The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-05 00:00:00

)e no abstrac

(Loud cheers.) lie had taken some
sting the actual state of the Welsh church,
" ascertaining the grounds upon which he

of the Principality
pains in investigati
for the purpose of

could aCany time come forward and support ameasure such
as was now before the meeting. He found that, in addition

to the livings which had been mentioned, he meant bene-

fices in the-dioceses of Bangor and St. Asaph—there were
double if not treble the number in South Wales—so poor as
not to be sufficient to support their clergy, who were pre-
vented by their calling from engaging in any other occupa-
tion, in order to find the means of a livelihood. (Hear.) The
Bishopric of St. Asapb, it seemed, contained about 21 livings,
each under £lOO a-year—that is, ranging from £l9 up to
£lOO. The Bishopric of Bangor contained 30 livings, each
under the value of £lOO a-year—that is, ranging from £5O

to £99. The Bishopric of St. _avid's contained lii.s livings,
each under £lOO a-year ; and, although the diocese contained
about 408 or 410 livings, returned to the ecclesiastical com-
missioners, the average income of the whole of them, rich
and poor, was only £l4B a-year. (Hear.) There was only

one living in the diocese of St. David's, out of the 410,
that was worth above £6OO a-year; there was not one be-
.

tween £5OO and £6OO ; there were just ten above £4OO, whilst
all the rest came under £3OO a-year, and, as he had
said before about 165, ranging from -.49 to £99 a-year.
(Hear, hear.) The consequence of this state of things must
be contemplated and fairly met, in order to shew that the
Principality had no revenues to spare for England. (Hear.)
He entreated those who were present, many of whom were
engaged in a small way of business in Liverpool which perhaps
realized £5O, £6O, £7O, or £BO a-year, to consider whether
it was expected that clergymen, who were prevented from en-

gaging in any occupation except the ministerial office, and in
a school occasionally, could bring up children from one to
ten—for clergymen in the Principality had frequently that
number—upon only £4O, £6O, £BO, or £99 a-year? if these
clergymen were to be confined to their own parishes, doing
the spiritual work in which they were engaged with faithful-
ness to their heavenly master, and with love for the souls of
those committed to their charge, was it likely they could
keep their children from poverty, or from cold, or from na-
nakedness, or shelter them from the_weather with no more

than £99 a-year ? (Hear, hear.) In travelling from St.
David's to the diocese of Llandaff, we found there were 6-1

benefices not amounting to Xloo a-year each ' • and that the
average of all the livings put together, rich and poor, would
give to each minister only about £lBO a-year. Now this was
a state of things which ought to call forth the sympathy of
Englishmen, ;and make them willing to leave to the poor
Principality its own revenues to support its own ministers, to
keep them from poverty, and their children from starvation,
and to enable those parents who felt for their children to
give an education to their little ones, which would help them
to obtain situations, so as to be of some use to society, and
to pass through the world with that respectability which
suited a clergyman's family. (Hear, hear.) The sun rose
in the east and travelled towards the west; the tide of
nations had come from the east and pursued its course west-
ward ' • but with regard to the church revenues of Wales, we
found that the tide run in a contrary direction—namely, from
the west towards the east. (Hear.) England threw nothing
into the principality, but the principality was made to throw
those revenues into England. He held in his hand a return
of some of the institutions of England which were supported
by revenues drawn from Wales—the craggy, the barren, the
mountainous principality, whose fastnesses had protected
alike their forefathers, their princes, and their valiant kings
and generals, when they were hunted like partridges upon
the mountains. Had not that poor unproductive province
appealed year after year against the abstraction of her reve-
nues, to support institutions in England ? Jesus' College,
Oxford, the Dean and Chapter of Winchester, St. John's
Hospital, Chester, the Grocers' Company, London, and
Lichfield Cathedral, all in England, had each a part of the re-
venues of Wales, yet England must have more to support a
bishdp in Manchester, of all places in the world—whose great
merchants—nay, any two of them, conjointly, could pur-
chase the whole principality ! Yet they could not support a
bishop for the benefit of their own population, for the benefit
of thousands who were working for them, and whose indus-
try was daily increasing their profits! Oh, it was a shame—
it was a reflection upon the nation to consent to such a mea-
sure as this, to make the poor inhabitants of his native land
to toil, and sweat, and lose their sleep, to support a bishop
iln the midst of merchants who were princes of the earth!
(Cheers. Now, he proposed, if there was no wisdom in
)
high quarters, to make an arrangement upon this subject,
and by a very easy plan to establish a new bishopric in
Manchester. There was a collegiate church there. The
principal of that establishment was formerly called the
warden, and he received twice as much as the fellows.
(Hear.) Already the principal had been made a dean,
and the fellows canons, preparatory, he supposed, to the
appointment of a bishop, to be supported—he hoped not
from the revenues of the principality, for that should not be.
(Applause.)
He (Mr. :lames) would make the Dean of
Manchester,
as he was now called, the Bishop of Man-
chester, and give him the £2OOO a year which was already
annexed to that office. He had examined into the actual
character of the prop
erty belonging to it, and he had been
told by an attorney of Manchester that they did not want the
revenues of Wales, for if the property of the Collegiate Insti-
tution was properly managed, it would produce £30,000
a year. Let the dean then be made the bishop, and let the
revenues now belonging to the office be annexed to the bi-
shopric ; let one of the canons be made the dean ; let
them so keep to themselves ; and if they wanted assistance,
let them make an appeal to their merchants, and he had no
doubt that emoluments would flow in sufficient to make the
Bishop of Manchester rival any bishop in England in point
cf dignity
as well in point of usefulness. (Loud cheers.)
It was necessary, in stating their views upon the subject, that
they should bring forward the strongest at guments in support
of their own claims, beTiuse those arguments would be read
and considered by Englishmen. He had always found that
Englishmen were not so readily carried away as Irishmen by
eloquence, but that they required appeals to facts.
a burst of
You might bring forward plausible arguments, but except you
supplied them with facts, you would not convince them. He
had found it so among the weavers of Yorkshire—men who
could not read, but who could speak excellent English.
He had found, he repeated, even those poor people require
facts to convince them.; and, indeed, it was the characteristic
of Englishmen
that, if you stated facts, to carry conviction
to their minds, You might get them to support anythifig.
He had taken some pains to explain in private the
(Cheers.)
actual position of the Established Church in the principality ;
and he had always found, that the gentlemen to whom, those
facts had been stated so as to afford them a succinct,' clear,
and correct view of the subject, had enlisted themselves heart
and soul upon his side ; they were prepared to support such