The Welsh Disestablishment Bill was introduced in the House of
Commons on Tuesday by Mr. McKenna. He maintained, in virtue of the figures given by the Royal Commission of 1906 and the practical unanimity of Welsh members, that the Establishment had no claim in Wales to be the National Church. In view of its history it was absurd to regard Disestablishment as sacrilege, and the case of Ireland showed that it would have no injurious effect on the religious life of the Principality. The Government Bill, he explained, followed closely the lines of the two Bills intro- duced by Mr. Asquith. The four Welsh dioceses would cease to be dioceses of the Province of Canterbury ; the eccle- siastical corporations within the dioceses would be dissolved and ecclesiastical jurisdiction abolished. Maintaining that the income from the endowments of the Church might properly
be regarded as national property, to be appropriated for general national purposes, he explained that the Church was to have an income to begin with of £87.000 a year as a minimum, every incumbent continuing to receive his present stipend out of the endowments of the Church as long as he retained his office.
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