SPEECH BY MR. REDMOND.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 95, 24 April 1911, Page 7

SPEECH BY MR. REDMOND.

AN OPTIMISTIC WELSH MEMBER. LONDON, 22nd April. Mr. J. E. Redmond, chairman of the Nationalist Party, speaking at Holyhead, in Wales, declared that the people of Ireland and Wales were one on the great national issues. ' Wales might rely on the Irish party insisting on Church disestablishment being carried during the present Parliament. He looked forward to the day when the thorny educational question would ba settled by an agreement on national j lines. | Mr. Ellis Griffith, Liberal M.P. for Anglesey (who presided), eaid next ses- 1 sion would see Home Rule and disestablishment through the House of Cony ! mons, and thus enabig both to come within the purview of the Parliament Bill and become law during the present Parliament. • [The questiou of the disestablishment and disendovrment of tho Church in Wales has for many years held a foremost' position in the Liberal programme. So long ago .19 1894 it fell to Mr. Asquith, on belialf of the Liberal Government, to bri ig in a Bill for the same purpose, and the, prospective measure is on the same lines. According to theLibeTal Monvhly, "the broad practical ground on which the case for the Bill rests is the fact that tho Church m Wales is only the Church of a small, minority of the Welsh people. Every test, both yreligious and political, that can be applied, proves this to bo true. All round, the figures show a three-to-one preponderance on the side of Nonconformity. Politically, too, tho case is overwhelming. For more than twenty years iihe Welsh people have voted by great majorities for disestablishment (in 1906 the majority was over 91,000, nearIly double what it was hi 1895). During [ the same time almost all their representatives have been in favour of it, never more than 5 out of the 34 have voted against it, while in 1906 every Welsti member was returned pledged to it. As Mt. Asquith said, a demand supported like that cannot be refused on any ground that is consistent 1 with democratic principles."]