QUESTION. (Hansard, 20 April 1875)

§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

wished to ask the Lord President for explanations as to the course taken by the Education Office with regard to a school site at Holyhead; and, whether he would have any objection to re-consider the decision of that Department? The parish of Holyhead was more than four miles long, yet, disregarding the wants of the agricultural children and the remonstrances which had been made to it, the Education Office persisted in insisting on the selection of a site close to the harbour opposite the Breakwater, at the extreme end of the parish, instead of accepting one more inland and more convenient for the agricultural children, who, if the waterside site were maintained, would have to traverse all the town, a great inconvenience for the infants, for whom an infant school would be built attached to the new Board School. Besides these objections, there was also this one—that while the site first chosen by the Board at Millbank, or any convenient place inland, would only cost £200 or less, the site favoured by the Education Office would cost £1,000. This site consisted of two acres of land which could not be divided, and which had long been in the market. The School Board proposed to sell half of this site; but they were not certain of being able to do this, so that in addition to the inconvenience caused by the distance, and the building a new school in a quarter already provided with two schools—one of which was never full—the ratepayers would be saddled with the expense of £1,000, or at best £500, supposing the School Board to succeed in selling the part they did not require. Now, before the Education Office Inspector came down to Holyhead there had been a vote in favour of Millbank site in the School Board, one of the members of which was not a ratepayer; the members voting on each side were even, and the Chairman Dr. Briscoe, the vicar, gave his casting vote in favour of the inland site. Dr. Briscoe subsequently requested that an Inspector should be sent down to report; and Mr. Watts came to Holyhead. He arrived at 1.30 and departed at 3 P.M. It was admitted by the Education Office that he 1277 did not inspect the site in the port, yet he reported in favour of the waterside site, and the Education Office had backed his view. Mr. William Owen Stanley, on behalf of the most influential ratepayers, forwarded to the Education Office a public memorial from them against the purchase of land for a school situated at the extremity of the parish, urging all the reasons which he (Lord Stanley of Alderley) had already mentioned against the site favoured by the Education Office. Several letters passed, but the Education Office never condescended to argue the matter, or to give any reasons, they were content to say that they agreed with their Inspector. He would ask leave to read their last letter— Education Department, 6th March, 1875. SIR,—I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 19th ultimo. I am directed to state that in the letter addressed to you on the 18th ultimo the words 'personal inspection' were inadvertently used for 'personal knowledge.' It is doubtless true that Her Majesty's Inspector has not visited the site in the parish since its selection by the Board; but he is sufficiently acquainted with it to be able to endorse the opinion of the Board that it is preferable to that formerly suggested at Newry Field. My Lords do not propose to urge any further consideration of the question upon the School Board.—I have, &c, &c. Hon. W. O. Stanley. Now, whatever might be the case with the other public offices, bad grammar ought not to be tolerated in the Education Office, yet here the Office wrote that it "endorsed the opinion." To endorse was to write your name on the back of a bill or cheque; you could not write your name on the back of an opinion. The use of that word was nothing else but commercial slang. There would, however, be less ground for dissatisfaction at the zeal of the Office leading it to side invariably with its Inspectors, if the head of the Department would hold himself free from the trammels of the officials, and hold the balance between them and the public, and impartially hear the appeals which were made to him, for if he did not hear appeals, then there was no appeal from the despotism of this Office which imposed such large sacrifices of money on ratepayers and voluntary contributors. Even if the noble Duke consented within the the walls of the Education Office to what was there suggested, he was here in a different position, and might be expected to 1278 follow the precedent of various Lord Chancellors who had in this House reversed decisions given by themselves in another place. In conclusion he would venture to remind the noble Duke that if he did not check the extravagance of the School Boards, the unpopularity of the Education Office would redound upon himself; and he would read an extract from The Guardian, April 14, on the extravagance of School Boards— But besides this, it cannot be denied that the Board system, even in itself, has a tendency to eat up the other system, and that many of those who work it are doing their best to increase this tendency, in utter defiance of the intention of the Education Act. A ready way to do this is to encourage a scale of educational expenditure with which it is impossible for voluntary schools to vie. It is almost impossible not to suspect that some portion of the increasing expenditure of School Boards is due, not merely to the natural extravagance of those who can draw on an inexhaustible purse, but also to a covert desire to drive all other schools out of the field. If this be so, it is a policy which deserves the most serious reprobation and the most determined resistance. … Still, we repeat, it is desirable to distinguish closely between the necessary costliness of the Board system and needless extravagance in its administration. Nor is it desirable to confuse the mere advocacy of economy, with the maintenance of the cheaper voluntary system.