On Thursday night Mr. Asquith unfolded the Government plan for
Welsh Disestablishment. The Bill is to affect the County of Monmouth as well as the legal Wales. These thirteen counties include twelve parishes belonging to English dioceses, containing some 6,600 inhabitants, and having an ecclesiastical valuation of £2,350 a year. The appointed day for Disestablishment is to be January 1st, 1896, and till then vacant Bishoprics are to be filled by the Crown on the advice of the Primate or three Welsh Bishops, but these interim Bishops are not to be Lords of Parliament. After the ap- pointed day the Established Church will cease to exist in Wales. The life interests of the Bishops and clergy are to be respected. That is, the incomes to which they were entitled will be collected and paid to them, minus the cost of collec- tion, as long as they live. The property of the Church as it falls in is to be distributed as follows :—The episcopal and capitular property, which is to form a central fund, is to go to three Commissioners appointed to hold it, and is to be devoted to public purposes,—a Welsh Museum or an Academy, for example. The tithe is to go to the County Councils, and be spent on various social improvement schemes. The glebe is to go to the Council of the parish in which it is situated, and to be used for parish purposes.
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