WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.
WE recommend to Sir William Harcourt's and Mr. Bryce's consideration, the old legend that Lord Melbourne on one occasion, after the decision of the Cabinet to reduce the duty on corn to an eight-shilling fixed duty, put his back against the door and said to his colleagues : " Now, are we to say that this measure will cheapen bread, or that it will not cheapen it ?—it does not matter the least which we sav, but we must all say the same thing." It would be an advantage to the leaders of Opposition if they would take the same precaution to agree on the attitude they assume on the effect of such proposals as the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church. Mr. Bryce urged that step on the House explicitly on the ground that it would render the English Establishment much safer and more defensible than it now is. Sir William Harcourt, speaking later in the debate, and with more of the authority of the acting leader, not only held out no such hope, but based his whole argument on a ground which is just as good for the Disestablish- ment of the Church in England as it is for the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. It was the great mistake of the Government, he said, to con- found the Church with the Establishment. His con- tention was that the destruction of the Establishment would strengthen the Church, and for his evidence he appealed to the relative strength of the Anglican Church in the great towns of England on the one hand, and in the rural districts of England on the other. In the great towns of England, said Sir William Harcourt, the Church does not depend on its relatively insignificant endowments, but on the voluntary contributions of the thriving town population, and the result is that in these towns the Church is popular. In the rural districts, on the contrary, the Church depends on its endowments, and there it is very unpopular. It is an odd sort of logic which infers that because the Church is more popular where it is rich than it is where it is poor, the way to make it popular in the poorer districts is to strip it of all it still has ; but that is not the point to which we call attention, but to Sir William Harcourt's obvious and plainly stated argument against the Welsh Establishment on grounds which apply with just as much force to England as to Wales. He could not have said more plainly than he did, that he was against all Establish- ments, that they weaken Churches instead of strengthening them, and that the sooner they are got rid of, the better. The difference between Sir William Harcourt's line and that of Mr. Bryce was most conspicuous. Mr. Bryce assured the Conservatives that if they wished to keep the Establishment in England, they could not do better than give it up in Wales. Sir William Harcourt, on the other hand, stated his case exactly as if he were assailing the Establishment in England and Wales alike, and that, as we do not doubt, was precisely what he in- tended his Radical followers to understand. He cut the ground from under Mr. Bryce, and declared against the principle of Establishments. It was not the ex- tension of the Irish precedent to Wales for which he contended, but rather for an early assault all along the line. In our opinion, if Sir William Harcourt's speech could have been made a few days before the division, instead of at the last moment, the majority against Mr. S. Smith's resolution would have risen to 90, instead of to the very moderate figure of 47.
And yet we believe that Sir William Harcourt, by thus frankly throwing away all the special case for a separate Welsh instalment of Disestablishment, delighted rather than vexed the Welsh Members, who really care a great deal more for the general cause of Disestablishment than they do for merely carrying the little outwork occupied by the Church in Wales. They would like, no doubt, to assert the principle of Home-rule for Wales in relation to so important a field as that of Church Estab- lishment, but they would like still more to find them. selves engaged in a promising attack on the Established Church of the whole nation. Indeed, if they really and in their hearts held with Mr. Bryce that the Disestablish- ment in Wales would defer for an indefinite period the Disestablishment in England, we should expect them to be deeply divided amongst themselves whether they would not forego the local triumph for a better prospect of a more general and final victory. Mr. Balfour's not very amiable suggestion that the real object of the Welsh Disestablishers is not principle but plunder,—not to benefit either the Dissenters or the Church, but to gratify the passion of envy,—savours not a little of party violence. But we heartily agree with him that the Disestablishers do not really care seriously what becomes of the endowments which they are so eager to confiscate ; they would rather see the whole sum pitched into the sea than leave it un- touched in the hands of the Anglican Church, however well it might be spent. It is not perhaps very surprising when Mr. Balfour can use language so strong as he does against the Disestablishers, that the Disestablishers should feel about him and his party very much as he feels about them. Both parties perhaps care to win, more even than they care for the ostensible objects for which they are fighting. But while the assailants are bent solely on destruction, the defenders of the Church dread seriously the very great blow which her various beneficent agencies would receive by being suddenly deprived of resources which the clergy. sincerely believe to have been, in far the greater number of cases, deliberately dedicated to her use. In a case like this, it is impossible not to feel more sympathy with the persons threatened, than with the threateners, however high party feeling on either side may rise.
The more the special case for Welsh Disestablishment is considered, the less anxious do its advocates appear to is ake out the distinctive pleas on which they rely. The argument from statistics is virtually dropped ; the argument from the alleged alien character of the Church in Wales is virtually dropped; and more and more stress is laid in each successive debate on such arguments as would tell as much against the Church in England as against the Church in Wales. To this, however, there is one exception. The Welsh Disestablishers are never tired of pleading that twenty-seven out of thirty Welsh Members vote for Disestablishment, and this, of course, is an argument which has no application at all to the case of England. But the answer to that is very simple. Wales has no more right to be treated as ecclesiastically separate from England, than Durham. or Yorkshire. There are many patches of England where a considerable majority of the friends of Diseatab- lishment could be produced. It would be just as reasonable to abolish the Established Church in Durham or the Established Church in Yorkshire on such a ground as this, as to abolish the Established Church in Wales on. that plea. Why is Wales to be treated as ecclesiastically separate from England ? The Church in Wales existed before the Church in almost any part of England. The Church in Wales was the popular Church till a com- paratively very recent period. The rapid rise of Noncon- formity in Wales is a comparatively recent phenomenon, and it has not been gaining ground on the Church during, the last twenty years. Even the Welsh Nonconformists attend church very frequently, and regard the Church with none of the repulsion with which the Irish Catholics re- garded the Protestant Church of that country. If we are to displace such an Establishment as that in Wales because for a considerable number of years Nonconformists have- numbered about half the population, and of the other half a good many are indifferentists who do not care about religion at all, we ought to take a religious census every ten years, and disestablish or establish the Church in a, great variety of patches of the country every decade or so. The separate case for the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales becomes less and less prominent year by year ; and with Sir William Harcourt's speech on Tuesday night, we think we see the beginning of a new era, in which the Welsh will throw their main force into the attack on the National Church of England and Wales, and will no longer be dis- posed to risk very much on that separate campaign, in which, for this year at all events, they have displayed so relatively faint an interest.
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