CHURCH DISENDOWMENT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8784, 14 July 1914, Page 3

CHURCH DISENDOWMENT

PROTEST AGAINST THE WELSH BILL. The following motion, standing in the name of the Rev. C. 11. Grant Cowen, was responsible tor brief but .’pointed discussion at the Anglican Synod yesterday:—“That this Synod places on record! its sorrow and indignation at the proposed action of the Home Government in disendowing the Church in Wales and utilising such money, given for religious purposes, for secular uses, and that a copy of this resolution he forwarded to the Prime, Minister (Mr Asquith), the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops of the Church in Wales.” The mover contended that the position brought about in regard to the disendowment proposal was due to a coalition between Mr Lloyd George and Mr Redmond (loader of the Irish Party). He alleged that Mr Redmond supplied the Roman Catholic votes to take away the funds of the English Church in Wales, and that in return he was to receive support for “that wretched Act of his which was to bring civil war to old' Ireland.” The speaker drew a parallel jn whica he compared the Liberal-Nationalist coalition to a coalition which the devil formed for the purpose of destroying the world when ho was cast out from among the angels. The Bishop of Wellington (Rt. Rev. Dr Sprott) said that whatever one’s views might be on the expediency or otherwise of .an established Cnurch, one could not believe that any Government had a right to dismember a Church without its consent. If the biU became law it would separate four dioceses from the English Church, and compel them to bo a Church by themselves. His Lordship was of opinion that the bill had not a majority of the English people behind it, and that the Government would not have had a majority on the third reading but for the Irish vote. The Nationalists members, he believed, had given the Government their assistance, not because they thought that the Church in Wales should be disestablished, but because they thought they would receive. something of benefit to their party. The motion was carried without dissent.