the Church against the will of both. It is a difficulty inherent in dealing with a portion of a religious body as if it were a national unit, and proposing to "disestablish only a section of a national Church, that the whole ecclesiastical unit becomes in part disestablished and in part established; and the effect of this on the powers of the general consultative body of the whole Church, so divided, is at least to render these of doubtful validity. The Dean of Durham (Dr. Henson) pointed out to the Committee, that even if Convocation were left untouched and the Welsh members of it were free to take part as before in its discussions, that you then have a body in which the Welsh members may discuss and vote on many questions which only affect the English members, because they affect the relations of the clergy and church to the law of the land, and do not affect the private and voluntary discipline of the Welsh Church; though he admitted he did not see anything to prevent the Welsh dioceses being formed constitutionally into a new Province. But these do not constitute sufficient reasons for the State dictating to a religious body which it has freed from State control and deposed from State pre-eminence, what its organisation is to be, or for depriving the Welsh portion of the Anglican Church of its right to be represented in the general consultative body.. If this portion is taken out of the Province to which ecclesiastically it has always belonged, this constitutes an interference with its members and their organisation after the only reason for the State's right of interference has been removed. A fortiori, if it is not taken out the injustice is greater. The logical position of a disestablished Church must surely be that it should be free from State control and its voluntary organisation should be left to its free choice, and the State's right of control should be limited to the State's depriving it of its official character.

There seems to be, therefore, good reason for taking out of the Act the provisions which dismember the Welsh area portion of the Church from the whole body, and limiting disestablishment to mere severance from the State connection, which can be secured by abolishing State patronage of bishoprics and benefices, redeeming private patronage (as in the case of the Irish Church), and depriving the Welsh sees of their right of membership of the House of Lords (a right which in the eventual reconstitution of that House the Anglican Bishops will almost certainly not continue to enjoy exclusively of the other denominations), and making Church law and Courts and discipline matters of contractual sanction. It is important to remember that there is no precedent for the disestablishment of a territorial section of a national Church. The case of the Irish Church, which has been largely referred to as a direct precedent in this matter, is distinguished in many particulars. Ireland was ecclesiastically distinct from England: it had its own Convocation (though this had not met since 1714), and separate organisation; it was only united with the Anglican Church by Act of Parliament and otherwise remained separate.

By the Irish Church Act 1869, the Union created by Act of Parliament between the Churches of England and Ireland sixty-nine years before was dissolved, and the Church of Ireland ceased to be established by law. The archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons were deprived of any coercive jurisdiction; the Ecclesiastical Courts were abolished, and the ecclesiastical law of Ireland, except as to matrimonial causes and matters, ceased to exist as law; all ecclesiastical corporations were dissolved, and no archbishop or bishop of the Church were to be summoned to or qualified to sit in the House of Lords as such. All laws prohibiting the holding of synods and conventions were repealed, and the bishops, clergy, and laity of the said Church were not to be prevented from meeting in general synod or

convention, and by such representation and elected as they should appoint, to frame constitutions and regulations for the general management and good government of the Church, its property and offices, and the future representation of its members in diocesan synods, general conventions, or otherwise. The existing ecclesiastical law as to articles, doctrines, rites, rules, discipline, and ordinances of the Church were to subsist by contract, and to be enforceable in the temporal Courts. Provision was made. as to the disposal of the Church property, and power was given to set up an incorporated governing Church body for the purpose of holding property. The Church was thus left entire freedom as a voluntary religious body, and the relationship between it and its members was definitely put on the basis of a contract; and no breach was made in its continuity as a Church. It is difficult to conceive how a different course is possible in the case of the Welsh dioceses, and how any person except members of the Church in Wales can claim to have any say in the matter. It certainly does not seem to be possible for Nonconformists to claim that Church people are not to decide that their Church government is to continue as before. The same principle is applicable to other denominations, and the disestablished Church is entitled to the same measure of freedom as them.

Another analogy, cited in the proceedings before the House of Lords' Committee, for the proposed position of the Welsh Church, is the voluntary position of the Anglican Churches, which have become autonomous ecclesiastical organisations (Provinces), in the Dominions. But in these cases it has been the wish of the particular Church itself; and their ecclesiastical history and geographical considerations are entirely different from that of the relation of Wales to England. These churches confer at regular intervals with the Church of England and act on the same

lines, but they have no direct influence on its decisions, and for example, the Royal Supremacy element in the Church's doctrine has no counterpart with them as unofficial churches. Whether this tenet would be retained by the Church of England, if disestablished, may be doubted, but the legal definition of it given already (viz. the supremacy of the Sovereign over his subjects) contains nothing that any Church could not accept consistently with obedience to their own voluntary constitutions.

An additional reason for the further consideration of the whole question of the future relations between the State and the Church in Wales, is to be found in the evidence tendered to the House of Lords' Committee on the second head of their investigation, viz., whether an increasing Nonconformist opinion in Wales is not beginning to declare against the disendowment proposals of the Bill. There are signs of a growing consciousness that an attack on the position of any one religious body in the country, and any diversion of its revenue to secular purposes, may weaken the religious life of the country as a whole, and may constitute a possible precedent for the State interfering with the endowments of other religious bodies. The proposed action with regard to the Church in Wales, even if it is restricted to the mere withdrawal of the State's recognition and control of that portion of the Church of England, will inevitably disturb the historic continuity of the whole body; and the contractual basis of relationship between a Church and its members, which is intelligible and appropriate for bodies of comparatively modern origin, seems a little inadequate in the case of a Church which the civil power has guaranteed for eight hundred years, and whose laws and regulations are Catholic in the widest sense, i. e., derived from the great collective body of Canon law or Church law. The new Welsh Anglican Church-if it has to organise itself in such a local form-will have to decide

for itself such questions as the tenure of livings or cures, the disciplinary powers of ecclesiastical superiors over inferiors, the doctrines it is to hold, and its future relations to its parent body. It would be contrary to the spirit of the Toleration Act, and to all accepted notions of perfect. freedom of religion, for the State to attempt to impose any restrictions on the freedom of action of the Church after it has ceased to hold any official position; and the State will be well advised, in the light of history, to limit its action to "disestablishment" (if that is necessary) in the strict sense of the word, i.e., deprivation of official control by and dependence on the State. In that case the Church in Wales will no doubt regard the action of the State as having no relation to its spiritual organisation and activities, and the ecclesiastical unity of the Church of England (embracing Wales) can be preserved intact.

G. G. PHILLIMORE.

TH

II. THE MACNAUGHTON CASE.

HE case of Daniel MacNaughton, who was tried in 1843 for the murder of Mr. Edward Drummond, whom he had mistaken for Sir Robert Peel, is an important one in our criminal annals. The prisoner was acquitted on the ground of insanity, to the great indignation of the outside public. Men were horrified and disgusted at the escape of one who appeared a cold-blooded murderer, and the public - feeling was loudly voiced in the press and in Parliament. Sir Valentine Blake went the length of moving in the House of Commons for leave to bring in a Bill to abolish the plea of insanity in cases of murder, except where it could be proved that the person accused was publicly known and reputed to be a maniac. On the same night the matter