THE DEBATE ON THE WELSH CHURCH.
FT1HE debate and the divisions on-the Welsh Church were not
'without real significance, though the significance of the -divisions was to a considerable-extent diminished by the form in.-which they were taken. It was not true that Mr. Dillwyn, -though opposed by the Government, was within twelve votes of -earrying his motion, for he received several votes,—those of three .Cabinet Ministers amongst the -number,—which would have been given. against his resolution, though they were given for Isis refusal to amend it in the manner proposed by Mr. Albert Grey. Apparently the Conservatives, cared more to show that Mr. Albert Grey's -plan for widening-out the Establishment -so as to suit Welsh Nonconformists, is unwelcome to both aides of the House, than they eared to measure swords with the Disestablisiters. Certainly they voted against Mr. Dillwyn when he declined to allow his motion to be amended ; then they voted in favour of inserting Mr. Albert Grey's words, and finally they voted against the resolution as amended. Thus, while the Disestablishers were joined by a few of their opponents • who did not want to have the question confused by Mr. Albert Grey's amendment in the first division, they were joined by a good many Radicals who wished to have Mr. Albert Grey's words added, in order to have the opportunity of voting against it, in the second division ; and thus none of the three divisions really tested the exact strength of the Disestab- lishers in the Commons, for both Tories and Radicals com- bined to negative the resolution as' amended, in the third division. Still, it may be assumed that Mr. Dillwyn, though he would not have carried so many as 229 with him had the division taken place on his resolution as he moved it, and would also have had a larger number against him, would even in that case have been in a minority so large that it would have come practically within a score or so of the strength of the majority. And this proves as we think, that the friends of the Established Church feel profoundly that by far the most indefensible portion of the case for the Establishment is furnished by the religious condition of Wales. It is not easy for Churchmen to persuade themselves that in Wales the Establishment does the work which a religious Establishment ought to do. In Wales the faith of the Church of England is the faith of a denomination only, and that, too, a third-rate denomination. Nay, it is the religion of a denomination which differs more widely from that of the two most popular religious sects, the Independents and the Calvinistic Methodists, than these differ from each other. And, of course, the establishment of such a sect,—though it is not the monstrous abuse which the establishment of Protestantism was in a Homan Catholic country like Ireland,—does much more to create jealousy than to strengthen the spirit of Christian worship. Probably not even the strongest Conservative in the House would have been found to contend warmly for the Establishment in Wales, had the Church of Wales been distinct or distinguishable from the Church of England and Wales. But, of course, there was and is, a good deal to say against treating the case of the was, in a piecemeal manner, and disestablishing where the Church is weakest, while refusing to disestablish where the Church is strongest. No man in his Gentles would propose to look ...at the case of any Establishment: in that fragmentary fashion, —to disestablish it in one county and protect it in a neigh- bouring county ; to make petty incisions, as it were, in a great institution of this kind, and not look at the work done by the whole, rather than at the work done by the parts. What may be fairly said for the Establishment in Wales is only this,—that the Church is not so unpopular there that Welshmen of other Churches dislike it. On the ,00ntrary, even if they belong to other Churches, they constantly attend its services when the incumbent happens to be a favourite. The Anglican Church in Wales is- not at all the Church of the people ; but then, it is not a Church which the people look upon as an enemy. It is a Church fairly tolerated throughout Wales, though the Welsh feel it a serious grievance that it should be supported by the wealth of the nation in a part of the country where the nation prefers quite different forms of worship. And that it is a grievance cannot be denied. If Wales had a separate pelitical existence, the Anglican Church would have as little schauce of retaining its position in Wales, as Calvinistic Method- ism would have of getting itself established in England.
And this leads us to the very marked tendency to Home- rule with which Mr. Dillwyn, no doubt intentionally, flavoured his speech. He insisted on the separateness, on the growireg separateness, of Wales, on the tendency in Wales to regard Englishmen as "foreigners," on-the growing popularity of the Welsh language ; and he appeared even to speak with a certain regret of the time when the Welsh judicial circuits were organised on an entirely different and very inferior principle to the English judicial circuits, even though that course led to special abuses. If we understand -Mr. Dillwyn's speech aright, he certainly intended to make the Establishment of the Anglican Church in Wales a sort of text for preaching a sermon on the separateness of Wales in race, language, and religion, the implied drift being something of this kind,—t-If you don't try and treat us with justice as a part of the Kingdom that has a historical and moral right to be ire- garded as a distinct unit within the Empire, we shall amnia° asking for much more than Disestablishment in Wales,— namely, for Home-rule in Wales.' Mr. Dillwyn did -not expressly say anything of the kind, but that is what his speech really meant, as we understand it. And we confess that it seems to us more -or less just to contend that, so far-as any part of the Kingdom has a separate genius and separate wants of its own, the Imperial Parliament is bound to consider carefully that genius -and 'those- wants in,governing it, or else must stand condemned as guilty of indifference to its welfare. We can hardly both resist the demand for Home-rule, and also refuse to carry out the sort of reforms to which Home-rule would in the very first instance lead. Either the Imperial Parliament ought to consider conscientiously what different arrange- ments different circumstances require, or the ground is cut from under it when it denies that a local IParlia- meat is needed to adapt the legislation of any part of the country to the wants of -that part of • the country. We feel nothing but dismay at the centrifugal forces whicheeem to be at work in the Empire, forces which lead even a veteran legislator like Mr. Dillwyn to impregnate his speech with a sort of threat of a Welsh agitation for Home-rule. But we can hardly help agreeing -with him that the proper way to defeat such a threat as thata is to show- that-Parliament cares as much for the welfare of the separate parts of the Empire, as it cares for the welfare of the whole.
So far as regards the discussion of the religious question, we must say that the (to us unintelligible) obstinacy of the Nonconformists in resisting a religious census is now obvioualy working to their prejudice. No one can rely on -the very inferential sort of figures by which Mr. Dillwyn measures the numerical strength of the Anglican Church in Wales. If this great question is to be discussed properly, it should be discussed by the light of authentic facts. Mr. Raikes was even so bold as to maintain that the Anglican Church is the most numerous of the various religious denominations in Wales, a very unlikely kind of assumption, but still one which it will be impossible to disprove without a religious census. It is childish first to refuse the facts on which alone legislation can be properly founded, and then to complain that there is no such legislation. If the religious Establishment in Wales is unsatis- factory, let us know exactly what it has, what it does, and what it is. To compute its numbers by deducting the numbers of the known sects from the numbers of the known popula- tion, is in the highest degree unsatisfactory.
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