SUPPLY—MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES. (Hansard, 12 June 1856)

HC Deb 12 June 1856 vol 142 cc1328-88 1328

§ House in Committee; Mr. FITZROY in the chair.

§ (1.) Motion made, and Question proposed— That a sum, not exceeding £100,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge of Civil Contingencies, to the 31st day of March, 1857.

§ SIR FRANCIS BARING moved to reduce the Vote to £30,000. As the House was aware, the Vote for civil contingencies might be divided into two parts—payment of certain items of expenditure, which were essentially uncertain, and therefore could not be brought into estimate, and some other small payments, a return of which for the past year was now on the table of the House; and also an amount which was employed in making advances to different departments. It frequently happened that in the different departments of the civil service, works unexpectedly exceeded the sums voted for them; and, in order to avoid the inconvenience which would attend on their being stopped, recourse was had to the civil contingencies. He did not argue that the £100,000 was an unreasonable amount for these civil contingencies; but he would show that a much larger sum was, in fact, at the disposal of the Government, and he wished the Committee to be aware what the Government had already in hand to meet claims on this very account. He did not 1329 know what amount had gone from the civil contingencies in the shape of advances. Advances were not an ultimate expenditure. What were outgoings one year became revenue when the amount was repaid; in point of fact, they added the same quantity to each side of the equation; and the sides balanced each other; and the repayments of the advances of last year would be pretty nearly sufficient to meet those of the current year. The Votes of the civil contingencies were not like the Votes of the great services; they were not confined to the year for which they were taken, and if there was a surplus in the Vote over the expenditure, it did not go back, as a matter of course, to the Exchequer, as it did in the great services; but it accumulated, and was available for the service of the next year. These accumulations existed in the Treasury, as lately as Monday last, to the extent of £100,000. It was now proposed to take a Vote for another £100,000, making the sum at the disposal of the Government —200,000; and, because he thought this sum unnecessarily large, he proposed to reduce it. During the last six years (and the case would be still stronger if he went further back) there had been Votes for the civil contingencies, of £100,000 in each year. In 1851, the actual expenditure was £65,371; in 1851–2 it was £89,675; in 1852–3, £79,825; in 1853–4, about £70,000; in 1854–5, £72,118; and this last year it was £88,891. While, then, the Committee had voted £100,000 a year each year during the last six years, the highest expenditure had been under £90,000; the lowest had been as low as £65,000; and the average expenditure—the actual expenditure—during the six years, had been £77,040, or, putting it loosely, the expenditure had been under £80,000. Inasmuch, then, as on Monday last there was in the Exchequer £100,000 to meet an expenditure averaging less than £80,000, the Government could well afford to lose the £70,000 which he proposed to strike off, and he should then leave them £130,000 to meet an expenditure which in six years had never amounted to £90,000. He thought he had left an ample margin to meet any possible chance of excess. [Mr. WILSON: The balance was made up to the 31st of March.] He knew that; but he was now arguing on the facts as they stood on Monday last. The Secretary of the Treasury had informed 1330 him, since he had given his notice, that he had given directions that £60,000 should be returned to the Exchequer as "savings." He was very glad of it; it was accomplishing his (Sir F. Baring's) object in another way; it narrowed the differences between them; and he should in consequence try to effect his reduction of £70,000, by moving a reduction of £10,000 only. He was at a loss to know what his right hon. Friend wanted with the £140,000 which he proposed to take by this Vote, added to the surplus in hand, when the expenditure had never come up to £90,000 a year? There had, it was true, been the illuminations; but the surplus of £50,000 was unnecesarily large for that purpose. Last year the expenditure was £80,000, and he felt sure that the public would be safe with £130,000 to meet the civil contingencies. Besides the unexpended balances he had alluded to, there were other means by which the funds for civil contingencies were increased. The civil contingencies made loans to the other departments. He admitted that it was a great convenience, and that it was right that the Government should have a fund with which to meet any unexpended excess of expenditure by making advances to be subsequently repaid. But, on the other hand, it would be most inconvenient to carry this system an inch further than was absolutely necessary. The case was similar to allowances given to young men in private life. When an allowance was made to a young gentleman, and it was adhered to pretty strictly, he took care not to exceed the amount; but let any one be liberal, and give that young man not only his allowance, but money to meet any excess, and they must not be surprised if there always existed an excess. So, in national matters: if the Treasury would generously and kindly give, they were pretty sure of numerous and repeated applications; if it only made advances under real difficulties, when parties got into scrapes, they would be very slow to get into them; they would be careful not to get into a mess, if the Treasury would not assist them out of it. In the last six years the Committee had voted £600,000, the Treasury had accounted for £462,000 odd, leaving an excess of the amounts voted over the sums expended of £137,000. That ought to be in the Exchequer. He did not believe it was. £100,000 was probably the excess 1331 in the Exchequer; and there consequently remained £37,000 unaccounted for, which he apprehended must be either in the hands of the Paymaster General, or else it had been advanced to different departments, of which the Committee knew nothing. He therefore thought that even if by some remarkable accident the amount to which he proposed to limit the Vote for the civil contingencies should be found to be insufficient for the requirements of the year, if the amount required should be far larger than ever it had been during the last six years, the Treasury might supply the deficiency by calling for the repayment of the advances. The information on which the Vote was asked was not sufficient. The Committee had not a statement of the balance in the Exchequer, they had not the amount in the Pay Office, they had not the amount of the sums loaned out; and without those ingredients it was quite impossible to decide on the amount which ought to be voted. His own impression was that the Vote should be taken differently, that they ought to fix a sum which they deemed reasonable; and at the end of the year, if the Government had spent £80,000 let the Committee Vote £80,000 to replace it; but, at any rate, let the Committee know the amount in hand, let them know also what was the amount loaned out in the different Departments. He regarded this as a very important question. He did not see why the amount in hand should be kept from the knowledge of the Committee, or why the amount loaned, should not be known. He saw no occasion for secrecy. He should move to reduce the Vote by £10,000.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed— That a sum, not exceeding £90,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge of Civil Contingences, to the 31st day of March, 1857.

§ MR. WILSON
concurred in the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, as to the very unsatisfactory way in which those accounts had been heretofore kept. The present Board of Treasury was not, however, responsible. If the right hon. Gentleman referred back for a number of years he would find that the whole tendency of the Treasury was to reduce the Vote, and the charges on it. His attention some time since had been called to this Vote, and to the unsatisfactory mode in which it stood, in regard to the audit of accounts. Those accounts had been the subject of much inquiry, and it was considered that 1332 they should have been made much more intelligible and satisfactory. If the right hon. Gentleman would but refer to the time when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would find that the sum voted for civil contingencies had been considerably more than double the present amount. If it were possible to estimate the actual sums required there would probably be no occasion to take this Vote for civil contingencies; but since the most unforeseen difficulties were to be provided against, they were obliged to take a Vote considerably in excess of the amount that would be required. It, however, by no means followed that, if they took a Vote larger than was required, all the money should be expended. As to the nature of the advances made he had no objection to lay a statement upon the subject on the table of the House; there were some, however, which it would not be altogether expedient to publish until some little time after they were made. He would, for example, take one of those advances that was necessary for the Government, with a view of showing the difficulty of providing in time for them. The Government were applied to to advance the funds necessary for the trial of experiments in regard to a new gun, called the Lancaster gun; £20,000 was advanced for that purpose. During those experiments it would be obviously inconvenient to lay such accounts before the House. Those advances were, however, never made for the purpose of eking out the service of the year; they were made for services that could not have been foreseen at the time the Vote was submitted to Parliament. There was an advance of £47,000 made to the courts of law. The County Court Act contemplated that those tribunals should be self-supporting, upon the presumption that the fees received would be sufficient to pay the salaries of the Judges and other necessary expenses. The Act, however, provided, that in the event of those fees falling short of the amount necessary for those objects, the Exchequer should be charged with the payment of the amount deficient, which it had accordingly been obliged from time to time to make good. There was at the present time a Bill in the other House which proposed that the charge of those courts should in future be placed on the Consolidated Fund. There was also the Court of Chancery in Ireland, which involved a charge on the civil contingencies 1333 of £20,000. The suitors' fund fell short of the amount necessary to pay the Judges' salaries and the other expenses; the excess was made a charge upon the Exchequer, and upon that score there was an advance made of £28,000. In various services of that kind advances out of the Treasury were made to the amount of £158,000. Now, although a great portion of this money would be repaid, there would be other services of a similar kind to absorb the whole Vote. The fluctuating nature of the charges was also a matter of great difficulty to provide for. The Vote last year, for example, was £100,000; but the whole advances to the public service amounted to £246,000. In the year before the advances were £227,000, and in the prior year they were only £83,000. The only instance in which any repayment had as yet been made in respect to these advances was £60,000. He had no hesitation in saying, on examining the accounts of the Comptroller of the Exchequer, that there was a balance in the Exchequer of about £100,000. He had had a Dr. and Cr. account of these advances and repayments, showing the balances, for the last ten years drawn up. This account showed every shilling that had been advanced and repaid; and it appeared that, without including the Irish advances, the whole amount of the outstanding balance due was only £1,900. He had also given orders that there shall be made with the Estimates of each year, not only an account of the expenditure of civil contingencies, but also a cash account, showing the amount of the advances repaid; and in cases where it was not desirable to mention the names of the parties in question, the particular department to which the advances were made should be mentioned. Under these circumstances he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not deem it necessary to divide the Committee upon his Amendment.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS
said, it appeared that the civil contingencies accounts were in an unsatisfactory state. He should like to know with whom the fault rested. The present Government had been in office for nearly three years.

§ MR. WILSON
denied that he stated the civil contingencies accounts were in an unsatisfactory state. On the contrary, he thought that the civil contingencies accounts were never in a more satisfactory state. From the years 1830 to 1840 the accounts were so confused it was quite impossible 1334 to make anything of them. He did not mean to blame any persons for this state of things, because he knew that the difficulties which had arisen during that period were calculated to complicate those accounts.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS:
Well, then, the system was altogether defective, and he should like to know with what Government the blame rested. He had no idea that the abuse was so great. This seemed to be a department for lending money; and he was afraid there were a good many bad debts made. From what source was the money lent to the Irish Court of Chancery to be repaid? They now found out that they had been voting increases to the salaries of the Judges of the county courts, under the false pretence that the fees of those courts paid their expenses. For several of the items included in this sum there ought to have been distinct and separate Votes of the House. He objected to the whole system. More than one-half the items in last year's expenditure might have been brought before the Committee last year. He would like to know, was the Commission appointed to settle the boundary between Turkey and Persia to be continued, or was General Williams to be succeeded by another Commissioner? Several items for the travelling expenses of official persons—one amounting to £364 10s. 9d.— seemed to him to be exorbitant. There was an item of £1,700 in the case of the Commission connected with the affairs of the University of Oxford. Now, the revenues of the University amounted to about £150,000 a year, and he wanted to know why the public should pay the £1,700?

§ MR. AYSHFORD WISE
said, it was a consolation to him that the very objections which he had proposed to make, had been made by one, who, from his experience as a Chancellor of the Exchequer, was so much better able than himself to cope with the difficulties of finance. The Secretary of the Treasury had cleared away some of the mist that surrounded the Vote, and, indeed, had rendered unnecessary the remarks which he intended to offer, by the admission that the accounts were in an unsatisfactory state. The right hon. Member for Portsmouth had gone back six years, but, taking the Votes and expenditure for ten years, he found that the first amounted to a £1,000,000, and the second to £794,549, leaving a balance of £205,451 in favour of the Treasury. The explanation given was not satisfactory, 1335 as the leaving this large sum loose in the waistcoat pocket of the Secretary of the Treasury encouraged loans and advances to the various departments and much unjustifiable expenditure, which had not been sanctioned by the House. A great abuse had sprung up of late in the multiplication of Commissions, and no less a sum than £75,000 had been expended in that manner during the last three years. Commissions were now appointed on all imaginary subjects; which was a system that ought to be discouraged. There were in this Vote a great number of charges, such as those for permanent Commissions, like the Fine Arts Commission, which were not of an accidental character, and therefore did not properly belong to such a Vote as this. He would call the attention of the Committee to the effect of this Vote for contingencies on the expenditure for the Diplomatic Establishment. By 2 & 3 Wm, IV. c. 116, the Government was restricted to £180,000 a year for salaries, pensions, and expenses, but that limit was indirectly avoided and continually transgressed by these Votes for contingencies. During the last ten years, in addition to the salaries and pensions, there had been paid £52,973 in outfits, £91,915 in special missions, £100,000 for house rent, and £208,099 for miscellaneous expenses. During the last twenty-five years the extra disbursements had amounted to £524,545, and the outfit to £157,283. It was commonly supposed that the Paris Embassy cost about £10,000 a year, but the expenditure was not less than £19,000, besides the maintenance of the Embassy House and the interest of the £87,000 that had been expended on that building. If we were to judge of the future by the past, he recommended the Committee to look with an eye of distrust on this Vote for contingencies, as one that had a tendency to increase rather than to decrease the public expenditure, and had proved in no way conducive to economy.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
said, that the sums voted under the head of "civil contingencies" during the last six years amounted in the aggregate to £600,000, and of that sum £457,000 had been expended. What had become of the £143,000 balance? He would like to know why the Government set down the balance as £100,000, when it was in reality £143,000? The Committee had been that evening informed that the department to which this contingency 1336 money was voted was in the habit of lending money. Now, was it to be distinctly understood that all those loan advances were for the future to be set out on a paper to be laid upon the table of the House? The Committee were going to Vote £100,000 for civil contingencies, while probably only £75,000 would be the total sum expended. At what time of year were they to have the annual expenditure for contingencies placed upon the table of the House? [Mr. WILSON: When the Estimates are presented.] The hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Treasury had stated that there was a cash balance of only £60,000 last year; but he (Sir H. Willoughby) thought that there should be a sum of £80,000 from last year; and that the gross balance on the six years was £143,000. Were the fireworks for the peace, and the expense of the mission to St. Petersburgh, to be charged to "civil contingencies?"

§ CAPTAIN STUART
asked for an explanation of an item of £5,000, "an advance to J. B. Fearon, on account of bills of costs as solicitor to the Attorney General in suits relating to charities?" This was a large sum for the country to be called upon to pay for such a purpose.

§ MR. KINNAIRD
observed on the absurdity of charging against the civil contingencies the expense of making an experiment with a Lancaster gun. The item ought surely to have been inserted in the Ordnance Estimates. The practice of introducing into the Estimates of one department entries that properly belonged to those of another was to be deprecated, inasmuch as it wore the resemblance of an attempt to pass by a side-wind grants which, if presented in a regular manner, might not easily obtain the sanction of Parliament.

§ MR. SPOONER
wished to ask whether any application had been made to the Treasury by the Ordnance Department for money to make experiments in Belgium, or to send workmen over to that country to make experiments? He wished, in fact, to know whether experiments had been made in Belgium; what those experiments were; whether the Ordnance Department had sent over workmen to make them; and whether advances for such experiments had been made by the Treasury?

§ MR. BLACKBURN
found in this estimate an item of £105 for preparing the "Oxford University Reform Bill," to R. J. Phillimore. Then there was an item of 1337 £48 16s. 4d. "for revoking the office of Master General of the Ordnance, and vesting the civil administration of the Army and Ordnance in Lord Panmure;" and another of £39 14s. "for appointing the Duke of Argyll Postmaster General." Was it usual for the public to pay for the appointment of public officers, or were those two cases exceptional? There was another item which he would wish to hear explained—a sum of £1,500 "to the Hon. J. Plunket, Second Commissioner of Bankrupts in Ireland, on account of salary for one year." Was not that salary a fixed annual amount? If so, why should it be put under the head of "civil contingencies," instead of under "law expenses?"

§ MR. WILSON
would, in replying to the several questions put by hon. Members, commence with those asked by the hon. Member who had just sat down. The item of £105 to which that hon. Member had alluded was a sum paid to Mr. R. J. Phillimore for drawing the Oxford University Bill. With regard to the items paid on the appointments of Lord Panmure and the Duke of Argyll, the rule was that the person who accepted an official office paid for his own patent; but if a person was transferred from one office to another, he was not called upon to defray the cost of the second patent. In this latter case the public paid for the patent. With respect to the £1,500 for the Second Commissioner of Bankrupts in Ireland, there was no provision by Act of Parliament for granting a salary to that officer, and therefore his remuneration was included under the head of civil contingencies. However, in the Bill now before the House that would be remedied; the necessary provision would be made for the salary of the additional Commissioner, and the charge would henceforth be included in the estimates in the usual way. As to the inquiry made by the hon. Member for Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner), no payment of any kind had been made for sending workmen to Belgium; nor had any application been made by the Ordnance Department for an advance for any such purpose. He had made inquiry on the subject, and could assure the hon. Member that there was no truth in the report that the Ordnance had sent any workmen to that country. With regard to the experiments with the Lancaster gun, his hon. Friend (Mr. Kinnaird) must have misunderstood what he had said on that subject. What he had intended to 1338 convey was, that before such experiments were made it would not be judicious of the Government to come down to the House and ask for a Vote for those experiments. Was it not obvious that in such cases the House should trust to the Executive? Otherwise the country might obtain no benefit from experiments of the kind referred to. The whole of the advances made from the Vote for civil contingencies had to be brought under the review of the House and voted before they could be repaid to the account from which they were originally taken. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir H. Willoughby) said he found in the last six years an apparent discrepancy of £143,000 between the sum expended and that voted; that £100,000 remained in the Exchequer in March last; but no account was given of the balance of £43,000. The fact was, that the advances made to the different services last year and the year before exceeded those of preceding years, and the amount of reimbursements now due to the account of civil contingencies was not £143,000 but £158,000. In regard to the cost of the fireworks for the peace rejoicings, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already explained that it was not deemed worth while to propose a separate estimate for this item of expense, and therefore it was included in the Vote for civil contingencies; and the expenses of the mission to St. Petersburg, being an unusual payment, properly came under that head. As to the sums alluded to by the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Williams) as having been paid for the outfit of our Ambassadors abroad, and for "special missions," it was quite obvious that no estimate could be formed of such expenses. The sum of £364 10s. travelling expenses, referred to by that hon. Member, was for the expenses incurred by Governor Sir W. Denison for passage of himself and family from Hobart Town to Sydney. There was a fixed allowance to colonial Governors for expenses of that nature, regulated by a scale prescribed by Colonial Office. As to the sums paid for Commissions, the University Commissioners had been appointed under the University Act, and the payments made were to the secretaries, and on account of general charges, but the Commissioners themselves were not paid. The sum paid on account of the settlement of the boundary between Turkey and Persia was a payment of last and not of this year. As to the question of the hon. and gallant Captain. (Captain 1339 Stuart), his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General was not then present, but he would at another time give an explanation of that item of £5,000.

SIR FRANCIS BARING
did not intend to give the Committee the trouble to divide, but in withdrawing his Motion he must say, that he was not satisfied with his hon. Friend's explanation. He should be glad to know from his hon. Friend, if he was prepared to give at once a statement of the advances made, and to produce the account which he said was so satisfactory. There was a peculiarity in the phrase, used by his hon. Friend, that advances were not made from the civil contingencies to eke out Votes of which estimates bad been given. Take the case of the Ordnance. The Ordnance was under strict rule that every sixpence of expenditure should be audited, and that entire control should be exercised over its expenditure. He did not quarrel with the expenditure, but what was the fact? The Ordnance had been expending in experiments more than Parliament had voted, which sums were unaudited and uncontrolled. That was the very example of all others to show that the civil contingencies were in an unsatisfactory state. If his hon. Friend could give the House the paper he had spoken of, he would be satisfied with the £60,000 he had got, and would not press the subject further.

MR. LLOYD DA VIES
wished to know from the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the payment of 100 guineas to the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phillimore) for assisting in the preparation of the Oxford University Bill was made whilst that hon. and learned Gentleman was a Member of that House? He did not mean to say that the amount was more than adequate to the services rendered by the hon. Gentleman, but the question was, if it did not involve constitutional considerations, and affect the character of the House itself. He thought it desirable that an explanation should be given upon the subject.

§ MR. MOWBRAY
wished to know whether any further sum would be required for the fireworks exhibited on the 29th ult. beyond the £8,000 which had been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the estimated expenditure?

§ MR. WILSON
said, that as the accounts for the fireworks had not yet been received, he could not state precisely what would be the expenditure. Some expense had, of course, been incurred in the preparation of 1340 the fireworks by the department at Woolwich; but he believed the amount named by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion would be the sum required as an extra charge on the public; but it should be recollected that some part of the expense would be borne by the Ordnance Department under which they had been prepared, and it was merely the extraneous charges which would be defrayed out of the civil contingencies. With respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Tavistock, he believed that he was a Member of the House when he received the payment referred to by the hon. Gentleman opposite. With regard to the observations of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth, he had to state that no advances had been made to eke out any Vote granted by Parliament for specific purposes, but that the advances from the civil contingencies were always made for services and purposes which could not be foreseen, and for which, therefore, no provision could be made. The case of the Ordnance experiments was of this nature. With regard to the accounts which he was prepared to lay before the House, they had not been prepared in consequence of anything that had been either said or done by the right hon. Baronet, because the attention of the Treasury had been for a long period directed to the subject, with the view of presenting a clear and satisfactory statement of the expenditure under this head. He would in a few days be able to lay them on the table of the House. They would embrace the total expenditure, distinguishing every advance and repayment made for the last fifteen years, and show the balance in the Exchequer.

MR. LLOYD DAVIES
thought the answer which had been given to his question by the hon. Secretary to the Treasury was not at all satisfactory. He wished to know whether the payment to the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock had been sanctioned by the Government, and he thought it necessary that there should be a clear understanding on the subject. If the payment had been made inadvertently, he had nothing more to say about the matter, but a constitutional principle of vital importance was involved, for if Members of the House received such payments it was impossible to doubt that their freedom of action must be in some degree influenced. He did not bring forward this question with any special reference to the 1341 hon. and learned Member for Tavistock, but simply upon public grounds.

§ MR. WILSON
said, it was not for the Treasury to determine the constitutional question to which the hon. Gentleman had referred. A demand was made upon the Treasury for a sum for the performance of certain duties, and it was no part of the duty of the Treasury to inquire whether the person who performed such duties was entitled to perform them or not.

MR. GLADSTONE
submitted that the question which been put by the hon. Member for Cardigan was one which ought to receive the most satisfactory answer that could be given. He (Mr. Gladstone) had thought this matter had been settled long ago, and he did not know how it happened that it was now brought to the notice of the Committee. The hon. Member for Cardigan deemed it a dangerous practice to employ Members of that House professionally in the preparation of Bills, and he (Mr. Gladstone) thought the hon. Gentleman was quite justified in calling attention to the payment to which he had referred. It was undoubtedly expedient and necessary that the attention of the House should he carefully fixed upon payments of this nature, and that any tendency to make a practice of such payments should be discouraged. It was right that the House should require to be informed of the special reasons which had led to the Payment in this particular instance, and, speaking from recollection, and therefore not with perfect confidence, he (Mr. Gladstone) would endeavour to afford some explanation. The payment in question had reference to the drawing of the Oxford University Bill. He was himself much concerned, but of course not professionally or officially, in the preparation of materials for that measure. His hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General was the person who, on the part of the Government, drew the Bill, that was to say, who superintended and was responsible for its drawing; and officially it was under his direction that the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock was employed in the preparation of the measure. He (Mr. Gladstone) did not exempt himself from responsibility on that score, because he was perfectly cognisant of the arrangement, and, while he admitted that special reasons only ought to justify such an arrangement, he fully approved it a the time. The case of the Oxford University and its colleges was a most peculiar case; and although it would have been 1342 perfectly easy to find numbers of lawyers who were capable of drawing bills upon almost any other subject, there were few who possessed such knowledge of the history of the foundations of the Universities and Colleges as to be capable of drawing a Bill with reference to that University. It was on that ground, and because it appeared both to his hon. and learned Friend and himself that the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock was conversant with such subjects, and able to render valuable assistance which they did not think it practicable to find elsewhere, that his professional services were employed in drawing up the Bill and putting it into a formal and legal shape. He thanked the hon. Gentleman opposite for drawing attention to the subject; for there could be no doubt that the general rule was adverse to the employment of Members of the House for such purposes. But the hon. Gentleman was not to suppose that this was the first time such a thing had taken place. On the contrary, cases had occurred from time to time in which Members had been so employed, and he perfectly agreed with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that it was one of those matters which the House should be careful not to overlook.

§ LORD HOTHAM:
The Secretary to the Treasury had observed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in stating that the cost of the fireworks would not exceed £8,000 must be understood as not including in that amount the cost incurred at Woolwich. Now that was not a strictly accurate representation of the case, and he (Lord Hotham) was competent to speak upon the point, because he happened to be the person who had addressed the interrogatory to the right hon. Gentleman on the subject. The right hon. Gentleman having previously stated that the expense would amount to £8,000, he (Lord Hotham), on a subsequent day, asked him if he intended to lay an estimate of the contemplated expenditure incurred in the preparations made in London as those which were being incurred in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. The answer of the right hon. Gentleman was that the Government did not contemplate laying an estimate upon the table; that it was intended to pay the expense out of the civil contingencies, and he added emphatically that he was informed, and believed, that the expenditure would not exceed £8,000. Now an answer given to an inquiry made in that way, referring to the expenditure in London and at Woolwich 1343 must surely be taken by any man of plain understanding, to mean that the total expense would not exceed the sum mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman; and he confessed that, however surprised he might have been at hearing that the cost would amount to no more, he certainly did consider and had so stated to several hon. Gentlemen in the House, that the right hon. Gentleman had pledged himself as solemnly to the House as one gentleman could pledge himself to another upon any subject, that £8,000 would cover the whole of the expense that would be incurred on the occasion.

§ Motion by leave withdrawn.

§ Original question put and agreed to.

§ (2.) Motion made, and Question proposed— That a sum, not exceeding £151,213, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge for Public Education in Great Britain, to the 31st day of March, 1837.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
Sir, I rise to propose the annual Vote for public education—£151,213, of which £300,000 has been already voted on account; but, as there is a very full explanatory minute attached to the estimate, containing paragraphs corresponding to each particular item, it will not be necessary that I should give any lengthened explanation to the House. At the same time, as the grant proposed to be taken this year is greater than in any former year, and exceeds by £54,292 the sum voted last year, and as a proposal is to be made by an hon. Member to reduce the amount, I will take the liberty of calling the attention of the House to the past expenditure on account of education, to the appropriation of the funds placed at the disposal of the Committee of Privy Council by Parliament, and particularly to the grounds on which the increase of this year has taken place. I am the more desirous to do so as I am anxious to remove an impression which I am afraid prevails in some quarters that, because there are difficulties in establishing throughout the country a general system of combined education, therefore nothing can be done by Parliament in aid of the efforts made for promoting the great object of popular education throughout the country. Whatever opinions we may entertain as to the expediency of a general system of education—however much we may regret the failure of those attempts which have been made from time to time 1344 by men of influence to secure that important object, it would be wrong on our part if we did not acknowledge that, these attempts having failed, very important and very beneficial results have been attained by means of these Parliamentary grants that are placed at the disposal of the Committee of Privy Council, and which are appropriated by that Committee in accordance with certain Minutes regulating the principle of appropriation. Since the year 1839 a sum rather exceeding £2,000,000 has been placed by Parliament, by annual grant, in the hands of the Committee of Privy Council for the promotion of popular education, and that sum has been expended in aid of those voluntary efforts to which allusion has been made, and very justly made, in previous debates on the subject of education—efforts that cannot be too highly estimated and commended, but which, I believe, have failed in accomplishing all the objects sought to be attained by them, and which would not have been attended with the success which has accompanied them had they not been aided by the grants which Parliament has made. It is a fact not unworthy of notice, that, during the first ten years, the amount placed annually at the disposal of the Committee was never wholly expended. There remained annually an accumulated balance in the hands of the Committee, the applications for money not having exhausted the amount. But from that time the reverse has been the case, and the expenditure has annually exceeded the sum granted by Parliament, the deficit being supplied by the unappropriated balances of the sums provided by Parliament in the previous years. The inference we are to draw from this is, that the discussions from time to time, either on Motions submitted to this House or on the considerations of the annual Estimates, have given a great impulse to the efforts made to promote education, and that there has been a growing and rapidly increasing appreciation of the benefits derived from the grants which have been made by Parliament in aid of the voluntary efforts to promote that important object. In 1839 the grant was £30,000; last year it was £396,921; and this year the amount proposed is £451,213, of which £200,000 has been already voted by the House. To show the progressive increase of the expenditure, I have here a comparative table, showing the amount expended in each year 1345 during the last six years, and comprised under different heads — namely, school buildings, pupil teachers, Queen's scholars, students in training, certificated mastore

Year	Amount expended	Number of School Buildings erected, enlarged, or improved.	Number of Pupil Teachers.	Number of Queen's Scholars.	Number of Students in Training, Examined, and Passed.	Number of Certificated Masters and Mistresses.	Number of Inspectors.^*	Number of Schools (under separate Teachers) Inspected.^*	Number of Children present at Examination.	Percentage of Children above 10 Years of Age.
	£	s.	d.
1850–51	193,026	5	8	285	4,660	39	205	980	19	3,098	214, 873	37.17
1851–52	164,313	17	7	205	5,607	144	305	1,173	19	3,114	256,888	36.75
1852–53	188,856	12	4	232	6,180	331	526	1,720	22	3,934	354,442	39.29
1853–54	250,658	18	3	273	7,007	783	833	2,297	29	4,341	360,777	36.09
1854–55	326,436	7	6	312	7,768	929	1,132	2,836	32	5,575	473,214	31.24
1855–56	369,602	6	11	414	8,524	972	1,254	3,432	36	6,966	569,076	33.44
^* Exclusive of five workhouse school inspectors, and upwards of 600 workhouse schools.

§ I think these figures give very satisfactory and encouraging evidence of the advantages derived from the annual Parliamentary grants in aid of education, not only in the increase of school buildings, to which the grants were formerly almost exclusively limited, but still more in increasing the number and raising the qualifications of the teachers in the different common schools throughout the country. For the present year, in order to meet the increasing demands and provide for some new heads of expenditure, the proposed grant exceeds by £54,000 the grant of last year. The principal heads of increase are the following:—First, grants to pay the annual stipends of pupil teachers and gratuities to the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses instructing them, in which there is an increase in the Vote over that of last year of £10,000; secondly, capitation grants England and Wales, which are increased from £12,000 to £40,000, being an addition of £28,000; thirdly, grants in augmentation of the salaries of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses who have obtained, upon examination, certificates of merit, and whose schools have been favourably reported upon by Her Majesty's Inspector, in which there is an increase of £10,000; fourthly, grants to assistant teachers, which are increased by £1,000. Grant No. 12 is a new grant, being a sum of £10,000 for industrial schools. There is also some increase in the charge for establishment and inspectors, caused by the greater amount of business performed by the Committee of Council and the increased

1346

§ ters and mistresses, inspectors, schools inspected, numbers of children examined, and the percentage of children above ten years of age. The following is the table:

§ number of schools under inspection. Under the first of these heads, in grant No. 3, no explanation is necessary. The increase is caused simply by the larger number of pupil teachers, as appearing by the figures already cited. But I may call the attention of the Committee for a moment to a Parliamentary paper, which shows that a great number of these pupil teachers really find their way into schools as masters and mistresses, and which gives us reason to hope, not only that they will derive important advantages themselves from the assistance they receive from the State, but also that they will become valuable auxiliaries in diffusing an improved education throughout the country. The paper in question was moved for by the hon. Member for Sheffield, and presented to the House in July, 1855. A portion of it consists of a return of pupil teachers and stipendiary monitors who have been trained or educated at the public expense to become teachers, but who have not been received in the normal schools. The number was 9,788; but that number included 6,619 pupil teachers, who, at the date of the return—25th of April, 1855—were serving their apprenticeships. The remainder—3,169—was made up as follows: 1,544 had duly completed their apprenticeships, and the greater part of them—1,439—were known to be employed as public teachers; 170 were dead; 180 had failed in health; 307 had been rejected for want of proficiency; and 968 had been rejected or withdrawn from other causes. A considerable number were still receiving 1347 instruction in April, 1855, and of these, looking at the proportion who had already engaged in the work of education, it is to be hoped that a large part will render valuable assistance as teachers of schools throughout the country. The same observation applies to the grants in agumentation of the salaries of schoolmasters and assistant teachers—namely, that the increase is owing to the proportionately larger number of persons who have qualified themselves to receive the assistance offered to them by the Minutes of Council. With regard to the increase in the amount for capitation grants—No. 4—the explanation is given in the explanatory note attached to the Estimates. The increased Vote arises from the extension of these grants, in accordance with what appeared to be the general opinion of the House last year, from the rural districts and smaller towns, to which they were formerly confined, to other parts of the country which have hitherto not received them. But there is one important, and, I think, necessary qualification, to which I deem it my duty to call the attention of the Committee. It is this—that, although the capitation grants are now proposed to be extended to the whole of the country, instead of being confined to the rural districts and smaller towns, yet they are to be given only to those schools of which the masters or mistresses are either certificated or registered—registration implying a lower degree of qualification than certification, but still giving a guarantee that the teachers are something above the ordinary level, and have qualified themselves to impart a sound and useful education. I know some think that these grants should be given irrespective of the qualifications of the master or mistress, provided the school is, under all the circumstances, well conducted; but, at a time when Parliament is pressing upon the Government the adoption of some test of examination for persons entering the civil service, I am afraid it would be extremely injudicious to hold out to. all schools, apart from the comparative merits of the teachers, equal advantages with respect to these capitation grants. The conditions on which the grants are made, are fully explained in the Minute of the 2nd of April, 1853, and the explanatory circular of the 20th of August, in the same year; and these so fully explain the principles on which they are founded, that it is not necessary for me now to go into, that part of the 1348 question, and I will therefore only add that a subsequent Minute, of the 26th of January in the present year, and laid before Parliament at the beginning of April, extends the application of the former Minute to all parts of England and Wales, involving, as I have said, an estimated increase in the Vote of £28,000. The new grants to industrial schools are to be made under the recent Minute. The object is to improve the character and quality of the education given in these schools, and to hold out an encouragement to efficient teachers by giving them either gratuities or an addition to their salaries. Aid will also be given to industrial schools by the payment of rent in certain cases. It is not intended to apply any portion of the —10,000 to the building of what are called "reformatories" in the technical sense of the word, or establishments erected under the authority of acts of Parliament for the reception of juvenile offenders. That subject has been maturely considered, and it has been thought that, while reformatories should be eligible to the advantages which the grants hold out to industrial schools, as far as concerns the masters or mistresses, they should be subjected, in other respects, to the general rule which has hitherto guided the Committee of Council in doling with schools which provide for the board and lodging, as well as the education, of the schools. It is obvious that if these grants were applied to the building of such schools a very heavy expense would be incurred by the committee of Council, and the funds placed at their disposal would be diverted from the objects to, which Parliament intended them to be applied. Moreover, it will be unnecessary to devote any portion of the grants to that purpose if the general and expressed opinion of the House be carried into effect—namely, that provision should be made for the establishment of reformatories out of the county and borough rates. For a detailed statement of last year's expenditure I may refer the Committee to the last volume of the Minutes of the Committee of the Privy Council, where any hon. Gentleman desirous of seeing how the money has been spent will obtain that knowledge much better than from any statement I can make; and, unless any question is asked me, I shall not go into details of the grants. But, before I sit down, I must express the hope that, after the explanations I have made, the hon. Member who has given, notice of a proposal 1349 to reduce the Vote to the same amount as last year will not think it necessary to persevere with his Motion. I hope also, that hon. Gentlemen will not upon this occasion object to the Vote upon the ground so often debated—of objection to State interference with education. We have had many discussions upon that subject, and I believe it is the general feeling of the House that, in order to promote the general education of the country, voluntary efforts alone, however valuable in themselves, are insufficient to attain that great object which we all desire. I trust that the Committee, looking at the results already obtained from this grant, and bearing in mind that other plans (of the merits of which I express no opinion) have failed, mainly on account of religious differences, will feel itself bound not to withhold any means which may be within its reach to assist voluntary efforts in establishing additional schools, and in improving those which already exist. That is the object of the present Vote—to extend and increase the benefits of the system which has now been some years in operation; and, however short it may have fallen of the desires and expectations of some hon. Gentlemen, still I hope that, until these desires and expectations can be fulfilled, they will be disposed to lend a willing assistance in continuing, improving, and strengthening the system which now exists. I say "which now exists," in reference to the Bill which I have introduced into this House upon the subject, the second reading of which has been postponed until after this Vote, and which is threatened with opposition by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield), and which is, I believe, calculated to render more efficient the present system of education. I have, as a Member of the Committee of the Privy Council, felt it my duty to make myself acquainted with all the details of past expenditure, as well as of that which is about to take place; but I cannot be expected to be able to give those full and detailed explanations upon every point as a person would be who had daily experience and perfect knowledge of the matter. The responsibility of individual Members of the Committee of Privy Council I fully admit; but then that Committee is only summoned occasionally, and then to discuss questions of principle, and not of detail. If, however, there were a department in which responsibility should be concentrated, represented by a Minister 1350 in this House, who would necessarily be acquainted with all the details of the subject, I think we should derive the same advantages as followed, in regard to the administration of the poor law, by having the President of the poor law board in this House; and I believe that there will be a similar advantage in regard to education by the alteration proposed by the measure I refer to. I may also remark that the next Vote, for Science and Art, is one of which I have nothing to say, it not being connected with the Committee of Privy Council; but it is intended by the Bill to which I have referred, that all matters connected with education, including the higher branches of science and art for which public money is granted, shall be placed under the general supervision of the new department, the Minister representing which would be able to give this House any information which it may require. Having stated in general terms the general reasons of the increase in this Vote, I shall now conclude by moving that a sum of £151,213 be granted to Her Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the expenses of public education in Great Britain for the year ending March 31, 1857.

§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTON:
It is hardly necessary for me to say I have no intention either of criticising the statement we have just heard or of opposing the Vote. I need only say, I concur with the right hon. Baronet as to the propriety of all the changes proposed in regard to the Vote of last year, and I heartily thank the Government for having made the Vote for education on a more liberal scale. My object in rising is to solicit the permission of the Committee to address to it some few observations upon the present position of the great question of education, without entering at length upon the extensive subject, or intending by those observations to give occasion for any protracted debate. Since what took place on the occasion of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell) proposing certain Resolutions on the subject of education, and the extraordinary and, as I think, unsatisfactory division upon those Resolutions, I have good reasons for believing that among the neither small nor unimportant class who take a deep interest in the extension of education there has been excited a feeling of alarm with respect to the intentions of Parliament. The Committee will remember what those proceedings were. 1351 The noble Lord brought forward a series of some twelve Resolutions, forming a bold and extensive plan of education, but completely altering the present system. After the first night's debate, the noble Lord, no doubt believing that his plan did not meet the favour of the House, withdrew, not as, I think, he might wisely have done, the whole of the Resolutions, but only seven of them, which really comprised his whole plan. Those which were left were but a foundation upon which a superstructure was to have been raised, and I have always been surprised that the noble Lord should have thought it worth while, after the demonstration of feeling which had taken place, to press to a division those four or five Resolutions, which contained so little. The Question was put upon the first Resolution, which was merely this— "That, in the opinion of this Committee, it is expedient to extend, revise, and consolidate the Minutes of the Committee of Privy Council on Education." That Resolution contains nothing but a truism—a recital of what has been done, and is being done, every day. We have seen several times this Session those minutes extended, and there has been an attempt to bring them all together and to consolidate them. I can see nothing in this Resolution to which any hon. Gentleman could possibly object; but my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Henley) had given notice of an Amendment upon these Resolutions in the shape of a refusal to entertain them—his Amendment was, "that the Speaker should not leave the chair." That right hon. Gentleman, however, stated, upon the discussion, that he took no exception to this particular Resolution, and neither did he desire to press his Amendment; but, notwithstanding that intimation, a division took place, and the Resolution, which contained nothing but a truism to which everybody assented, was negatived, and an Amendment, which affirmed nothing, was voted by a majority of 102. Whatever were the feelings that led to that division, now that the excitement of the moment has passed away, I think I may venture to say that there is no Member of this House a party to that Vote who is at all proud of it. It is a question what was done or what was affirmed on that occasion; and if we who are Members of this House feel some doubt whether the course which we took was really intelligible, can it be wondered at that people out of doors are somewhat perplexed by our proceedings on that 1352 occasion? They feel, as I have no doubt we feel here, that the division was somewhat incomprehensible. ["No, no!"] I will withdraw the expression and say, we feel in this House—and the people out of doors feel—that the division had its meaning and object. The feeling out of doors is, that the intention of the House of Commons was to declare that a large majority of its Members was unfavourable to the extension of public education in this country. ["No, no!"] I quite concur that such was not our meaning, but I have reason to believe that was the impression out of doors. I should be most sorry if I thought that was the true construction of the division. I believe the true construction to be this—that a great majority of the House was indisposed to the particular plan which the noble Lord the Member for the City of London brought forward. I supported the Resolutions of the noble Lord, because their main object was to adopt a rate for education; but at the same time I felt it my duty to tell the noble Lord there were parts of the plan upon which I disagreed with him—that, although I agreed as to the absolute necessity of a rate, and was prepared to support a compulsory rate, still I thought its proposal imprudent and premature, and had given proof of that opinion by proposing in my own plan, not a compulsory, but a permissive rate. But the noble Lord's plan embraced other points; it embraced an attack upon a great number of charities, which I thought imprudent, and the majority was swollen, I believe, by Gentlemen who took alarm at that part of the proposal. The noble Lord called into action the courts of quarter session as a means of levying the rate, and I thought that injudicious. There were several other points to which exception might be taken; and, looking at the whole nature of the plan, I confidently believe the majority was a majority against the specific proposal, and not a majority from which the country is justified in inferring that the House of Commons, as at present constituted, is unwilling to encourage the extension of education in this country. While I am willing to entertain this belief, I am bound to say some of the speeches in opposition to the noble Lord, were so framed as to justify a feeling of alarm on the part of the friends of education, showing as they did that at least some of the eminent Members of this House are indisposed to increase education at the expense of the 1353 State. With regard to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), it was not only distinguished by his usual ability, but for its fairness and moderation well deserved the encomiums it elicited in the course of the debate. I confess I listened to it with great pleasure, because I fancied there was to be traced throughout some little proof that he had devoted great attention to the subject, and that his views had undergone some modification since he addressed the House in opposition to the Bill which I brought forward last year. A most remarkable speech was made on that occasion by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), who frankly avowed that the material was supplied by the pamphlet of Mr. Baines. No doubt it saved him a great deal of trouble in investigating the subject; but, as I had the opportunity of replying to that speech at the time, I will not allude to it further. I wish very much to refer to the very remarkable speech which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) on that occasion. I listened to that speech with admiration, as the most able and most eloquent ever delivered, even by him. But, while I pay this tribute to his ability, I am unable to concur in the opinions which he expressed. Allow me to read one passage:— We have happily found it practicable in England to associate together in the most perfect harmony these two principles—the principle of voluntary exertion, through which you get heart and love and moral influence infused into your school instruction, and the principle of material aid from the State, by which the skeleton and framework of your education are provided. But, associated as these two principles have been, it may be superfluous for one man or another to say what he would do in the event of its being necessary to sever them one from the other. I am convinced that the harmony which has hitherto been maintained between them, even in times of doubt and difficulty, will continue, and, if possible, increase; but if I were driven utterly to abandon the voluntary principle, or to place exclusive reliance upon it, I would not hesitate a moment in making my choice. In such an emergency I would say at once—give me the real education, the affection of the heart, the moral influences operative upon character, the human love, that are obtained through the medium of the voluntary principle carried out by man whose main motive is one of Christian philanthropy, rather than throw me upon a system which, whatever the intentions of its mover may be, must, sooner or later, degenerate into hard irreligion. It is hardly necessary to say the end of 1354 that passage is marked by "cheers," and I believe I joined in those cheers, carried away by the eloquent language of the right hon. Gentleman; but I cannot concur in the views it expresses. If I strip the passage of its ornamental language it seems to me to involve two propositions:— first, that the right hon. Gentleman thinks, that the voluntary system, materially aided by grants from the State, is sufficient for the education of the people of this country; and secondly, that if we venture to depart from that system and substitute another at all akin to that proposed by the noble Lord, the result will be that "it will sooner or later degenerate into hard irreligion."

§ MR. W. EWART rose to call the right hon. Baronet to order. If the right hon. Baronet had a right to refer to a recent debate, the right hon. Gentleman whose speeches were alluded to would have a right to reply. There would be a series of rejoinders and refutations, and the Committee would never arrive at a decision upon the Vote. He put it to the Chairman whether the right hon. Gentleman was not bound to confine himself to the Vote?

MR. FITZROY
said, that it was a well-known rule of the House that no allusion to a past debate was to be made during the same Session of Parliament, and he was sure that every Member of the House would see the expediency of adhering to this rule as strictly as possible. But, as he had been appealed to, he was bound to mention that the debate to which allusion had been made occurred in another Committee of the whole House, of which the present Committee was not technically supposed to be cognisant, and therefore that, strictly speaking, the right hon. Baronet was not out of order.

§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTON:
I can assure the hon. Gentleman I have not taken this course without previous inquiry, and I should not persevere if I supposed I was at all contravening the rules of the House. When you find great masses of the people in a state of ignorance, of want of training and of education—when you find in the gaols and workhouses not hundreds, but thousands who do not know the name of the Saviour, who cannot say a prayer, and have never been taught a prayer, what can be more alarming than such a state of irreligion—of "hard irreligion" as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford called 1355 it? And can you rely upon a grant of £300,000 or £400,000 to meet such a state of things? To the best of my belief you cannot. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sir Stafford Northcote) who takes great interest in this question, referred to the part that I have taken in this subject, and said that I always trusted to gaol statistics to support my views. My hon. Friend does me a great injustice, and greatly mistakes me if he thinks that I rely mainly on the gaols in support of my views. On the other hand, those hon. Gentlemen have a very imperfect knowledge of the state of public education who exclude from their view either the state of our gaols or the condition of the inmates of our workhouses. Why are they a gaol or pauper class? Is it true or not that we are rearing and training a gaol class, and that we are allowing a great population to grow up, who, for want of a sound and liberal policy on the part of the State, are educated to end their days in gaols and workhouses? I maintain that any man takes a narrow and imperfect view who excludes these classes from his consideration. On the other hand, this subject would not have the pressing interest and importance that attaches to it unless I could support my views by appealing to other classes, and taking a more extended view than the state of the gaols and workhouses affords. In the statement which I made to the House of the state of education in the county of Somerset, I mentioned the case of the diocese of Bath and Wells, where a society exists for the education of the people, supported by dignitaries of the Church, the great squires, and other eminent men. I stated that at the very time this society were preparing a report in rounded periods in favour of the noble voluntary system, their own diocesan inspector, Mr. Vaughan, was showing that nothing could be worse than the state of education in the diocese of Bath and Wells. When I made that statement of the miserable ignorance in the diocese of Bath and Wells, no hon. Gentleman rose to contradict me. Those statements were made in the strongest language, but they received the fullest confirmation. I also drew attention to the state of education in the county of Wilts, and these statements also were not contradicted; on the contrary, an hon. Gentleman opposite, connected with the county, came to me after the debate and said, "Who is your informant for the statements he makes are essentially 1356 correct?" The day before yesterday I met a very intelligent man, Mr. Aubyn, the head of that very large district school, formed by several of the unions of London at Norwood—[An hon. MEMBER: At Anerly]. So immense is this establishment, that Mr. Aubyn stated that last year there were upwards of 1,000 admissions. The children are admitted from a very early age to the age of fourteen; the average age being nine or ten. Mr. Aubyn assured me that of these thousand children so admitted every year from seventy to eighty per cent come to this school perfectly ignorant and unable to read or write. This is the population of London. In confirmation of this statement, I may refer to a Report which has been published within the last few days. Mr. Tufnell, the school inspector for the workhouse schools in London, puts forward the most startling statements. Mr. Tufnell has four districts—I forget their names, but Stepney is one of them—containing a population of 500,000, and he states that in 700 or 800 admissions of children to these workhouses of the average age of ten years, seventy-three per cent were in a state of the most complete and utter ignorance. This seventy-three per cent may therefore be taken as a fair estimate of the condition of the lower classes of the great city of London. Mr. Cooke, also a metropolitan inspector, does not go into figures so fully as Mr. Tufnell does, but his report is to the same effect. It is clear, therefore, that if the lower classes of the metropolis are to receive education, you must embark in expenses, both for school accommodation and school arrangements, to an infinitely greater extent than either they or the richer classes have the means of providing under the voluntary system. In the face of these alarming facts what becomes of the statement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Mr. Gladstone), that we may trust to this happy combination of the voluntary system with material aid? Is it not demonstrated that if we would do our duty we cannot allow this question to remain as it is? Such is the nature of the evidence. Who are the witnesses? They are chiefly the chaplains and masters of gaols and workhouses; above all, they are the clergy, who, throughout England, are pressing upon our education societies, and upon the Committee of Privy Council, their inability to educate the people. There is another class of witnesses—Her Majesty's inspectors 1357 of Schools—gentlemen who are paid to travel through the country to investigate this question. You cannot doubt their statements, and all their reports tend in substance to the same point—the deficiency of the means of education. Who are the witnesses on the other side? What have we heard in opposition to the strong facts I have stated? We have heard theories, opinions, and an abundance of eloquence. But eloquence will never educate the people. For that purpose two things are requisite: first, improved machinery; and second and mainly, money. With regard to the first of these, the experiment of appointing inspectors has proved so successful that I hope Parliament will increase that machinery. But our main want is money. Education resolves itself into a plain financial question. A child contributes 2d. towards its own education, the cost is 6d., and the problem we have to solve is, how is the other 4d. to be obtained? The annual grant meets the difficulty in part; some of it is devoted to building purposes, some to the payment of pupil teachers—it is all usefully employed—but the grant, together with what can be squeezed out of the pockets of the benevolent, is very far from sufficient to educate the country; and unless some different and more liberal system be adopted the majority of the people must remain in a state of hopeless ignorance. A rate which would throw the burden equally upon the people at large would no doubt be a material aid; so would a Parliamentary grant for the whole amount required. But even if Parliament were to grant a sufficiently large sum from the Consolidated Fund to meet the whole demand, you would have to face the difficulty of being unable to administer it without local agency, upon which you could not place reliance. What, then, is to be done? In considering that question I turn for guidance to the views of Her Majesty's Government; but in the debate on the Resolutions of the noble Lord the Member for London, I was sorry to see some timidity oh the part of the Government—there appeared to be a reluctance on their part to state broadly and distinctly what their views were; but at the same time, believing, as I do, that neither the public out of doors nor their representatives within these walls, were prepared for a national educational rate, I think the Government were right in refusing to sanction that part of the noble Lord's scheme. Upon that 1358 ground I find, no fault with them. I do find fault with them, however, for timidly withdrawing, under the influence of the extraordinary division which took place in this House, a Bill which had been introduced in another place by the noble Lord the President of the Council for the advancement of education. That Bill was not open to the objection taken to the noble Lord's Resolutions; it merely enabled different localities to rate themselves if they pleased; and although it was described by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary as a very small and limited measure, I think, without pledging myself to its details, that if it had passed it would have been productive of great and beneficial results. It was a Bill, at any rate, which we ought to have had an opportunity of discussing, and I think the Government have shown great and unnecessary timidity in withdrawing it. I am happy to say, however, that they have not withdrawn their other measure for the establishment of a distinct department of the State for the purposes of education. I hope that measure will be sanctioned by the House of Commons. I hope that the Home Secretary has proposed this estimate to-night for the last time, and that it will in future be moved by a responsible Minister, to whom we may appeal for a remedy for the great evils which I have brought under the notice of the Committee. I shall look with great anxiety to the manner in which the new office is filled. I trust a gentleman will be selected for the office of Vice President of the Committee of Education, who will enter into it with a hearty determination to assist Parliament in carrying out the great object of education. I am sanguine as to the effect of the new department, and I hope that at the commencement of next Session the Minister at the head of it will announce the measures contemplated by the Government. If no such announcement be made, I shall not let the subject drop; and although I will not undertake to bring in a measure, still, if the Government will not introduce their own Bill, I shall be strongly tempted to introduce it for them. If all the evidence to which I have adverted has failed to convince the House of the necessity of dealing with the question, let it be put before us in another shape—let us have a Committee of inquiry—let us bring together gentlemen from all parts of England, who thoroughly understand the question, to State personally to us their 1359 experience and views upon it. Let the House grant such a Committee, and I am confident such a Report will be produced as will force conviction upon Parliament that this great and important subject requires to be firmly and speedily dealt with. I have to thank the Committee for the patience with which they have listened to this statement of my views—a statement which I have felt it my duty to make in consequence of the erroneous feeling of alarm with which the country has regarded the recent proceedings of the House of Commons. I think the country need not despair; my conviction is, that such are the merits, such are the necessities of the question of education, that ere long either this or another House of Commons will take some step for its settlement.

§ MR. BARNES
said, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department had requested him not to press his Amendment for the reduction of this Vote; but he could not accede to this appeal, and he would tell the Committee why. The question before the Committee was not whether any system of national education should be adopted, it was not the merits of any educational scheme proposed by the one party or the other—either the one suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester (Mr. Milner Gibson) or that proposed by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington), or the scheme which had been submitted to the House by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, —but whether the system already introduced and acted upon was satisfactory in its operations or not. It was because he believed it was not satisfactory that he felt compelled to enter his protest against its further extension, and therefore to persevere with the Motion of which he had given notice. He quite agreed with the right hon. Baronet who had just sat down that the amount of popular ignorance in this country was most deplorable. Vice and immorality, bad habits and vicious tastes, everywhere prevailed, and anything which would refine the tastes, raise the morals, and remove the ignorance of the people was most desirable; but if it were found that the system sanctioned by the Privy Council did not accomplish this, he could not give it his support; and his complaint was, notwithstanding the large outlay of public money, these objects were not effected, nor any of the existing evils in the least degree mitigated. The fact 1360 was, that the money voted by Parliament for the purpose of educating the humbler classes was wholly misapplied, and the benefit of it was given altogether to a different class of people, who did not want the money. The right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Pakington) had said that the great want was money. He did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman in that respect. The great difficulty involved in this matter was not the want of money, but that which had been most distinctly pointed out by the inspectors; their uniform statement was, that the monster difficulty which stood in the way of the spread of education among the children of this country was the indifference of the parents whether their children were educated or not. Almost every inspector pointed to this as the great obstacle in the advancement of education. Out of every one hundred children fifty-seven remained without education for no other assignable reason than the indifference of their parents. Would an addition to the grant of £50,000 remove this indifference? It would not at all touch the real difficulty. He contended, moreover, that the tendency of recent legislation on the subject of education had gone far to increase that indifference. He believed that the clause in the Factory Act which threw the education of the children upon the employers had the effect of undermining in the minds of many parents all sense of responsibility for the training and education of those children; and it was his conviction that by these legislative proceedings Parliament was unintentionally teaching the people of this country that the education of the children was not the duty of the parents, and he looked upon the spread of such erroneous opinions as most dangerous to the well-being of society. His conviction, therefore, was, that the Legislature was not on the right tack, but that they were going in a wrong direction, and the sooner they altered their course the better. Another difficulty which had been stated by the inspectors was the early age at which the children were removed from the schools. Mr. Cooke, the inspector, stated that the children of agricultural labourers were generally withdrawn from the schools before they were eleven years of age, and that the children of the manufacturing towns of Yorkshire very rarely remained till they were twelve years old. How could any extension of a Parliamentary grant meet that difficulty? If it were proposed to pay the children to 1361 come to school rather than suffer them to run about and pick pockets, he could understand it; but, as the case stood, their labour was required by their parents at an early age, and therefore they were taken away from the schools. There was another objection to the present system—namely, the very large and disproportionate expense for educating the teachers of these public schools. Those teachers were much more highly trained than was at all required at the present time. They had the benefit of a complete education in grammar, history, mathematics, French, Latin, and so on. Now, who were these teachers to instruct who were trained at so much expense to the country? He, for one, could not tell; for 75 per cent of the children in the schools were under ten years of age. It was quite clear, then, that much of the expense bestowed on these teachers was so much money thrown away; and that was another reason why he was opposed to the extension of the grant. But what class of persons really did get the benefit of these highly-taught teachers? Why, according to the report of Mr. Cooke, those who could afford to do without State assistance; for that gentleman says that nearly all the children in the schools of thirteen years and upwards were children of tradesmen, skilled artizans, and others in the receipt of regular and respectable incomes, and that many of the boys and girls who were now educated in the national schools were formerly sent to private schools. This was clearly an abuse of the system, and showed that while the country was supposed to be expending immense sums for the benefit of the poorer classes, they were really expending it for the advantage of those who did not require one shilling of the public money. On these grounds he entered his protest against the system. Nobody doubted the duty of parents to educate their children—on the contrary, all seemed to admit it; but the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) had said that at present the parents had to pay 2d. a week, whereas 6d. was required, and he asked whether they could afford it? He (Mr. Barnes) would say in reply that they could afford it, and he would give the Committee a very good reason for saying so. He would take the town of Preston. It was stated by Mr. Clay that he was informed that, during the "turn out" which lasted about six months, a sum of £1,000 weekly was the decreased expenditure for beer and spirits on the part of the factory hands, and 1362 that therefore it might be concluded that when they were in the receipt of their ordinary wages they might, if they chose, save so much money. Now, it was obvious that a very small portion of that sum of £1,000 weekly would educate every child belonging to those men who "turned out." Speaking generally of the working classes of this country—not of every individual workman—he believed they were in a condition, if they had the desire, to educate their own children. The right hon. Gentleman said that twopence a week was paid for the children, but he had the testimony of parents to the effect that when they sent children to school for twopence a week it was a positive gain to them, for it would cost them more in bread and butter and clothing if the children were kept running about the lanes and fields. Now, would any one say that the bulk of the working people of this country were not in a condition to afford the price of one pint of beer a week for the education of each of their children? He was not so absurd as to wish to deprive the working people altogether of their beer, but by a slight sacrifice they might educate the whole of their children. Was it right for the Legislature to take this duty out of their hands altogether? He objected to these grants on the ground of political economy; if he were sure that they were exclusively applied to the children of parents who really could not afford to pay for their education, he would not object to them; but that was not the case, and hence he felt that a most dangerous principle was involved in them. The time was not far distant when the working people of this country would have much more power in that House than they possessed at present, and what was the application they were likely to make of the principles now being inculcated into them by a proposition like the present? The argument, the Committee would perceive was this, that the gaols and workhouses were in a great measure filled in consequence of parents neglecting the education of their children, and, therefore, as a matter of policy, it was right for the State to take up this question of education. But the working men might say that the want of education was not the only cause of crime, and that a more cogent cause was the want of employment. Would the State, then, be equally right in finding work for the people? Another source of crime was the wretched and miserable habitations 1363 in which the working people lived; and according to the principle on which the present Vote was defended the working people might demand grants for building better houses, with the view of saving them from the demoralising effects produced by their present wretched dwellings. Would any one say it was the duty of the Legislature to make grants to build them better houses? Another cause of crime was, in a season of dearth, the excessive price of bread; and would it not be equally logical to make grants, as had been done on the other side of the Channel, to diminish the price of bread; and did the House think that the working people would not be quick to apply all the principles involved in the present grant? He certainly believed that the operation of such grants as the present was to instil into the minds of the working classes most pernicious politico-economical principles, and this was an additional objection to the extension of the grant. Perhaps the Committee would now allow him to make one or two observations with regard to the capitation grant. The Minute upon which this grant was made was issued in 1853; and when first the Vote was introduced into this House, the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) intimated that ample time would be given for consideration. Although, however, the grant was a new one, although the principle involved in it was very important, and it was by no means clear that it Was a proper one, the subject had never been discussed. Meanwhile the Vote had gone on increasing in amount; first, it was £5,000, last year it was £12,000, and now the sum asked for was £40,000. Was that a satisfactory state of things? He confessed he thought it was not, and that it was unseemly for the Committee to permit such a Vote to pass without full discussion. Meantime, it had been operating in a very prejudicial manner. Its professed object was to stimulate voluntary exertions, but in point of fact it exercised over voluntary effort a most pernicious influence. In a locality with which he was acquainted, a locality well supplied with schools, and, indeed, a good deal above the average in that respect, there was a school which had never asked for or received a shilling, from the grant. The children who attended it paid 6d., 8d., or 9d., a 1s. and he believed even more than that, per week. The school was going on in a satisfactory manner, when suddenly within a few hundred years from it another school was opened. 1364 It was conducted by a certificated master, and a staff of highly trained teachers. It was, in short, just as good as the old school with this difference, that the fee was just one-half, the rest being made up out of the national funds. He need scarcely state what had been the consequences. The children were gradually attracted by the new institution, and the old one would soon have to be closed. The same state of things was no doubt going on in many places; parents were being induced to desert masters whom they had been accustomed to pay the full price for educating their children, and to send them to schools where half the expense was defrayed out of the taxes. The result was, that the public burdens were increased, parents were taught to evade their duties towards their children, and all the while not the slightest service was done to the cause of national education. Was this the effect intended by Parliament? Did they intend to close those schools which had not hitherto asked for grants? The country gained nothing educationally by the transfer of children in this way to the State-aided schools, While the amount of the grant would, of course, be continually increased. Then, again, he did not at all see how those capitation grants were to be applied so as really to benefit the scholars and increase their number; and, taken altogether, it appeared by no means clear, he repeated, that the grant was a satisfactory one. Thanking the Committee for the attention with which they had listened to him, he would conclude by moving that the Vote be reduced from £451,213 to the amount of last year, namely, £396,921.

§ MR. MILNER GIBSON
said, his hon. Friend asked the Committee to refuse to increase this Vote, but a considerable portion of his speech would justify them, if they acted upon it, in discontinuing the grant altogether. To carry out his policy the Committee ought to say that they would refrain from giving any assistance by State grants to the education of the poor. Now, were they prepared to adopt such a principle? He thought not: nor did he believe that such a proposition would be received with much pleasure or satisfaction by the labouring classes of this country. When they considered how enormous a proportion of the incomes of the labouring classes was wrung from them in the shape of taxes on Customs and Excise duties, when they considered 1365 how much these classes were by these means disabled from paying for the education of their children, it could hardly be thought too much to give them some little aid towards meeting an important want. In one part of his hon. Friend's speech, respecting the application of this grant, he (Mr. Gibson) certainly thought there was great force. Under the present system the State gave the least to those who most needed assistance; to wealthy districts which could subscribe it contributed munificently, while to poor, neglected localities, where voluntary efforts could not be hoped for to any extent, all assistance was refused. To this extent he certainly agreed with his hon. Friend, and should be glad to join him in urging upon Parliament the necessity of reviewing the Minutes of Council, and of better adapting these Minutes to the wants of the population. They heard a good deal as to the desirability of leaving education to take care of itself. "Do nothing," it was said; "let education be left to the ordinary rules of supply and demand, and where schoolmasters are wanted they will go; and where parents want their children educated they will find funds to support those schoolmasters." Well, that was a principle for which a good deal might be said; but if the maxim that "all interference with the freedom of education is pernicious" were a sound one, what became of the argument in favour of voluntary subscriptions? Voluntary subscriptions supported schools which were brought into competition with private schools. If a number of gentlemen joined themselves together—actuated, no doubt, by the most benevolent motives, as well, perhaps, as by a wish to promote their religious sentiments—and if these gentlemen established schools where pupils were taken at lower fees than at private schools, did not those voluntary subscriptions interfere just as much with freedom of education as subscriptions given by the State? The principle of political economy to which his hon. Friend had referred was as much violated in the one case as in the other. Confident, however, as he (Mr. Gibson) was of the soundness of politico-economical views in general, he was not prepared to trust to them in the matter of education; he did not regard the course on which they had entered without some misgivings, but he was not inclined to wait until the people from one end of the land to the other were so penetrated with the necessity of diffusing 1366 knowledge as of themselves to establish and support schools throughout the whole country. He was therefore willing in this case to violate a sound principle of political economy. With respect to the proposal of the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Pakington) to submit the matter to a Committee of Inquiry, he hoped the House would listen to no such suggestion. All the information which could be needed had been collected by a Committee, of which he was a member, which had sat two Sessions on the subject, and Would be found in the Report which it had presented. When the Committee of Council was first instituted in 1839, and the distribution of the Parliamentary grants for educational purposes intrusted to it, the Church took alarm, and there was a loud cry that danger was looming in the distance; but the Dissenters did not see any danger or any violation of principle in the measure. On the contrary, Mr. Baines, the father of the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, made a powerful speech in that House in support of the Government scheme, in the course of which he declared that the voluntary principle was unable to grapple with the existing state of educational destitution. There had been a gradual change of opinion among the Dissenters in reference to the application of educational grants; but, having once got into the system, and having as a consequence, prevented the rise in all parts of the country of private schools, it would be extremely difficult to discontinue the grants, nor did he think that any Minister would be bold enough to take the responsibility of recommending such a measure. Was it worth while, then, to refuse the small addition which was proposed this year? The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bolton (Mr. Barnes) must remember that by granting the remainder of the Vote he violated his principle just as much as if he granted the whole; and it would be very much better if he would abandon his present Motion, and raise the question in some bolder and more comprehensive manner. Great complaints were made of the mode in which the grants were distributed, and he was at a loss to understand how a certain class of schools which were likely to prove useful to the community, were excluded from participation in the Parliamentary Vote. According to the Minutes of Council, no school could receive assistance which did not teach some religion; the strictly secular schools, which gave a 1367 moral and intellectual education only, were excluded. The rule was that some religion must be taught; whether that religion was Protestant or Roman Catholic, Jewish or whatever other religion, did not matter; but some religion there must be, or else the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures must be read as a portion of the daily lessons. That was certainly not a just distribution of the grant; all schools which could be shown to be really useful ought to have a share in it. There was a secular school at Manchester established by persons of various religious denominations, in a very densely populated district, affording accommodation to a large number of scholars, and doing great good in the neighbourhood, which had lately memorialised the Privy Council for a share of the Parliamentary grant; but the answer given was, that unless some sort of religion were taught, no assistance could be given. This the promoters declined to undertake, saying that, though they had exerted themselves to induce the children to attend Sunday schools or some place of worship so successfully that ninety per cent of them did attend Sunday-schools and frequented some place of worship, yet that, if they were to attempt to teach any particular form of religion through the schoolmaster, the school would very soon be broken up, inasmuch as the subscribers were persons of all religious denominations. There were similar schools in London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh; and he could not understand why any distinction should be made between the two classes of schools. Inspector Morell, in his Report to the Committee of Privy Council, had expressed a very strong opinion that the schools in which secular education only was given should receive a share of the grant, and he recommended that they should be included in the Minutes of the Council. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich had expressed his approval of a Bill introduced in the other House by the President of the Council, but that Bill enabled secular schools, as well as religious schools to be supported by public rates, and the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, must be in favour of the principle of admitting those secular schools to a participation in the Parliamentary grant.

§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTON:
I expressly stated that I did not commit myself to all the details of that Bill.

§ MR. MILNER GIBSON:
At any rate the Secretary for the Home Department, 1368 as a colleague of the Lord President of the Council, must be held to have approved the Bill before its introduction, and he should therefore claim his support. He felt no hesitation in calling upon the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, to do his utmost to obtain a change in the Minute of Council which excluded secular schools from all participation in the grant. There was, he thought, great force in an observation which had been made, that these Minutes of Council ought to be laid periodically before Parliament, in order that Parliament and the country might know not only what was the sum of money required for educational purposes, but also how that money was applied. He did not remember any full discussion upon the Minutes of Council, he thought that such a discussion might be of very considerable advantage, for at the present moment many Members of that House did not know what those Minutes were; but he hoped that, now that their attention was called to the subject they would agree with him in thinking a more equitable plan of distributing the Vote necessary. The effect of the Minute of Council was that no school should have any assistance from the grant unless it was connected with some religious denomination, or unless a portion of the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures was read daily to the scholars. Now, the obligation to read some portion of the authorised version of the Scriptures afforded no security that any religious instruction at all was given, although, perhaps, it might exclude Roman Catholics from the schools; and a great anomaly of the system was, that the inspectors were excluded from making any report upon the subject of religious instruction. He could not support the proposal of his hon. Friend: on the contrary he accepted the present plan as better than nothing, and looked forward to a time when a more extended plan would be adopted—a plan based upon unsectarian principles, and in which all classes of Her Majesty's subjects would participate.

§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE
said, the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Barnes) had his Amendment supported in an able and temperate speech; but he thought that a great portion of it had been answered by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman that, under the present system, the money voted was not applied in the best 1369 possible manner; but he regretted that he (Mr. Barnes) took exception to precisely those two points, which he (Sir S. North-cote) considered to be a move in the right direction—to the capitation grant, and the Vote for industrial schools. He was disappointed to find from the speech of the Home Secretary that no portion of the Vote would be applicable to the building of reformatory schools, because the President of the Council, on a former occasion, had taken some credit for the Minute making some provision on that point. He was glad to find that aid was to be given to industrial schools. If in his remarks the right hon. Baronet wished it to be understood that those schools would be supported more or less by rates, he must protest against any such doctrine, as the promoters of these schools deprecated the idea of their being placed on that footing. With respect to the capitation grant he had to remark that originally it was not intended for the class of the population to whom it was now made applicable. In 1853, Lord John Russell had proposed a system of rating for corporate towns, and had suggested that to the other parts of the country the system of capitation grants, then in preparation, would be applicable. It turned out that the main plan failed, and the subsidiary one succeeded; and they were now throwing their strength into the latter. Originally intended for the rural districts, it had since been extended by letters and Minutes of the Privy Council to town schools. The main principle of the grant consisted in giving assistance to schools which were already in existence, and its operation was accompanied by certain conditions, such, for instance, as that the children entitled to it should have attended at those schools 176 days in the year, and should have contributed a minimum sum of 1d. per week, in return for the instruction which they received. Now, he was of opinion that that system was calculated to be productive of considerable advantage in the rural districts; but he did not entertain similar sentiments with respect to its operation in towns, inasmuch as he believed that the class of children in towns, for whom it was most desirable that instruction should be provided, would, from various causes, be found to be very irregular in their attendance, and would not, therefore, in all probability, in a great number of cases, come within the condition 1370 of having been present in school during the 176 days, which the Committee of the Privy Council required before the capitation grant should come into effect. He should therefore suggest that such a modification with respect to the time of attendance should be made as would enable a larger number of children to enjoy the benefit of the grant in those cases in which the pursuance of such a course should appear to be calculated to have that operation. The same objection applied to the condition which required the payment of a 1d. per week to entitle to the capitation grant. Children had to be enticed into the schools, and poor parents could not be expected to pay their pennies regularly. He would therefore suggest that the payment of the penny should not be invariably enforced. With respect to the question of lowering the standard of the qualification of schoolmasters, he should observe that while he should be the last person to advocate such a course, he deemed it desirable that schoolmasters adapted to the particular class of instruction which they might be called upon to administer should as far as possible be selected. The present class of trained schoolmasters were deserving of high commendation for the manner in which they discharged their duties; but then they were scarcely fitted to be teachers in the ragged—the lowest class of schools, which required a peculiar class of men to manage them—a class who could hardly be bought for money, though they might for love. He was of opinion that a system of registration in the case of schoolmasters should be maintained, but not such a system as would tend to exclude many men whose services might, if put in requisition, be found of great value. He hoped that the Vice President of the Committee of Council about to be appointed, would take these and other matters into consideration.

§ MR. ALCOCK
then, in pursuance of a notice which he had given upon the subject, proceeded to call the attention of the House to the expediency of doubling the present rates of the capitation grants to schools, whether in parishes containing a population either above or below 5,000 persons, and of reducing the minimum number of days of attendance from 176 to 160 days in a year in the case of those children who were entitled to capitation money. The existing plan as it was carried out under the Committee of Privy 1371 Council would prove, he believed, with certain relaxations, a sound and good system, which ought to suffice for every requirement of national education. Mr. Baines, in a letter he had addressed to The Times, stated that the capitation grant last year had amounted to £10,000; that this year it was to be increased to £40,000 and that in the course of time it might reach £766,000. Mr. Baines argued that such might be the case; but it was for the Committee to consider the facts of the case as they actually were, not as they possibly might be. Last year £10,000 had been granted in the shape of capitation money, which having been divided among 1,000 schools afforded to each school State assistance to the extent of £10; or an average, he believed, of 4s. 6d. a head to the children to whom instruction was administered in those schools. Practically speaking, however, in consequence of the required attendance of the children for at least 176 days in each year, not more than one-third of them became entitled to the benfit of the grant; so that in reality the amount of capitation money bestowed in the case of the schools in question, did not average more than at the rate of 1s. 6d. per head for all those to whom instruction was administered. This year, it was true, it was very properly proposed to increase that grant to £40,000; but as the object of the augmented grant was that it might embrace all schools without any distinction, its effect would not be to increase the average sum which each school would receive, for it would obtain no more now than last year, although a larger number of schools would be permitted to participate in the grant. He wished, therefore, the Committee to double the amount per head, and to make that 9s. which last year was 4s. 6d. In point of fact, however, not above one-third of the children actually fulfilled the term of attendance which was required, and the consequence was, therefore, that instead of receiving 4s. 6d. a head there was only 1s. 6d. each to be received for them. He asked the Committee to double that sum, and, seeing how readily they granted 5s. a week to reformed criminals, he could not apprehend that they would object to 3s. a year to prevent crime. Standing at its existing rate, it was paltry in the extreme, and he had been assured that in consequence of its insignificance, many schoolmasters refused to submit to the degradation 1372 of asking for it, while some in the case of whose schools it had been given, had for similar reasons sought for its withdrawal.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, that he could not agree to the proposition for reducing this Vote. But before he touched upon the question immediately under discussion, he must take leave to observe, that by the vote he gave some time ago upon the Resolutions proposed by the noble Lord the Member for London, he had not wished to intimate that he was hostile to the extension of education. Nothing could have been more foreign to his purpose. It was his intention, as no doubt it was that also of the majority who had voted upon that occasion, to express a strong and decided opinion against the scheme submitted by the noble Lord, and likewise against any similar scheme, whether introduced by the noble Lord, or by his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington). In taking that course they were sanctioned by their constituents, for it did not admit of doubt that the feeling out of doors was, that the best thing that could be done was to extend and improve the educational system at present in operation. Without at all desiring to cast a slight upon the efforts made by the Government and others to improve the quality of education in this country, the policy of directing their efforts too exclusively to that object might be called in question. It was clear that for some years past the Government had proceeded upon the idea that by improving the quality of education given they would offer to all classes of people irresistible inducements to send their children to school. That attempt had failed, and so too would any other in the same direction. One of his strongest objections to the plan proposed by the noble Lord and by his right hon. Friend was, that neither the one nor the other would touch that class of children described by Mr. Cooke as our "Arab population." Nor was it very easy to understand of what avail to such destitute creatures would be a scheme for enabling them to tax themselves. Mr. Cooke, the Government Inspector, gave it as his opinion that our present national schools were no longer adapted for the instruction, much less for the reformation, of the Arab population, who required an entirely distinct mode of treatment; although they afforded a very practical and systematised education to the children of 1373 the hard-working and respectable artisans of this country. It was satisfactory to know that the classes last-named profited so much from the aid of the State; but it was earnestly to be desired that the Government should bestir themselves more than they had ever yet done to extend to the unfortunate children, from whom the ranks of our criminal population were mainly recruited, the benefits enjoyed by the grades immediately above them. With this view, the conditions with regard to the number of attendants at school at any one time should not be rigidly enforced in town and districts where there was a large migratory population. To give a claim to pecuniary assistance, it should suffice that there was a fair average proportion of scholars constantly under instruction; otherwise, the poorer classes would be wholly debarred from the advantages afforded to the less destitute. No doubt it was very proper to secure to those who were likely hereafter to compete for appointments to the public offices the training requisite to enable them to pass successfully through the prescribed examination; but these were not the persons who stood most in need of the help of the State. It would be better to bring a large area of the population within the pale of educational influences than to plume ourselves upon the high standard of the instruction we imparted to a limited number. It was primarily incumbent on a Government to see that the humblest of its subjects were taught their duty to God and man; and for the neglect of that obligation no amount of intellectual cultivation would atone. Let the House, therefore, not be led away by the seductive theories of the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Gibson) in respect to mere moral and secular instruction. By the way, that right hon. Gentleman omitted to explain on what principle he would teach morality and exclude religion. Theology was one thing and practical religion another; and if ethics were attempted to be inculcated otherwise than on a religious basis, the pupils would not escape from becoming infidels. The plan of the right hon. Gentleman was in direct antagonism with the principle on which the educational grants were originally founded, and he must, therefore, urge upon the Government not to listen to it. Ever since 1839 it had been made an indispensable condition that the schools which participated in the funds of the State should be connected with some religious 1374 denomination, and should require the Scriptures to be read; and the country was now as firmly wedded to the same system as ever. It was beyond question that, within the last twenty years, education had rapidly increased. The Government schools, which comprised only about one-fifth of the whole population receiving school instruction, had made rapid strides; and the efforts of the various religious societies into which the community was divided had made a corresponding progress. Let the Government, therefore, persevere in the good work, and, striving to fill up existing gaps, labour by every means in its power to embrace within the circle of its educational operations those unfortunate classes which had hitherto been too much overlooked; if they did so he was not without hope that by means of the machinery now in operation they would be able in a short time, and without any violent change, to overtake the necessity of the case. Any attempt to effect this object by a large, pretentious, and inflexible scheme must, however, signally fail, and would, in all probability, arrest and even throw back the cause of education. If the vagrant children of the country were only got hold of, and rescued from ignorance and vice, Parliament would, no doubt, cheerfully strengthen the hands of the Government by voting the requisite supplies; and, provided the youthful outcast was taught and cared for by earnest-minded men, it was not of great consequence that his instructor should be remarkable for rare talents or extensive acquirements.

§ MR. E. BALL
said, that if he understood the question before the Committee, it was whether a grant proposed by the Government of nearly half a million of the public money was not more than adequate to accomplish the object contemplated, or whether the lesser sum proposed by the mover of the Amendment was sufficient? Most of the speakers in the desultory conversation which had taken place on the subject had been led away from the immediate point to be settled, and he would, therefore, take the liberty of recalling the attention of the Committee to it. The sum proposed to be given by the Government was £451,213, while that voted for the same purpose last year was only £396,921. In support of the lesser sum, it was stated that the existing schools were more than adequate to the accommodation of the children who, attended them. 1375 That was a view in which he entirely concurred; for, in his own experience in the villages with which he was more immediately connected, the great difficulty had been how to fill the schools; how to induce parents to send their children to be educated, rather than any want of accommodation; and he appealed to every Gentleman who had taken an interest in the matter, whether that was not precisely the difficulty felt throughout the whole country. No one could say that additional schools were required, or that those existing required extension. The chief hindrance to the progress of education in the district with which he was connected was the indifference of the poorer classes of the population, and it would be necessary to overcome their prejudices and disinclination to avail themselves of the means of education for their children before such a diffusion of knowledge could take place as was desired by the friends of the cause. The most objectionable item in this grant was the capitation tax, which, in the course of a few years, had increased from £5,000 to £12,000, and which it was now proposed to advance to £40,000. He considered that the increase of the capitation money would be a fatal blow to the cause of education; it would destroy all principle of self-reliance, dry up the sources of charity, and lead to the immediate withdrawal of those voluntary efforts which had been hitherto of such inestimable benefit to the cause of education. As soon as it became known great facility existed for obtaining grants, the sympathy and interest of the better classes now enlisted would die away, and education itself, left to pine on the Government grant alone, would wither and decay. He should therefore give his support to the Amendment.

MR. MILES
said, he had listened with a good deal of astonishment to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridgeshire, who must have directed his attention to the whole Vote without looking at the particular items, or he would have found that the charge for the building and alteration of schools, presented no increase whatever as compared with last year. Unless, therefore, he objected to that particular item last year, he was not now justified in doing so. The hon. Gentleman had spoken of the school accommodation in his own neighbourhood. Possibly sufficient accommodation might be found in that district of Cambridgeshire; but did the 1376 observation apply to the whole country? He could assure the Committee that in many districts with which he was acquainted, the difficulty was, not to find scholars but to establish schools. What was the condition of the metropolis with respect to this question of education? And here he would quote the words of Mr. Cooke, who stated:— I have not the least hesitation in saying that new schools are now wanted in every part of the metropolis. If erected they will be rapidly filled, and will be conducted upon principles that will secure the confidence of parents. I feel bound to state my conviction that this want cannot be supplied unless some powerful influence is brought to bear on owners of property in London. He (Mr. Miles) might quote evidence of precisely the same description from different parts of the country, if it were necessary, but would stop there, simply observing that the state of the metropolis—which, considering it contained a population of over 2,000,000, might be considered of some importance—was not such as to justify the assertion of the hon. Gentleman opposite. The hon. Gentleman had also dwelt upon the augmentation of the capitation grant. Did the hon. Gentleman consider that the education given in the different rural districts—and he was happy to say that now the capitation grant was extended to towns, which was not so before—was not greater in quantity, and at the same time better in quality, than it had been hitherto? It was not the pence of the children alone that supported the schools, but voluntary efforts combined with the pence, and assisted by the capitation grant. The effect of its augmentation would be that they would get good schools, more pupils, and better masters. He was glad, therefore, that such an increase was proposed; for he candidly confessed that after what had occurred, first of all with respect to the Bill introduced during the present Session by the noble Lord the Member for London, and in the last Session by his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich, he had little hope that any Bill for the promotion of education would receive the general assent of the House, and they must, therefore, look to the augmentation of Government grants to effect that object. Whether they asked for a voluntary or compulsory rate, success was hopeless; there were so many religious, sectarian, and general differences of opinion upon the subject, that no Education Bill would ever be carried. 1377 He, therefore, placed his confidence in the results of the grants from the Committee of Privy Council. There could be no doubt in the minds of any one that the lower classes of the population of this country required a better education than they now received. That truth had been acknowledged upon all sides of the House, and it had given him the greatest pleasure to hear hon. Members pressing on the Government the necessity of using their best efforts to improve the education of those classes. He would divide the lower classes of schools into district, pauper, ragged, and reformatory schools. He would, of course, take care that the elementary district school, which the children of the middle classes would attend, was taken care of; but the attention of the Government ought to be directed in an especial manner to the lower schools, and the object should be to give an impulse to the schools in which poor orphans were educated, and especially of the interests of the large class of destitute criminal children. The subject of district and pauper schools had been treated of already, and inspectors had made various reports upon them. One of those inspectors, a man who would be recognised as among the warmest friends of education, had given it as his opinion that the reason why district schools had not prevailed more throughout the country was, that union school-houses had been adopted in almost every union, and that the ratepayers consequently felt it very hard upon them that they should be called on to pay both for union and district schools. That, in Mr. Tuffnell's opinion, was the only thing that militated against the formation of these schools; and he also said that the Government ought to come forward with liberal grants towards the building of such schools. But Mr. Tuifnell drew a most extraordinary distinction between the kinds of education that ought to be given in district and pauper schools. He instanced Anerley school, which had been referred to by his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich. Boys of the worst description had been placed at Anerley, and they had not been there six months before they were so altered both in manners and appearance that they were hardly known as the same children. He did not think that as many as two per cent had turned out badly after they had left the district schools. And this, it was to be remembered, was said of district 1378 schools containing from 650 to 1,000 boys; and at Anerley, Mr. Tuffnell said nine-tenths of them left before the age of fourteen. But what did he say of workhouse schools?— In one workhouse in which I lately happened to make an inquiry, I found that out of thirty-eight children who had been taken out of the workhouse within a short period, nine had been imprisoned or transported, thirteen were paupers, and only seven were doing well. Now he (Mr. Miles) asked the Government to take this question of district schools into their consideration. He had not lately seen any returns on the subject, but in 1851 there was a return which stated that, excluding children under three years of age, there were in the pauper schools of this country no less than 43,000, and among them were no less than 12,370 orphans. He thought that it was the duty of the Government to step in and rescue those poor children from the contamination inseparable from the workhouse school, where it was impossible to separate the adult paupers from the children. He would now go to the ragged schools. No doubt the Committee which sat on ragged schools came to the determination that where they existed—and he was happy to say that many existed in the metropolis, supported by private benevolence—they had effected a vast amount of good, and their results might be seen in the efforts made by the poor boys who had been induced to attend them to obtain an honest livelihood; yet the Government, except by small presents of books, had done nothing whatever to assist them. He hoped that eventually the recommendations of the Committee would be carried out, and that lower systems of schools would come under the cognisance of the Committee of Privy Council, Reading, writing, and arithmetic were all that they could pretend to teach in them; but if that was done a good foundation would be laid, and a reasonable hope might be entertained that thousands of children would be rescued from the degrading condition in which they now were. He was very sorry to hear the hon. Member for Dudley (Sir S. Northcote) speak of those schools as he had, for he believed that the opinion of the House would not coincide with the hon. Member on that question. Then, with regard to reformatory schools, the only question, as it seemed to him, was, whether the Government should support the children in prison or out, during 1379 the time of their sentence. Having called the attention of the Government to these points, all he would beg of them was to consolidate and amend, and, at the same time, to extend the operations of the Committee of Privy Council. Notwithstanding the difficulty of the subject, he hoped to see a Minister of Education in the House, who would be prepared to produce well-digested plans for the improvement of education; and he trusted that next time they had to discuss this Vote he would be able to congratulate the Committee, not only upon the fair prospects of education, but on the beneficial effects of the enlarged grant now proposed.

§ MR. W. J. FOX
said, that the Manchester schools were by no means destitute of religious teaching, and the same remark applied to other secular schools throughout the country. But the necessity of religious teaching in common schools was open to one important objection—it was fatal to any attempt at giving instruction to children of different denominations. Charity had its conscience as well as faith, and there were those who thought it a moral good that children should not be regimented according to sectarian differences, but that at school a foundation should be laid for those kindly feelings and that respect for the opinions of others which were among the greatest adornments of character in our existence here. For that reason he must join in urging on the Government the propriety of extending the grants to the Manchester schools and others of the same description. Moreover, the existing educational machinery imperatively needed strengthening, and he did not know how it could be improved in a more efficient way than by giving the countenance of the State to a system which was popular with the working classes, and which was supported by a great number of persons who were most zealous in the cause both of religion and of education. It was mentioned as a problem by his hon. Friend who moved the reduction of the grant that the great difficulty to be overcome was the indifference of parents to the education of their children; and he said grants of this description did not teach parents their duty to their children. How that object was, in his opinion, to be accomplished he did not state: he left the House in the dark. He (Mr. Fox) would venture a suggestion towards a solution of the difficulty. He supported the grant, not as connected with 1380 a perfect machinery of education, but because he thought it would eventually lead to a general educational tax, or to a system of local rating. As local rating extended low in the social scale, parents would feel an interest in the matter; and as they paid for education, would feel inclined to participate in its advantages; and thus a social atmosphere would be formed in favour of education. Of the inefficiency of the present system there was demonstrative proof. Education, it was said, had made advances from 1 in 18 to 1 in 13, and then to 1 in 8. But this view of the progress of education was an arithmetical fallacy, for education did not keep pace with the population. It was by the amount of ignorance, not by the amount of knowledge, that we ought to test the efficiency of the education impartted; and, measured in this way, we found an advance of ignorance upon knowledge. He would take the three periods so often quoted as examples of the progress of the cause of education—1818,1833, and 1851—and he thought a little examination would show that education had not kept pace with the increase of population; that, in fact, ignorance, not knowledge, was the measure of increase. He took the children at each period of a school age, and the number who were at school; and by a simple operation he found the number of the uninstructed, but who ought to be instructed. In 1818 he found 2,235,788 as the difference between the number at the school age and the number at school. In 1833, when it was said that great progress in education had been made—but he thought there was a deterioration—that number had increased to 2,319,000. In the third period, 1851, it had advanced to 2,764,000. This progress had gone on from year to year, ignorance still, from the progress of population, keeping the Vantage ground of instruction. It was the old fable of the hare and the tortoise—we could not overtake ignorance by instruction. In 1818, there was the charm of novelty, the impulse of system, which seemed to promise a millennium, expectations were high, money was subscribed liberally, an impetus was given, which was not a specimen of the proceedings of after-generations. In the second period, from 1833 to 1851, there was the stimulus of legislative patronage— 2,000,000 and upwards had been granted by the State. Still ignorance had gone on advancing upon knowledge. He repeated that he supported the grant, in the 1381 hope that it would end in a general tax for education, or in local rating. In no other way could we keep pace with the population; in that way we might. Extend taxation over the whole population, and the machinery would become much more commensurate with the object to be attained, and there would be a prospect of keeping down the amount of ignorance which, when figures were looked at, presented itself in appalling characters to our sight. He sympathised with much that had been said in favour of the capitation grant; and he thought it might be advantageously extended to other points than attendance at the schools. He could not see why some portion of it should not be distributed in the form of prizes for various attainments, such as for intelligent reading, writing a good business hand, a certain degree of proficiency in arithmetic, acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, and so on. He would make the distribution with no illiberal hand. He would distribute the money prizes between the children and the teachers, in schools where the children paid sixpence a week; and hold out inducements for the children to prolong their stay at school. That the existing education had failed, not only numerically, but socially, there was proof arithmetical and moral. How did we find our gaols? Filled with uneducated and imperfectly educated persons, with those who had never been at school at all, and with those who, having been at school, had not been there long enough to make their education really valuable as a prevention to crime. Upon the grounds he had stated, he cordially supported the grants now proposed.

§ MR. LIDDELL
said, he would trouble the House with a few observations bearing upon that part of the country with which he was connected—namely, the north of England. His remarks would have reference to the salaries of public teachers. Now, he need not remind the Committee of the importance of that class of scholars, and he was sure all would be agreed as to the necessity of securing the attendance at school of those who were best suited hereafter to preside over the various schools throughout the country. His observations would have exclusive reference to the northern districts of the country, and he might refer, in confirmation of them, to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of the Home Department. The wages of labour in the north of England were higher than 1382 in any other part of the kingdom; and he thought it would rather surprise gentlemen coming from Dorsetshire, Hampshire, Wilts, and other southern counties, that boys from twelve to fifteen years of age could earn, working by the piece, more than double, in some instances, the wages of an able-bodied agriculturist in the south. Now, a pupil-teacher's salary began at £10, and went on increasing for four years at the rate of £2 10s. a year. What he wished, therefore, to impress upon Her Majesty's Government in anticipation of the appointment of a permanent chief of the Educational Board, was the necessity that existed for raising the salaries of pupil-teachers in the north of England, so as to induce the best boys to remain at school and perfect their education; for it was perfectly evident that unless the rate of the stipend of pupil-teachers kept pace in some degree with the earnings of boys out of doors, not only would they fail to secure the services of those best able to instruct the children, but they would even fail to secure the entry of boys with moderate capacity into the training school. He did not mean to contend that the stipend ought to be so large as to constitute a prize to be contended for by the youth of a district; still, let it be sufficient to render the post of pupil-teacher one marked by ordinary advantages. The point had been strongly urged in the Report of the Inspector for the northern counties in the years 1854 and 1855, though he could not find it urged in that for the present year. However, his view of the question was considerably justified by a memorial which had been addressed to the Committee of the Privy Council, after a meeting which was held in Durham in January last. He should be glad to know from his right hon. Friend whether that memorial had been received. The memorialists urged two or three points, one of which was, that the proportion of pupil-teachers—namely, of one to every forty pupils, was not sufficient, and they advocated a return to the old rule of a pupil-teacher to every twenty-five boys. Did time allow he might enter upon many other points; but he would content himself with mentioning, in proof of the insufficiency of the present system for the north of England, that it was mentioned in the memorial to which he had just referred, that the supply of candidates was regularly diminishing year by year, while 1383 it was a remarkable fact that the rate of wages was higher during the same period than had ever been known.

§ MR. CROSSLEY
said, the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fox) had made an ingenious but fallacious statement, when he adduced figures, and argued thence that ignorance, and not knowledge, were increasing. The right hon. Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington) had stated that those who did not take the statistics of prisons, and consider the ignorance which pervaded our streets, hundreds and thousands not knowing even the name of the Saviour, looked on the subject from a very narrow point of view. He (Mr. Crossley) coincided with this; but the right hon. Gentleman went on to state that to remedy this evil we wanted money and machinery, and in this he did not coincide. We had already both machinery and money, and both had failed. There was the machinery of the Established Church of England, with its six millions of money; and yet the people had not been told who was their Saviour—they had not been taught their duty towards God and towards man. Why, then, should he wish to have another establishment, when he could not show that the existing one had effected its object? The amount of grants for education already made amounted to a vast sum; and a reference to statistics would show that four-fifths of the total had gone to the Established Church. The right hon. Baronet had stated that the clergy were anxious to have more money voted for the purpose of education. No doubt of it. Education, they contended, ought to be religious. Upon that point the Nonconformists agreed with them, but they could not accept the grant, and it was of no use to tell them that the money was at their service if they would only ask for it. That was just what was said to those who objected to church rates—"The churches are open to all, and if you don't choose to enter them, the fault is yours." The same argument might be used by the barber, or the shopkeeper—"My shop is open, it is your own fault if you don't go to it." In his opinion, these grants for educational purposes were altogether erroneous; even the late right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) had asked— Was there any reason for believing that Governments could lead the people in the right way? Had there not been, on the contrary, Governments who were blind leaders of the blind? 1384 Were there not still such Governments? Could it be laid down as a rule that the educational movement run from Governments down to the people? Was it not the rule, on the contrary, that such movements ascended from the people upwards to the Governments?

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he would trouble the Committee with very few observations in answer to some of the remarks which had been made in the course of the discussion. He had listened with great attention to all that had been said, and, without adverting to the many suggestions offered in the course of the evening, he was quite ready to assure the Committee that many of those suggeations were entitled to receive and would receive the consideration of the Committee of Council on Education. The Motion before them was to reduce the Vote now proposed by the excess over the Vote of last year. The hon. Member for Bolton, the Mover of that Amendment, had stated his views with great clearness and moderation, but all his arguments were opposed not to the excess only, but to the grant altogether. The hon. Member seemed to entertain the conviction that the assistance of Parliament tended to lessen the sense of duty in parents to educate their children, and that if the habits of the people were more frugal and temperate every man in employment would be able to provide for the education of his children; and, that being so, he thought it undesirable to make grants of the public money for that object. If that were just and true it applied as much to the voluntary system that system not being one which left parents to educate their children at their own cost, but a system by which benevolent individuals combined together, and out of their own private means and resources raised large sums applicable to education; and surely private contributions were as fatal to the responsibility of parents as Parliamentary grants. With regard to the competition of schools which received aid from the State with; others that did not, the objection would be applicable to any grant which Parliament might make in support of education. But the most important question which had been suggested that night was that introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) and discussed by several hon. Gentlemen—whose suggestions, and the spirit in which they were made, entitled them to the best consideration on 1385 the part of the Government—that a participation in the Parliamentary grants should be extended to the lowest class of the juvenile population, who were now in the streets, and who were brought up in crime. He must observe upon this that one of the grants which had been objected to as a new grant, and which constituted a part of the excess of the Vote for educational purposes, was intended for the benefit of this very class of the population. He referred to the grant for industrial schools. The Committee of Privy Council ought, no doubt, to keep this object in view, but there was a great difficulty in giving aid of this kind to poor districts without requiring as a condition that the Parliamentary aid should be met by corresponding contributions from the locality. It was not easy to accomplish the object which hon. Gentlemen had in view without departing from the principle on which these grants were given. He thought it had been rather too broadly stated that at present the money voted by Parliament was applied to the benefit of classes that were not intended to receive them. If any hon. Member would take the trouble of looking through the list of schools receiving assistance from Parliamentary grants they would find that they comprised a very large number of children of day labourers. Let hon. Members look to the agricultural districts, and they would find that the greater number of the schools were chiefly filled by the children of persons earning their bread by daily labour. So again in the manufacturing districts, it would he found that the schools comprised the children of the working population; and as to the allegation that many skilled artisans sent their children to schools which received Parliamentary assistance, he really thought no great harm was done if such persons availed themselves of the instruction of these schools and their trained schoolmasters. Speaking generally, he might remark that if grants were made indiscriminately to poor districts, without reference to local contributions, some of the best schools, which were now maintained by benevolent persons from private funds, would be injured. Let the House suppose the case of two poor districts, in one of which—say in London, Manchester, or Liverpool—a good school had been established, partly by voluntary contribution, and partly by grants from the Education Committee of 1386 the Privy Council: Suppose in the adjoining district or city a different system prevailed, and grants were made by the Committee of Privy Council without reference to local contributions, the effect of the Parliamentary grants in the latter district would he to check the local contributions from the former district, and supersede the voluntary system. He only stated this as one of the difficulties which would have to be considered and met. Another great difficulty which had been alluded to by the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Barnes) was the fact that it was not the want of money or of schools that threw the poorer class of children into the streets, but the indisposition of parents to send their children to school, and the indisposition of the children themselves to go to school—! Into this part of the subject he would not now enter, because it could not be effectually discussed without considering the question of compulsory education, which had, on this occasion, been avoided. With regard to the capitation grants, it was alleged that the Minutes of the Education Committee were laid before Parliament, hut that they attracted no notice, and that Parliament did not in fact know what the Education Committee were doing. He did not think there was much reason in that objection; and when it was said there had been no discussion upon these grants, his right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) must remember that, in the early years of these grants, many animated debates and some close divisions took place upon them. Since then the House had felt greater confidence in the Committee of Council on Education; and, if there had been no discussion, he concluded that it was because the principle upon which their Minutes were framed was generally acquiesced in. He had been asked whether the Government intended to adhere to the decision that Parliamentary aid would be confined to schools combining religious with secular instruction. In August, 1853, the Education Committee of Privy Council considered this subject; and they came to the conclusion that the distribution of the grant to such schools only as gave religious instruction in combination with secular instruction was most in accordance with the will of the country and the opinion of Parliament. That principle had always been acted upon in distributing these grants, and whatever might be the individual opinion 1387 of members of the Education Committee, they would not feel themselves justified, without the direct sanction of Parliament, in making these grants to secular schools as distinguished from those in which religious instruction was given. He was ready to agree with Mr. Morell, the inspector, when he said that many of the promoters of these secular schools were far from requiring that the children should not be taught religious instruction at all, seeing that they endeavoured to provide the means of religious instruction for them, although they did not permit it to be given in school hours. This question was fully inquired into by the Select Committee on the Manchester and Salford scheme of education, and the opinions entertained by different parties on this subject were so far modified, that the advocates of secular education endeavoured, although circuitously, to give religious instruction, and those who were in favour of religious instruction apparently wished to reduce it to a minimum; and it appeared, therefore, that the views of the two opposite parties were gradually approaching each other. The principle was one of great importance, and he could not hold out any prospect that the rule which at present prevailed would be altered. It had been alleged that a Bill brought into the other House by Lord Granville sanctioned the principle of secular instruction, This was in some degree the fact; for the Bill empowered ratepayers to rate themselves for the purposes of education, and to make rules for the management of the schools so established; so that the ratepayers themselves would decide what the character of the education should be. That, however, differed from applying Parliamentary grants to merely secular schools. A strong opinion had been expressed against the course pursued by the Government in withdrawing that Bill; but after the discussion which had taken place in that House on the Resolutions of his noble Friend (Lord J. Russell), he thought the Government had exercised a wise discretion in not pressing that Bill. It was impossible to doubt that the House had a decided opinion that it was desirable to go on upon the present system rather than to endeavour to establish a system of rating that should be either voluntary or compulsory. Nothing, therefore, would have been gained, nothing by pressing that Bill, and the wisest course was to withdraw it. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Northumberland 1388 (Mr. Liddell) had asked a question relative to a memorial from the north of England to the Education Committee. He was not aware whether that memorial had been received or not, but he would make inquiry, and would communicate with the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman had represented that the high rate of wages in some parts of the country made it desirable to increase the capitation grants, in order to attach the teachers to the schools, seeing that they were tempted away by the high rate of remuneration in other employments. But there would be a difficulty, he thought, in having a different scale of payment in different parts of the kingdom. He trusted that the hon. Member for Bolton would not think it necessary to divide the House, because he thought that Parliament ought not to refuse to give the small additional sum which was now asked chiefly to assist a class who, it was admitted on all hands, were desirable objects for the assistance of Parliament.

§ Motion made— That a sum, not exceeding£96,921, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge for Public Education in Great Britain, to the 31st day of March, 1857.

§ Question put, and negatived.

§ Original Question put, and agreed to; as was also—

§ (3.)£6,184, Compensation to Mr. Patrick Boyle.

§ The House resumed.