§ EARL FORTESCUE,in moving for Returns with reference to School Board elections and elections for Boards of Guardians, said, his object was to show that economy might be promoted without efficiency being impaired if the elections for the members of school boards were carried out on the same principle as those of Boards of Guardians. He had, from the first, protested against the adoption of the Ballot, as involving an expense utterly disproportionate to the ends to be attained; for a system which was good enough for the administration of the poor rates ought to be considered good enough for the administration of the school board rates, which, unduly high as they were, never reached anything like the amount of the poor rates. But whatever might have been said of the advantages of the Ballot system for the school boards when those bodies were first established, there no longer existed any good reason why the less expensive system of election in the case of Guardians should not be adopted in the case of the school boards, which had now generally little more than routine work to carry on.
§ Motionagreed to.
§ Return of the number of electors on the lists and the number of them who polled in each of the School Board elections contested in 1879 in England and Wales, and of the cost to the ratepayers of each such election: And
§ Similar Return with respect to the contested elections of guardians in 1879 in England and Wales.—(The Earl Fortescue.)
§ Return ordered to be laid before the House.
§ House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.