DISESTABLISHMENT

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10639, 18 May 1912, Page 5

DISESTABLISHMENT

CABLE NEWS

(United Press Association — By Electric Telegraph — Copyright.)

SECOND READING OF THE BILL

GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF

PILLAGING

CONFISCATION OF PROPERTY

INDEFENSIBLE,

(Received Last Night, 9.30 o'clock.)

LONDON, May 17. In the House of Commons, the Welsh Disestablishment Bill was read a second time by 348 votes to 267. A dozen Liberals abstained from voting.

Sir Edward Beauchamp (Liberal member for Suffolk), and Mr George Harwood (Liberal member for Bolton) , voted against the Government.

Lord Hugh Cecil, speaking before the vote was taken, said that Establishment being the relation between the United Kingdom and the Church ought to be treated Imperially, and not as concerning Wales alone. The confiscation of property, which the Church had held undisputedly for 300 years, was wholly indefensible.

The Right Hon. D. Lloyd-George denied that funds derived from tithes were the property of thu Church, and stated that they were held in Trust for t'ho iiation. The Chin on, whi.e ne r cumulating endowments, act'pied the principle that the miintvii-jiice of the poor was the service of God, but the. ; poor's share of the tithe had been annexed. '.' ho Gov-..mm-nit, ho said, had been charged- with pillaging the Church, but the Church set the oxample when having severed its connection with the ancient" faith, property intended for the use of the poor and sick, went to the great families. The Duke of Devonshire issued a circular accusing the Government of "robbery from God," yet the foundation of the Duke's fortune lay in property which had been taken from the Church. Such an accusation should ,not be made by those whose family tree was laden with the fruits of sacrifice. Continuing, Mr Lloyd-George said that at the Reformation, Catholic Churches, monasteries, almshouses for tho poor, and even the dead were robbed. Now when the Welsh, were seeking to recover part of the pillage for J the poor those dripping with the fat of sacrifice ventured to accuse the Government of robbing from God. Mr Edgar Jones (Liberal member for Merthyr) and Mr T. Richards (Labour 'member for West Monmouthshire), indicated that the Wels'li; while desiring . a settlement, did not want the Giiiu monG y- The Church had tailed in its Fr'Osi, mm fiey must sur- I render it to tho nation. ' • 1

Mr Bonar Law, Leader of the Opposition, taunted the Government with not feeling proud of its proposal. The motive of the Wek'h members was to weaken the Anglican Church and not strengthen th-9 free churches. He censured Mr Lloyd-George for his attack upon the Duke of Devonshire, which was the most extraordinary lie had made in the House of Commons. Did Mr Lloyd-George mean, he asked, that tho Duke ought to hand over his property to the State? It was unfair to attack a man for what his ancestors may haro done four centuries ago. He was satisfied to base the Welsh churches' title to their endowments on prescription alone. Sir Reginald McKenna defended th Disendowment of the Church. .The tithe was, he said, the creation of the law. Parliament ought not, after the Disestablishment, to impose a tax. upon Welshmen for the benefit of a church which was not a national one.