Under the heading " Mr. Lloyd George and Noncon- formity,"
Sir Robert Perks contributes a remarkable letter to the Times of Tuesday. Speaking merely as " an ordinary Wesleyan Methodist layman," Sir Robert Perks asserts that the Federation of Free Churches which organised the meeting has no authority officially, or even indirectly, to represent the Free Churches, and least of all does it represent the Wesleyan Methodists, who numerically stand next to the Church of England in Great Britain. "For every one Roman Catholic voter in England and Wales there are six Methodist voters, and of these four are Wesleyaus." "The priest in politics" and "politics in the pulpit" have never been appreciated by the Methodists ; but Sir Robert Perks is moved to wonder at the flexibility of the principles of the Baptist and Congregational Churches when the fortunes of their political party are at stake. For while they denounce the interference of the priest in politics, yet their own ministers claim to shape their policy and issue to their Churches their marching orders in the coming electoral struggle. The only speakers on Mr. Lloyd George's platform were six Nonconformist clergymen, none of them Wesleyans. This abstention Sir Robert Perks attributes partly to the power of the Wesleyan laity, partly to the number of moderate politicians to be found in that com- munity.
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