LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE WELSH TITHE QUESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sxn,—It is not easy to apportion the blame among those who have had a share in bringing about the present deplorable -condition of affairs in Wales. Whether the guilt of an un- scrupulous Opposition or of a vacillating Government is the -greater, who can say ? Personally, I am inclined to think that the selfish and cowardly Conservatives, whose action paralysed the Ministry when they had at last made up their mind to act, are the most culpable of all. But at present I wish to call the attention of your readers to an utterance which escaped, I think, notice at the time when it was made, but which it may be even now profitable to recall, both on account of the dis- tinction of the speaker, and because it is typical of the -confusion, mental and moral, which seems to master almost -all the enemies of the Established Church in Wales.
" There is something almost grotesque," said Mr. Osborne Morgan to a Welsh audience, " in the idea of money wrung from poor, hard-driven farmers going to provide champagne and claret for the common-rooms of two of the wealthiest -Colleges in the world." Mr. Osborne Morgan is a responsible person ; he has been a member of the Ministry ; possibly he looks forward to being the Premier of a Welsh Administration. Does he seriously mean to affirm that a debtor is entitled to 'consider the way in which a creditor is likely to expend the money to which he is entitled, and to withhold payment if such expenditure displeases him Welsh farmers must not pay what they have contracted to pay, because it will be spent in champagne and claret for Oxford common-rooms ! This is indeed grotesque ; but the statement becomes absolutely -malignant when we consider who the speaker is. Mr. Osborne Morgan had a distinguished career at Oxford. He was not one of the herd of men who pass through the University in absolute ignorance of its constitution and government, -carrying away nothing but a vague idea that the " dons " spend enormous incomes in luxury. Though never, I believe, a Fellow, he prolonged his stay at Oxford for some terms, and 'must have gained, as such residents do, a fair knowledge of the college system. And he must have since learnt what was -done for this system in 1852, and again by the more recent reform which has only just been brought to a close. It is impossible but that he mast know that College revenues are not spent in "champagne and claret for the common-rooms of -Colleges," whether they be wealthy or poor. Fellows have a :strictly limited income, seldom, I believe, exceeding £200, and 'out of this they have to pay for any " champagne and claret "
which they may chose to drink. It is possible that once or twice in the year the domus fund may furnish the cost of a gaudy ;" but the picture which Mr. Osborne Morgan put before his audience of a number of men habitually spending
trust funds, as College revenues virtually are, on costly wines, is a fiction, certainly gross, and, considering what the speaker's .opportunities of knowledge have been, it is difficult not to add, P.S.—Perhaps I may say that, beyond a small scholarship held in my undergraduate days, I have never received a sixpence from any College funds.
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