executive might be provided to prevent any possible abuse by the statutory body of these powers. There remains the question of education. It is incontestable that the condition of elementary education in Ireland is deplorable: school buildings are defective, the teachers are ill paid, and consequently too often incompetent, and the equipment of the majority of schools wholly insufficient. Why does this lamentable state of things obtain in Ireland? The simple answer is that Irish education is purely denominational, and a Chief Secretary would hesitate long before he ventured to brave the storm that would undoubtedly rise in this country if he attempted, on those denominational lines which would alone be acceptable in Ireland, reorganisation and adequate endowment of her elementary schools. It is beyond question that educational progress in Ireland is at a standstill, and will so remain until it is placed under the control of a representative Irish authority. Objections are urged against the suggestion to confer on the statutory body the control of expenditure. The contention is, and it was urged with great force and ingenuity by Lord Atkinson when the Dunraven proposals were under discussion, that this power would violate a cardinal constitutional principle-namely, that the appropriation of expenditure must be made by Parliament which votes the finance. This principle is, indeed, unimpeachable where the grant is made to the Crown; but where the authority to whom the power of applying funds may be conceded is popularly elected ad hoc, the objection savours of constitutional pedantry. Provided the general directions of expenditure be carefully defined, there appears no reason why a certain latitude in appropriation might not be permitted to the statutory body.

May we not, standing for one moment outside the narrow confines of party, view, as it were from some specular height, the positions occupied by those who are striving with no ignoble motives to maintain the great ideal of Imperial unity, and of those who, on the other hand, are making yet another effort to destroy that spurious unity which is the product of coercion, and build up in its place the nobler and more lasting unity that springs from mutual regard and common interest? It is idle to deny that both contending parties have the same end in view-the well-being of Ireland and the security of the Empire; but there is something more needed than the material well-being of Ireland, and that is national contentment; and at this crisis, when economic evils are abated, when law and order are maintained, not by the forces of the Crown, but by the goodwill of her people, might we not indulge in the hope that these opposing forces may cease contention and co-operate for the purpose of finding a durable and reasonable solution of this pernicious controversy ?

L. A. ATHERLEY-JONES.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A PLEA FOR REFORM

To those who have devoted any attention of late years to the manner in which religion and politics have become so unhappily blended, the future of our present Established Church must have appeared to be one of the gravest peril. It cannot possibly be denied that each one of the last few General Elections has seen the opponents of the Established Church grow more numerous and more outspoken in their envious hatred of a rival who, to within the last few months, had not deigned even to defend herself from these rapacious attacks. Why the Established Church should have raised up so many and such bitter enemies, and why their numbers and their hostility should have so steadily increased, may, at first sight, appear extraordinary to those who remember the praiseworthy efforts which, to their great credit, the vast majority of the parish clergy have made to hold themselves aloof from political questions of the day and to work on amicable terms with the disciples of other forms of Christian religion. It is certainly almost beyond doubt that the very few instances of indiscretion which have been committed by clerics of the Church, and which have been exploited to their utmost value by political and religious opponents, would not, in themselves, have been sufficient to arouse the deep-seated and general resentment which undoubtedly exists and which it would be worse than foolish to ignore. To what, therefore, is it possible to attribute the present almost friendless position of the Church? The answer, if one is to be found, must be in the constitution of the Church herself. It has been said, and, unfortunately, with too great truth, that we are no longer a nation of shopkeepers, but a nation of politicians. Nowadays, no man is content to be governed, he is not to be satisfied until he is given some kind of say in the matter himself. That he was being well governed before is nothing to the point, in his opinion. If the individual himself were asked to explain his reasons, his answer would probably be to the effect that he would prefer to be ill-governed and cheated by a representative Government in whose appointment he himself had acted a small part, than to enjoy all the blessings of the finest administration that could possibly be conceived, if that adminis509

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tration were to be directed by a dictator. Recent legislation-and legislation nowadays has deteriorated into what is very little better than vote-catching-has furnished continual examples of the acuteness shown by the politicians of both parties in pandering to this innate spirit of meddlesomeness in the electorate. Our present County, District, Parish, and Municipal Councils are all instances in point, though it is extremely doubtful if the individual is in the slightest degree better off than he was in the days when nine-tenths of the work was done by the county justices at an infinitely less cost.

If we accept this reason of the constitution of the Church as the reason for the hostility shown to it, it also enables us to understand the deplorable apathy shown by the vast majority of Churchmen to the perilous position in which the Church finds herself. This indifference, in a cause which should evoke the utmost interest and activity of those who really value the form of religion they have chosen for their own, arises from causes very similar to those which have banded together the followers of other religions in their assaults on the Church. Even those who approve of an autocratic form of government, either in religion or politics, seldom manage to muster much enthusiasm in its support. Autocracy, while frequently working well and nearly always with a total absence of the unpleasant wrangles and dissensions which periodically occur in representative assemblies, yet, by its independence of the support of the individual, automatically loses that whole-hearted allegiance of its subjects which, in the hour of danger, is as necessary to a Church as to a dynasty. It is from this indifference on the part of its members, almost equally as much as from the attacks of its enemies, that the Church of England is now suffering. Strenuous efforts have been, and are being, made by an alarmed clergy and by a few of the more deeply-thinking and self-sacrificing lay members of the Church to instil a more energetic spirit of combination and resistance into the rank and file of their supporters. These efforts, however, are producing but a feeble response, and it is but too evident that, unless drastic and far-reaching alterations in its constitution are voluntarily made by those who hold the reins of power to-day, the hour of the Established Church is at hand. Even in these partial and spasmodic efforts to avert the impending doom, the inherent weakness of the Church may clearly be seen. The archbishops have little control over their subordinates, the bishops differ widely in their rule and in their teaching, the High Church and Low Church parish clergy are fighting amongst themselves. While all are agreed that organised opposition to the attacks that are being made upon them is urgently necessary, there is no agreement as to the proper methods to be adopted to meet them. While, in one diocese, a bishop sets the example of voluntary surrender of power in order to encourage the interest of his supporters and to conciliate the more moderately minded of his opponents, in

another the bishop insists on the carrying out in every parish church of those parts of the ritual of the Church which many of its best supporters would be glad to see omitted, both on the score of policy and of a more modern and tolerant conception of the teachings of Christianity. Such a want of unity between high ecclesiastical authorities is bound to react unfavourably upon the designs of all and to paralyse initiative among the lower officials and the lay workers. No band of workers, however zealous and devoted, can possibly hope to obtain any proportionate result from their efforts, unless these efforts are clearly directed towards the same objective and receive the same encouragement from all interested in the movement.

That the Church is profoundly indebted to those who, like the Bishop of Rochester, recognise that a partial renunciation of rights and prerogatives is the only alternative to complete annihilation, and have the courage to set a much-needed example, is beyond controversy. What may be doubted, however, is whether the power of the bishops, great though it be, and tolerant though most of them are, is yet sufficient to enable them to fully meet the demands which the situation undoubtedly requires. We are informed, through the public press, that the Bishop of Rochester has handed over the right of presentation to a living, in all those cases where the gift is in his hands, to the members of the Church of England resident in the respective parishes. This is really all that he has it in his power to do, and it is to be presumed that it would be within the power of his successor to revoke even that. What is wanted is that the power of appointment should be permanently vested in the members of every parish congregation. Moreover, in these democratic days, it is impossible to argue that a cure of souls should, when once given to a clergyman, remain his for the term of his natural life, irrespective of the condition to which age and its attendant infirmities may have reduced him. With the acceptance of the principle that the labourer is worthy of his hire has come the conviction that only those capable in mind and body of executing the provisions of the trust should be allowed to draw the emoluments pertaining to it. Now the constitution of the Church of England utterly fails to carry out either of these primary duties. The gross mismanagement of the vast funds at the disposal of the Church enables some of its dignitaries to enjoy a life of luxurious leisure, while many of its most hardly worked members are barely provided with the ordinary necessaries of existence. The methods of examination as to the fitness of candidates for Holy Orders are so deficient as to admit into the Church men whose want of theological knowledge is so intense as to arouse the contempt and indignation of many of the lay members of their flocks. A recent letter to a newspaper, written by a clergyman of the Church of England, admitted this unfortunate fact fully, and complained bitterly that the religious education of the majority

of our clerics was far inferior to that possessed by the ministers of the Nonconformist Churches. The system of appointment to livings is hopelessly archaic. While there is something to be said in favour of appointment by a bishop on the score of his technical knowledge of what is required from an incumbent, there can be no defence of the power of appointment possessed by rich men and richer colleges merely by reason of the fact that they have chosen to invest their capital in land. The bestowal of a living by a college is nearly always made the occasion for a pure job, the fitness of a man for a town or country living hardly enters into the calculation of the college authorities; what is far more to the point in their opinion is which of the two the candidate prefers. Their knowledge of the districts to whose spiritual needs they are supposed to administer is, with the exception of that of the college bursar, absolutely nil, and, even in his case, it is dependent entirely on a bi-yearly excursion to collect rents. The case of appointment by a local magnate is almost equally indefensible. It is certainly true that the landlord has usually a good general knowledge of the requirements of the district, although even this is by no means always the case, but against this has to be set the great probability that the donor has only the haziest conceptions of what the duties of a cleric should be. The average country gentleman is usually perfectly pleased with himself and confident that he has done his duty by his neighbours if he appoints a man on whom he can rely not to preach a sermon of more than ten minutes' duration, who can play with a straight bat, bowl a decent length ball, and perhaps make a fourth at bridge. Now, it is not to be denied that a clergyman who can take an able part in the innocent amusements of his parishioners has an added opportunity of doing good amongst them, but these accomplishments should be considered as an additional and not as an essential reason for the appointment.

While this question of appointment however remains a grave blot upon the management of the Church, there are other and even more serious ones connected with it. To appoint a clergyman to a living is a very easy thing to do; to deprive him of it is almost a sheer impossibility, short of assistance in the shape of gross misconduct on the part of the beneficiary himself. That an incumbent should be carefully guarded against the hasty or intolerant actions of a person or a board is only just, but that, short of the gravest misbehaviour, a man should be at liberty to flout the wishes of his entire congregation, to neglect its needs, to deface its church, to desecrate its graveyard, to do all or any of these things and to be enabled, while so doing, to draw the emoluments of his office during such period as he chooses to hold the living even up to the day of his death, is just neither to the cleric nor his parishioners. The official has no encouragement to exert himself or to assist his flock, while they, in their turn, regard the behaviour of their shepherd with ovine