THE FREE CHURCHES [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIn,—The statement in the letter of the Secretary of the o
" Liberatin Society." in your issue of August 24th, that the Church of England could secure " complete " self-government without delay at the necessary price of Disestablishment and Disendowment, requires some qualification. It embodies, by implication, a fiction which is frequently met with, and which finds formal expression in the title of " The Free Chur- ches." Certainly the actual facts scarcely justify the claim that these bodies possess " complete " freedom from State control. Not only are Nonconformists subject to such control as regards the conditions under which certain privileges are enjoyed by them—e.g., freedom from rates and taxes upon their buildings when wholly used for public worship—but Parliament has a right to interpret the doctrines set forth in their Trust Deeds, when alteration is called for.
This was exemplified on a large scale idthe case of the Free Church of Scotland litigation with the United Presbyterian Church on the question of a union between the two bodies. The members of the former of these contended that they alone were faithful to the Trust Deeds of the original body, forinded in 1843, and their contention was upheld by the Scottish Courts, and ultimately by the House of Lords sitting as the Final Court of Appeal. I remember attending one of the sittings in 1904, when the most intricate questions of doctrine were argued before their lordships, the Lord Chancellor presid- ing. The house of Lords decided in favour of the few who
stood out against the union, with the result that practically all the property passed into the hands of the small remnant
which had rejected the amalgamation of their Church with the United Presbyterians in 1900. Finally Mr. Balfour's Govern-
ment came to the rescue, and passed The Churches of Scotland Act " of 1905, which allocated to each litigant such portion of the property as appeared to the Commissioners, created under the Act, " fair and equitable, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, but subject to the provisions -of the Act."
Again, there was the case of the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians, and the United Methodist Free Church. The proposed amalgamation of these sects under the title of " The United Methodist Church " was achieved by Act of Parliament. It was thus recognized by the State and pro- tected in the enjoyment of its property, but always subject to State control, if it should be found not to be true to its foun- dation documents.
On a smaller scale there is seldom a Parliamentary Session in which Bills are not introduced through the Charity Com- missioners seeking powers for the alteration of doctrinal Trust Deeds in Nonconformist churches. These Bills and the doctrines involved can be debated in detail and voted upon before they are finally passed. Lord Davidson, speaking as Archbishop of Canterbury at a meeting of the Central Church Committee in 1908, mentioned two such Bills, as to which he said .-
" You will find that, in each of these, arrangements are made by Act of Parliament as to the conditions upon which alone the pastor and the other officials of these different chapels may hold office ; and you will find in the schedule to the Bills, every word of which is capable of amendment, a setting forth of the whole doctrine and the creeds which are there to be held. . . . They are set forth in doctrinal detail and embodied as a portion of the schedule to these Acts of Parliament, and there is stated, in the course of the Act, what are the conditions upon which alone a man may have -a tenure of his office."
In view of these facts it will be conceded that the " Free -Churches " are not quite so free as their title would imply.—
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