Sir Michael Hicks-Beach dwelt impressively on the great disadvantages to
which the disestablished Church would be exposed under Mr. Asquith's Bill as compared even with the treatment accorded to the disestablished Church of Ireland by Mr. Gladstone's Bill. That Bill gave great facilities for the reorganisation of the Church after disestablishment, and for providing for her a sound financial position as well as an adequate mode of enforcing her ecclesiastical authority. On this aspect of the question there will undoubtedly be a great deal to say in Committee, and we fully expect that before the Bill leaves the House of Commons,—if it ever does,— amendments will be carried against the Government and against the angry protest of the Welsh Members, which would set up the Church of the future in Wales in a much more formidable position for effective rivalry than that which it would occupy as the Bill stands at present.
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