WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.

Northern Advocate, 11 January 1912, Page 6

WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.

» o — Canon Hensley Henson has appealed to Nonconformists through the "Times," inviting them to leave the Established Church in Wales her endowments, while apparently not objecting Disestablishment. The Bist hop of Winchester, Dr. Talbot, seconds this appeal. He admits that Disestablishment may be inevitable, but deplores a proposal "which would take away from a Church, poor, struggling, but full of life, all but Is 6d in the pound of its resources. I should have hoped—l almost diare still to hope —that what is generous, large-minded, and deeply religious in English Nonconformity would call a truce, and insist that no such plunder of th<> pittances of hardworking Christian brethren should stain the records of Liberationism." The "British Weekly" says "we will go so far as to say that if Disestablishment can be effected by consent and by compromise, we believe that Nonconformists would go as far as their consciences allowed them in search of peace. As we understands however, the defenders of the Welsh Church declare that there is to be no compromise whatever,. They will have all or nothing. Mr Ellis Griffiths points out, in a letter to the "Times," that, the Church in Wales after Disestablishment will retain all the fabrics, including cathedrals, palaces, deaneries, canonries, parsonages, in addition to all private benefactions since 3662, the date at which the Church as a spiritual organisation may be said to have iissumed its present form. In addition to these, all life interests are safeguarded. What the Bill does is to dispossess the Church of tithe rent charge, which is a tax, and, speaking generally, of its pre-Reform-I ation endowments. We have noble • men in the Church of England speaking bravely for Union, but, from all we can learn, the body of the High Church clergy are more aggressive and less friendly than they have ever ' been. We will use no stronger lan>j guage. In Wales, also, we fear this is ; the case. Is It to be supposed," asks » the "British Weekly," "that the vast I majority of the religous community , will consent to put national property In the hands of men who use it to harj ass and obstruct their work in every , possible way?" ' The Bishop of St. David's says that "none of the replies made to Canon Henson attempted to show why Nonconformists as Nonconformists should • J

take upon themselves the political function of urging the State to secularise Church property. None of the replies suggested that the State was in need of the money, nor that the endowments of the Church in Wales were in excess of the needs of its growing work. Welsh Churchmen could accept no compromise on a Bill of piecemeal Disestablishment, Church Dismemberment, and secularisation of relegions endowments. Each week brought fresh assurance that the | Welsh Disestablishment Bill, which J the Government proposed to press j through Parliament next year without any mandate from the electors, would be resolutely opposed with the whole' strength of the Church of England and with the support of a growing number of thoughtful Non-conformists in Engl?nd and Wales."