, I do not understand what that historical survey meant. The right hon. Gentleman was followed by the hon. Member for East Glamorgan, who also made reference to history, and to the great sufferings which Nonconformity endured in past years. But surely he does not regard that as a ground for promoting a Bill which we think is a measure of hostility to the Church of England, but which we are constantly told is going to confer great benefits upon the Church in Wales. What bearing all this historical matter has upon the question we have to consider to-day I fail altogether to follow.

What are the other ordinary arguments used in favour of this Bill? We are told a great deal about the national demand. I have considerable distrust of that phrase "national demand." It is impossible to tell under our existing constitution what the electors really desire. ["Oh."] The hon. Member for East Glamorgan may have special private information on the subject, but under our existing constitution it is impossible for an ordinary Mem- ber of Parliament to tell what the electors desire by the votes which they give at any election. The votes are not given or. any one question; they are given on dozens of questions. For instance, at the last election, I do not know how many questions were supposed to be decided finally by the verdict of the electors. I do not attach so much importance as hon. Members opposite do to the question of the national demand. But even admitting it all, we have this to consider. The proposal in this Bill is to make an attack on the political position of the Church of England in Wales, and to deprive it of a large part of its property. It is not enough to tell me that the majority of those who live in Wales wish to do that. That does not appear to me to be relevant. What you have to show me is that it is a just thing in itself. This House sits for the purpose of being, among other things, a court of appeal to judge between minorities and majorities in the various parts of the country, and to allow the good sense and moral sense of the whole community to decide whether a particular claim made by a majority in a particular district is a just or unjust claim. That is the main function of the House of Commons. We were told in a celebrated phrase by the Chief Secretary for Ireland that minorities must suffer. I agree. I have never quarrelled with the right hon. Gentleman's phrase. It is perfectly true; and the main function of this House is to see that minorities do not suffer intolerably, and to protect them from grave injustice. Therefore, when I am told that there is a national demand for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church in Wales, that leaves me quite cold, unless you can also show me that it would be in the public interest that this Bill should pass. We were told something by the Prime Minister about religious equality. I really do not know what is intended by that. I suppose it applies principally to the disestablishment part of the Bill. What is going to happen by the disestablishment of four dioceses in Wales? I could understand, if you were disestablishing the whole Church of England, that it would produce a vast change in our body politic. But what is the disestablishment of four dioceses in Wales going to do? It is going to turn four Welsh Bishops out of the House of Lords. I really do not know that it is going to do anything effective beyond that. According to the Prime Minister that would be one result of disestablishment, and another is that it would substitute conventional or legal courts for the settlement of Church disputes. As far as I know, those are the only two things which the Prime Minister said that disestablishment was going to do. I was not in the least surprised, therefore, to hear him subsequently refer to that part of the Bill as the formal and legal part. The real truth is that this Bill would never have seen the light and would never have had any backing except for the disendowment proposals. I do not think any honest man in any part of Wales will dispute that. [Cries of "Oh!"] Then will the Government drop disendowment? It is very easy to test the reality of those cries of dissent.

Will you accept disestablishment?

When you drop disendowment we will answer that. Does anyone seriously suppose that the Bill would ever have had any considerable support except for the disendowment proposal? I am quite confident in my own mind that is not so, and that it is the desire to take property from the Church of England—property, I daresay, quite honestly believed not in justice and equity to belong to her—that that is the real strength in favour of the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, because the rest of the attack is really of the very slightest character. It is noticed that this part of the measure, which, even if I have overstated it, is one of the most important, received no argument from the Prime Minister. I did not hear him address one single argument in defence of the disendowment of the four dioceses in Wales. We have heard sometimes that the real defence for disendowment is that the funds of the Church really belong to the State. Hon. Members are familiar with the laboured and historical arguments to show that the tithes are or are not the gifts of the State given to the Church or the gift of private persons. Personally, I confess that the balance of my opinion is that they were given by private persons, but it does not appear to be of the slightest importance one way or the other. What does it matter what was the origin of the original methods by which property was transferred to a particular body some ten or twelve centuries ago? How can that really be a matter which we ought seriously to consider in this House? Surely the only question is: Has that property been enjoyed without dispute by the body to which it now belongs? Is that not the finest title and the best title to any property that any State could give? I do not believe any hon. Member of this House holds any properly under a really more effective title of ownership. In this case some centuries have elapsed since the property was given, and I do not know on what ground it is suggested that the Church ought to be deprived of its property. It was suggested more than once that the foundation of the argument for depriving the Church of its property was purely of party origin, and purely a political move with a desire to retain for the Government the support of the Welsh Members. That may or may not be the case. It is not an argument which is likely to be put forward by the occupants of the Treasury Bench. I ask myself what ground there is for depriving the Church of this property. What advantage is anyone going to get from this Bill? I leave aside the disestablishing part of it, and am dealing now with the question of disendowment.

I ask hon. Members not to be confused by words, and let us just consider what disendowment actually means. It is very easy to talk of taking property from a wealthy Church; but what actually will disendowment mean? It will mean taking property away from very poor men who are discharging their duties all over the Principality of Wales. I do not mean the individuals. The individuals are safe, I know, by the provisions of the Bill, but I am looking at it for the future. You are going to deprive the incumbents all over Wales and other ecclesiastical dignatories of their income. That is what disendowment means. It means nothing else. What is going to be the effect of that? In the first place, one of the effects will be it will call upon churchmen to make large contributions. Yes, it will call upon churchmen to make large contributions. That is cheered. I do not know why it should be cheered. Where are those contributions coming from? Everyone knows I am dealing with the thing as a practical man, that, practically speaking, in this country, as anyone connected with philanthropic effort is aware, there is only one charity fund. If you make more demands on that for any particular purpose it does not come out of the money which is spent on pleasure or on worldly advantage, but it comes away from some other charity. The matter is perfectly clear to those acquainted with philanthropic institutions. Make a claim or have a great movement supported by illustrious personages on behalf of some great hospital, and all the other hospitals suffer. That is the universal experience. Therefore the effect of disendowment will be to deprive other philanthropic agencies in Wales of the money which they at present get and on which they subsist.

That would be one effect. It will have another effect. It will deprive some of the incumbents of the full expenditure of their salaries. Nobody doubts that. There will be less money paid to the unhappy Welsh clergy of the various dioceses. What advantage is that going to bet Is there anyone in this House, even the bitterest Nonconformist, who will get up and say that the clergy of the Church of England are an overpaid body? Everyone knows that they are grievously underpaid for the duties which they discharge. That is what disendowment really means when you come to translate it into effect. It is all very well to talk of depriving a church, a wealthy church, of money it is not entitled to. That is mere phrasing. You are going to deprive certain philanthropic institutions of a considerable portion of their income, and drive religion still further into difficulty, and sometimes into penury the struggling clergy of Welsh parsonages and vicarages. Where is the advantage, and where is the excuse for it? Is it suggested, I do not think it is, that the Church is failing in its duty? I understand it to be admitted by the Prime Minister and by the hon. Member who has just sat down, and by the Member who sat below him by a certain interruption, and in fact it is universally admitted that the Church is discharging its duties in Wales. It is a great spiritual, philanthropic and charitable agency. The Prime Minister put it very strongly. He said it showed strong spiritual developments, and I do not think the phrase could be bettered. He went on to give a long account of the actual numbers of the Church compared with the numbers of Nonconformists. What has that got to do with the measure from the point of view of disendowment unless you are going to say that the clergy of the Church of England are now overpaid? What does it matter whether they are one-third, fourth, or fifth of the population? The question is whether they are getting too much money or enough to enable them to discharge their duties which admittedly they are discharging admirably.

I could understand the matter if you could show that the Church was declining.

That is not suggested, and everybody knows who goes into the figures that the Church is increasing, and not even the Solicitor-General will deny it, that the Church in Wales is increasing in numbers. I confess I wished, when I heard this matter discussed, that the Prime Minister was still a practising member of the Bar. Would he, if he were, venture to go to any Charity Commission or to any court dealing with an institution subject to the jurisdiction of the Charity Commission or the Court of Chancery? Would he venture to say, "I ask you to exercise your power to take away from this body the endowments to which it is entitled, and to make a scheme for the better administration of that charity?" The judge would ask, "On what ground, Mr. Asquith, do you make this application?" To that Mr. Asquith would reply, "Well, really I do not say it has failed in its duties. It has discharged its duties admirably." "Well, then," says the judge, "do you say it has got too much money?" To that Mr. Asquith would reply, "No, on the contrary, it is no part of my case that the functionaries are overpaid." Then the judge would ask, "What is the case that you make for depriving this very charitable organisation of the funds which at present it so admirably administers?" The judge, under those circumstances, would decide that there was absolutely no case, and I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman would never have consented to make such an application in his career at the Bar. If he had it would have been instantly dismissed, I trust, with costs.

If that be so, what are we really going to gain by passing this Bill? We shall, I suppose, satisfy certain doctrinaire beliefs which I do not appreciate about some question of not recognising one form of religion more than another. I have never understood the basis of that. We are going perhaps to satisfy a certain amount of sectarian jealousy, I do not say represented in this House, but no doubt represented outside. But what are we going to do more? The Prime Minister was good enough to say, and I am sure he said it with perfect candour, that as far as he was concerned he had no animosity to the Church. I am sure he was perfectly sincere, but I confess these protestations of friendship to the Church of England, when you are depriving the incumbents of their funds and crippling the work of that body, fills me with a certain amount of nausea. I am not impressed by the observation that the Church is most successful when disestablished, nor do I in the least accept that argument in favour of the course we are asked to pursue. Hon. Members tell us they are going to deprive the Church of a great burden and to make it more fitted for the task it has got to perform, and that the effect of this measure will be, in the words of the hon. Member for East Glamorgan, to drive the drones from the Church and show them the advantages of self-action. That argument could be used in defence of all the great persecutions of the past and comes very badly from the mouths of those who are promoting this Bill. I cannot help feeling in the whole of this discussion and from the temper of the House that there is a vast amount of unreality about the whole of this proposal.

Is it really intended that this Bill shall pass? No one on that side believes it. I do not know whether or not the Government think it necessary to carry the farce so far as to drive it through Committee under the guillotine. I doubt whether very many desire the Bill. This is merely a kind of parade movement designed, or partly designed at any rate, to satisfy the inconvenient protests of a section of the Government supporters. That is the principal reason why I vote against the introduction of this Bill. In view of the very serious matters that ought to be engaging the attention of Parliament at this moment, this is a great waste of time. Hon. Members below the Gangway will bear me out when I say that no one who has struggled to read through that vast compilation, the Poor Law Commission Report, can doubt that there is a vast amount of real genuine legislation which this House would do well to undertake at the earliest possible moment, certain that whatever may be the result of it, it is likely to occupy several years to come. Instead of that we are asked by this Government to have, on the introduction of this Bill, several, as I believe they are called in the Press, full dress Debates on the question of disestablishment and disendowment. I cannot help asking with great sincerity: Have we not something better to do than that? There is undoubtedly much that this House might be doing. There are undoubtedly many measures which might be considered, and it does seem to me a pity that we should be occupied, even for two or three nights, in an attempt, which may or may not be genuinely intended, but which is certainly not going to be carried to fruition, to deprive an ancient historical church, that admittedly is doing its duty to the very utmost, of property which has been given to it in large part by the devotion of its members in ancient times, and in crippling or in injuring the work that it is doing at present. I venture to hope, in spite of the political predilections of this House, that it will not allow this Bill to be introduced.

The Noble Lord has introduced a number of arguments against this Bill which open up some very interesting fields of discussion, but into which I do not propose to follow him. But I certainly say I was not a little amazed at the temerity with which he denied that there was any badge of inferiority in consequence of the existence of this national Church. That badge of inferiority is certainly felt throughout the rural districts of England, and very often I myself have heard and sometimes seen evidences of it in the nationality of Wales. I am not surprised also that the Noble Lord wishes to shut out past history. It is sometimes convenient to shut out the past history of these movements; at the same time, they do teach us experience, and they do form the basis very often of legislative action, and I think there is very much to be learned from past history in connection with this movement. The Noble Lord also deprecates altogether our taking any notice of the national demand which is made through the representatives of Wales in this House. Of course, I am not surprised at the attitude of the Noble Lord upon that question, because representative government has never been one of the great fortes of the party to which he belongs. But it is not, I think, left with the Noble Lord to judge what the desires of the Welsh people are as expressed through their Members. They certainly are in a position to express their desire more forcibly than the Noble Lord can. I was surprised to hear the Noble Lord simmer down this Bill to the exclusion of the four bishops in the House of Lords. If that is all that this Bill accomplishes, then I fail to understand his attitude towards it, or his very earnest desire to prevent its passing through this House.

I think I made it quite clear that I was only referring to the disestablishment provision.

I shall be in the recollection of the House when I say that the Noble Lord stated that this was all practically that the Bill would accomplish.

No, no.

The Noble Lord referred to the disestablishment part of the Bill, but he added that we simply desire to secure the emoluments of the Church, and that disendowment was really at the back of it all and the chief element in the prosecution of the measure. Without going into the merits of the Bill or into its financial clauses, I think you will perceive that those who are advocating (he disestablishment of the Welsh Church certainly personally will get no advantage financially from disendowment, neither will any of the organisations to which they belong get one penny of advantage from it. I disagree altogether with the attitude which the Noble Lord has taken in regard to the incomes of the charities, which he has described as coming out of one fund. I think if the Noble Lord had had more to do with voluntary contributions in regard to charity he would have understood more fully than he appears to understand the principle of giving. Certainly he does not appear to believe in the dictum of the old Puritan, who, speaking of the man who was charitable, said the more he gave the more he had. I am bound to say there is a great deal in that principle, and I do not believe for one moment that if the Welsh Church was disestablished and had to call, as it would have to call, upon its followers, there would be any lack whatever of funds to carry out the general philanthropic work of the Church simply because it had to maintain its ministers as the Free Churches have to do. But I really did not rise to enter at any length into the merits of this Bill or to debate the Question at all. I feel that in regard to an important measure such as that which is now before the House the details of it must necessarily be intricate in their character and yet must have a very strong bearing upon the principles which are behind it; and it is impossible to discuss a Bill of this nature with advantage until we have it in our hands. Therefore, my purpose in rising was simply in a very few sentences to assure my hon. Friends from Wales that the Nonconformist Members of this House and the great Nonconformist bodies of England look upon this action of the Government with a great deal of sympathy, and are prepared to do their best to assist the Government in carrying this Bill through. I think that the case which has been presented by the Prime Minister is unanswerable to this extent, that whatever the Church of England in Wales may be in theory it is not in fact a national Church. That, I think, is one of the main arguments which would induce us to support the measure which the Prime Minister has introduced. The figures which he has presented to this House are, of course, in their nature somewhat cold and heartless on paper. But I myself, although not a Welshman, have mixed enough with Welsh Nonconformists and I know that these figures are backed by a sentiment which is very very powerful in Wales, and which is as worthy, in my judgment, as it is powerful. A Church which practically leaves untouched three-fourths of the population of the nationality cannot in any sense be called, or ought not to be deemed, a national Church, and cannot in any way assert its superiority or draw upon the resources of the nation as a national Church. In my judgment, notwithstanding what the Noble Lord has said, the connection with the State largely destroys the influence which it might exercise and its general power in the nation. I am not on this occasion intending to discuss the principles which underlie the question of disestablishment, but I do assert that there can be no complete religious, equality in any nation where an Established Church exists. This Bill, recognising that fact, is endeavouring, I think, to deal with the matter in a generous way in regard to finances. So far as one can follow the Prime Minister I believe the measure is in the main generous in the way in which it deals with various interests. The measure takes very great care that funds which have been expressly left, going back some 250 years, for carrying on the Anglican Church, will not be taken away from that body, but will be very carefully preserved for its interests. In regard to the funds which are considered to be national funds, the Bill, it seems to me, in the main gives them wise and philanthropic application. The Noble Lord may conscientiously object when we express the belief that the vitality and usefulness of the Church of England will be largely increased by its separation from the State. We are charged almost with hypocrisy when we say that; still, we have the right to assert that principle, because we see what the power of voluntaryism is in the Free Churches. We see what it has enabled them to not only do within their more immediate bounds, but in regard to more important questions throughout the nation. We do feel that not only in Wales, but in England, the power of the Church on all great national and moral questions would be enormously increased if it were free from the trammels which now bind it to the State. Therefore, without occupying the time of the House any further, I would say, as I said at the beginning, that I have risen to assure the Government and my hon. Friends from Wales, with whom we deeply sympathise in this movement, that they will have the earnest and sustained support of Nonconformist Members in this House, and I believe the great body of Nonconformists in the nation at large, because whilst in England we do not feel the pressure in the same way as it is felt in Wales, we have still the belief that the principles which move the Welsh Members to take this step are righteous principles, and will conduce more strongly to the promotion of all that is good, moral, and righteous in the nationality of Wales, without the Established Church than if that Church existed.

This Bill gives power to take away two or three millions of money from religious purposes to apply it to civil purposes.

£279,000.

I beg pardon, £200,000 or £300,000. I apologise for the mistake; but I do not think it is so much a matter of amount as of principle. It is a fact that the Bill proposes to take money from religious purposes and to apply it to civil purposes which have been very vaguely indicated by the Prime Minister, and I think a Bill for that purpose does require a certain amount of justification. I am going to deal very shortly with some of the arguments which have been given us in support of the Bill. But I do not dwell long upon the point which has just been made by the hon. Member for Norfolk, that the Bill is for the benefit of the Church in Wales. It certainly proposes to take a large income permanently from a particular body and apply it to other purposes, and in considering whether that is for the benefit of the body to be despoiled, I would be less willing to take the opinion of the spoilers upon the matter than perhaps the almost unanimous opinion of the body that is to be despoiled. I say without fear of effective contradiction that the vast body of the people of the Church not only in England, but in Wales, is very strongly opposed to the measure for disestablishment. Therefore I pass that over for the moment. But I want to dwell a little longer upon the second reason given, and which I think weighs very strongly with hon. Members opposite, and that is that the Members for Wales are, it is said, unanimous in favour of the Bill. To begin with, if that be so, it is not a final argument for this House. This House must decide by the opinion not of Wales, but of the whole of the United Kingdom. I believe it to be a fact that, taking the election addresses of Liberal Members representing English Constituencies—of all that large number there were not more than 10 who referred to this question of disestablishment. If that be so, one can see that there is in England no kind of feeling in favour of a measure of this kind. Many candidates went further. I know my own opponent, who was a very strong and very popular Liberal candidate, and a Nonconformist, in terms repudiated the view that this Parliament would be asked to deal with disestablishment, or that it would be a leading or dominating issue.

That is English disestablishment? Declarations were made before the general election on Welsh disestablishment.

Then it is very curious that even the Prime Minister did not refer to it. The late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman went down to Wrexham and made a long speech, and did not deal with the question at all. In any case, I think I may say that this question was not an issue strongly before the country. Certainly, the present Government have not any mandate to deal with it in the present Parliament. I go further, and say that if it be true—and I have no doubt it is true—that the Members for Wales are in favour of disestablishment, and that those electors who voted for them voted on that issue, even so, the verdict was obtained in Wales upon statements which were not justified by facts. We have heard in this Debate today statements which we all know to be not absolutely correct, the statement, for instance, that tithes are national property. Let me quote a sentence from a leading Nonconformist in Wales, which shows the kind of representations upon which the Welsh verdict was obtained. He is the Rev. Evan Jones, a very important member of the Nonconformist body in Wales. He said this:—

"The State stubbornly upholds with privileges and emoluments, principally at the cost of impoverished free churchmen—the church of a dwindling minority."

Now, that statement contains three absolute inacouracies. The State does not uphold the Church with any endowments at all. Secondly, the endowments of the Church are not obtained through the impoverishment of Free Churchmen, or through Free Churchmen at all. Thirdly, the Church, by the admission of the Government to-day, is not the Church of a dwindling minority, but the Church of an ever-growing number of the inhabitants. I think if the verdict of Wales was obtained by such statements as those that it should not obtain the consideration which hon. Members claim for it. Now, upon the other point. Even if the opinion of the Welsh Members is an argument—I admit it may be a Parliamentary argument for disestablishment—how is it an argument for disendowment? How is the opinion of a large number, even the whole of the representatives of a particular district in favour of taking away the property of people in that district, to be accounted a final opinion? It may be an argument for looking into the matter of State recognition, but it is not an argument for transferring the property from one body to another. The argument from the representation of Wales is really no argument in favour of a very important branch of this Bill, namely the proposals for disendowment.

Now let us first take disestablishment. I must to some extent quarrel with the history that the Prime Minister has given us to-day. It is true, as he says, that the Church in Wales is a national Welsh growth. It is an ancient body. Its roots are very deeply laid in the Welsh soil. Indeed, it existed quite as early, perhaps earlier, than the Church in England. But I do not believe he is correct in saying that the union of the Church in Wales with the Church in England was effected by England, and was effected after the union of Wales with this country. I believe the historical truth to be this, that the Welsh dioceses voluntarily united themselves with the English dioceses, not after, but before, the union of Wales with England. In that respect I cannot accept—of course I know the authority of the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not think it is right—what he says as to this historical fact. But, after all, that is not of so much importance as this: that now at all events there is, as everybody has admitted, a close union, what Mr. Gladstone called "a historical identity," between the Church of Wales and the Church of England. Indeed, they are one body. We Cannot treat them as two bodies. We be- lieve that it is true, as the late Sir William Harcourt said many years ago, that if you raise the question of the Church in Wales you raise the whole question. We must deal with this matter and this proposal to dismember the Church as affecting not only the Church in Wales, as affecting not only the Welsh dioceses, but the whole of the Church; and, indeed, as a proposal to cut off from the Church the four oldest and the four poorest dioceses. That being so, what is gained by disestablishment? The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said, referring to history, that it is true that in the Church of Wales there has opened a new chapter, and that it is putting forth its full vigour in the right direction. He said it was too late for that to have any effect. Why is it too late? If it be true, as it is admitted, that to-day the Church of Wales is doing so great a work, a great religious, moral, and charitable work, surely you must give strong reasons if you desire to cripple and stop that work, and disarm the body which is now doing it! Disestablishment cuts off the Church in Wales from the control of convocation and the ecclesiastical courts, and reduces Church matters—I am quoting the Prime Minister's words—to matters of agreement between its members. The religious duties, which are now matters of status, will become matters of agreement only. If you think that that change is going to tend to harmony I believe you are very greatly mistaken. I believe there will be an increase of litigation over matters not desirable to be discussed in the public courts, on the subject of religion. Quarrels of this kind will considerably increase, and you will do real harm not only to the Church of Wales, but to the whole cause of religion. I do not want to dwell at length on the harm you are going to do to the charitable functions of Churchmen. It is obvious if you take away, as you will after the present generation, the incomes given to Churchmen, you must to some extent dry up and diminish the amount of income that goes to charitable purposes. You risk taking away from every village in the country one who is there, it must be admitted, to some extent, for the purpose of helping not only in religious matters, but giving of charitable help to every poor inhabitant of his parish. But, apart from disestablishment, there is disendowment. I have not followed—I do not think we were quite told—for what purpose the income of the Church is hereafter to be applied—a part of it, we know repre- sented by glebe and certain other matters, is to go to the borough and district councils.

That is one of the disadvantages of the first reading, but the Prime Minister read the whole schedule.

I know he read the whole of the schedule, but I do not quite understand whether the schedule is to apply not only to the glebe lands, which are, I believe, ultimately to be transferred to the borough and district council, but also to the tithe, which is to be transferred to county councils, and to that property which is to vest in the Council of Wales. We have not been told, and I do not think hon. Members care very much, to what purpose this income is to be applied. In any case, the very fact that they care so little about this matter suggests that, while they are seeking to disendow the Church it is not because they want the income for other purposes, that the main purpose in their minds is to take the income away from the Church. Not one word has been said about the benefit to be derived by other public bodies from this income. I doubt whether it is in the thought of Members on the other side. I think, if they will examine themselves, they will come to the conclusion that what I said is true, that their main desire is to disendow the Church, to take away the property of the Church, even if in doing so the income is to be altogether thrown away. [Cries of "No, no."] What is the justification for saying that Church property is national property? The Prime Minister said, 14 years ago, that the property in question is not the property of the Church as a whole; it is the property of different ecclesiastical corporations—the rectors, vicars, and so on. What is the justification for calling that income national income, or that property national property? It is the property of ecclesiastical corporations. You have no right whatever, in my view, to take that away and apply it to other purposes. This income has to a great extent been left in trust for certain objects, and these trusts are faithfully carried out. No one denies it; everybody asserts it. So long as that is so, you have no right whatever to deprive the holders of that property, and apply it to whatever purposes you think fit. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Glamorgan said that tithes were national property. There is not the least foundation for that statement. The present Prime Minister was questioned some years ago in reference to tithes. The question was whether private benefactions before 1703 should be reserved to the Church; and the Prime Minister opposed this on the ground that the effect might be to reserve the tithe. He said "it was an arguable position, that although tithes became a compulsory tax after a certain date, they were originally a voluntary obligation given by private persons out of their own resources." They were given by private persons to the Church for Church purposes, not for national purposes, and there is no right to take that property away from the Church any more than there would be to take away its income from other sources. One other point. Besides the Church of England in Wales, are there not other churches and religious bodies which are endowed? Are not there Nonconformist bodies which have property? And I want hon. Members who are members of these religious bodies—and for these bodies I desire to express the greatest respect—but I would like to ask these Members, supposing it were proposed to disestablish and disendow those Nonconformist bodies, suppose it were proposed to cut off the Welsh circuits from the Wesleyan Church, and to take away its income and property, what would they say to that? Would they not feel that a very grave injustice? Yet that is the very injustice they ask to be allowed to be carried out towards the Church of England. I do hope when this Bill is discussed—I am pretty sure there is no intention to take it any further—a good many hon. Members will consider the matter somewhat seriously, and will see whether this is not a retrograde measure and not a reform. The late Duke of Argyll, when the Bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church was brought in, said that that measure was not to be a precedent for disestablishment for England or Wales, and he said it would be dishonest on the part of any Member of that Government to treat the disestablishment of the Irish Church as such a precedent. He used very strong language about the Church in Wales. He said:—

"Never could there be a more scandalous example of robbery and injustice, amounting to sacrilege, than if the church in Wales, in the height of its activity and renewed spiritual life, were made a sacrifice to party interests."

I do very strongly and with all my strength oppose this Bill. I believe that every member of the Church of England, and indeed every man who desires to see justice done to every religious community, will on reflection see this is a Bill that ought not to pass.

This Debate on this subject brings back to my mind very interesting reminiscences of nearly 40 years ago. I had just entered the House of Commons when the Irish Disestablishment Bill had been carried through triumphantly by Mr. Gladstone, and it was thought then that he would lend his great power and influence to carry out a similar measure in Wales. The question was brought forward by Mr. Watkin Williams, and Mr. Gladstone then clearly laid down in the most emphatic way that there was no similarity between the Church in Wales and the Church as it existed in Ireland. He maintained its continuity and identity with the Church of England. Again, on a similar occasion two years later, and again almost 20 years later, he maintained the same attitude which he took up at that time. This measure has been brought forward not as a hardy annual, but again and again, and has met with very little encouragement and response. I cannot at all think that at the present time it is going to get much farther than its introduction into this House. I do not for a moment complain of the attitude of the Prime Minister or the spirit in which he introduced this measure. He did not attempt, as unfortunately the President of the Welsh Churches did at Swansea in his address the other day, to represent the Church in Wales as a dwindling Church. He admitted very fully that it was a growing Church, and was entering upon a sphere of usefulness and activity, and he asked us to believe that he was not actuated by any feeling of hostility against the Church of England. But I must follow, I am afraid very feebly, my hon. and learned Friend when he raised a general protest against the statement that the Welsh Church was incorporated with the English Church for political purposes. On the contrary, I quote from what Mr. Gladstone said on the occasion to which I referred a while ago. Mr. Gladstone asserted that there was complete ecclesiastical, legal, historical and constitutional identity between the Church in Wales and the rest of the Church in England. History, to which the Prime Minister appealed, will, I am sure, confirm the statement that it is a fact that the four Welsh dioceses accepted the supremacy of the See of Canterbury 150 years before Wales was united to England. There was a gradual process of fusion. There was no attempt, as might be said of the Church of England in Ireland, by kings and prelates to force an alien Church upon the Principality. And why is this measure brought forward? It has been brought forward hastily before the facts are in our possession on which we may form a deliberate judgment. It has been brought forward, I think, because the Prime Minister feared a Welsh revolt. We are all proud of gallant little Wales. We know the energy and power of the Welsh Members, and their loyalty as a rule to the Liberal party, but they are exacting in their demands, and they are conscious of their power, and they let it be known very clearly that they would not tolerate this measure being left out of account, and the consequence has been, just as in the case of old age pensions, to satisfy the cry that was raised—I make no objection to the cry—but to satisfy that cry legislation was entered upon in a hurry, and inquiry was made afterwards when it was too late. This is exactly, it seems to me, a similar case, and I hope we shall take warning, and that the House will not rashly embark on such a dangerous and difficult sea. The real question is, Is it to the advantage of the Welsh people generally to cripple a Church admittedly doing good work? It is not easy to see how Wales will be better for disestablishment. I do not say that religion depends upon establishment, but if you tie a man's hands behind his back and then send him to do his work he will do it at a very great disadvantage. That is just what you are doing in regard to this Church, which is admitted to be an advancing Church, an active Church, a living Church, and a Church rising from. elevation to elevation. I will not trouble the House with many statistics, but I should like to call attention to the fact that in 1831 there were in Wales 726 resident clergy, 1,346 services. There are now 1,543 clergy and 3,727 services. There was then 1,090 churches, there are now 1,869. What I care about is not ascendancy, but the religious rights of the country. We know what danger there is at this time to religion. We know how the influence of pleasure and money have told against the fortunes of religion, and disestablishment, we know, will disturb the form of religion, and thereby do great harm. Is it right to take away provisions which belong to the Church of England? There are admittedly at this time great Church questions pending, and if disestablishment follows, if disestablishment is to come to pass; it is very likely that the Church of England, that great historical Church, which I know my Nonconformist friends do feel, has rendered great services to the cause of religion, would be split up into different sections, and would lose her unity by losing her power also. As to the position of the Nonconformists themselves, are there no dangers attaching at the present time to Nonconformists in regard to the loss of active religious faith? The Welsh people have at the present time special need of stable guidance, and this Bill would lead to a destruction which would bring about great harm for the people of Wales. Bishop Westcott once said:—

"It is not a question whether the State shall favour a particular religious body, hut whether it shall recognise a certain human need; whether it shall provide for the fulfilment of a definite function, and that the highest function of our corporate life: whether it shall openly declare that religion is not an accident of humanity but an essential element in every true human body."

I might give many other instances, but I will content myself with quoting what Dr. Dollinger wrote to Canon Liddon during the disestablishment agitation of 1885. He said:—

"For my part. I think that any such measure should be firmly resisted. It will be a blow to Christianity, not only in England hut throughout Europe."

It is because I desire to avoid such a blow and such fatal consequences in Wales that I now protest, and I shall vote against the introduction of this Bill.

The hon. Baronet, who represents the Welsh party, has been the only hon. Member who has brought forward any strong arguments apart from the speech of the Prime Minister in favour of the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church in. Wales. His argument was that years ago the Church in Wales became efficient in her work under the threat of disestablishment, and he asks us to believe that if that threat produced such activity disestablishment itself will effect a still further improvement. I for one cannot see the force of that argument, for it is one which is entirely wanting and inefficient. Personally I feel the strongest ground upon which this Bill can be opposed is that it proposes to destroy the public, official recognition of the interposition of Almighty God in the public affairs of the Principality. We believe that the public recognition of the fact that we look to this guiding principle and Almighty Power in connection with our affairs is of-estimable value to the State itself. It is from the standpoint of the State itself that I am most strongly opposed to any suggestion for separating the Church from the State in Wales. I would much prefer some form of pure Christian religion allied to the State, even if that religion were not associated with the body of which I am personally a member. A recognition of that principle underlies all our legislation, and it has brought inestimable benefits to the people, and as Christian men we have a right to appeal to that principle as being our greatest and best heritage. It is on that ground that I feel most strongly that, to propose disestablishment in these four dioceses in the province of Canterbury would be to take a step which from my point of view would be disastrous to the highest and best interests of the community of which we have the privilege of being individuals.

The Prime Minister said the situation is the same at it was when he brought in a Bill some years ago for carrying out this purpose. The right hon. Gentleman did not succeed in carrying his previous Bill, and I do not think he will succeed with this. It is difficult to take this matter seriously, because I am inclined to think, after the introduction of the Bill, we shall probably hear very little more about it. At the same time, I suppose these proposals are seriously entertained by the party opposite, and no doubt they will seize any opportunity they can get of forwarding this destructive policy. At the present time in the Principality the clergy of the Church of England organisation are working with the Nonconformist bodies in Wales, but if this Bill is carried into law, accompanied as it is by the proposition to disendow the Church, there can be no question of further co-operation between them. If this grievous wrong of destroying their income and undermining all the conditions under which the clergy have carried on their work in the past is carried out at the behests of the Nonconformists, it will not be the case that the clergy will continue to co-operate, with Nonconformists any longer in those great religious and moral undertakings which at the present time find so much mutual co-operation between them. I think that would be one of the greatest losses in the Principality.

The Prime Minister spoke as if all Non-conformists in Wales were of one denomination, and the figures he gave were intended to convey the idea that they were all one organisation. I believe that if we were to get them together and hear them discuss Church organisation and doctrinal matters we should find that they were absolutely divided in many respects on this Question, and certainly the Prime Minister is not justified in grouping them together and giving the House an impression which the figures do not warrant. The position of Nonconformity is not so strong as the statistics seem to indicate, and I am afraid they will have the effect of misleading a large number of superficial persons outside this House as well as within it. That is not fair. It is not fair to give the impression that the majority of the people in Wales are Nonconformists, and I do not believe that statement is true. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh."] I am satisfied it is not true. It cannot be shown, because Nonconformists have systematically objected to a religious census, and it cannot be proved by statistics that the Nonconformists number anything like half the population. The Nonconformists have objected to take the only course which could demonstrate conclusively this fact, and the mere fact of hon. Gentlemen being here representing Wales and claiming to be in favour of disestablishment no more applies to the Church of Wales than it would apply to the Established Church in Scotland. Mr. Gladstone once said upon the question of the disestablishment of the Church in Scotland:—

"We have now got Scotch opinion conclusively declared in favour of disestablishment ill Scotland. The enthusiasm shown by Scotch Members in favour of disestablishment settles the question as far as Parliament is concerned."

I think that was a very proper remark for that distinguished statesman to have made. Notwithstanding that the Church of Scotland is not disestablished to-day, although the condition of things which Welsh Members think justifies the destruction of the association of the State with the Church in Wales obtains at the present time in Scotland. Far from any proposals for disestablishment in Scotland being put forward, no reference is ever made at any election to the subject at all, and I think that will be the position in which this question will stand in Wales in a very short time, notwithstanding the Bill which is before us. The Nonconformists in Wales represented by hon. Members opposite know that the Church is rapidly gaining strength in the Principality, and their testimony this afternoon has been to that effect. Evidently they think that the only chance of destroying the connection between the Church and State and appropriating, or rather misappropriating, a considerable portion of her revenues, according to their idea, for all sorts of secular objects, is to attack her now. If they leave the Church much more time to progress they know she will be so strong in her hold on the spiritual life and affections of the people in the Principality that to attack her will be useless. After having a Royal Commission inquiring for two years on this subject, which is just on the point of reporting, the Government come forward and ask us to deal with the matter in the most indecent haste, without having the full facts before us and in order that the Report of the Royal Commission may have no weight whatever with the people of this country. I think these are reasons which should certainly make the House hesitate before giving this Bill a first reading, because it is clear that underlying the whole subject there is a question of mere political expediency. Who believes that the right hon. Gentleman would have introduced this Bill but for the fact that the Liberal Members representing the Principality had brought all the pressure which they could on the right hon. Gentleman's head? They have induced him to get up one of the most garbled accounts of the history of any movement ever known to this world—I mean his version of the history of the Church in Wales. Nobody who knows anything of that history would recognise the description he gave. For the reasons which I have given I hope and trust that the House will not give this measure a second reading. When the Prime Minister said that the Church can now go on freed from her burden, he ought to have said, "free from her money," which will make it impossible for her to carry out in a self-sacrificing manner the work of God amongst the mass of the population.

I must congratulate hon. Gentlemen opposite on having reverted from their abortive efforts at social reform to the more convenient and genial task of destroying one of the ancient institutions of the country. It is more familiar ground to them, and I think they do it better. I recognise in the very ease with which the Prime Minister traversed familiar ground this afternoon and reploughed the old furrow—though I think in no more fertile soil than when he is supposed to have ploughed the sands with the same measure 15 years ago—I noticed how easier it is to destroy and how much less reflection it takes and how unnecessary it is accurately to get up the facts upon which your work of destruction is to be based. I do not think that while undoubtedly hon. Gentlemen opposite are earrying out their ancient constitutional rôle—quite irreproachably—in attempting this destructive work they might do it with somewhat more decorum in point of form than they have chosen to adopt on this occasion. My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment called attention to the fact which was ignored by the Prime Minister, and which I do not think was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman who spoke on behalf of the Welsh party—and which certainly was not mentioned by any of the speakers on the opposite side to whom I have listened—that there is actually at this moment a Commission sitting whose business it is to collect the facts upon which legislation of this sort is to be founded. If that Commission had been appointed by the late Government it would at once have been said that the object of its appointment was dilatory, and that the intention of the Government was to put off the decision of this important subject and that a new House of Commons with -a large Radical majority in it would be perfectly justified in not waiting until that Commission had reported, but, on the contrary, they might consider themselves so intimately acquainted with all the facts of the case as to be able to proceed with their legislative scheme without misgivings and without that degree of ignorance which may get them into difficulties when the Committee stage is reached. But that excuse is not open to hon. Members opposite. We did not appoint the Commission. You appointed the Commission. I do not know whether you appointed it for dilatory reasons or not, but, at all events, you appointed it, and with the avowed object of extricating yourselves from the embarrassment which must inevitably follow from a discussion of a Bill of this kind when the facts are imperfectly known. That is not our version of the proceedings, but your own version of your own proceedings. It is a version which has behind it the authority of the late Prime Minister, who appointed the Commission, and distinctly asserted that the object of it was to collect the facts, without which legislation on this subject could not conveniently take place.

What excuse have the Government got? In the first place they appoint a Commission, and then insult it by asking us to pro- ceed to deal with the Question before the results of the consideration have been laid before us. I do not think that such treatment has ever been meted out to any Commission by any Government to a Commission of its own appointment, and particularly when the head of the Government stated that legislation could not conveniently or properly take place until the findings of that Commission were before the country and the House.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Walton division of Liverpool, in his brilliant and interesting speech this afternoon, reminded us that when he asked the Home Secretary at the Prime Minister's request whether the Report of the Commission would be in the hands of Members before the Bill was introduced, the Home Secretary gave a distinct pledge on behalf of the Government, that the Bill would not be introduced until the Report of the Commission was before the House.

The Home Secretary stated that we had every reason to suppose that the Report would not be delayed for any length of time. He gave no pledge, certainly.

That is not what I understood my hon. and learned Friend to say. It is sufficient for me now to remind the House of what was so forcibly put before the House by the Mover of the Amendment, that you are, if not flying in the face of your specific pledges, you are still flying in the face of all Parliamentary traditions and the decency of Parliamentary procedure with regard to the relations of this House with Commissions appointed by the Government. I cannot believe that so new a departure can carry with it a happy augury for the future fate of the Bill. I am not going to traverse the history which the Prime Minister gave us of the Welsh Church from the third or fourth century down to the present day.

I doubt whether those who are more intimately acquainted with the Church in Wales than I pretend to be will admit for one moment that the views which the Prime Minister put forward as if they were the accepted commonplaces of ecclesiastical history really have any foundation, nor do I think it really very much matters, I do not think it is relevant to the issue before us. The Prime Minister stated that for 70 years the Church in Wales has risen to the height of its great duties and has recognised its great responsibility and was worthily carrying out its work as a branch of the great Christian community. Is not 70 years enough? A Nonconformist body obtains an indefeasible title to its property after it can be shown to have enjoyed it for 20 years. Surely the fact that for 70 years the Church in Wales has used its none too great endowments admirably for the purposes for which they were given constitutes a sufficient and adequate title why it should be preserved, I will not say in the enjoyment, but in the use of its property? There is an amazing doctrine which comes up in these debates and then is conveniently forgotten until the next occasion when a Church is to be robbed. It is the doctrine that the Church is improved by being deprived of its property. It is sometimes wrapped up in rhetorical phrases; but everybody knows that no corporate body can carry out its work efficiently unless—least of all these modern days—it is adequately endowed, and least of all in these modern days, unless it is adequately endowed with funds. Of course, I admit, as everybody who reads history will admit, that there have been cases in which churches, in their activities, were clogged and drowned by the amount of their misused possessions. Nobody will deny, for instance, that the Church in France in the 18th century was possessed of too great wealth to be properly used; nobody will "deny that the wealth of great ecclesiastical establishments has, by the corruption of this or that age, been used as a source of emolument to Royal and other favourites, that it has been used for non-resident clergy, and bishops who never went to their dioceses—nobody will deny that a Church which so uses, or misuses, its wealth either has more than it ought to have or should divert it to very different channels. Does anybody make that statement about the Church in Wales, or a statement even distantly resembling that? Does not everybody know that the Church in Wales is a poor Church, and that it is only by the most economical use of such wealth as she possesses that it is enabled to maintain, not in overgrown luxury or unnecessary wealth, but to maintain at all in the various parishes of the Principality the men who carry on the great work of Christian teaching in a manner which even those who differ from them theologically must, I think, admit is, on the whole, in the interests of religion? If that is not denied, on what possible pretence do you endeavour to divert the endowments of the Church in Wales into wholly alien channels, in which you yourselves do not profess to have much interest? I was rather struck by one statement made by the Prime Minister in regard to this Bill this afternoon. He said:—

"We have altered the destination of the funds of the Established Church because we find some of the purposes to which we allocated them 15 years ago have been carried out, out of the general wealth—out of the taxpayer—or from funds other than those of the Established Church."

Does not that show that it is not in order to use the funds for better purposes that you take them away from the Church? You take them away from the Church primarily, and then you have to look round for some decent use to which to put them. I think every man, no matter what his theology may be—every man must admit who thinks it over honestly with himself—that this is turning money from a higher to a lower use; from purposes which it serves admirably at the present time to other purposes which I am confident could be met out of other and more natural and legitimate sources. Many Members of the House may remember the arguments which we had over the endowments of the Free Church of Scotland in the course of last Session. The Free Church of Scotland claimed to have the power of altering its formularies, and it had undoubtedly in many respects changed its theological position since it first came into existence near the middle of the 19th century. This House deliberately determined that the funds should be maintained in that organisation, and I think they were perfectly right in so determining. Who, then, advanced the doctrine that the Church was the better when deprived of its money? Who, then, supported this monstrous and extravagant paradox that you make a religion the purer by making the ministers of religion poorer? That is a doctrine carefully and sedulously kept for Established Churches. It is never applied, so far as I know, consistently to Nonconformist denominations, and those who are most eager to deprive the Church of her property are sometimes those who have laboured most faithfully and most successfully to increase the worldly wealth and property of the particular community to which they belong. Why do they struggle to increase the wealth of the community? Because they know that these resources will be well used—because they know that religion will gain by enabling those who are carrying on the work of religion to do what they could not do without these necessary funds. Why are you going to have a different rule for the Wesleyans and the Congregationalists, and any of the great Nonconformist sects? One rule for them and another for the Church of England. No reasons have yet been given us, or can be given. There are historic fallacies which do a ragged duty on the platform, but which no man has the courage to repeat in this House—viz., that the funds of the Church were funds given by the taxpayer, and should be resumed by the taxpayer. That may be well enough in some very distant, very obscure, and ignorant community to round off a period or to excite a cheer. We all know now, after these Debates, that it is admitted by every competent lawyer and historian that the funds of the Church of England are funds given in exactly the same way—for analogous purposes—as those of any other religious body. [Cries of "No."] Yes; of course allowing for differences of social surroundings. I do not mean that the benevolent donor of the eleventh or twelfth century was precisely like modern subscribers or the people who hold a bazaar to provide the necessary funds for some good work. Of course, there have been great changes. But in no true sense of the world are the endowments with which you propose to deal in this Bill, endowments given by the State to a religious body. It is not so, and no competent man would say it is so.

They are collected and coerced from the taxpayer by the State.

Collected by the State? What does the hon. Gentleman mean?

Tithes. The position in regard to the Nonconformist denominations is this—that the contributions-are perfectly voluntary. In the case of the tithes they are collected with all the compulsion and coercion of the State at the back.

The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. It is perfectly true that a great deal of the money of Nonconformist bodies is given at the church door or by cheque or annual subscriptions, and may be withheld at any moment. Of course, that is true. It is not true of the produce of endowments and accumulated funds.

I was talking of tithes.

A tithe is a debt, and the money that comes from accumulated funds is a debt. I do not follow the hon. Member's arguments in the least. The real fact is that this Bill suffers from a fundamental difficulty which I am quite sure will make it the more unpopular the more it is understood with every class of the community. It is not a Bill to do-good to the community in general, but a Bill to do harm to a particular section. It is not based upon a desire for the growth of religion; it is not based upon any large view of the influence of religious organisations upon the growth of the welfare of the community. It has its origin in some historic jealousy of some particular communion, and a desire to injure that religious communion by depriving it of the funds which are the inevitable instrument of its work. That is all I really have to say on the main question. But I want to ask the learned Solicitor-General if he will tell us exactly what this Welsh Council is? No speaker has referred to it; the Prime Minister touched upon it. But it did seem to me that the word "council" was a word of evil omen and that this was a National Councils Bill, intended not merely to deal with the Welsh Church, but intended, and deliberately intended, to start what the Prime Minister called a representative Welsh Council. That may be good, or it may be bad. A Welsh Councils Bill may be a good Bill or a bad Bill; but it is a very different Bill to a Welsh Disestablishment Bill, and the two things ought not to be mixed up together. If we are not merely by this Bill going to rob the Church of England of funds, which it is admirably using, but are going to have Welsh Home Rule brought in under some obscure disguise, then, if there is any additional reason for why I should vote against the Bill, that additional reason is given in ample measure.

I am pleased to be able to say that I am able to allay the fears of the right hon. Gentleman. The plan of the Bill is this: You must have some body like the Welsh Commissioners to. carry out the objects of the Bill. They are-appointed for a temporary period to put the machinery into effect for the first four or five years, and the proposal in the Bill is that unless the period during which they have jurisdiction is, by Order in Council, extended, their power will come to an end in 1915. Thus it is only after they have done their work and are dissolved that we have this Welsh Council brought into being—at any rate, in its operation. And the Council of Wales is not a Council of Wales in the sense of being a Parliament of Wales; it is merely a body created ad hoc for the purposes of this Act. I remember having made a very long speech 14 years ago on the second reading of the Bill of that year, and I am afraid it will be my duty to occupy the time of the House hereafter, and even sometimes I am afraid at length, in dealing with this Bill. Therefore I hope that right hon. Gentlemen will not ask me to say anything more at the present time.

May I point out that we have had no justification in regard to the Royal Commission.

I beg pardon. As has just been stated by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment to the Motion of the Prime Minister, the Commission that was appointed has nothing to do with policy or matters of that kind. Therefore, with regard to disestablishment, nobody ever contended that it was necessary to have the Report of the Royal Commission before we introduced legislation. With regard to the question of endowments, all the facts and figures have already been collected, and the Commission have closed their work so far as the collection of evidence is concerned long ago. They are now merely considering the terms in which they will make their Report to the House.

The evidence has not been published.

The evidence can be published to-morrow. Everybody knows that a Royal Commission has a right to make an interim report, and they constantly act in that way. A Commission on which I am serving made an interim report of part of the evidence only a short time ago. It is quite within the power of the Royal Commission to decide tomorrow to print the whole of the evidence. Undoubtedly the whole of the facts have been collected, and, therefore, it is not necessary to have the Report of the Royal Commission as a condition precedent to bringing forward this Bill.

I really wish to protest against the very summary way in which this matter is being dealt with. We have complained on this side of the House of the introduction of this Bill when no evidence given before the Royal Commission has been published. We have not had access to it, and we do not know what the mature opinion of the Commissioners is. On this ground, if on no other ground, we maintain that it is quite competent for us to violently protest against the introduction of this Bill at this moment, and it is hardly treating the House with fairness and justice to throw this Bill at our heads, when we have not had the opportunity of consulting the judgment and information of the learned Gentlemen who are sitting on the Royal Commission. I cannot help adding that it seems to be the usual practice of this Government to give verdicts first and evidence afterwards. It will be within the recollection of all hon. Members that on the occasion of the Old Age Pensions Act the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the Act had been passed, thought it desirable to go to Germany and get evidence about the matter, which would have been extremely valuable in the discussions in this House when the Bill was being considered. Exactly the same thing is occurring now. We also desire to have full information on this subject, and again the Bill is being, as I say, thrown at our heads before we have had an opportunity of considering the information which is being collected. I had hoped that the Commissioners' Report would have been available at this moment and that the learned Solicitor-General was going to give some more general purport of what it contained than we have had, as I presume he knows something about it. If he does not know anything about it, it seems to me that our protests are all the more justified, and when we further realise that this matter is being discussed in this way, I think it to some extent accounts for the extraordinary unreality of the whole Debate. I have sat through a good deal of it and I have heard some very excellent speeches from this side of the House, dealing as far as possible with the very meagre information before the House, on the whole subject. The benches on the other side of the House have, during the Debate, either been empty or conspicuous for a conspiracy of silence on the part of hon. Members. I do not know what is the object of that, but I presume the Government were afraid of allowing their followers to discuss the matter very fully, because the section which is interested in this Bill would have discussed it at such inordinate length; but however that may be, I think that reasons have been brought forward that amply justify the attitude which we have taken, and also justify us in saying that the Debate has been wholly unreal. We have pointed to the inconsistency of the Government and the party opposite, when it is borne in mind what the attitude of Mr. Gladstone was in the matter and the pointed distinction which he made between the disestablishment of the Irish Church and the possible disestablishment of the Welsh Church. I am not sure that his statements have been quoted, and I collected some of them before this Debate. On one occasion he said publicly that—

"The case of the Welsh Church is widely different from the Irish Church."

On another occasion, in 1870, in this House, he said:—

"There is complete ecclesiastical, constitutional, legal, and, I may add for every practical purpose, historical identity between the Church of Wales and the rest of the Church of England."