DISESTABLISHMENT " BY AGREEMENT" IN SCOTLAND.
[TO TRU EDITOR or THS " SPECTATOR." J
SIE,—A letter under this head, by the Rev. W. S. Provand of Glasgow, refers to the Memorandum recently prepared by the Church of Scotland Committee, which is at present dealing with proposals for union. As one who is called upon to take some part in the negotiations now proceeding, I must abstain from all controversy as to the merits of any proposals, but I deem it my duty to correct a misapprehension as to what has been suggested in the Church of Scotland Memorandum, to which your columns must have given wide publicity.
(1) Mr. Provand states that it can hardly admit of dispute that under these proposals all these old statutes are to be swept away by a repealing Act and that instead there is to be some- thing called " recognition " to be put in its place. This is the precise converse of what has been suggested. It is recog-
nized in the Memorandum that new definitions in a modern statute of the special position of the Church would be difficult, if not impracticable ; that legislation must not be directed to
the assigning of any new position to the Church by positive provisions, but must be limited to the repeal of statutory provisions which may be deemed to be inconsistent with spiritual liberty. Upon this matter the Memorandum refers to the Report to the General Assembly of 1911 as explaining the view of the Committee. The passage in that report referred to is as follows :-
"The representatives of the Church of Scotland fully recognize the great difficulties which would attend proposals for now defini- tions by Parliament of special relations of the Church to the State. They tentatively suggest that if the Church were declared to be in such a position of liberty from the authority of the State in matters spiritual as would satisfy the views of the United Free Church and all enactments inconsistent therewith wore repealed the State recognition which they value would bo adequately secured by the Treaty of Union and the Act of Security and other statutes therein adopted or ratified in so far as not thus repealed and by the continuance of the consuotudinary recognition by the Crown and its servants of the Church of Scotland as the National Church."
(2) Mr. Provand states that it hardly admits of dispute that " the tithes (Seettide teinds) are to be separated from the parishes with which they are at present associated and on the land of which they are a burden in order that they may be pooled' and doled out by a Central Commission or Committee wherever it is thought fit." No such proposal has been made. The Church of Scotland Committee have intimated that they cannot entertain any proposals for the secularization of these endow- ments. They have also indicated that in their opinion the adjustments as regards temporalities whioh union would render necessary will probably have to be worked out by a Parliamentary Commission under the instructions of Par- liament. But there is no word in the Memorandum about " pooling " endowments or withdrawing them from parishes. The suggested Commission is to act " subject to any conditions which may be presented." Obviously one of these conditions may be that local needs are to have the first claim or even that strict adherence is to be given to the principle that the teinds belong to the parish. These questions are in the mean- time reserved. This was fully and publicly explained in the General Assembly, which, without a division, approved of the action of the Committee.—I am, Sir, Sm.,
Edinburgh. CHRISTOPHER N. JOHNSTON.
Previous page
