The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-05-09
STATE AND CHURCH
LL0YD-GE0RGE CRTTICIsEs POSI-
 TON OF ENGLAND.
Board of Trade President DecIares.Th Britain Like Other Democratic Countries should Avoid All
 Secfarfan Politics.

London. May s.--In the course os the
 debate in the House of Commons to- day on the education bill, David Lloyd
 George, President of the Board of Trade. answering the claim of former
 Premier Balfour. Conservative. for a logical settlement of the educational
 question, said 1t was easier to be log
 ical in criticism than in action.
 Of our logical settlements" the
 first was purely secular. the second
 frankly denominationai all around, the
 third a common religious syllabus and the fourth was, we might say. that
 there could not be common religious
 syllabus between Protestant and Cath
 olcs. This was the settlement had in
 Germany. Quebec and Holland. It was
 recognition that fundamental differ
 ences could not be solved.
 The speaker said that he had exam ined these various settlements in order to show why the government had con- cluded that the last of the four was the only one 1t could propound in the cir clumstances, having regard not of the situation. It was said they should give the same right of religious teach ings 10 every denomination, but the as- sumption was that none had dogmas except the church of England an as- sumption with a touch of arrogance in 1t.
 Nonconformists had given the best pledge of the sincerity of their beliefs in their own individual dogmas. It was not SD easy to be a nonconformist in the rural villages of England. where those on whom the people depend for their living went to the village church of the big landlords. who, 4f offered, would make life intolerable. That right had any one to assume that the dogmas of the church was everything in the eyes of the law and that these poor. despis- ed chapels were of no account?
 If right were given one denomina- tion. 1t should be given all. The bill assumes that the non con formists would not do anything but pay the rates and obey the law. and that 1t was the busi- ness of the Anglicans to make the law and profit thereby. States. MT. Lloyd George said do not bring up secta- rians, but citizens.
 The Government remedy for the dif- fculty was a common syllabus. It seemed to him the differences were largely artificial in Protestant churches and that the real difference between the advanced theologian and the old one was one of political differences be- tween Liberals and Conservatives.
 What Is occurring in England, MT Lloyd George declared, was part of a general movement that had occurred In every democratic country in the world. There were three democratic countrles-America. France and Eng land. What Is taking place in those showed that democracy had come to the conclusion that clericalism Is its enemy. There is no use saying there is hatred of a special church; It was the instinct of three great e,mocratic people moving towards what they believed was liberty of con science.
 The people had made up their minds to stand and rally round the Bible, which they were anxious should be placed in the hands of their children, that no ecclesiastic or politician should hG allowed to interfere between a child and the great Book which ad saved England from darkness in the past and would continue to Hume the gloom that might oppress her in the future, and principles which would perhaps help bring about a better state of things than their parents had enjoyed.