n of opinion, it necessarily involved some change of
attitude, and on some questions he spoke with a freedom which would have
been impossible as a member of the Conservative party. On Church
questions, for example, while strongly maintaining that the country was
not ripe for the disestablishment of the Church in England, he declared
that in his opinion the exclusive alliance of one religious denomination
among many with the State could not be permanently maintained side by
side with a democratic representation--that disestablishment and at
least partial disendowment must ultimately come; that if the
representatives of Scotland desired the disestablishment of their
Church, it was not for Englishmen to oppose them; and that Wales had a
strong claim to be separately dealt with. 'The Welsh people constitute
in many respects a distinct nationality, and I do not see why we should
refuse to Welsh loyalty what we have granted to Irish sedition.' On the
subject of endowments indeed as early as 1875 his view was that of most
moderate Liberals. 'To my mind, so far as right is concerned, the
Legislature may do what it chooses in regard to any endowment, without
injustice, provided only that the rights of living individuals are
respected. How far it is politic to use that power is another matter....
Respect the founder's object, but use your own discretion as to the
means. If you don't do the first, you will have no new endowments. If
you neglect the last, those which you have will be of no use.'[46] He
maintained that the question of local government had in England become
one of pressing importance, and that the administration of county
affairs must be put into the hands of elective bodies. He would give
those local parliaments very large power--but he most urgently insisted
on the importance of one restriction. The new bodies must not be given
an unlimited power of mortgaging the future. The gradual reduction of
the National Debt had been for some years one of the chief aims of
enlightened politicians, but all that had been done in this direction
would be undone if, side by side with the National Debt, there grew up a
municipal debt of perhaps equal amount. In this tendency to municipal
extravagance he saw one of the gravest menaces to property. 'The growth
of Socialism throughout Europe has followed very closely on the gigantic
increase of national indebtedness during the present century, and men
who begin to feel the pressure into