['re TRH EDITOR OF THU fterseraws....] a,—Your correspondent, Mr. J.
E. Harlow, in last week's issue, says that " while much impressed by your plea for a State Church . . . I find it difficult to resist the Welsh case for Disestablishment ... called for by the most unanimous vote of the Welsh Parliamentary representatives." His proposi- tion seems to me to raise the question whether in all cases the principle of representative government requires that the wishes of the majority of the electors in any particular locality should be carried out even in the face of arguments founded on reason and justice. Professor Hobhouse in his book on "Liberalism" remarks that "it is not number that • counts morally, but the belief that is reasoned out according to the best of one's lights as to the necessities of the common good." How far is the Welsh vote unanimous in favour of the measure, and how far is that vote "reasoned out according to one's lights as to the necessities of the common good" P Taking the election of January 1910, when every Welsh seat was contested, as a criterion, it is clear that at least 30 per cent. of the electorate are ,opposed to Disestablishment, or, at any rate, voted Unionist. It is, moreover, quite uncertain what proportion of the Liberal and Labour vote is genuinely in favour of, at any rate, the drastic disendowment promoted by the party leaders. The proportion of members does not accurately represent the force of opinion on this question, still leas of reasoned opinion. With some of the older Nonconformists, ministers and people, voting for Disestablishment has become a "tra- dition of the elders " without any regard to the needs and conditions of the religious world of the present. Twenty years ago the enthusiasm for it was ten times as great as it is at present, and in many parts Church defenders went very softly. Things are very different to-day. At the meeting of the East Glamorgan Congregational Association at Caer- philly on January 31st the Rev. H. M. Hughes, editor of the Tyst, said : " Considerable apathy and ignorance still prevailed on this question. among Nonconformist members and young .ministers. • If ministers did not take this matter up, what could they expect from the masses of Nonconformity I' " The • Welsh National Liberal Council is doing . its best to make "a sense of injustice sting the nation," and £10,000 has been appealed for' to work a Disesta.blishment campaign. The member for Swansea, Sir A.. Mond, contributed £1,000 to this fund, but he is not a native of Wales. Lecturers are now being sent round Wales to stir up popular feeling, but the poor attendance and apathy displayed at their meetings are in marked contrast to the enthusiasm for Church Defence. The speeches are usually devoted to blots on the history of the Church in the past or discussions of the origin of tithe, and always avoid one salient point in the present-day system of Nonconformity in Wales—the dreadful under-payment of the ministry. It will hardly be believed that a large propor- tion of the Welsh Nonconformist ministers receive less than £80, and numbers less than 260 per annum. It is a favourite device of the Disestablishment orator to contrast endowment and spirituality. Emma Woodhouse showed a truer realiza- tion of life when she told Harriet Smith that "a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind and sour the temper. Those who can barely live and who live perforce in a very small and generally very inferior society may well be illiberal and cross." I believe that this remark explains in part the very curious phenomenon of one set of Protestant ministers striving to deprive others who differ but little from them in principle of the modest £150 or £200 per annum above which the Welsh vicar's income seldom rises. None the less it raises very grave questionings as to the future of religion, espe- cially in rural Wales. Twenty years ago few Welsh Noncon- formist ministers had degrees, and they were content to live a simple, quiet life on an extremely narrow income. To-day, thanks largely to the Welsh University, the denominations pride themselves, and justly, on the fine and lengthened training of their ministers. What is the result? All the denomina- tions are deploring the fact that their best men are seeking English pastorates. The Congregationalists are attempting to raise a fund to ensure their ministers a minimum wage of £80 a year. The Calvinistic Methodists are making a similar attempt by means of a contribution of a halfpenny a week from each " member." It is a proof of the difficulty of supporting the ministry in Wales without the help of endow- ments that this modest scheme had, at Aberystwith last month, to be referred back to the monthly meetings for further consideration. Facts such as these make many thoughtful Nonconformists oppose Disendowment. Seven delegates at the conference of North Wales Wesleyans held at Llanrwst on May 2nd voted against the resolution in favour of the Disestablishment Bill. I have written this somewhat lengthy letter in the hope that it may have some effect in inauencing even one reader to examine the case for the retention of its endowments by the Welsh Church on its merits and not merely dismiss the matter as a chose jug& because a large majority of the Welsh members vote with
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