21 FEBRUARY 1914, Page 2

On Monday in the Commons Mr. W. Ormsby-Gore moved an

amendment to the Address to the effect that the Welsh Church Bill has no popular support and is provoking increased hostility and resentment. He remarked that the Bill was not even mentioned in the King's Speech and drew attention to the protest against it signed by fifteen thousand Welsh Nonconformists. Mr. McKenna, referring to this petition, said it was strange that a diocese had been chosen as the area for collecting signatures. The organizer was a Conservative who was no longer a strictly practising Non- conformist, and some of the signatures appeared to be in the same handwriting. We may add here that the papers of Wednesday published a letter from the organizer contradicting all Mr. McKenna's statements about him, except the fact that he is a Conservative. The petition seems to have been managed with all ordinary care. There is no doubt that many Welsh Nonconformists do think that it is most un- generous and un-Christian to cripple a Church which is labouring in the same cause as themselves.