Mr. Balfour attended the meeting held yesterday week in support
of the Bishop of St. Albans' Fund for " London over the Border," and delivered an interesting speech. The need for the appeal, Mr. Balfour pointed out, was due to the con- ditions of modern industrialism, which segregated the better• to-do from the working classes. The wealthy no longer lived among the people who contributed to their fortunes, and the sense of their moral obligations was not brought home to them by constant ocular demonstration. But, since the growth of great suburbs was the only method for mitigating the evils of overcrowding, that solution carried with it the inevitable corollary that these new urban areas must be pro- vided with the means of accommodating those who desired the ministrations of religion. For that great necessity, the greatest necessity of all, the State provided nothing, and the only way of meeting it was "for the wealthier classes of the community, who profit by the work done in these vast areas of artisan life, to recognise, and in imagination make themselves one with, the needs of those who occupy them." Finally Mr. Balfour declared that the cause for which he was pleading was not sectarian or a petty cause. They were naturally bound to devote such money as they could collect to the furtherance of the Church of England, but it was to the Church of England as a great organisation for the ministering of religion, and they should give help and sympathy to every other organisation—even though it differed from them—. which endeavoured to minister to that object.
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