HC Deb 05 February 1929 vol 224 cc1611-30
Sir ROBERT HAMILTON

I beg to move, in page 3, line 21, to leave out Sub-section (1).

We have now reached Clause 3 of the Bill, and, the atmospherics having been cleared away, I hope we shall be able to discuss it in a judicial spirit. The object of Clause 3 is the transference of the powers and functions of certain authorities to county and city councils, and the object of the Amendment is to exclude the transference of education administration to those councils. I propose to refer more particularly to the transference of these powers to the county councils. When the Bill was before the House for Second Reading, the Secretary of State asked all parties to give him assistance. I am sure that he is in considerable need of assistance, and that he will be in need of more before the end of the Committee stage is reached. Unfortunately, when we attempt to give him assistance, we are immediately called' partisans, and, after being called partisans inspired by nothing but party spirit when we attempt to criticise the Bill, we are then beheaded by the Guillotine. The whole of this discussion on the proposed changes in the local government of Scotland is the most tremendous argument against the Guillotine procedure that can possibly be imagined. There is always That two-handed engine standing in the door, That strikes once, and strikes no more. When that strikes, no further discussion is possible, even of matters vitally affecting local government in Scotland. Yesterday we had the unfortunate example of only being able to devote something like half an hour to the great question of the Royal and Parliamentary burghs in Scotland, but fortunately to-day the great question of education comes first, and, therefore, I hope that we shall have at least a limited opportunity of discussing that question fairly thoroughly.

I should like briefly to state the history of the administration of education in Scotland during the last 200 or 300 years. By the Act of 1696, education was put under the heritors and the minister of the parish, and, if one follows the history of education after that, one finds that all the Acts of the last century—those of 1803, 1838, 1861 and 1872—continued the administration of education under the parish and church authorities, and that the Act of 1918 still continued the principle of ad hoc administration which is embedded in the system of control of education in Scotland. Under the Act of 1918, education is administered by a body of persons specially elected for the purpose. It is true that that Act changed the area, which prevously had been that of the parish and the burgh, to that of the county. Under the new proposal the reconstituted county councils, which are to be the new authorities in the county areas, are to have placed upon their shoulders all the duties and obligations that have hitherto been carried out by the education authorities, and we may fairly ask ourselves what are the reasons for this change.

Is it because it is necessary to have a widened area? The question of a widened area has been brought up in connection with various other matters with which the Bill deals, but there is no change here in the area; the area is to be the same in the future as it was in the past, namely, the county area. The reason, therefore, cannot be the necessity for a wider area. Then we may ask, has this change been asked for Can anyone bring evidence from any quarter to show that this change has been asked for in Scotland? Is it because the education authorities in the past have been inefficient? No; on the other hand, we have been told from all quarters that their work has been most efficiently carried out. Has it anything to do with de-rating? I do not see how the Minister by any possible means can associate this question of education with de- rating. Is it on the ground of economy? No; there again there is no possible argument for associating the change with economy. To all these different questions, therefore, -which may be put forward—whether a widened area is necessary, whether the change has been asked for, whether the authorities in the past have been inefficient, whether it has anything to do with de-rating, or whether it is a question of more economical administration in the future—the answer is in every case "No."

With regard to the question of economy, I should like shortly to refer, because I think it is sometimes forgotten, to the extent to which education authorities are bound in regard to the way in which they can dispose of the money which is under their control. Of the total amount of money which education authorities have to dispose of, 75 per cent. is either disposed of under Statute or sanctioned by the Scottish Education Department, and 15 per cent. of the total is devoted to the maintenance of school and continuation classes, leaving only 10 per cent. that is discretionary expenditure. It will, therefore, be seen that, even if it were possible to bring forward a charge of wasteful extravagance in the past, the possibilities of wasteful extravagance are limited within very narrow bounds.

4.0 p.m.

The next point in considering this change is how it is regarded in Scotland. Though the education authorities are unanimous against the change, I can quite understand it may be put forward on the other side that nobody likes to be abolished. If anybody likes to be abolished certainly it is not people who have devoted hours, days and years of unpaid work to the service of education in Scotland. One can quite understand that they do not wish to be abolished, and, naturally, they do not wish to be abolished because they see that the work to which they have devoted so much time and attention is about to be put in the hands of people who are not likely to be nearly so well equipped to carry on the work as they are. Anyone who has the interest of education in Scotland at heart must have very grave doubts as to whether the reconstituted councils are as well qualified to further the best interests of education as the education authorities which it is now proposed to abolish.

Then, I would ask, what is the feeling in Scotland generally outside the authorities themselves? I think I shall be supported in the view that the bulk of opinion in Scotland is against the change. So that from every quarter it appears that the change has not been asked for. The authorities are against it, the bulk of opinion is against it, and no real reasons have been put before the country or the House of Commons to show why this change should take place. What the real reasons are, therefore, we have to surmise. I have been trying to find out, and I suggest that the Secretary of State for Scotland is determined to assimilate the system in Scotland to the system in England as far as he can. We know there are two different systems. Education has been administered in two different ways on each side of the Border. Because the system in England ha,3 well suited that country, it does not follow that the same system will work in Scotland. The slogan of bureaucracy is always to centralise and to assimilate. But that is not the best way in which the art of government should be carried on. I always understood that regard should be had to the natural genius and traditions of the people, and you cannot override this, and lay it aside simply because you want to assimilate your system to that of another people. In that; connection I would like to draw attention to this fact, that if the real intention is to assimilate the system in Scotland to that in England, in England the county boroughs and all boroughs with over 10,000 population, and all urban districts with over 20,000 population, are the local authorities for education, and therefore a closer supervision is very much more possible than it would be under this scheme for Scotland, where the whole of the duties of the education authorities are to be transferred to the newly-constituted centralised county council.

Let us look at what will be the actual results of the scheme. In the first place, the administration of education will be put in the hands of men who are not specially interested in it. That is a very vital matter. County councils, we all know, are elected for a variety of reasons. We know the sort of people that we get in the county councils in the rural districts of Scotland—worthy and excellent men, but you cannot say that, as a whole, the county councils of Scotland are specially interested in the furtherance of Scottish education, and it seems to me a most retrograde movement to go back from our specially elected ad hoc bodies interested in education, and to put the administration into the hands of men who are elected on the county councils for a hundred and one other reasons than those of education. Then the county councils themselves are already overburdened with work, and under the new scheme they will be still more overburdened. I should like hon. Members to remember what a vast amount of work the administration of education really entails. There are Members of this House who are on education authorities in Scotland, and they know from experience what an amount of time is taken up by attention to their duties in that respect. All this extra work is going to be put on the shoulders of the newly constituted county councils. How are they to be expected to carry it out? I would like to quote a rather interesting paragraph from an article which appeared in the Educational Supplement of the "Times" of 29th December last. It has reference to something which was said by the hon. Member who represents the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan), and it puts the case so clearly that I would ask the permission of the Committee to quote it in full. It says: The fate of education in Scotland, at any rate of its administration, hangs in the balance…Mr. John Buchan can find no place in his scheme of things for the man of one talent, a flair for education and its management. At the same time, there are diversities of opinion, and he would probably admit the possibility of an earnest desire to promote education, detached from any consuming zeal for the management of utilities such as lighting, drains, or even public health. The former is the type from which education authorities have been recruited during the past 10 years; and the work has been well done. Besides, the risk of overloading the willing and competent members of a town council is imminent. The limit of unpaid service has been reached. The alternatives are payment of members or relegation of the administration to official experts. Neither is attractive. I think the Committee will agree with me that neither of those prospects is attractive. We do not want to relegate our administration either to experts or to paid members. It has been our pride in the past that people in Scotland who take an interest in this vital question have freely devoted so much of their time to it. I admit that the newly constituted councils, if they have this duty placed upon them, will do their best. I do not deny that for a moment, but what I do say, and say unhesitatingly, is that they will not and cannot be so well equipped to do this work as the old education authorities were, and I ask myself most seriously whether the change is in the best interests of Scottish education. The Minister, I think, is on a wrong and a dangerous path—wrong because it is running counter to the feelings and wishes of the people of Scotland, and dangerous because we feel that the course he is pursuing is likely to imperil the best interests of education in Scotland which we prize so dearly. The proposal could be dropped entirely out of this scheme, and leave the rest of the scheme intact. There is no reason why it should be included in this scheme, and I hope very much that before this Debate is finished we shall hear what reason there really is for bringing education into this new scheme of local government in Scotland. I do not know why it has been included. Why it has been included, as far as I can see, is known alone to God and the Scottish Office.

Mr. BUCHAN

There was one point in the speech of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) with which, I think, there will be very general agreement on all sides of the Committee, and that is the tribute which he paid to the specially elected education authorities. Changes are always invidious if they involve the disappearance of some special body, for they seem to imply some criticism of its work in the past. Here there can be no such implication. The work of the specially elected education authorities has been, by general agreement, highly creditable. The argument for a change is not inefficiency in the past, but the hope of greater efficiency in the future.

I have been trying for some time to find out the real reason for the objections to this change which are alleged to exist among the people of Scotland as well as among the Members of this House, and. as far as I can judge, there are three main grounds of opposition. The first is the natural, human dislike to any kind of change at all, and, in passing, I should like to pay a humble but heartfelt tribute to the depth of conservatism which this whole Debate has revealed in Opposition quarters. I am bound to respect that feeling even when I think it misapplied. The second main reason has been expounded by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. It is a practical reason—the difficulty of overburdening already burdened authorities. I admit readily that there is substance in that objection, but I believe it is a legitimate risk which we are bound to face. I believe that the difficulty can be got over with a proper division and delegation of functions, and I would point out that this same objection has been raised to every local government proposal of the last 40 years. The final, and, I think, the most important reason which the hon. Member has given is an educational reason, that this change is educationally retrograde, that it involves a break in the natural development of our Scottish system. On that last point, which is a very material point, I join issue wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I believe that the change proposed is in the direct line of development. I believe that if one looks back upon the long history of Scottish education, one is bound to admit that this step is an inevitable, a natural and logical consequence.

I do not wish to take up the time of the Committee by any historical disquisition, but perhaps I might be allowed in a very few sentences to sketch what, I think, are the stages of development. Our modern educational history began with the Act of 1872, under which the State took over the different types of schools owned by individuals, by private bodies, churches or town councils, and organised them into one system. It gave them unity of standard and unity of administration. The next stage was the very important Act of 1908, which dealt not only with machinery but also with quality. It attempted a new definition of education altogether. It enlarged our whole plan of education and cast the net far wider. It attempted to make education adequate to the national needs. Then came the Act of 1918, which carried on that purpose. Under it the whole fabric of Scottish education, outside the Universities, was revised. Every form of educational activity apart from the Universities was put under one direction, the direction of the specially elected educational authorities.

There remained to my mind one further step to be taken, the step which this Bill takes. We have now got a rich and generous conception of education and we have every activity winch tries to realise that conception co-ordinated into one system. The next step to my mind should be to affiliate this unified system with the other social services. [An HON. MEM-BER: "Sewage!"] The earlier Acts gave us a unified administration. It is now our business to align that unified administration with the other activities of local government. Therefore, this proposed change is in a direct line with our natural development. It is a logical consequence and a logical stage in that long history of Scottish education of which every Scotsman is justly proud. One hon. Member mentioned the word "sewage." We know the taunt that to municipalise education is to degrade it, to bring it down to the same level as gas, water, sewage and police. I find that a very curious argument. You might just as well say that because you teach the Ten Commandments by the same people and under the same curriculum as the multiplication table, you are degrading religion to the level of a mechanical science. Surely those who use that ancient gibe are curiously forgetful of the educational history of Scotland. In the 18th century the most progressive schools were the burgh schools, owned and managed by the town councils and paid for partly out of the common good and partly by private subscriptions. These burgh schools were the educational pioneers of their age. Take the case of the burgh school of Ayr. In the middle of the 18th century it broke away from the old barren, grammatical tradition and first began the teaching of science. A more remarkable case still is that of the burgh school of Perth, which in 1761 not only followed the example of Ayr but actually began technical education. The man who gibes at the municipalisation of education is singularly forgetful of a most honourable chapter in Scottish history.

We have to-day a far richer and wider and more fruitful conception of education than our fathers had. We do not regard it as a mere appendage, something added to life, but as life itself, the preparation for every duty and privilege which may fall to our lot and an influence which will inspire all our thought and action. Our aim is to teach the young of the nation, not merely how to get a living, but how to live. If that is our conception, surely we cannot make education an enclosed preserve. We cannot treat it as a kind of walled garden in the suburbs. We must bring it within sight of the market place, where the ordinary business of life is being conducted. I believe the best guide, the best general director in education, as in every other kind of human activity, is the ordinary man with the ordinary variety of interests. That, to my mind, is the justification of democracy. I believe by allying this great service with the other activities of local life we shall enlarge its bounds, quicken its vitality and double its usefulness.

Mr. WESTWOOD

I have no intention of attempting to follow the line of argument that has just been submitted to us. [HON. MEMBBES: "You could not!"] At any rate I have heard the finest argument for the abolition of the direct representation of the Universities. If the argument is true that has been used against direct representation with regard to education, it is doubly true in connection with university representation. I have not the slightest intention of attempting a platitude, I want to get down from the heights of platitude to the actual business and the administration of education. After all that is the work of the Committee stage of the Bill. On the Second Reading not a single argument was adduced for the abolition of the education authorities. In all the speeches of the Secretary of State, at any rate prior to the Second Reading, in dealing with these changes in connection with local administration, in his meeting with deputations or the executives of education authorities, he has never yet submitted a single argument for the abolition of the authorities except that if we were to get the benefit of the de-rating proposals we must take the Bill as a whole. You might go back in the columns of the "Scotsman," the "Glasgow Herald," and our national newspapers and there has never been an educational argument submitted by the Secretary of State in favour of the abolition of the education authorities.

The Bill for which he argued when he first of all met the representatives of the education authorities no longer exists. The Clause we passed yesterday destroyed altogether the original proposals that were submitted for the consideration of Scotland. Where can we get the benefits of de-rating, if there are any benefits attached to it? We were told the Bill stood as a whole and that we had either to take it or to lose the benefits of de-rating. I do not agree with the hon. Member when he says there is only alleged antipathy towards the Bill. Practically every education authority has practically unanimously passed resolutions against it. At the educational congress last Thursday and Friday, by 93 votes to 13, the representatives from the various parts of the country decided against the proposals we are now discussing. Having considered the argument that we have to take the Bill as a whole or lose the benefits of de-rating, will the Secretary of State argue for a moment that if we were to keep the education authorities out of these proposals, it would not be possible to get the advantages in connection with de-rating, if advantages there are? It might be all right on the ordinary platform, or even in meeting a deputation, but there is a body of reasonable business men in the House and an argument of that kind will not hold water for a moment.

Let us examine the position in connection with these authorities. I will not go back to 1872, I was not born then. I will only go back on live history and not to dead history. In 1919 the existing education authorities were created, or built up, out of the old school board system. You have only bad 10 years of that administration. No Member of the House, least of all the Secretary of State, will be able to argue that during those 10 years the education authorities have not done their work efficiently and in a splendid and businesslike way. They were faced with a crowd of problems, made ten times more difficult because they were elected immediately after the War, and, despite all the difficulty, despite the fact that the repairing of the schools had been in abeyance for five or six years, despite the fact that all our problems had been multiplied during those five or six years because the energies of the nation were directed towards success in the War, there has been tremendous progress so far as real education is concerned under the existing education authorities. The work this House gave these education authorities to do the Secretary of State has kept them from performing, because he himself has merely to name the day so far as the further advantages in connection with continuation class work are concerned, and the raising of the school age from 14 to 15, and if we have not made the progress we might have made, the responsibility is not to be borne by the education authorities but by the Secretary of State, who had that greater responsibility and refused to hand it on to the respective education authorities.

When the Act of 1918 was passed, creating the authorities set up in 1919, it was stated in this House that the authorities were to be elected really by the population of the areas as a whole, in the interest of the population as a whole, without the undue emphasis of minor parochial interests and with due considerations for the interests of minority. That was the object so far as the elected side of the education authorities was concerned. Now, at the end of 10 years, you are going to wipe out the whole scheme of minority representation, to throw into the melting pot the whole of the problems relating to religious instruction, and to start religious controversy in many parts of Scotland. The difficulties in connection with the sectarian struggle have been got over so far as the administration of education in Scotland is concerned. Those difficulties are not there now, because provision has been made for minority representation, and at such a time you are creating trouble. No one knows better than the Secretary of State for Scotland what those troubles are. Even at this moment he does not know how to frame an Amendment which will meet the desires of the respective Churches and give fair play. He has no such Amendment on the Order Paper. He is still waiting to see how the Committee will demand that he shall deal with these particular problems. We have got over our difficulties because in connection with the elected education authorities provision was made for minority representation.

It has been argued, but no one can prove it, that the existing system has failed. Although it may not have given us that perfection which everyone desires in connection with religious education, it has not failed. It has been suggested that we were to have a scheme somewhat similar to the English scheme. The scheme which we are now discussing is not similar to the English scheme. In Scotland there will be under the proposed scheme, 34 education committees. In England there are 318 education committees at the present time. Even if it had been true that this scheme was similar to the English scheme, the conditions applicable in Scotland at the moment did not apply in England when the English scheme was introduced in 1902. It is a remarkable fact that in England, in 1902, there was a larger number of children in the various church schools than the board schools. Some 2,500,000 children were at that time being educated under the publicly elected boards and were attending the board schools, while 3,000,000 children were attending the church schools. There were at that time 8,000 to 10,000 villages in England which had nor, a single school that was controlled by the publicly-elected representatives. Consequently, the legislators of 1902 had to face an entirely different problem from the one with which we are now faced.

The teaching profession in Scotland suggests, and it has been suggested by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) to-day, that we should place education in the centre of the picture. They did not want to do that in England when they introduced the Bill of 1902. Then it was a question of leaving education out of the picture altogether. Those were the arguments that were used in the Debates in this House at that time, because there was always the fear of religious controversy. Everyone who has studied history in connection with English Education Acts knows that hundreds of people went to gaol in England rather than allow their system of education to be changed. We have got over those difficulties. Certainly, that problem is not with us to-day so far as Scotland is concerned. To our credit, in the County of Fife—I quote the County of Fife because I am proud to be associated with it in its educational administration and in many other ways—there is not a single school that is not under the control of publicly-elected representatives. Do hon. Members imagine for a single moment that if education had been under the control of the county council that we would have been able to negotiate the transfer of Bell-Baxter School, Cupar, Madras College, St. Andrew's, and Waid Academy, Anstruther, and to have used all the money left by wonderful benefactors solely for the purpose of education, rather than have allowed it to be used merely for the purpose of reducing the rates? That could have happened. To the credit of those associated with the administration we were able to use all the money, so far as those endowments were concerned, for the purpose originally intended by the donors, so far as our country is concerned.

There are other counties, as well as the County of Fife, where every pupil attending a State-aided school is under the control of publicly-elected representatives, and I have heard no complaint from anyone with regard to the administration of those schools, except from representatives of county councils There are some of those county council representatives who are sitting in this House now and whose whole interest is to get the control of education in their own hand3 so that they can cut down the expenditure on education. They have blamed us for the last 10 years for spending money on education even to fulfil the responsibilities which the State has imposed upon us. They have argued that in this House. We agreed to meet them, but when we did meet them they had no arguments. They had not even a word to say when the statement was made with regard to the cost of education that had been imposed upon us. Therefore, even if it were true that it was the English scheme that was sought to be imposed upon us by this Bill, the conditions are not the same in the two countries, and the necessity for the change does not exist so far as Scottish education is concerned.

It has been suggested by the representative of the Scottish Universities that, whilst there may be no complaint against the present system of administration, we must aim towards greater efficiency in administration. Another argument is that the system might be more economical. Let us see where we could economise. I have no illusions with regard to the arguments about economy. I will quote from a typical balance sheet of an education authority. I know some of the directions in which the county councils would economise. For instance, I find that the expenditure for books was £20,000, some of which we are compelled to provide. Certain counties which I have in mind, and my own county, provide books for every child attending school, from the time the child enters the school until the time, if it has the ability, when it enters the university. A sum of £12,000 might be saved by making the unemployed miners, the starving miners, provide the books for their children. You could save £12,000 in that way and lot the teacher attempt to teach a class under such. circumstances, when the books were not provided for the children.

I know the bitter outcry that there is even from some parts of the County of Fife, again from the county councillors, about the expenditure on education. The same thing applies in Midlothian and East Lothian. Because the education authorities decided to feed the schoolchildren during 1921 and 1926, there was the most hostile opposition by the county councils, who were prepared to allow us to starve the children whilst we were attempting to feed them mentally. Those who took the responsibility then would take the responsibility again for the feeding of the children. I took the responsibility and I have said more than once on public platforms that I would take it again. I would far rather be sent by an earthly judge to serve six months in gaol than be sent to hell by the Heavenly Father for starving children, when I had an opportunity of saving them from starvation.

The teachers have betrayed the educational administrators as far as this problem is concerned. They are willing, by an overwhelming majority, to agree that the machinery of education should be handed over to the county councils. Let me tell them that there is another way in which a saving could be effected in the County of Fife, if we were so disposed, and that is in regard to the salaries of teachers. We pay in that county, approximately, £56,000 more than we are compelled to spend under the national minimum scale of salaries. The county councils, when they get control of the machinery, could save £56,000 on that account in the County of Fife. I could give other illustrations in Scotland where we have not been prepared merely to pay the minimum, because we wanted to get the best type of teachers. I accept a certain amount of responsibility for the action of the administrators of my own county, because I suggested a particular policy. I said: "Pay a decent salary and then we shall be able to get the pick of those who are coming out of the universities."

Mr. MACQUISTEN

What about the other places who could not afford to pay as much?

Mr. WESTWOOD

If they were prepared to starve the teachers and to starve education, that was their responsibility. I was prepared to meet the electors and to allow them to decide whether or not we had done the right thing. The result of our action has been that in the County of Fife we have the finest set of teachers that can fee got, and in our administration we have the most friendly relations existing between the education authorities and the teachers. Under the county councils in England there have been strikes and lockouts of teachers. Time and time again, the. education department in England has had to interfere as between the administrators, the county councils, and the teachers. How the teachers think that they are going to better themselves under this particular scheme I cannot for the life of me understand. Some of them are listening to me now, and they might just as well take their medicine.

I could give more instances from the balance-sheet where savings could be effected, but they would be effected at the expense of education. If education is considered to be the problem with which we are dealing, then it can best be looked after by those who are directly elected for the purpose under our national system of education. We are told that under the proposals in the Bill there will be a more efficient system of administration. Anyone who suggests that is trying to perpetrate a Scottish joke on English soil. How will it work out? I will take three counties with which I am most interested and I would ask one of my constituents, the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities to take note. In him, I believe that I have a good constituent, and I think he believes that he has a good Member of Parliament. I will take the county of Peebles where there are 11 members of the Education Authority. Under the proposals in connection with the re-constitution of the county council, there are to be 18 members of the county council. Assuming that you are only going to allow one half of those members to form the county committee to deal with education, that would mean nine. Then there are to be co-opted members, so that you will, at the very least, increase the number from 11 to 15 or 16, and all in the sacred name of economy and efficiency.

You are going to have the education authorities far larger than they are at the present time. Under the reconstitution, according to Command Paper 3263, there will be in Midlothian, a county council of 53 members. The education authority of Midlothian only numbers 24 at the present time. Again, if only one half the members of the county council serve upon the education committee, there will be more than the existing number of administrators now dealing with education. In the county of Fife, in the reconstituted county council there will be 90 members. The education authority at the moment numbers 44. Again, supposing that only one half of that number are to form the elected side of the education committee. there will be one more member on the education committee than the existing number now responsible for educational administration. Surely, it is a joke to suggest that that is in the interests of economy, and it is equally a joke to suggest that it is in the interests of efficiency.

The more one examines these proposals, the more ridiculous they appear. Education is Scotland at the present time is being sufficiently well administered. Of course, there are problems which we might consider, such as the transfer of certain duties from the education authority to the health side of the administration. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is particularly interested in the health side of the administration. There is room for negotiation in connection with that, but do not let us destroy the whole scheme of education administration simply for the purpose of looking after one par- ticular side of the physical well-being of our children. it is impossible to get that close touch in connection with education administration if you are going to hand this work over to the county authorities. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said on one occasion that it did not require experts, but even the Government has admitted that with the scheme you must have co-opted members who know something about education. Under this scheme, you might have in connection with your Education Committee one outstanding individual with a knowledge of, say higher education on the administrative side, knowing the difficulties in connection with various schemes that ought to be available for the children, and trying to adopt circumstances so as to get the best out of it for every child instead of attempting a mere machine output at the present time. You might have someone who had given years to this study, but what use would he be so far as the financial side is concerned He would be merely a co-opted member. He might know all these problems in connection with the curriculum and so forth, but then all of them are bound up with the question of money and you must have someone inside the council to argue for expenditure on these schemes.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has stated that, so far as education authorities are concerned, there might have been a case for them in 1919, when they had to initiate the work. I could tell him this afternoon of many schemes that have still to be initiated. It if was true that you required initiative from directly elected bodies in 1919, it is equally true to-day. You have problems in connection with adult education, and many other quite difficult problems requiring initiative. For these and many other reasons, I trust that we are going to get some concession from the Government. Desirous, as I am, to see the education authorities in Scotland keep in the forefront—and in all important considerations I have honestly come to the conclusion that we have the best system of education and are providing better opportunities for our children in Scotland than any other country—anxious as I am to see Scotland in this respect kept in the forefront and doing the best that can be done by keeping her elected repre- sentatives, I say that, if you concede this for which we are asking, it will not destroy the fabric of the Bill and will allow an opportunity to carry out the de-rating proposals.

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour)

I trust that the Committee will regard this problem as a matter affecting the present and the future organisation of the service, which we are considering. I would be the last to say anything in language of a derogatory nature either of the great past history, the progress and development of education in Scotland, or indeed of the efforts of the various education bodies that have been charged with this problem in the course of time. Nor am I going to say anything to-day which will, I trust, be taken as indicating that I think the education authorities which were brought into being under the Act of 1918 have failed to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities, and with no inconsiderable success. But I would ask the Committee to realise that we are considering the reorganisation of the system of rating and of local government, and, while some Members seem to think that I have said in the past that so far as education was concerned they must take this Bill or leave it, what I said and have endeavoured to convey to Scotland, and to those immediately concerned with Scotland, was that in my judgment we have arrived at a stage when it would be eminently unfortunate if we took any step that would segregate and separate the general development of education from the larger social services of the country. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but I do not wish to treat this matter in any sense of levity or unfairness: I want to examine the problem with an earnest desire to do nothing which shall be harmful to the progress of education, but quite the reverse.

What are the problems which concern all educationists at the present time? Truly is it not certain that one of the things which we are all striving to do is to bring education, both in its elementary and its further stages, into accord with the circumstances of the time, the conditions with which we are surrounded; to make education, not our master but our servant, and the means of developing the minds of our children, so that they can apply themselves to industry, art, or agriculture with the best results? A separate ad hoc education authority may have served its purpose, and may have done good service, but I want to emphasise that, in my judgment, and this is one of the telling factors which has influenced me to make this change, education is not a matter which solely concerns any particular ad hoc body elected for a particular purpose imbued with the idea that they have sole knowledge of how education should be directed. On the one side, there is the great Education Department, drawn from those who are trained in the matter of directing education. They are the servants of the Administration and of this House, and it is their duty and responsibility to see to the management of education and its development to the best advantage. In addition, you have your scientific body of teachers. They are the experts who must convey the information to the children of to-day and of to-morrow. If I turn to them, as I have a just right to turn, for advice, either to the Department who have this great responsibility or to the teachers, who are the individuals upon whom you must depend for conveying this information to the children, both the Department and the teachers are unanimous in their recommendation that this change should be made.

I well remember being in this House when some of these discussions were taking place on the Measure of 1918. It was in the Department then as to-day, and the unanimity of the teachers at that time was as great as, if not greater than, it is to-day upon this subject. It is true that, as a result of pressure from certain quarters, the proposals of the Government at that time were altered, and that the ad hoc body was set up. What were the arguments? They were that the county councils of that time were county councils composed in the main of lairds. farmers and factors, that they were out of touch with local feeling and local knowledge and local circumstances. To-day we are asking for the transfer of this service, not to the old county councils, but to a new body composed of representatives both of the county council and of the burghs. That, to begin with, is an essential difference. If brings into these consultations and into this body new factors which cannot be said to be other than essentially democratic.

Of course, I realise that the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has taken a keen interest in many problems concerned with education in our country, but it seems to me that he was setting up one ninepin after another in order to knock them down. He appears to think that the numbers of the education committees of these new county councils are going to be swollen in excess of that of the existing authorities—

Mr. WESTWOOD

I said half.

Sir J. GILMOUR

Why take half? Why not a quarter? The real answer to all that is that the number of members on these new education committees of the central authorities will be submitted in the schemes of organisation which they will have to submit; and these schemes will have to show what body they consider will be best fitted to deal with the circumstances peculiar to each case.

5.0 p.m.

Let me turn to the more important side. Hon. Members say to me that there has been no overlapping that there has been no difficulty arising between one authority and another upon the problem. One hon. Member seemed to indicate that the question of sewage was a matter of little importance.

Whereupon the GENTLEMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair.

Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

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