A motion for leave to bring in the Bill for
preventing any further vested interests arising in Welsh dioceses, by making all future Church appointments there subject to the future action of Parliament in connection with the emoluments of the Established Church in Wales and Monmouthshire, was made by Mr. Asquith, the Home Secretary, on Thurs- day, in an able epoch, in which he denied any desire to attack the Church itself, and spoke of Disestablishment as really a measure that should be treated by that Church as one intended for its good. Only, Mr. Asquith did not explain how it would be for the good of the Welsh Established Church to be suspended in vacuo, as it were, "for a limited time," — we suppose the limit of time is to be fixed before the Bill passes, if it does pass, —with very little chance of being either disestablished or confirmed in its position at the end of that time. Sir John Gorst moved the rejection of the measure in a speech which Mr. Gladstone subsequently described as so cold as to have been apparently manufactured in an ice-house, and Lord Randolph Churchill wakened up the House by a very vivacious attack on Mr. Gladstone, which, as usual with Lord Randolph, was only injured by his want of special knowledge of the subject on which he was talking. Mr. Gladstone was roused into an effective personal retort, of which we have said enough elsewhere. In the end, a good many Liberal Unionists declining to vote, the motion for leave to introduce the Bill was carried by a majority of 56 (301 against 245). This habit of anticipating the doom of great institutions long before the final attack on them can be made, seems to us extremely unstatesmanlike and prejudicial to the general interests of the country.
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