On Tuesday Mr. McKenna announced that the Government would accept
the amendments to Clause 8 standing in the names of two Liberal members—Mr. Atherley Jones and Mr. Beck. The Queen Anne's Bounty grants from Welsh sources and the Parliamentary Grants Fund are to be reserved to the Church, thus reducing by £15,000 the amount which the Bill transfers to Welsh county councils and county borough councils and the University of Wales. The announcement was greeted with a cry of " Shame t" from Mr. Towyn Jones ; Sir D. Brynmor Jones declared that the concession would cause disappointment and even indignation among the great majority of Liberals and Nonconformists in Wales ; and Mr. Llewellyn Williams went so far as to say that it might change the whole attitude of the Welsh members towards the BilL Earlier in the day an amendment proposed by Mr. Evelyn Cecil, providing that private benefactions made to the Church since 1662 shall not be alienated, was rejected after a long discussion by 271 votes to 144. During the course of the debate the view that to divide the funds by concurrent endowment would be far better than to appropriate the Church's property to secular uses was advanced by Lord Hugh Cecil and supported by Sir A. Cripps and Mr. Lyttelton.
Previous page
