WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.
_I-REVIEW of the debates in the House of Commons on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill during the past few weeks provides some curious reflections. In some respects the Bill, as we gladly acknowledge, has been modified for the better; but the bitterness of some of the Welsh members against the Anglican Church, and against the Home Secretary for making a meagre display of consideration and generosity, has given all non-partisan onlookers a most unpleasant impression of the vigour of sectarian jealousy and theological hate in the Principality. " Is there, then, so much religion in our country," one is inclined to exclaim, " that those who are themselves the champions of religion should think it worth while to quench the smoking flax wherever it is to be found when it does not happen to be their own smoking flax ? " A visitor from another planet would hardly believe that while all Christians deplore the fact that their faith is not more widely practised, a set of these same Christians passionately desire to deprive another set of the means with which they carry on. their work. By a master-stroke of irony and confused thinking this is being done in the name of "equality." A true aspiration after religious equality we can understand and respect, though we hold that the State, even at the apparent disadvantage of favouring a particular religious body, fulfils one of its supreme offices in definitely associating itself with religion. But the majority of the Welsh Radical members are not con- tent with the true principle of equality. If they were they would demand a Bill for disestablishment, but not for disendowment.
As it is they appear to regard the labours of the various religious bodies in Wales as a kind of competition to beat the record in statistics. " You have got an unfair start," they say in effect to the Anglican. Church. " This will never do. You have got funds that we have not got. These funds must be taken away from you, and then we shall all run level in the race, and the great principle of religious equality will be secured." What a travesty of goodwill and religious feeling There has not been a word. about the Anglican Church in Wales misspending her revenues. It is well known that the Anglican Church is more energetic and more spiritual than ever before, and spends her money more wisely. Yet her work of salvation is to be checked in order that the other religious bodies shall be able to feel that she has no advantage over them in the competition. " Rather than let the Anglican Church save souls by means which are not at the disposal of all," they say, " those means must be taken away and given to the State. But to take money from a local body and give it to the State is a reversal of the tendency of all legislation and is a definitely non-Liberal policy ? That does not matter. So long as we are Welsh Liberals it does not follow that we need be liberal." The visitor from another planet, we say, would hardly believe that such feelings were possible if they were not expressed daily and plainly for all to hear.
Before we go further, however, we must say something in grateful recognition of the protests uttered by some English and Welsh Liberals against the crippling of the Anglican Church in Wales. A fine stand was made by Mr. Gladstone, in whose obvious sincerity and passion of feeling his audience heard an echo of his grandfather's voice. Some English Liberal newspapers, too, have expressed their misgivings, and above all the Manchester Guardian, which, from the time of the introduction of the Bill, has disapproved of the devastating conception that religious work in Wales is a competition of sects.
Let us illustrate what we have said from the recent debates. A fortnight ago Mr. France moved an amend- ment to Clause 4, by which, through limiting disendow- ment to tithe, £47,000 a year would have been saved to the Anglican Church in Wales. It was on this amend- ment that Mr. Gladstone made an impressive appeal. Mr. McKenna argued that the Bill depended on this clause. We cannot imagine why. It has nothing whatever to do with the principle of religious equality, properly understood. The Government majority in the division was only fifty—a sure sign of the strong emotion aroused—and it is important to notice that sixty-eight of those who voted in the majority were Irish Nationalists. Is it not preposterous that the Irish, who demand the right to manage their own affairs, should be called in, in the interval of waiting for their independence, to interfere as mercenaries in the affairs of Wales ? But for the Irish vote the Government must have lost their Disestablishment Bill, and this has happened several times. We need hardly say that we think the Irish members ought to be able to vote on all English, Scotch, and Welsh questions as freely as any other members, but then we are Unionists. For the present Government to use the Irish votes in this way on the eve of passing a. Bill to smash the Union—that is the outrage. A few days later—December 17th—Mr. McKenna did make some concessions. He accepted the amendments proposing that the Queen Anne's Bounty grants from Welsh sources and the Parliamentary Grants Fund should be preserved to the Church, thus reducing by £15,000 the amount which the Bill transfers to Welsh County Council. and County Borough Councils and the University of Wales. The reception of this very mild concession by Welsh members was significant. Mr. Towyn Jones, a Welsh Nonconformist minister, cried " Shame ! " Sir D. Brynmor Jones said that the concession would cause " disappointment " and " indignation " among Nonconformists in Wales. Mr. Llewellyn Williams even threatened that if Welsh Liberals did not get their way they might change their whole attitude to the Bill. These were manifestations of a deplorable spirit. But there were others. Let it be granted, merely for the purpose of argument, that the early endowments of the Church in Wales may be fairly alienated on the ground that they were gifts by Roman Catholics and that the Anglican Church is no longer in communion with Rome. There remain subsequent benefactions which cannot be alienated for that reason. Mr. Evelyn Cecil moved that these be secured to the Church, but to no avail. Similarly unavailing, perhaps, would have been the proposal, if it had been made formally instead of being only advanced casually, that the endowments of the Church should be redistributed in proportion among all the religious bodies. We would not ourselves by any means resist this proposal if it were formally made. If it seemed the best possible compromise we would ardently support it, and we hope that it may have a chance of being considered by the Government in some such form as that in which it has appeared in the list of amendments under Mr. Bathurst's name. We have no notion whatever of standing on a punctilio. Our one point is that money long used for religious purposes should not be devoted to secular uses. Yet again (December 18th) Mr. Silvester Horne, another Nonconformist minister, moved that the Welsh cathedrals be nationalized. Three out of the four cathedrals are parish churches, and two, if not three, have been restored or reconstructed by private benefactions. For these reasons the proposal to nationalize them failed in 1895. Mr. Asquith reminded Mr. Horne of the fact, and begged him to withdraw his amendment, but Mr. Horne insisted on going to a division. We need not take more examples of the unfortunate results of the " competitive " spirit.
Under the swift fall of the guillotine there was no time to discuss the broader principles at issue. Our visitor from another planet would hardly have learnt from the debates that the Church in Wales is simply a part of the Church of England. It belonged to the Province of Canterbury before Wales became part of the United Kingdom. We cannot imagine why four dioceses of the Church of England should be lopped off. That is really what is being done under the misleading talk about an alien church in Wales. It is strange that Welsh Non- conformists do not acknowledge the force of an argument which has appealed to themselves. When it was proposed that a separate Free Church Council should be established in Wales, Welsh Nonconformists declared that one Free Church Council was enough—the one in England—and that they preferred to send their representatives to it. Similarly Welsh Churchmen ask to be allowed to remain attached to the Church of England. But even if that bond must be severed—either in the imaginary interests of equality or because there is enough support for the per- fectly respectable view (which we do not of course share) that a Church lives a more spiritual life in independence of the State—there is no reason why the Church should be financially crippled. We venture to think that if the old benefactors could rise from their graves and learn that the money they gave for religious purposes was being applied to secular uses, on the ground that the Church is no longer Roman, they would one and all say : " Let our money stay where it is. Any form of religious use for it is better than a secular use."
We are conscious of no sort of jealousy of the Noncon- formist churches in Wales. Rather we rejoice in their existence. Friendly rivalry is a corrective to what Pro- fessor Gwatkin once called " the dignified slumber of catholicity." All we ask is that the rivalry should be really friendly, and that Welsh Nonconformists should not trip up those who are engaged. in the same holy work as themselves. We ought to add that we sincerely believe that the Welsh Radical members of Parliament do an injustice to Nonconformist feeling on this subject, not only throughout England and Scotland, but in Wales. At all events we trust that the spirit of the recent debates may be reconsidered, and if possible banished, during these days which are supposed to be devoted to goodwill. And if the compromise of the concurrent endowment of the various churches in Wales out of the funds of the Anglican Church commends itself to Liberal opinion, we for our part will show our good faith by proving that all we have at heart is to secure that money hitherto spent on religious ends should remain, even under a new arrangement, devoted to religious ends.
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