The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-08-03
HOME RULEFO
 CHURCH IS WANTED
Committee Reports After Investigation of Religious
 Affairs in England

London, July 15-(Correspondence of the Associated Press.)-Home rule for the Church of England, in distinction from state control of the legislation of the convocation of Canterbury. and yet the acknowledgment of the states power of veto, are the chief points in the report of the committee appointed three years ago by the archbishops of Canterbury and York to consider problems of church reform.
 The committee was appointed to con- sider what changes are advisable in order to secure in the relations of church and state public expression of the national recognition of religion"
 The popular criticism that the Church of England does not represent the mind of the English people is frankly admitted as a fact in the report. The latter re- fleets in other ways the manner in which the leavening influences of democracy have been at work during the war.
 The committee proposes that its recom- mendations shall be effected through the establishment of a church council, con- sisting of three houses-bishops, clergy and laity. In the house of clergy the parochial clergy would have a majority, while for the house of laity a system of representation is suggested with special measures for insuring that mot less than per cent of it's members shall be drawn from the working classes, and that there shall be an infusion of unl- versity teachers and students.
 Special provisions are recommended looking to the preservation of the un- controlled powers of the bishops in re- gard to all matters of doctrine and to the end that legislative measures af- fecting formalities or services must be initiated In the house of bishops.
 As to the method in which the states control over legislation by the church council should be exercised, the proposal is made that every measure passed by the body should be reviewed by spe- cial committee of the privy council.
 In case measure Is deemed to require parliamentary sanction the proposal is that both the measure and the report should then be laid before both houses of Parliament. Before the measure may be submitted for the Kings assent, 1t may lay on the tables of both houses of Par liament for 40 days, and then only in case no resolutions recommending against this course-submitting it to the King-are passed.
 Some interesting points are raised in the portion of the report under ''Reserva- tions and Appendices" signed by various members of the committee. H. E. Kemp supplies memorandum on the aloofness of the working classes from the church, which he finds partially accounted for by the conviction that 'it is moral po- liceman used in the temporal interests of the property classes,' and that 'the moral teaching of the church Is against progress" Douglas Eyre considers 1t essential for the church frankly to claim the power, subject to the constitutional safeguards referred to in the report, to make complete and effective rearrange- ments in connection with ecclesiastical property, the conditions of it's tenure and also in connection with patronage" He adds that the church had far better make up its mind before Parliament is approached, that it needs an entire recon struction.