[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. ") SIR,—Dr. Dugald Macfadyen has
an interesting letter in your issue of Nov. 11th. The writer's intentions are so obviously good that it is impossible to wish to quarrel with him, but there is one point underlying the whole upon which one would like greater clearness. If Mr. Ellis Griffith has merely proved that Parliament can legally divert the endowments of the Welsh churches to what purposes it wishes, he has wasted his time, for no rational Englishman doubts that power. But from what I have seen of his arguments, like other " liberationists " he has only succeeded in hiding the real point at issue under
a cloud of more or less meaningless sophistries and citations of laws. The real point is whether it is just, proper, right, and for the good of the community that (to take one instance) the glebe and tithe created and given under Henry I. by William Revel, acting under permission of Bernard New- march, to the parish church if they should (so long as they are well administered for something at any rate approximating to the original purpose of the gift) be utterly changed into (say) an endowment for washbouses in some other parish. Is that the way in which the English Government usually deals with ancient endowments for purposes not religious ? You will see, Sir, that in effect I am only asking Dr. Macfadyen to look at both sides of this question.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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