WELSH CHURCH BILL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8738, 21 May 1914, Page 5

WELSH CHURCH BILL

COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED

By Telegraph—PrM« AwoclaUnn— Copyrlgto* LONDON, May 19. Sir Henry Primrose, Sir William Plender, and Sir John Herbert Roberts, M.P., have been appointed Commissioners in connection with the Welsh Church Disestablishment tsm.

BILL READ A THIRD TIME

“TAKE YOUR MONEY, JUDAS!”

LONDON, May 19. The Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill was read a third time by 3*_a votes to 251. Members of the Opposition greeted the result of the division with the ciy “Take your money, Judas!’ This aroused Liberal cheers. Several Labour members were absent at the Derbyshire by-election.

The present Bill is more generous to the Church than cither the Bill oi 1895 or that of 1803, but much loss generous than the Irish Church Act of 1869. It has four parts, the first of which deals with disestablishment and vesting and distribution of property. On July Ist, following the passing ot the Act, the Church in Wales and Monmouth is to "cease to be established by law,” and its ecclesiastic corporations, sole and aggregate, were to he dissolved. The four W clsh bishops were lo be excluded from the House of Lords, ecclesiastical courts in Wales were to bo deprived of ail jurisdiction and Church law was no longer to exist as such m Wales. The bishops and clergy were to be excluded from the Convocation of Canterbury. (The jiower of Parliament to decree this is contested as the Welsh bishops and clergy were members of Convocation before Parliament had an existence.) The Church is (o retain ali cathedrals, churches, ecclesiastical residences, etc., and any funds devoted to their maintenance, private benefactions, and closed or unused burial grounds. Endowments from English sources would continue to be paid to the AVolsh Church. Of the ,£215,513 representing the net annual income of the Church in Wales from endowments, the Bill proposes to secularise .£178,238, made up of glebes .£30.176. lithe rent-charge 41127,198. and funda iC2u,oGl.