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.-------------------..-WALES…

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WALES FIRST, THEN SCOTLAND. "THE ESTABLISHMENT," said Mr. GLADSTONE in one of his recent speeches, is a local question." We are willing to take Mr. GLADSTONE at his word, and we invite him to apply the rule equally to Wales and to Scot- land. Some Liberals, following in the w&ke of Mr. GLADSTONE'S declaration at Newcastle a. few months ago, affect to be uncertain whether Welsh or Scotch Disestablishment should take the second place in the Liberal programme. If the two cases are considered in the light of Mr. GLADSTONE'S axiom that the Establishment is a local question we make bold to believe that precedence will be given to the Welsh ques- tion. The history of the Disestablishment move- ment in the two countries is dissimilar. The Welsh people seceded from a Church that was both alien and slothful. Dissent in Wales was a national protest against an indifferent and unspiritual ministry, against laxity of moral discipline, and against an anti-national system of Church government. Five or six generations of Welshmen have been taught to look else- where than t6 the Church of England for their spiritual food. Dissent and opposition to the State Church in Wales have become more than a conviction they have become a habit. Very different is the case with Scotland. The Free Kirk secession is comparatively but an event of yesterday, and is remembered by many who are yet alive. It was not occasioned by antagonism to an anti-national Church, or by differences on point of doctrine or of Church government or of Church discipline. It was caused simply by the fact that many of the best men in the Kirk objected to private patronage of livings-a thing which was no part of the old Scotch Kirk system, and which had been first introduced by the last Tory Govern- ment of Queen ANNE against the wish of Scotland, as a preliminary step to restoring episcopacy. The demand for Disestablishment is similarly of more recent origin in Scotland than in Wales. Mr. GLAD- STONE said himself the other day that he was only a very recent convert to Scotch Disestab- lishment. In 1885 he confessed he was doubtful, and had therefore opp03ed Disestab- lishment. It was only after 1886, when he saw that an increasing number of Scotch repre- sentatives were sent to Parliament pledge 3 to Disestablishment, that he lent to the movement the weight of his great name and influence. The cry for Disestablishment is no such new cry in Wales. As far back as the early days of the Thirties-when the Free Kirk of Scotland was yet a thing of the future-the question of Disestablishment was agitating the minds of the younger generation of Welshmen. ROGER EDWARDS, a young Methodist minister who was then editing the only Welsh newspaper, Cronicl yr Oes, was condemned by JOHN ELIAS and the older generation in the ministry, at the great Sassiwn of Bala, in the year 1832, for interfering in politics, and especially for advocating the Disestablishment of the Church. The generation of JOHN ELIAS died away and the next generation—the generation of ROGER EDWAKDS, of SAMUEL and JOHN ROBERTS of Llanbrynmair, and of DAVID REES of Llanelly-were "politioal" Dissenters and uncompromising opponents of the Establish*