DISESTABLISHMENT.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 478, 10 April 1909, Page 5

DISESTABLISHMENT.

THE CHURCH IN WALES. GOVERNMENT BILL THIS MONTH, STATEMENT BY MR. ASQUITH. (it tklmiui'h—rasas ABSOClATlON—coi'titiam.) London, April 7. Tho Prime Minister, Mr, H. Asquitli, has announced that on April 21 ho will introduce a Bill for tho Disestablishment of tho Church in Wales on tho lines of tho Bill of 1895. THEFREE CHURCH DEMAND. A committee appointed by tho Campaign Committee of tho Free Churches of Wales recently drew up tho following recommendations regarding tho provisions of the Bill of disestablishment of the Church in Wales ;- 1. It Bhould include tho whole of tho 12 counties and Monmouthshire, and not tho four Welsh dioceses only. 2. On and after "tho appointed day" the King to'■cease to bo Head of the Church in Wales, no bishop of tho four Welsh dioceses to have or be entitled to a seat in tho House of Lords, and tho Church in Wales to cease to b* represented in Convocation. 3. Tho laws relating to and regulating marriages to bo codified, and all ministers and clergy and churches and chapels placed on au equality. 4. A Welsh National Endowments Board should bo created to' tako over all Welsh ecclesiastical property and all ecclesiastical revenues derived from Wales and Monmouth. 5. Tho board to have power to make payments in lieu of endowments, or provide annuities or compensation to all those holding vested interests or having freehold interests in their office. 6. Cathedrals to be held as national property, vested in tho board, but kept in repair by tho State, us they would become national monuments. They should bo kept entirely for religions purposes and used only by tho disestablished Church. 7. Tho episcopal and capitular residences should be vested in tho board, who must keep them in repair, and the disestablished Church should have tho option of renting them from the board. Burial grounds to be vested in a public local authority. 8. Tho following property should be transferred for national purposes; Glebe lands, tithe rent charges, ecclesiastical property now in tho. hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, charitable and ecclesiastical endowments, properties in Wales which have been diverted to the use of Knglish dioceses, and all other classes of Welsh ecclesiastical property. 9. Thnro should be two funds, central and local. The central fund should be administered by tho board, and should only consist of revenues derived from national or general sources. Tho local fund should be administered by. county councils. The demand for disestablishment is said-to bo based upon two main principles— 1. That all religious bodies m communities should bo on an absolute equality as far as tho law is concerned, and should bo entirely freo from the control of any political party; and 2. That national endowments should be used for the good of the nation as a whole, rather than to benefit one particular section only. THE OTHER SIDE. Criticising the above proposals, the London "Standard" states: Beforo ministers could lake . counsel with their Nonconformist allies from Wales (and the annoxed county of Monmouth) tho English lladioftls have mode their voices heard. With ono consent they repudiate the measure, though for instructively divergent reasons. First wo have the prophets of social reform, who declare that nothing must come, this next session or tho one alter, between the pcoplo and tho blessings which they aro excogitating for tho King's Speech. Then there are tho out-and-out democrats, who clamour lor combat with the Houso of Lords, and simply cannot think of any minor issue. Lastly,/ though their utterance isless explicit, wo noto the Church disestablishment agitators in England, who think that the case for a general Act of spoliation would bo damaged by yielding a preference to tho Welsh Nonconformists. The Anglican Church will no doubt tako up tho position that tho Church in Wales is an integral part of the Church of England and they must bo treated as one. This aspect of (ho question was stated very emphatically by tho Bishop of Manchester at the Church Congress in October last. Ho declared that "so far as tho Church is concerned there is neither English nor Welsh; wo aro all one-and we will stand bv ono another in all good works. If thcro is"to bo any determined and distinct attempt at disendowment and disestablishment wo shall say clearly; So far as all the arguments that aro here alleged for disestablishment and disendowment in Wnles are concerned, there is hardly ono that could not bs applied with equal fores to some portions of England. \\o do not intend that this matter shall bo treated in a piecemeal fashion. If it is good for tho Church, it is good for tho Church as a whole. Tho Rev. John Wnkeford, of Liverpool, speaking in Wales recently made au interesting announcement. Ho said that if a disestablishment Bill, was passed forward two things would happen. First, from tho Liberal side of the House would como a proposition,that the Church in England and tho Church in Wales were one, and must stand together, and, after that, from tho same side of tho House would . come a proposition that tho Government should disendow all the religious bodies in the country. . Tho introduction of a disestablishment Bill is not likely to nrouso any enthusiasm among the Labour and Socialist members, who strenuously object to tho Government postponing social reform in-order to fight tho battlo of tho Nonconformists. On tho other hand, the Nonconformists feel that they have allowed this question to bo put off long enough, and that it would 1)3 a great mistake to allow tho present opportunity to be lost. There is really no separate Church of Wales. Tho principality was annexed to England in J284 by the Sta'tutu-n Walliae, and the jurisdiction of the Established Church of England extends over Wnles. It is interesting to noto that tho ancient Britons are believed to have had r.n archiepiscopal sco before tho times of St. Augustine, viz., at C'aerleon, or (as sorur. have it) at Llandaff. _^