§ MR. LOWESir, I have humbly to beg the House to interrupt the course of their proceedings for a few minutes this evening in order to allow me to make a personal explanation upon a matter which I little thought would have called for explanation at my hands. In order to make my meaning plain the shortest possible course is, perhaps, to read to the House a Minute of the Privy Council passed in January, 1861; because I shall have constantly to refer to that Minute in what I have to say, and I think it will facilitate the understanding of the House if I read it to them at once and without comment. The Minute is as follows:—
Their Lordships, having considered the instructions issued from time to time to Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools for the preparation of their annual Reports, find the sum of those instructions to be that the Inspectors must confine themselves to the state of the schools under their inspection and to practical suggestions for their improvement. If any Report, in the judgment of their Lordships, does not conform to this standard, it is to be returned to the Inspector for revision; and if, on its being again received from him, it appears to be open to the same objection, it is to be put aside as a document not proper to be printed at the public expense.That was the Minute of January, 1861. Last year the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. B. Forster) called my attention to this Minute, and asked a question concerning it. I then explained very fully to the House the nature and object of the Minute; and it was commented upon by the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil) in the course of the debate. On Tuesday last the noble Lord gave a Notice which I will read to the House—That in the opinion of this House, the mutilation of the Reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, and the exclusion from them of statements and opinions adverse to the educational views entertained by the Committee of Council, while matters favourable to them is admitted, are violations of the understanding under which the appointment of the Inspectors was originally sanctioned by Parliament, and tend entirely to destroy the value of their Reports.The noble Lord moved that Resolution on 1204 Tuesday last. The case of the noble Lord was a direct charge against myself personally, that in my official capacity as Vice President of the Council I had struck out passages from the Inspectors' Reports which were unfavourable to the Office, and he gave several instances of the kind of things I had struck out. A part of the noble Lord's case struck me at the time as a strange one. The noble Lord asked the House to believe him without asking him for proofs, but he said he could give proof, if challenged to do so, that the things cut out of the Reports were of that character. I did not know in the least to what the noble Lord referred in these statements, but I was anxious that the noble Lord should have the opportunity of giving the proof which he expressed himself ready to give if he were challenged to do so; and therefore when it came to my turn on behalf of the Government to address the House, I took the only way I considered I could take in order to induce the noble Lord to produce that evidence, by denying in the most emphatic manner the assertions he had made on the faith of the evidence he said he could produce. I say there are only two ways in which it was possible for the Vice President of the Committee of Council to strike out passages of the Reports of Inspectors—the one would be, in direct violation of the Minute I have just read to the House, by the simple process of drawing his pen through them, and excluding them from the Report to be printed; the other would be, under the Minute I have read to the House, by sending back the Reports to the Inspectors with passages marked on them, so that they would very well understand if they did not amend these passages the Report would be laid aside as unfit for being printed. There are only those two ways of doing what the noble Lord seems to think we have done. One would have been in accordance with the Minute, and the other in violation of it. I denied them both. I denied that I struck passages out of those Reports, and I made use of this language, which clearly points to the other case—that is, of sending them back with passages marked—I said that the Department of Education does not point out any passages to which they object, but merely lays down a rule or principle upon which the Inspectors are to proceed, and leaves them to apply that rule or principle to their own Reports. Therefore, I think the House will agree 1205 with me that no contradiction could be more complete than that which I gave to the noble Lord's statement. And further, I gave that contradiction under as weighty sanction as man could speak under. I spoke as a Member of the House of Commons addressing this honourable House, I spoke as the official representative of a Department of the Government, and speaking on the part of that Government I spoke under a sanction fully as solemn as any oath which can be administered in a court of justice. The noble Lord had the privilege of a reply, and I did expect that in that reply the noble Lord would have produced the evidence which he said, if challenged, he was ready to produce. The noble Lord did not avail himself of the privilege of reply, and the House went to a division without any evidence whatever being given, having on the one side the assertions of the noble Lord, and his further assertion that he had evidence which he could produce, but which he did not produce, and on the other side my solemn and explicit denial. The House was pleased to vote by implication—not in very words, but by implication—that the Department of Education had mutilated these Reports, and had struck out passages from them hostile to their views, and therefore was open to censure. That, Sir, is a brief history of the proceedings of Tuesday night as far as relates to this Resolution. Now, Sir, under these circumstances it appeared to me that the course which I ought to adopt was an exceedingly simple one. The House having heard that declaration from me under the circumstances I have described, was pleased to resolve in flat contradiction to it. If the House had simply declared a want of confidence in me, I should of course have been bound at once to resign my office; but when the House did that which implied so much more than a mere want of confidence in my ability or fitness for office, it seemed to give me still less choice, and I felt it to be my duty at once to resign my office, and to bow to the decision of the House, and I have done so accordingly. But I beg the House to allow me, with all respect, to say that, while I fully admit their jurisdiction over all official persons, and their power to displace them from office, I would appeal to their calmer judgment, and request them to consider a little more the circumstances of the cage. I have something more to say to which I earnestly beg the attention 1206 of the House. I think if I were acting in a technical spirit, I might leave the matter here, as it does appear to me that —doubtless through inadvertence or misapprehension—the question coming suddenly before the House, was not fully argued, and that perhaps I had resented an attack upon myself with undue warmth; that for these and other reasons, it may be, the thing had been inconsiderately done. But I think it is only due to the House that I should not content myself with standing on a defensive or negative position, but that I ought to explain the whole matter, and what I believe to be the real meaning of the noble Lord's Resolution. The noble Lord let fall in the course of his speech, that the information which he had received was information which he had received from subordinates in my Office. Of course, if so, it was given by them in violation of their duty and fidelity to the Office. That fact was alleged by the noble Lord as a reason why he could not in the first instance produce the evidence. Now, supposing that the proof of which the noble Lord spoke had been produced, what would it have been? I think I am enabled to answer that question, and as I wish to make a full and fair disclosure, I will tell the House what I know. I was informed —and indeed my own eyes would have informed me were they able to inform me of anything occurring at any distance —I was informed, that during the course of the debate, certain gentlemen were engaged in handing about papers to be circulated among hon. Members. I have been since informed of the nature of those papers. I am informed—and the noble Lord can set me right if I am in error— that they consisted of documents purporting to be Reports, or copies of Reports, of certain Inspectors of the Privy Council, with marks placed against particular passages or sentences. Now, of course, I can easily understand, and I do not intend to blink the question, that the inference which it was intended should be drawn, and which must have been drawn, was that, while I in my place was declaring that the Privy Council always avoided marking passages in Reports to which they objected, here were instances where the Department had done so, and I was, therefore, contradicted by documents which appeared to be decisive. Sir, it is very difficult for a man to defend himself against evidence which he has never seen or heard 1207 of before an assembly the great mass of which had never seen or heard of it either. I would also say that probably there is no public Department of the country which may not be overthrown or discredited if its subordinate officials are base enough to communicate confidential documents, and if those documents are used not openly and in the face of day, are not placed before the official heads of that Department to explain them, but are used in a manner which gives them no opportunity of placing the true construction upon them. If the proofs to which the noble Lord, I presume, referred—if they had been placed before me—I should have been enabled to tell the House that the marks upon those documents ought never to have been placed there, and were not placed there with the knowledge of the heads of the Department. They were not placed there for the purpose of influencing—whatever they might have done—the Inspectors as to what passages should be omitted from their Reports; but they were placed there through a practice which ought to have been discontinued after the Minute of 1861 by a clerk in the Office whose business it was to read the Reports in order to call the attention of the Secretary to any particular passage in them which he judged to require consideration. It may not make much difference as to the impression produced upon the minds of the Inspectors, but it would have made all the difference in the world in the impression of the House or of those Members who saw these documents as to my veracity upon the subject of which I was speaking. I will now just state what has been my practice and the practice of the Office as to these Reports, and then I will conclude my remarks with thanks to the House for its kind indulgence. The fact is this—my predecessor in office, the right hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley), got into some kind of trouble with the Inspectors by his endeavours to abridge or consolidate the Reports, using their own words, or to digest them under heads. He gave up that plan and substituted another. He did exactly that which the noble Lord has accused me of doing. He did cut out passages directly with his own hands from the Reports of the Inspectors, and reduced them to the formal shape which he thought proper. That was the practice of the right hon. Gentleman. Let the House clearly understand that I am not blaming him for it. I maintain 1208 that if he was to keep order and discipline in his Office it was his undoubted right and duty to exercise some control over these Reports, and I think he had a right, if so advised, to exercise that control in the manner that he did by striking out passages with his own hand. While this was the practice of the Office, it was delegated to a clerk to read the Reports, and he was in the habit of making marks against passages which appeared to him to require consideration, and then they were transmitted to the right hon. Gentleman, who dealt with them in the manner I have described. When I came into office, without at all questioning the right of the right hon. Gentleman to do what he had done, I declined to follow his example; for I was of opinion, and am so still, that the practice of striking out passages by the superiors of the Office was one very inconvenient and exposed to great drawbacks. It is very inconvenient, because the Inspectors may declare that the passages so struck out affect the meaning of other passages, and it is also inconvenient because it involves the head of the Department in what I should at all times deprecate—an angry controversy with his subordinates. Therefore, I did not act upon the principle of the right hon. Gentleman; and I can say with perfect truth that, having taxed my memory, and that of those with whom I have acted, and having searched the records of the Office, I have never, in any instance, struck out any passage from an Inspector's Report. There was a Report printed, as I mentioned the other night, which Report appeared to me to be a libel upon the Protestant religion, and calculated to stir up controversy between Her Majesty's Roman Catholic and Protestant subjects. My attention was called to the Report by an hon. Member of this House, and I felt it to be my duty to take some step to prevent such a scandal. After consultation with Lord Granville, and after the best consideration we could give, we issued the Minute which I have read to the House. The policy, principle, and nature of the Minute was this—that the Inspectors should be their own censors—that we should in no case point out what we deemed objectionable in their Reports, but that the Inspectors should be bound to make their Reports conform to the Minute of Council. We foresaw the difficulty that has arisen— if the Committee of the Council should 1209 commit itself to striking out passages, with whatever care or impartiality, they could not escape the imputation of striking out what was unfavourable and leaving in what was favourable. We foresaw it, and to avoid it we made this Minute. The system went on for two years, and I heard nothing more of it except that a Report was now and then brought before me by my private Secretary for my consideration. But on the 8th February, 1862, my private Secretary brought me a Report of one of our Inspectors which had been sent back for revision, accompanied by a letter which came into my hands, in which the Inspector said he had perused all the passages marked, and could find nothing in them that could be objected to. I was utterly astonished. I called for the Report, and then I found that the practice which had existed in the time of my predecessor in the Office, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley)—the practice of marking these Reports by the clerk —had most improperly been continued after the new Minute had come into effect. The House will probably ask me how I could have carried on this Minute for two years and not have been aware that these Reports were thus marked with marginal notes. The answer to that question is a very simple one. I am unable to read these Reports in manuscript—they are read to me by my private Secretary; and the consequence is that I never saw one of these marks, and was not aware that anything was written on the margin until my attention was drawn to the fact by the letter from this Inspector which was brought to me. I then took immediate steps to put a stop to the practice. I gave orders that this kind of thing should never be done again, and pointed out that it was contrary to the whole intention and spirit of the Minute, that it entirely counteracted the object we had in view, and would expose us to all kinds of difficulties. In 863, the same Inspector unfortunately had his Report returned to him, and he wrote back to ask that the passages to which the Committee of Council objected should be marked. I desired a letter to be written in answer to him to say that the Committee of Council could not undertake to mark any passages, that to do so would be contrary to the spirit of the Minute, and that he must himself discover, as well as he could, what there was in them 1210 that militated against the Minute under which the Report ought to have been framed. And this was my practice in the matter. It was on the strength of these facts that I made the statement I did make in answer to the noble Lord, and I can only reiterate that what I said then was entirely true to the best of my knowledge and belief. One more thing I have to say, and that is, that my noble Friend and myself had received Reports—three of them, I remember—from very important and influential Inspectors, in which they I spoke in terms of high commendation of I the changes introduced under the name of I "the Revised Code." Those passages were not of such a nature as would have justified us in sending back the Report, as they did not appear to us to violate the Minute that we had made. But we were very anxious that they should not appear, and we requested these gentlemen privately, not officially, to be good enough to expunge these passages from their Reports. All this I should have stated before, had these documents been brought before us. One word in justice to the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil). I do not know whether he circulated these documents, but I have no reason to doubt that whoever circulated them believed that these marks were impressed upon them by the orders of the heads of the Office of the Privy Council. I do not at all, therefore, say that they were conscious of the mischief they were doing. I only wish to point out the danger of departing from the ordinary principle of justice meted out to the poorest man in this country—that of never condemning him, more especially in the crushing manner in which I have been condemned, without at least giving him the opportunity of commenting upon the evidence on which the charge against him is based. Sir, I have little more to say. If there was any Gentleman who was anxious to drive me from the office I have held under Her Majesty's Government, his wishes are now fully gratified. I have disentangled this personal question, upon which my honour and much of the happiness of my future life depend, from any question of office. There is nothing now to be gained from any party or personal attack, and no one has now anything to gain by bolstering me up if I am wrong, or persecuting me if I am right. I beg the House, therefore, to take what I have said into their favourable consideration, 1211 and to weigh carefully the statement I have made to them. If it appears to them to be full and satisfactory—if it appears to them to bear upon it the evidence of truth—I shall be well satisfied. If it does not appear to them to bear that evidence, or if they think that any further statement or explanation is necessary, I entreat them to use in their wisdom those powers of inquiry with which they are vested, and to sift to the utmost every word I have uttered. Let them ransack our records, let them examine our clerks and secretary, let them examine me or any one else they please connected with the Office. If, on the other hand, they are satisfied that the statement I make is true and honest, then I ask them to do me justice.
§ LORD ROBERT CECILSir, I can only begin by expressing my regret that the right hon. Gentleman should have taken the Resolution which I offered to the House and which was accepted by the House last Tuesday as directed personally against himself. The terms of the Resolution were directed against the Committee of Council. It was the practice of the Committee of Council which I desired to censure; and I did not venture to give any information, for I possessed none, as to whether it was the right hon. Gentleman or any other person who was guilty of the practice to which I referred. I think the House will have gathered from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, that what I laid before them on Tuesday night was entirely supported by the facts. It was a fact that the Inspectors received back their Reports from the Committee of Council, in many cases with the passages; marked, indicating that they were thought objectionable; and it is the fact that whenever they declined to remove the passages so indicated their Reports were suppressed. The right hon. Gentleman has since informed us that that was done by a clerk in the office without his orders. But he must have been perfectly aware of this on Tuesday night. [Mr. LOWE: No.] Was he not? Then I can only regret that he was so little acquainted with the proceedings in his own office.
§ MR. LOWEOf course I was aware that up to 1862 this had been done, because I did my best to stop it.
§ LORD ROBERT CECILIf the right hon. Gentleman had told us on Tuesday night that he was perfectly aware that in 1212 previous years the Reports of the Inspectors had been sent back marked in that fashion —that Reports had been rejected from which passages so marked had not been removed, but that the practice was stopped, and the marks had. not since been appended—if, I say, he had made that full and frank explanation, the result, both as regards himself and the House, I think, would have been very different. But he left us in absolute ignorance of the fact that there had been in the office any discussion with reference to the continued marking of these Reports. He did not inform us that the practice had ever obtained, or that he himself had ever taken any measures to stop it. The subject was first mooted at the beginning of last year. It originated, I believe, in a question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich. At that time several Reports were missing, and we had reason to know that they had been marked in this way and sent back to the Inspectors. The right hon. Gentleman has always steadily refused to give any explanation on the subject. He has been constantly asked to lay these Reports on the table, and to give some pledge that the practice should be put a stop to. That pledge, however, he always steadily refused to give, and he also declined to place these Reports on the table. I ask any hon. Member whether he would not have drawn from this refusal an inference that the practice which existed before January, 1862, was going on still, and that the same agency was in operation for preventing this House from obtaining true and pure information that had been in operation before that time. Sir, I have no wish to prolong an angry controversy; but I am bound to say, with reference to my non-production of evidence, that my evidence was not the paper which I held in my hand The evidence which I had to produce, and which I would have produced if challenged to do so, was not papers but men. I should have asked for a Committee, I should have produced witnesses before that Committee, and I should have shown that Reports had been sent back marked in the way which I mentioned. One point more. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken in bitter terms of subordinates of public offices who communicate what they think to be abuses in their departments to Members of this House. I am quite sure that the House 1213 will not endorse this censure. I do not believe that in the service of the Crown any loyalty is due to heads of departments as against the House of Commons. The heads of departments and those departments themselves are alike subject to our jurisdiction; and if persons employed there see what they deem to be abuses they do no wrong in laying them before the representatives of the people.
I will end, if necessary, by moving the adjournment of the House, but I thought it due to myself, after the statement just addressed to the House, to say a few words on this subject. The reason why I referred to this evidence in terms which were purposely indistinct—and the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) took the same course—was because we were afraid of implicating these subordinates with their superiors, and because a recent instance led us to believe that the discipline of the Council Office was maintained with unusual rigour. On this ground it was mainly that I addressed the House. But I will only say now, that if the right hon. Gentleman had spoken the other night as fully and frankly as he has spoken tonight, I do not believe that the Motion would have been pressed to a division, or, if it had been, that the decision of the House would have been what it actually was. The hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. B. Foster) on Tuesday, challenged the right hon. Gentleman to contest our assertion by laying the impugned papers on the table, and that challenge was not accepted. Under those circumstances, I do not know what other course was open to us than to press the Motion to a division.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONSir, nothing can be more painful than the discussion which has just taken place. If there be one thing more painful than another to a generous mind, it must be to see an honourable, able, and upright man defending himself before an Assembly like this, against a condemnation which he considers to have been passed upon him, but which he knows to be unjust and unfounded. Sir, the noble Lord who has just sat down has said that if he had been aware on Tuesday night of what my right hon. Friend has now stated, the result would have been different; but let me ask the noble Lord whether it did not occur to him, that when one makes a charge against another it might be well to ascertain by Ml inquiry whether that charge was just 1214 and well-founded or not. The noble Lord stated, that as his remarks were made with respect to Reports sent back to Inspectors in 1862, he thought he had reason to conclude that the practice to which he objected was still continued. But the noble Lord having opportunities, which are well known to everybody, of ascertaining the real state of things from those who are concerned, I think it might have been as well if he had ascertained beforehand whether the practice which he called upon the House to condemn had or had not been continued since 1862. Having taken some part in the matter with respect to which my right hon. Friend has made his statement, I can only say that nothing could give more pain to myself and my Colleagues than losing the services of a man so eminently qualified to do good service to the public and his country, whether by the extensive range of his knowledge and the logical accuracy of his mind, or the soundness of his judgment and the uprightness of his character. I say it was a most painful thing to us to contemplate the loss of his services. When my right hon. Friend came to me immediately after the debate on Tuesday to state that he felt, after such a vote, he could not with honour to himself continue to hold the office which he then filled, I and my Colleagues—all of us—endeavoured to persuade him that that view was not a sound one. We said that it did not appear to us that the question at issue was one of veracity on his part; that it related rather to the practice of a department. We felt that it would not be becoming, and would not be advisable according to the practice of Parliament, to ask the House to rescind the vote which it had come to after considerable discusssion; but it was our intention to propose to the House, what my right hon. Friend has just asked, that a Committee should be appointed to ascertain and inquire what was the manner in which the business was executed in the department concerned. It seemed to us that my right hon. Friend should have waited the issue of that inquiry, and we were convinced from what we knew that the result would bear out the assertions which he has made. No one has a right to judge the feelings of another in respect of questions which he considers to affect his personal honour, and therefore, after many days of unsuccessful endeavours to persuade my right hon. Friend to abide by the investigation and decision of the Committee, 1215 I was yesterday under the painful necessity of accepting his decided and peremptory resignation. Sir, I am sure that the House, having heard the statement which my right hon. Friend has made, will be of opinion that the vote the other evening was a hasty vote, not sufficiently considered; but the decision having been come to, I do not think it would be respectful to the House to ask them to reverse that decision. I think, however, it would be quite consistent with Parliamentary practice, and with the honour and character of the House, that they should agree to appoint a Committee to ascertain whether the impressions under which the majority voted on the occasion are or are not well-founded according to the practice of the department. I, therefore, intend on Thursday next to move for such a Committee, and I am quite sure that the noble Lord the Member for Stamford, after what he has said, will be prepared to agree to it. It is not my wish now to advert to the other topics which my right hon. Friend has announced his intention of bringing under the notice of the House, because I believe it was understood that they should remain over for discussion till a future opportunity.
§ MR. DISRAELISir, this is the first time that I recollect that a Ministerial explanation has led to a debate. It is extremely irregular, but I will put myself in order if necessary by making a Motion. [Cries of "Order!"] When an appeal has been made to the opinion of the House by a right hon. Gentleman on a matter affecting his personal honour, I do not see how hon. Members on this side can be silent. At least, I wish to express my own opinion, and I have risen to say, for myself and hon. Gentlemen around me, that we take the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, as far as his personal honour is concerned, as perfectly satisfactory, and we estimate that honour after his explanation to-night as inviolate. I may say, as I am on my legs, that I hope this will close the discussion on the subject. I do not think that the observations made by my noble Friend (Lord Robert Cecil) at all called for the remarks of the noble Lord who has just spoken. My noble Friend's conduct in the matter has been perfectly straightforward. Notice of the Motion was given last year, and when the notice appeared on the paper this year the Government must have been fully aware of it; 1216 but, for all that, I did not see those preparations made on that side of the House to support the right hon. Gentleman which I think his position in office and his eminent talents deserved. I have always opposed the right hon. Gentleman as to the principles on which his policy with regard to education has been carried on; but I have always borne, and I now bear, my testimony to his distinguished talent, the clearness of his intellect, and the vigour with which he has conducted the public business, and I only regret that so much talent has been lost to the public service, chiefly, as it appears to me, from the right hon. Gentleman in this, as in many other instances, not having been properly supported by his Colleagues.
§ MR. WALTER was about to address the House, when—
§ MR. SPEAKERI wish to point out to the House that there is no Question before it. An opportunity of making a personal explanation is granted by the courtesy of the House; but it is not usual that such a matter should be concluded by a Motion, and made the subject of a general debate. I think the House will now agree with me, that all those who can be said to be personally concerned in this discussion have been heard by the House. [Cries for "Forster!"]
§ MR. WALTERSir, as I must consider myself one of the Members who took a prominent part in the discussion of Tuesday evening, and as I have not yet been heard, I wish, in consequence of what has fallen from my right hon. Friend, to make a very few remarks. I merely rise to say that, after the explanation which my right hon. Friend the late Vice President of the Committee of Council has given, I am sure the House will not think it necessary to adopt the course proposed by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. My own opinion is that, after that explanation, no Committee is required for making further inquiry into the subject. For myself, I wish to state in a very few words the position in which I conceive myself to stand. The House will recollect that when my noble Friend the Member for Stamford brought forward this subject, I was the Member who seconded the Motion. I had, therefore, no opportunity of replying to the speech of my right hon. Friend, and certainly I was not prepared for that unqualified denial which he then gave to the statements of 1217 my noble Friend and myself. On hearing my right hon. Friend that night, I felt convinced that there must be a mistake, and that my right hon. Friend could not have been cognizant of the facts which it was in the power of my noble Friend and myself to prove. I had in my possession at the time when I was addressing the House documents purporting to be a copy of one of these Reports which had been marked in the manner described by my noble Friend; and, after the explicit denial of my right hon. Friend, I think it my duty to put him in possession of all the information which I had then in my power to give. I regret extremely that my right hon. Friend should have felt it necessary to adopt the course of resigning his office, because it appears to me that that which he considered as a vote of censure on himself rested on an allegation which was either false or true. If it were false, it was in his power to place my noble Friend and myself in a very awkward position by showing that we had no grounds for making the statements which we did. If, on the other hand, the allegations proved to be true, it was in my right hon. Friend's power to give such an explanation as he has now given, which would have satisfied the House that he was in no degree responsible for the occurrence. I will not delay the House longer, but will merely express my regret that the vote at which we arrived the other evening has had such a result.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERI wish to make an explanation ["Order!"] with respect to the reasons which induced me, and, I think, forty or fifty other Gentlemen, to give the vote which we did the other night. ["Order!"] I wish to make this explanation in justice to the right hon. Gentleman also. I had no idea whatever that the Question under discussion was one affecting the personal veracity or the personal honour of the right hon. Gentleman. I regarded it as one which purely affected the policy of the department, and the course which those who differed from the department were obliged to take. Gentlemen in my district had been very much surprised that, in the Education Report, a Report of an Inspector in whom they had the greatest confidence did not appear. In consequence of that circumstance, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich asked why the Report in question was not produced, and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) was 1218 asked to produce it. He refused to do so; and I was obliged to ask the right hon. Gentleman on what conditions in future he intended to produce the Reports of Inspectors. The right hon. Gentleman stated in reply that in future he intended to make the Inspectors their own censors, and added that he did not think those Reports should contain controversial opinions. I, and those who agreed with me, held that we ought to have those Reports without censorship. We then come to the question of the effect of those red marks; and I must in justice to myself and others say, that I never saw one of those Reports to which reference has been made before the debate; but I thought that sending back the Reports to the Inspectors in the way we have heard of, was virtual mutilation, as those gentlemen would know very well what such a proceeding meant. Therefore, I asked the right hon. Gentleman to produce the Report that we might see whether we were right or not. As he refused to do so, and justified his refusal on the ground that the Report of an Inspector ought not to contain anything against the chief of his department, I, and those who thought with me, felt bound to vote with the noble Lord. I regret, in common with the House, that the right hon. Gentleman should have thought that the vote was one which affected his personal honour, or anything but the policy of the department.