If we turn to educational objects, we find an eloquent disparity between the gifts of Churchmen and of Nonconformists. Churchmen, during the year 1893, have contributed 34,1427. 1s. 1d. to the maintenance of Welsh National Schools, and, within the last forty years, Churchmen have given no less than 397,4177. to the building and maintenance of National Schools in the diocese of St. Asaph alone. To elementary education, on the other hand, Nonconformists contribute nothing in the form of voluntary offerings. To the University Colleges, which are Nonconformist and Radical in character and government, Churchmen have contributed most largely. To the Bangor College more than half the subscriptions were given by Churchmen; to the Aberystwith College, practically a Nonconformist institution, with Principals who have always been Nonconformist preachers, Churchmen contributed 33 per cent. Finally, all the Grammar Schools in Wales were endowed by Churchmen, and to the new Intermediate Schools the largest subscribers have so far been Churchmen. If we pass to voluntary contributions to the founding and building of Infirmaries, Hospitals, and similar institutions, equally striking are the results of enquiry. The following figures, communicated by the Bishop of St. Asaph, are the product of a most careful and laborious investigation which has extended over many months. The amount of donations and benefactions given during the years 1843-1893 by Churchmen and Nonconformists in Wales shows that Nonconformists have not given even a tenth of the money contributed by Churchmen. Total Donations and Given by Churchmen. Given by Noncon- Not classified.* 318,958. 198. 11d. 251,858. 168. 11 d. 24,006l. 118. 5d. 43,0931. 118. 6d. If, again, we look at the amounts annually contributed to the maintenance of these Institutions, thus founded and built, it may be almost said, by the unaided liberality of Churchmen, we find in the year 1892 that Nonconformists contribute a bare quarter of the sum given by adherents of the Church : * Under this heading are included contributions from Works and Companies, Bazaars and Entertainments. With these figures before us, we shall await with curiosity Sir G. Osborne Morgan's panegyric on the liberality of Nonconformists and the unselfishness of the voluntary system. There is indeed a more urgent need for this unselfish liberality in the Church than in the Chapel, because in Wales the Church is emphatically, as Sir George has before now pointed out, the Church of the two ends of the social scale. It is the Church of the few in Mr. Gladstone's qualitative sense of the word; it is also the Church of the many, whether in quantity or quality. The sneer is commonly levelled at the Church that the majority of the paupers in the workhouses of Wales are Churchmen. The sneer recoils on those by whom it is passed. Workhouse statistics prove that the population which is on the border line of pauperism belongs to the Church, and that, if it is the Church of the rich, it is also the Church of the poor. This fact is illustrated from the opposite side by a striking piece of evidence. It is the necessary defect of any purely voluntary system that those persons who cannot contribute to the support of a minister are deprived of spiritual ministrations. At the meeting of the Calvinistic Methodists at Llandudno in 1887, a Report was received from a Committee which had been appointed to enquire into the cause of the declining numbers. The Report attributed the decrease inter alia to the action of the officers in erasing from the books the names of those who were too poor to pay their contributions. One other statement deserves notice before we discuss the minority' argument, on which the whole of the case pleaded by opponents against the Church practically depends. Sir George claims the immunity of Wales from crime as the achievement of Nonconformity, and, therefore, as dating from 1811. To establish his point, he ignores the evidence of a long chain of native writers, from Giraldus Cambrensis downwards, who bear unanimous testimony to the law-abiding character of the Welsh people. On the evidence of a paltry nursery rhyme, which was the production of an alien,-Taffy was a Welshman,' &c., this zealous champion of Welsh nationality blackens the character of the ancestors of the people, and discredits the veracity of the native historians, in order to prove that, until Charles ordained his lay-preachers in the first decade of the present century, Wales was sunk in every form of criminal disorder. If the proceeding were not so ludicrous, it would be culpable. We now turn to the argument that the Church is the Church of the minority.' Upon the proof of this allegation the case of the advocates of disestablishment and disendowment practically rests. Without official demonstration of the great numerical pre dominance dominance of Nonconformists over Churchmen, it is impossible to bring the Welsh Church within the precedent of the Irish Act. At the outset of the enquiry we are met by this striking fact: Liberationists strenuously oppose, Churchmen as strenuously demand, an official census of the relative numbers. In the case of the Irish Act the distribution of the population between the rival religious bodies was officially ascertained. The fact that the Irish Church was the Church of a very small minority was placed beyond dispute before any legislative action was taken. On what grounds do the advocates of Welsh Disestablishment refuse to follow the precedent, on which, in other points, they so confidently rely? For what reason do they decline a test, to which their whole argument is a prolonged invitation? Why do they resist an enquiry which, if they are right, will strengthen, and, if they are wrong, destroy, their case? The persistent refusal of Welsh Liberationists to submit to the ordeal of a general religious census forms a sinister feature in their agitation against the Church. Nor is the unfavourable impression removed when their manipulation of statistics and their efforts to procure a private census are fairly considered. In 1851 the Census returns gave 109,591 persons as present in church, and 427,274 as present in all the various Dissenting chapels at the most numerously attended service. The total population was then 1,011,784. The proportion given by a Census which was in many ways unduly favourable to Nonconformists, and was taken at a period when the fortunes of the Church were at their lowest, is under that of 1 to 4. This result, made known more than forty years ago, gives the only official figures that are available. The deficiency is supplied by numerous guesses. It may be useful to put together a few of the recent calculations offered by Nonconformists as to the number of Churchmen. It will not escape notice that, though the Church has admittedly gained ground within the last twenty years, the most liberal of these calculations reduces the number of Churchmen below the figures officially given forty years ago. To make plain the fractional proportions of the population which have been at various times used by Liberationists, we have assumed that the population of Wales is 1,500,000. 1870 .. Mr. Watkin Williams, M.P. 1886 Mr. Dillwyn, M.P. 1891 = = one-fifth = 300,000 one-eighth 187,500 one-ninth = 165,000 one-eighth 187,500 one-fourth = 375,000 Mr. Lloyd George, M.P. Mr. Pritchard Morgan, M.P. one-sixth = 250,000 1892 Mr. S. Smith, M.P. It is evident that calculations which vary between one-tenth and one-fourth are of no real value. They cannot all be right; and the evidence of the polling at general elections, if it shows anything at all, proves that all are wrong. In 1885 the results of the elections demonstrated that two-fifths of the population voted for the policy of the Conservatives, and the remaining three-fifths voted for that of the Gladstonian party. In the General Election of 1892 the total number of voters in Wales and Monmouthshire was 314,540, and the total number who voted for the Gladstonian party, including the six uncontested seats, was 145,818.* That is to say, a number of persons, who comprise considerably less than half of the voters on the register, and less than a twelfth of the total population, supported a varied programme, which included among its miscellaneous items, the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church in Wales. Nor must it be forgotten that, at an election, the strength of Nonconformity, lying as it does among the well-todo middle and lower classes, is polled to a man. Only one side, on the other hand, of the strength of the Church is represented at an election. The institution which alone ministers to those who are too poor to pay for religion, necessarily contains a large proportion of adherents who are not voters. That the figures of the official Census and of the polls are not entirely satisfactory to the Liberationists is proved by their anxiety to supplement them with self-contradictory guesses, and with the unchecked, untested results of unofficial censuses. Among these amateur attempts to number the adherents of the Church and of the Nonconformist bodies, the census of Mr. Owen Owens and that of Mr. Gee deserve passing notice. Mr. Owens in November 1891 produced an estimate of the number of those who attended church on a particular Sunday in the diocese of St. Asaph. The district is a rural one, and, in many parts, wild and mountainous. The chosen day was extremely inclement. Mr. Owens proved to his own satisfaction that, out of a total population of 113,000, 11,009 persons attended church, and he therefore concluded that the number of attendants did not reach 10 per cent. of the population. Even if the facts were as stated, they prove very little. But the accuracy of the returns will not bear any test. In Wrexham, for instance, the amateur census-taker omitted five places of church worship altogether, and miscalculated the population of the town by 2000 inhabitants. In one place the enumerators were two children, aged respectively eleven and thirteen, and the results of their calculation showed a difference of 45 per cent. In nine out of the total number of 73 churches, the numbers assigned to the congregation were smaller than the numbers of those who had communicated at these churches on Easter Sunday. Other points might be noticed, but enough has been said to demonstrate that the amateur census of Mr. Owens was entirely unreliable and untrustworthy. The history of Mr. Gee's census is still more striking. It is better known, and has been quoted as conclusive in the House of Commons. On the 9th of January, 1887, Mr. Gee took a census of those who attended the churches in South Wales. The results were not, and never have been, disclosed; but a fortnight later (29th of January, 1887), a notice appeared in the 'Baner' to the effect that Mr. Gee intended to put these returns entirely aside, and to make a secret census in every church throughout Wales so far as we can. Of course we shall not announce when this is done.' In 1891, after four years of secret manoeuvring, Mr. Gee obtains figures which are more to his mind. He sends these substituted returns to Mr. Dryhurst Roberts to be tabulated, and empowers Mr. Pritchard Morgan to inform the House of Commons that these are the genuine returns for January 9, 1887. Consequently Mr. Pritchard Morgan in February 1891, in moving his resolution in favour of Disestablishment, stated that the number of attendants in the churches of South Wales on January 9, 1887, was 89,047, and that these figures had not been questioned. Mr. Gee was prepared to make an affidavit that he had not opened the returns which he forwarded to Mr. Roberts for tabulation, and Mr. Roberts was prepared to swear that he has correctly tabulated the figures forwarded by Mr. Gee. The oath of neither would be the least to the point. 'Truth will out even in an affidavit.' Mr. Gee did not tamper with the figures, because he had withdrawn the originals and spent four years in substituting others which were more favourable; Mr. Roberts may tabulate the figures supplied to him accurately, but he cannot answer for their correctness. So much for the boasted census which Mr. Pritchard Morgan foisted upon the House of Commons as correct and undisputed! The only arguments by which Liberationists defend their refusal to submit to the ordeal of a religious census, are that Churchmen would not accept the results as conclusive of the case, |