4 DECEMBER 1886, Page 5

LORD SELBORNE ON DISESTABLISHMENT.

I-40RD SELBORNE'S new book, and the letter to Mr. Gladstone which accompanies it, will no doubt exert a very considerable influence on the discussions which are pretty sure to mark the very first period,—if that ever arrives,—in which English politics get a fair chance of discussion. It will, we think, contribute greatly to "clear the air,"—though not exactly in the sense in which that term was applied to the wonderful confidences poured by Archbishop Walsh into the ear of the Pall Mall Gazette's commissioner, as described in its issue of Wednesday last. If that communication cleared the air at all, it was as a thunderstorm sometimes clears the air. But Lord Selborne's letter and book tend to clear the air in a very different sense, by rectifying a great number of popular misconceptions, and presenting the argument for the Establishment in the form in which it strikes a moderate politician who, Liberal on other subjects, on this subject has always shown himself a temperate Conservative. We ourselves are earnestly opposed to the disestablishers of to-day, because we sincerely believe that Disestablishment would not only paralyse one of the greatest influences for good to be found in modern England, but would tend to multiply the sectarian divisions of the day, and to diminish the spiritual influence of the various Christian Churches by the very fact that it greatly increased their number. But we cannot regard with the supreme contempt evinced by Lord Selborne, the abstract desire for "religious equality" which is at the bottom of the movement of the Liberation Society. It is, of course, quite true that the Church of England did not gain her position in the State through any infraction of the principle of religious equality. The influence she has obtained in the State was hers long before such a notion as the right of Dissenters to religious equality was in existence, long before any Dissenting body of any kind was in existence at all. Nothing is more certain than that the legislation affecting the Church was, as Lord Selborne points out, much oftener conceived with the view of holding the Church in check, than with the view of adding to her power. Even the statutes affecting the collection of the tithes, though they were, of course, advantageous to the Church, were passed in the interest of the people, who would have lost religious privi- leges by the non-collection of tithes, and lost them only to swell the revenues of unscrupulous landowners. They were not passed with any view of enhancing the dignity of the Church. All this is matter of fact and history, and Lord Selborne's book will bring it home to its readers with great force. But it cannot, we think, be denied that a state of things which has grown up naturally and historically, and not from any intention of giving the Church an advantage over sects of the existence of which no one had even dreamed at the time the Church took her position in the land, does now tend to enhance the worldly position of Churchmen as compared with the worldly position of Dissenters, and therefore to bias in favour of the Church a good many people who might otherwise lean towards one of the other sects. That this is so cannot be denied. That it is one of the disadvantages of the position which history has given to the National Church cannot be denied. And though Lord Selborne evidently regards it as a set-off of the most infinitesimal kind against the many advantages of a State Church, we cannot help thinking that he decidedly underrates the significance of this inequality. He regards it as he regards the social and political inequality due to the existence of a Crown and an aristocracy. But there, again, we think him deficient in sympathy with the Nonconformists. The very importance which they attach to the subject of religious conviction, and to the purity of religious motives, obliges them to think of the admixture of worldly motives with religious professions as a much greater evil than that admixture of worldly motives with political opinions which is caused by the existence of a Throne and a House of Lords. A pious Nonconformist very naturally says to himself, that to let the World enter the region of religion is a much greater mischief than to let it enter the region of social and political effort. And we confess that on this point we agree with the pious Nonconformist. Now when there is such a great variety of reli- gious opinions, it is, so far as it goes, a misfortune that there should be a great historical cause in existence tending to increase and consolidate the power of those who profess one creed,—and a cause which is not properly a religions cause at all, which does not arise from the excellence of the creed professed, but from the dignity and social standing of those who profess it. We hold, then, that Lord Selborne's book will exercise somewhat less influence for good then it might have exercised, through Lord Selborne's inability to enter heartily into the attitude of the more religious Nonconformists. The same causes which rendered Sir Roundel' Palmer unable to co-operate with Mr. Gladstone in the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church, now disqualify Lord Selborne for exerting all the influence to which his learning and ability entitle him against the Dis- establishers of the present day. He does not seem to see that there may be circumstances,—which certainly existed in the case of Ireland,—which may even now possibly exist in the case of Wales,—that make a religious Establishment dangerous rather than beneficial to the religious feeling and culture of the people for whose benefit it ought to exist, if it is to exist at all.

But none the less, Lord Selborne's book, with its great legal knowledge, its accurate historical discriminations, and its per- fect moderation, will, as we said, do a vast deal of good in "clearing the air." And his letter to Mr. Gladstone will prove, we think, to be not the least important part of the book. The difficulty which Lord Selborne insists on as to what Mr. Gladstone should be understood to mean when he laid it down that Dis establishment ought never to take place except with the" general consent" of the nation, is a real difficulty. It would, of course, imply much more than a mere majority in the House of Commons. It would imply much more than a majority of the representatives coming from the particular section of the King- dom where Disestablishment might be in question. It would not be right, on Mr. Gladstone's principle, that "the representa- tives from England and Ireland should assist to repeal or set aside that condition of the Union between England and Scot- land which relates to the perpetual maintenance of the Scottish Church Establishment, whenever a majority of the representa- tives of Scotland in the House of Commons may be found to desire it." Mr. Gladstone's condition of "general consent" must, in Lord Selborne's mind, be taken to mean, that no large minority bitterly resenting Disestablishment should be left in the section of the United Kingdom in which Dis- establishment is to be granted. Indeed, Lord Selborne pro- bably holds that the majority of the representatives in the sections of the United Kingdom unaffected by the proposal, ought to act as a drag on any otherwise premature victory of the disestablishers in the section of the country where Disestablishment is proposed.

Still more important is Lord Selborne's criticism on Mr. Gladstone's remark that there is a current setting in through- out the civilised world in the direction of Disestablishment. Lord Selborne asks where this current is to be discerned. Such a current is clearly not to be discerned in any active steps taken by the State to curb and paralyse the Church. It is not to be discerned in such action as the Italian State has taken towards the Roman Catholic Church, or which the Prussian State has taken (and since abandoned) towards the same Church, or which the French State has taken towards the same Church. All these have been efforts not "to liberate religion from State patronage and control," but to subject

religion to that control. In Russia, Spain, and Portugal, no one has heard of Disestablishment. In the South

American Republics, Establishment is everywhere the rule. In our English Colonies, there have been undoubtedly a good many State subsidies withdrawn from particular Churches ; but that is a totally different matter from disestablishing and diaendowing a Church possessed of large inherited property of its own, and neither in our Colonies nor in the United States has there been any dis- position to strip Churches of inherited property. And, of course, a Church which had never been established could not be disestablished. The real truth is, as Lord Selborne points out, that, except in this country, a movement towards Dis- establishment and Disendowment such as took place in Ireland, and such as the "Liberation Society" advocate for England, is almost unknown. It may be true that in various quarters there is growing up a conviction that the State should act as much as possible as if it had no wish that a good subject should adhere to one religion rather than another ; that States are much less propagandist than they were, except, indeed, when they are propagandist in an anti-clerical and freethinking sense. But the new respect for individual religious conviction which is growing up in the higher European States no more indicates a current of feeling in favour of Disestablishment, than a desire to treat the small system of peasant farming and the large system of capitalist farming with perfect fairness, would imply on behalf of the State an intention to divest itself altogether of Crown lands and their administration.