practice. The Church in Wales is the oldest, the greatest and practically the only National institution in Wales. It was a bishop of the Church who gave the Welsh people their Bible in their own tongue and thereby did more than any other individual to preserve and make classical the Welsh language. The hymnal version of the Psalms, so beloved of Welshmen, Nonconformists or Churchmen, was the work of Price, Archdeacon of Merioneth. The national Eisteddfod was revived after the lapse of many years by two Welsh bishops. The Welsh Church to-day provides Welsh services in every Welsh-speaking parish. The Clergy are, with very few exceptions, Welsh-speaking Welshmen. The educational work done by the Church is acknowledged even by the most violent opponent. All true National aspirations, and National traditions are treasured as much by Welsh Churchmen as by Welsh Nonconformists.

Like Nonconformity, the political propaganda of Disestablishment and Disendowment are English and not Welsh in origin. The organisation of the Liberation Society, one of the by-products of the Oxford Movement, was spread into Wales in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1870 the first motion in favour of Welsh Disestablishment was introduced in the House of Commons. It was defeated by 209 votes to 45. This is most significant, as this decision was given only one year after the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. The Campaign continued, and when a similar motion was brought forward in 1886 the majority against it was only twelve (241 votes against 9).

Not until 1894 did the Liberal Party take up the proposal as a party measure. Floundering about in the deep waters of the Newcastle programme and Irish Home Rule, the Radical Governzent made a sudden snatch at Welsh Disestablishment-thinking to be a sort of lifebuoy that would save them amid the rising tile of Nonconformist opposition to Home Rule. Welsh Disstablishment proved a further weight rather than a help. The Election of 1895 saw the Government utterly overwhelmed, and the Radical Party ploughed the desert sands for eleven years, be significant fact with regard to Welsh Disestablishment being the loss of so many safe Liberal seats in Wales, not on the Home Morgan, Bishop of St. Asaph.

Rule but on the Church issue. In the Parliament of 1893-95 there were two Welsh Members opposed to Disestablishment. Ir the Parliament of 1895-1900 there were eight Welsh Members opposed to Welsh Disestablishment. After 1895, the Libera Party in their wisdom and the Conservative Party in thei unwisdom kept the Church question out of sight in Wales. II 1906 it was barely referred to anywhere. The new Prime Mini ter Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, came down to Wales. anc carefully refrained from raising the Disestablishment issue. Hi Government with their gigantic and independent majority seemed to have forgotten the very existence of the measure, and still mor its claim to consideration as a child of a former Libera Administration. Licensing Bills and all sorts of new measure: took precedence of it, and it was not until the " most powerfu Government of modern times" found it was losing nearly every by-election that the attack was renewed. In 1909, Mr. Asquith reintroduced a Disestablishment Bill for Wales. It did prove a great Party asset; so the Welsh Members were liberally rewarded and the measure was not proceeded with. As a resul of the 1906 election, Wales was represented entirely by Free Fooder: and Anti-Chinese-Slavery Members, all of whom suddenly discovered a zeal for Welsh Disestablishment some three years after the election. Baronetcies, knighthoods, recorderships, and lega jobs, great and small, came tumbling the way of Welsh Libera Members-it became safe to address any smartly dressed lady in Wales who wore Radical colours as "Lady" Jones. The Budget the Welshman's Budget, let us admit it, changed the politica complexion very completely. It stopped the Liberal rot, and diverted public attention from an unjust Licensing Bill, i bigoted Education Policy, and from the Church question to th attack upon the landlords. The "land" has always been strong electioneering cry for the Radicals, especially in Wales The old traditional Radicalism of Wales is based upon the cry of the land. Somewhere at the back of the Welsh mind there i the feeling that Englishmen took their land by conquest—the land which is an object of deepest sentimental affection as well as the principal source of livelihood. Then for that new Wales, the Wales of the coalfields, where Socialistic doctrine has been more successfully preached than in any other part of the United

Kingdom, the land taxes were a most attractive bait. Above all, the Budget, which, politically speaking, meant the land taxes, Tale the Member for Carnarvon arbiter and dictator within the Radical Party. Every word uttered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, including the "well nows" and "Ladies and Gentlemen," became reported verbatim in the Times-till national pride in the great demagogue knew no bounds. The "rare and refreshing fruit" offered at Newcastle seemed more worth having than the curates' stipends or even the "remission" of tithe. Wales voted for the Budget. The Church question was never sed, much less discussed.

Throughout Wales the Liberal Party kept the Church question well in the background, their legitimate excuse being that the Royal Commission which had been sitting for months, nay years, had not yet reported, and the subject was declared to be sub judice. Another election followed within a year; and the Commission reported one week before the dissolution of Parliament, so that there was little time for even a cursory inpection of its many volumes. Less than half the Welsh Liberal and Labour candidates mentioned Disestablishment or Disendowment in their election addresses. Yet it is seldom that candidate omits anything from his election address that likely to win him votes. Nine Members referred to Disablishment or Disendowment, or both, including Sir Alfred Mond, Major H. Guest, and Mr. Keir Hardie. Two Members ferred to religious equality, and the following eleven made no ference directly or indirectly to the Church Question: Rt. Hon. 2 McKenna, Sir David Brynmor Jones, Sir Francis Edwards, Ivor Herbert, Rt. Hon. W. Abraham, W. Brace, J. W. mmers, Edgar Jones, W. F. Roch, L. Haslam, J. Hugh Eiwards.

Of the thirty-five Members of the Government who hold es and who issued election addresses, only three mentioned Walsh Disestablishment. This gives some idea of the extent of the mandate on the question. It has been carefully and deliberely withheld from the people of Wales and of Great Britain. It been introduced in this session, for the same reason that it was troduced in the 1893-95 Parliament, as part of the Home Rule The Government fear the loss of militant Nonconformist

TOL. LIX

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energies and even of votes unless a diversion can be created during the debates on Home Rule. The most determined opponents of Home Rule are the Nonconformists of Ireland, and the Government dare not leave the field clear lest English and Welsh Nonconformists support their co-religionists in Ireland. The reintroduction of Welsh Disestablishment is simply and solely a move on the political chess-board to fools-mate the Welsh Nonconformist voter-to prevent him moving against Home Rule. It is a clever game, but it may prove, as it did in 1895, too clever by half.

Many people who show little interest in the more fundamental question of Disestablishment evince great interest in the question of Disendowment. Whereas Disestablishment is mainly a religious question, Disendowment is purely political. The arguments adduced for Disendowment are political arguments. They are largely based upon the nature of the origin of tithe. Church defenders claim that the origin is ecclesiastical; Liberationists that it is secular. Church defenders say that tithe is a form of private property, privately granted; Liberationists say that tithe is a tax. The astounding fact is the inconsistency of the Liberationists in this matter. Apparently not all tithe is a tax Only tithe granted before 1703 or 1662. They keep changing the date. Then tithe which is paid to lay impropriators is not a tax, while tithe paid to the Church is a tax. The former i to remain in the possession of the existing recipients, the latte is to be confiscated to be spent upon "secular” or national" objects.

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But Disendowment is merely secularism, viz., the alienation of funds now used for religious purposes to objects of non-religious expenditure. The only excuse for such a policy would be that the Church is either not using or is misusing its scanty funds The Church in Wales is the poorest part of the Church. I possesses fewer Endowments before Disendowment than the Church of Ireland after Disendowment. All the religious bodie in Wales are hampered by lack of sufficient funds for religiou: purposes. Nonconformist witnesses before the recent Roya Commission testified to the large number of persons indifferent to all religion and attached to no religious denomination. Nonconformists and Churchmen are straining every effort to obtain

fands for further church extension and for the payment of more Ministers. Among the Nonconformists twentieth-century funds and similar increases to their Endowments have been started; and in spite of the very generous response to the appeals of both Church and Chapel the funds at the disposal of each of the religious denominations in Wales are inadequate for the gigantic task of serving the spiritual and moral needs of a great growing industrial community. In addition to this, the Nonconformists reported to the Royal Commission that the four chief dissenting denominations had debts on their chapel buildings amounting to over £1.000,000. The interest on all this vast sum of money is so much money that might be used for providing for the pastorate and the living agents of the Word of God instead of being spent upon the dead weight of debt. To deprive any religious organisation in Wales of one penny that is being spent in the furtherance of Christianity we regard as a national disaster. Consequently Welsh Churchmen decline to compromise with secularists upon the question of Disendowment. It is constantly urged that the Church had better make the best terms she can with her opponents and pay as small a price as the enemy will agree upon in return for her alleged freedom. The Church in Wales has no desire to haggle over the number of shillings in the pound. The principle, apart altogether from its character as the barefaced robbery of private property, is in our view the principle of sacrilege—the taking of funds now devoted to the service of God and expending them henceforward upon purely secular objects.

The disastrous results of the Government's proposals, disastrous to religion and the Welsh people, will be emphasised by consideration of the actual provision now made by respective denominations Wales for the spiritual needs of the people. In the diocese of St. David's out of 339 parishes, in each one of which there is at ast one resident Minister of the Church, 130 have no resident Minister of any other denomination. The Church is the only denomination whose pastorate is organised on national lines. In one district the Baptists provide a Minister, in another the Calvinistic Methodists, in some areas, chiefly the poorest, and where the population is most scattered, no Nonconformist denomination provides a Minister. The Church alone makes national provision. There is not one single person resident in Wales, be he Nonconformist,