GLADSTONIAN ARITHMETIC.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATo$"]
Stn,—No doubt you are perfectly right in exposing the ab- surdity of Mr. Gladstone's mode of estimating the numerical relations between the Church and Dissent in Wales. But I cannot help seeing, and in candour confessing, that, by your own admissions, the case may be so stated as virtually to bring us to Mr. Gladstone's conclusion.
You admit, basing the estimate upon Nonconformist returns (the substantial accuracy of which you do not dispute), that one-half of the Welsh are Dissenters ; and from this you infer that the other half are members of the Church of England. But is this inference legitimate ? The Nonconformist returns are founded upon definite numberings of persons professing, in some way or other, to belong to the several denominations. But what about the other moiety of the population ? Can it be denied, if I should not rather say, can it be doubted, that many, possibly a large proportion, of them are no more Church-people than they are Dissenters—are, in fact, neither one nor the other—so that they must be admitted to produce much the same effect upon the result of the comparison in question, as that which the right honourable arithmetician produced by the way in which he took account of " the classes." Indeed, I suspect that what he originally drew his conclusion from was the state of things to which I have referred. He has been of late a little " mixed " in his nu- merical exercitations, and I think he muddled rather than in effect misrepresented his case.
I am sure, Sir, that you have no desire to blink unfavourable -truth because it may be so stated as to have the appearance of absurdity. The grounds upon which the Church in Wales ought to be upheld are so strong as to need for their support no sort of concealment or misrepresentation of facts ; and they are certainly much too high to be affected by any such question as that of majority and minority between Church and Dissent in a population about half that of Yorkshire, and not more than one seventeenth of that essential Unity,
England and Wales.—I am, Sir, &c., K.
[Those who are not Nonconformists ar•e usually either Churchmen or indifferent, and in either case cannot be reckoned among those hostile to Establishments. We have, however, already said that we will accept a popular verdict taken by a "Referendum " ad hoc.—En. Spectator.]
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