134,234 in 1906 to 152,654 in 1911, in Sunday-schoo scholars from 178,688 in 1906 to 197,129 in 1910, and in confirmations from 23,209 in the two years 1906-7 to 25,864 in 1910-11. The figures given fully confirm the statements made in the House of Commons by Mr Gladstone in 1891 and by Mr Asquith in 1909. Mr Gladstone, who lived in Wales, said, Undoubtedly the Established Church in Wales is an advancing Church, at active Church, a living Church, and I hope very distinctly a rising Church, from elevation to elevation.' Mr Asquith said, 'Everybody knows that during the last seventy years, at any rate, in the Church in England and Wales there has been opened a new chapter, a new beneficent and fruitful chapter, in their history. She has learnt, alas, too late, the lessons of the past. She now by every means which an enlightened ecclesiastical statesmanship, and a strong spiritual devotion to the best needs of the Welsh people could dictate, is overtaking, or endeavouring to overtake, the arrears of the past. It cannot equitably be said that it is too late to allow the Church in Wales to go on in peace with the good work it is admittedly doing in faithful discharge of the sacred trust attached to its endowments, when it is remembered that the greater part of the modern augmentation of its parochial endowments (which are even now insufficient) took place during the last seventy years through the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty. The poverty of the diocese of St David's at the beginning of the eighteenth century was deplorable. The Memorandum laid before the Commission by the late Archdeacon W. L. Bevan (vol. v., p. 222) shows that out of 308 livings in that diocese at the beginning of the eighteenth century the income of 110 was certified to Queen Anne's Bounty to average only 61. 28. a year.

A comparison between Church and Nonconformist figures in Wales is unnecessary to prove the unrighteous ness of the Government's proposals to secularise Welsh Church endowments. The sole question of equity is whether the Church in Wales is doing its work up to the average standard of activity for the whole Church in Eng land and Wales, or not. Nonconformist figures in Wales have, however, a bearing upon the piecemeal disestablish ment proposed by the Government. It is satisfactory to

ind that the majority of the Commission in their Report say, 'We think from the evidence adduced before us that the people of Wales show a marked tendency to avail themselves of the provision made by the Churches of all denominations for their spiritual welfare.' This broad fact is an argument against singling out Wales, with the marked religious traditions of its long history, for priority in the abandonment of a national recognition of religion which ought to weigh with those earnest men who sorrowfully see in the growing indifference of the age the strongest reason for disestablishment. From this point of view the relative strength of Nonconformity in Wales as compared with the relative strength of indifference in England is no special argument for Welsh Disestablishment.

The case from a religious standpoint against separate Welsh Disestablishment is strengthened by the large area of Christian truth which is common ground to Churchmen and Nonconformists in Wales. Bishop Thirlwall in 1868 said that the difference between Church and Nonconformity in Wales as compared with the difference between the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholics is as a crevice caused by the summer heat to a chasm opened into the depths of a rock by an earthquake.'* His statement is even more true to-day. The summary of the evidence of Nonconformist witnesses before the Commission about the religious position of Nonconformists in Wales at the present time, given by Archdeacon Evans and Lord Hugh Cecil in their Memorandum (pp. 104-125), shows that Nonconformity in Wales is in a state of profound transition. The distinctive denominational characteristics of a former age have mostly disappeared, and the present position is broadly that known as undenominationalism. According to the Memorandum,

'Though the Nonconformist churches in Wales, in view of this growing indifference and unsettlement, may, on account of their departure from their original doctrinal standards and consequent indefiniteness of doctrine, be in some danger of drifting, as is illustrated by the history of the old Calvinistic Presbyterians of Wales, yet it is clear from the

* 'Guardian,' February 13, 1895.

evidence that, at the present time, the undenominationa of the Nonconformist churches in Wales, if indefinite, is in substance in accord with the universal creeds of Christendom which serve as the anchor of the doctrinal system of the Church of England.'*

The report of the Commission shows that it is untrue to say that the Welsh are a nation of Nonconformists The number of Church adherents and Nonconformist adherents in Wales can only be ascertained by a parlismentary religious census. In Ireland a parliamentary religious census has been taken every decade since 1861: but in Wales the advocates of Welsh Disestablishment have persistently resisted the demand of Churchmen for a parliamentary religious census in Wales. The figures for Nonconformist adherents laid before the Royal Commission by the Welsh Nonconformist County Evi dence Committee which are published in volume V were found to be of little or no use for statistics. No Welsh Nonconformist denomination except the Calvinisti Methodist gives official figures showing the number of adherents in the Year Books. Since the Calvinistit Methodists, however, annually give in their Year Book figures for adherents including all members and all children of all ages from the year 1867, and since, accord ing to the evidence given before the Commission, the proportion between adherents and members is very much the same in all Welsh Nonconformist denominations, & computation of adherents in proportion to members of the other Nonconformist denominations may be made from the official figures of the Calvinistic Methodists The total number of all the adherents of the four larger Welsh Nonconformist denominations in Wales was thus computed by Archdeacon Evans and Lord Hugh Cecil

to be 1,032,254.

A similar computation estimates the adherents of the smaller Nonconformist denominations in Wales at 55,437, bringing the total number of Noncon formist adherents in Wales in 1905 up to 1,087,691. The Calvinistic Methodist Year Book shows a decrease of 24

in the number of adherents of this denomination in Wales

between 1905 (the Commission's statistical year) and 1910

As the Baptists and Congregationalists show a larg

* Report, vol. i, p. 113, 114.

decrease of membership than the Calvinistic Methodists during these five years, there must have been a considerable reduction in the total number of Nonconformist adherents in Wales between 1905 and 1910. The total population of Wales in 1911 was 2,421,218; and it follows that Nonconformist adherents in Wales are less than 45 per cent. of the population at the present time.

The number of Roman Catholics, including children, in Wales was returned to the Commission at 64,800, or 2.67 per cent. of the population at the present time. These figures show that 52 per cent. of the population are not to be reckoned in any sense as Nonconformists or Roman Catholics. The Royal Commission failed to ascertain the number of those who do not avail themselves at all of any religious ministrations. Mr Ellis Griffith, M.P., estimates that 20 per cent. of the population of Wales owe no allegiance to church or chapel. If his estimate is right, it would leave 32 per cent. of the population as adherents of the Church. The proportion of infant baptisms in church to the total number of births in Wales for the eleven years 1900 to 1910 inclusive is 32.2 per cent. The figures for infant baptisms confirm the inference drawn from the computation of Nonconformist adherents that Church adherents in Wales are about one-third of the population, and stand to the total number of Nonconformist adherents above the proportion of two to three, exceeding the number of adherents of the Calvinistic Methodists, Congregationalists and Wesleyans in Wales taken together.

The proportion of members and Sunday-school scholars to adherents is higher among Nonconformists than it is in the Church on account of the difference between Nonconformist and Church systems of religious work. A Nonconformist member is a person who, like a confirmed Churchman, is qualified to be a communicant.

"There is evidence that there is a wide divergence in respect of the minimum regularity of attendance required on the part of the Nonconformist members in order to retain their names on the chapel rolls. This divergence ranges from attendance at Holy Communion once in three months, which is the severe local rule of some Congregationalist and Baptist churches, down to an attendance of ten times in the year, and indeed even of only twice in the year, at ordinary

Sunday services (not Holy Communion), according to
Denbighshire County witness (Calvinistic Methodist)."

No return of confirmed Churchmen was made to the Commission. The return made was a return of persons known to have actually communicated during the year, for which figures were given; and the figures were vouched for by the name and address of each communicant. The Nonconformists in their organisation lay more stress than the Church upon Sunday-schools. The numerical preponderance of the Church over any single Nonconformist denomination was greater in 1910, according to the denominational Year Books, than it was in the statistical year of the Royal Commission, as is shown in the tables given below. No figures for total number of Church communicants in Wales for 1910 are available, but the increase in the total number of communicants may be taken to be at least not below 18,420, which is the increase in the number of Easter communicants in the four Welsh dioceses during the last five years for which figures are given. There is a slight discrepancy between Nonconformist figures for members in 1905 which appear in the Report of the Commission and the Year Books respectively. In the case of Sunday. school scholars the fairest comparison lies between the Year Book figures for 1906 and 1910, as there is some confusion about the inclusion of teachers in some cases in the figures given in the Report. The two following tables give the figures.