HC Deb 16 June 1870 vol 202 cc266-300

Order for Committee read.

MR. GLADSTONE

Mr. Speaker—I rise for the purpose of moving that you, Sir, should leave the Chair, and that the House should go into Committee on the Elementary Education Bill. I venture to assure my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Vernon Harcourt) that if the Notice which he has placed on the Paper had stood alone, and had constituted the solitary point to be decided as between him and the Bill of the Government, I should not have thought of interposing at this moment, but should have waited respectfully till he had made his statement before giving any opinion on the subject. But such is not the case, and the natural interest, warming into eagerness, which the House and the country feel with reference to the measure, has caused the Notice Paper to be charged and loaded with a number of Motions, all of which express alternative and different methods of proceeding with regard to questions bearing upon religion, but all of which it is not possible, according to the forms of the House, to bring under consideration upon equal terms. It has, therefore, appeared to the Government that it would be for the convenience of the House if, before a Motion was made by way of proposing a substitute for the Motion that the Speaker do leave the Chair, we should declare our general views and intentions with regard to these very important portions of the Bill. I shall not now refer to other portions of the Bill, which are also of immense importance, but which, with the exception of my hon. and learned Friend's second Resolution—and that could not be put on the present occasion—do not enter into the matter immediately before us. I shall confine myself generally to that field of discussion which is embraced in the first Resolution of my hon. and learned Friend, in the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple), and the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Richard), as well as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Reed). The Government have thought it their duty to reserve to themselves the advantage of consideration for as long a time as was accorded them by the interval between the second reading and the Committee on this Bill—because every day which has passed has multiplied the expression of the opinion and the feeling of the country—and all these manifestations add something to the materials upon which we have to legislate. It is quite true that expressions of opinion and feeling may still be declared to be very incomplete. There are very large and powerful bodies of great influence in this country who cannot be overlooked in legislating on such a question as elementary education, and which, up to the present time, have made but very partial expressions of their views. But though it is the duty of the Government at the proper time to take its part, and not to shrink from its part in considering how to settle the question, we concluded we had better wait till the Bill was about to go into Committee, and then frankly explain the view we take on the matters principally in dispute, so as to lay before the House at once the terms and the mode on which we hope it may be possible to legislate on this great subject during the present Session. It must be borne in mind that there are many parties and sections of parties in Parliament and in the country who may be strong enough to postpone or prevent legislation; but that nothing except a general disposition to make sacrifices of cherished preferences, for the purpose of arriving at a common result, can enable us successfully to go through a work so difficult as that before us, but which, difficult as it is, we feel ourselves pledged to in honour and in character, and likewise by that greatest of all obligations which binds us to consult in everything the highest welfare of the country. With regard to the Motion of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. V. Harcourt), which is the only Motion which can be brought directly to issue on the present occasion, the Government are not able to accede to it. They feel that it is very easy, without its being necessary for me to anticipate the general argument of my hon. and learned Friend, to state in a few words the reasons why we cannot become responsible for the Motion. It appears to me that if we were to adopt such a proposition, the very first challenge that would be addressed to us would be to explain its terms. And I am bound to say, without in any way fettering my hon. and learned Friend, that that is a challenge which we should be totally unable to meet. We do not know what, in the language of the law, "undenominational" and "sectarian" instruction mean. We know perfectly well that practical judgment and the spirit of Christianity, combined with common sense, may succeed, and does succeed in a vast number of cases—probably in the enormous majority of cases—in averting the thorny paths of controversy in the work of communicating religious instruction to children. But the whole essence of that process lies in its voluntary character. If you lay down rules, you must provide those who administer the law with the means of compulsion. You must do one of two things—either constitute a new religious code by the authority of Parliament, by a process of excision or amputation, or you must do that which appears to me to be more objectionable, though perhaps not quite so difficult—you must set up, as seems to be the fashion "elsewhere," a living authority which, with the sanction and in the name of Parliament, will from time to time, when appealed to, draw the lines and definitions of Divine truth on behalf of the children. Now, we are not prepared to enter into this thorny and tangled wilderness, at least until some one shall have been successful in cutting out paths through its wastes such as we have been wholly unable to discern. Passing on from the particular methods of meeting the difficulties of the case, I would wish to remind the House succinctly of the general scope of the Bill, which forms as it does the starting-point from which we have to measure the modifications which have been, or are now proposed to be, made in its provisions. Leaving out of consideration the reasons which governed the Administration in the preparation and introduction of this measure, we have now arrived at a time when religious differences ought, we think, no longer to stand in the way of conferring upon the nation a great and essential public good. It was, therefore, our desire to present to Parliament a scheme which should aim at making elementary education universal in an efficient form throughout the country. It was in our view essential to the success of this measure that so far as the funds of the State—and I use the term now in the narrow sense of that which proceeds from the Imperial Treasury—that so far as the funds of the State were concerned, they should be applied only for secular results. The machinery of voluntary schools we found not only existing in this country, but overspreading it to an immense extent; and on every ground, whether of that which is due to the promoters of those schools, to their benevolent and self-denying labours and the success which they have obtained, or, whether on the ground of that which is due to the purpose which we have in view, and its effectual, speedy, uniform, and economical attainment, we adopted this principle also as a fundamental principle of this Bill, that we would frankly and without jealousy endeavour to employ the machinery of voluntary schools, as far as it was available, in aid of our object. But, feeling that that large deficiency which is now observable in the country could not be made up by means of voluntary schools alone, we proposed to fall back on the principle of rating, and to make use of it by way of supplementing the gap which we saw before us. Of that machinery we proposed to make use under the authority of local Boards. These were to be appointed by a free popular election. They were to be, in a substantial and genuine sense, the representatives of the parents of the children who were to receive education at their hands. We looked upon them as the most natural champions and representatives of these young creatures. We, therefore, proceeded without hesitation on the principle of placing a large, though not an entirely unlimited, discretion in the hands of those local Boards. They were, indeed, to be bound, in our view, to grant in every case effectual provision and of a generous character, but subject to the sole condition that they were to be free to introduce schools of a strictly secular character, and of carrying it to the extreme; or, on the other hand, of introducing such shades, such degrees, and such development of religious teaching as they might, in their judgment, find best suited to the wants of the particular districts which they happened to represent. Besides this function of these local Boards, they had, under the Bill as it stands, another most important function to perform—namely, that of giving or refusing aid, as they might think fit, to what I should call the voluntary schools of a district, subject only to the condition that, in order to check the action of undue religious prejudice, they must give to all or none, and might not make a selection between them. That, I think, combined with the circumstance that the Bill exhibited no preference for any one religious body in the country, but aimed at aiding all benevolent and useful exertions, is a fair outline of the Bill as explained upon its introduction in his able speech by my right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council. The Bill, however, has been sufficiently long before the country to enable the House to understand the considerations which have been pressed on the minds of the Government, and the degree of weight which they attach to those considerations I shall lay before the House in the statement which I am now about to make. We see nothing to be ashamed of in the outline of the Bill as I have described it. We should have deemed nothing more to have been necessary in order to make it work efficiently than some amendments in its details without any modification in its principles. Nor do I now think it is our duty to modify what I should call the principles of the measure; but undoubtedly one of the moving springs of the Bill is local discretion, which, although I do not call it a vital principle, yet it is undoubtedly associated with its objects, and is a matter of the utmost importance and consequence with reference to the question how far the sphere of that discretion extends, and to what extent it should undergo contraction. On this subject we have carefully observed the manifestations of opinion throughout the country, and I own that our anticipations and hopes with reference to it have not been altogether fulfilled. We found that throughout the country, in many of the greatest centres of population, thought, and activity, the utmost apprehension prevails with respect to the extent of the sphere which we have assigned to the free judgment of the local Boards. I am not ashamed to say we have watched carefully, with a desire to observe correctly, and to possess information as to the actual state of public feeling on the subject, because the state and feeling of public feeling must necessarily enter largely in the motives which weigh with the Government in introducing a measure of this kind with the hope and desire of seeing it carried into a law. Looking specifically to the objects of the Bill, I think I may say that there are three principal points which have reference to the question of religious feeling. It is, in the first place, urged that the Conscience Clause gives insufficient protection. In the second place, comes the objection which is so strongly urged by the Nonconformists in this country that it is not right, as some go so far as to contend, that any funds which proceed from taxation, whether general or local, should be made applicable to purposes of religious instruction; others, while not going quite so far, maintaining that the funds of the entire community, whether general or local, ought not to be made so applicable in cases where either many or some persons might disapprove such application, and feel that it constituted a grievance. The third objection, and, perhaps, the weightiest, is that the free choice which we propose to give local Boards would create discord in those Boards, and the announcement that such discord would be likely to arise is to us a very great obstacle, because the prediction is one which is likely to fulfil itself. If the prevailing opinion among the communities who are to elect these Boards prognosticates animosity and contention as the result of a measure entitling them to discuss and settle many questions bearing on religion with the great breadth of free discretion, and if then you still proceed to force such Boards, with such constitutions and such powers, upon these districts, we may be pretty sure that we are going the way to defeat the beneficial action of our own measure, because it will be felt that the action of this measure cannot be efficacious, nor, in a larger sense, widely beneficial, unless it also be pacific and satisfactory to the public sense and opinion of local communities. This last and greatest objection turns, of course, upon two points—first, that we propose an unlimited discretion with regard to religious teaching in the rate-founded schools, limited by no condition except that of the Con- science Clause; and, secondly, that, with respect to the voluntary schools outside the circle of those founded upon the rate, we refer it wholly to the discretion of the 'local Boards to give or to withhold aid from those schools. And now as to the mode in which we propose to treat these objections. In the first place, as regards the insufficiency of the Conscience Clause, that, I hope, in principle we have adequately met by the addition of the time table. Leaving it to my right hon. Friend to enter upon the discussion of any questions that may arise upon the particular form of the enactment, I may say that the time table Clause which we propose has its origin in our admission of the necessity that something of that kind is required to give working efficacy to the principle of the Conscience Clause. The very best Conscience Clause that can be devised in terms may be, to a great extent, neutralized, where there is a disposition to neutralize it, unless it be also further guarded by some conditions as to time. We therefore propose a time table Conscience Clause, founded upon the double principle of an entire freedom, so far as the interposition of the clause goes, in the matter of religious instruction—although the time for that instruction must necessarily be circumscribed—and an entire freedom on the part of the parents corresponding with the freedom of the teacher to teach. Then we come to the second objection—that, namely, to the levying of public funds from public taxation of any kind for purposes of religious instruction, or to the overlooking of the scruples of a minority in respect of the application of these funds for such a purpose. And here it cannot but be observed that the situation is a very peculiar one. On the one hand, there is a very strong and vivid opinion among a large and active part of the community, that the safe course in a matter of national education is to limit the application of public funds to secular instruction. That is the principle upon which our Privy Council system has always been founded; because, although it may be said that you have deviated from the rigour of that system in permitting inspection with regard to religious results, yet it has been always seen that the amount of public aid has left a large void to be supplied by private benevolence, and this it is which supplies the means of religious instruction. I apprehend it is perfectly clear that if education throughout the country had been, or were to become, a matter of secular instruction only, the sources of private benevolence would at once be dried up, not from any want of appreciation of secular instruction or aversion to it, but because it would be said that that was a matter with which public authority was quite competent to deal, and if the instruction were only secular, voluntary contributions would entirely disappear. It is now proposed by some that we should meet this objection by limiting the application of the public rate to secular instruction alone, and there is no doubt that that is the logical result of the particular objection I have mentioned. Nor do I refer to that logical result with any horror, because I do not think that by itself it implies the slightest disrespect to religious teaching, or any wish to prevent or obstruct such teaching. I think it is compatible not, indeed, with the finding of the means of religious teaching from public sources, but with every freedom and facility, outside the actual application of the rate for giving religious teaching to those who are the subjects of secular instruction from the rate, and even in such near conjunction with the secular instruction that, practically, no inconvenience need be felt, and no separation need be preserved. But, however logical this conclusion, I am bound to say—pronouncing upon it a most impartial judgment, and endeavouring to come to the consideration of the question with a perfect integrity of purpose, and with that abnegation of mere personal preferences which I have presumed to recommend to others as the only solution of our difficulties, I do not think this conclusion would be agreeable to the general prevailing sense of the country. It is true that the country has a right to expect, if it chooses, that its Parliament should be logical, while there is no corresponding right on the part of Parliament with regard to the country. If I may presume to criticize its proceedings, the country has been far from logical upon the subject of education, for multitudes of those who have felt the expediency of limiting the rate to purposes strictly secular, and the difficulty of discovering another course, yet have felt such a reluctance, and have combined with other bodies of people in showing such reluctance, to the severance of religious instruction by public authority from other instruction, that they have proposed a variety of plans which it is perhaps difficult to reconcile with the strictest rules of consistency, but which nevertheless indicate the strong and, I believe, the decided prevailing sense of the English nation. Some have given effect to this feeling by recommending that the local Board should have a discretion to introduce the reading of the Holy Scriptures into the schools, but to do nothing else; and I observe that there are those who are so oppressed with the difficulty between their rigid, abstract, voluntary principles and their desire to give religious colour to education, that they maintain, and I think very perilously maintain, that the reading of the Bible is not a religious but a secular exercise. Now, I do not speak with any disrespect or contempt of the reading of the Bible. A reverent reading of the Bible may be a most valuable thing; but I cannot agree with those who think that, if it is done in the manner in which it ought to be done, it is to be regarded as a secular exercise. I only refer to this as indicating the difficulties which people have felt in resolving the problems attending this question. Some, going a little farther, have said that we might do what was done in Ireland—endeavour to form a body of extracts from the Bible, and allow instruction to be given from that volume of extracts. I will not dwell upon that proposal, because it has not attracted much attention or support, and although that plan was attempted in Ireland with the best possible intentions and the greatest authority to start it on its way, it cannot be said to have succeeded in that country, because, practically, Scriptural extracts, though originally read as well as the Bible, have passed out of use in the National Schools of Ireland. Then came the plan of Bible reading, with a faculty for expounding the Bible, limited by terms such as those which my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Vernon Harcourt) proposes we should use, and as to which I have briefly stated the reasons why we could not adopt this proposition. Last comes the proposition placed on the Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Cowper-Temple), who, if it were in his power to do so by the forms fof the House, would confine the scope of the Amendment to rate-founded schools, shutting out the rate-aided schools, and who invites us to leave out all the words after "schools" in the Amendment, for the purpose of inserting the words— Hereafter established by means of local rates, no catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught. My right hon. Friend, I suppose, like others, has felt how desirable it was, on the one hand, to make those schools widely and, if possible, universally accessible—at least not to frighten from their door, by the ostentatious exhibition of any peculiar symbol, those who might otherwise be disposed to enter—and, on the other hand, to maintain in its essence and in its substance the power of a religious education, without attempting any of those interferences with the mode of handling Scripture, no practicable mode of effecting which has yet been discussed or suggested. All the projects which I have thus briefly enumerated are projects proposed to be introduced into the Bill as modes of limiting the discretion of the local Boards. Nobody has proposed to take away that discretion absolutely and entirely—I mean with regard to rate-founded schools. It is free to the local Board at this moment by the Bill to found schools perfectly secular; but no one I think has said—"Tell the Board to confine itself to schools absolutely secular." What is a school absolutely secular? Not one which merely compels the application of the rate to secular instruction; but one which shuts the doors of the school-house and withholds the aid of the schoolmaster from any religious instruction within the walls of the school building at any time whatever. I want to point out how essential it is to proceed in this measure not by endeavouring to give effect to any abstract and inflexible opinion, but to allow conflicting considerations to meet and equitably to modify one another. I beg those who have objected so much, and to some extent fairly, to the unlimited discretion of local Boards with respect to religion, to observe that it is impossible absolutely to get rid of that discretion, for even supposing we adopted the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Richard), there would still remain the question—which might become a question of religious discord, whether religious teaching was to be permitted in the school building at times other than the school hours fixed for secular instruction, and whether, if given at all, it might or might not be given by the master, he acting as the servant of the Board, on the application of the parent. Therefore, I take it for granted, we cannot wholly get rid of this discretion of the local Boards, and the real question is, what limitation it is desirable to impose upon them? I must remind the right hon. Member for South Hampshire that, by the adoption of his Amendment, we should very greatly narrow the field of religious contention, and at the same time allow religious instruction to be introduced into the schools. It would still remain open—as I think it ought to remain open—to the local Boards to confine the rate to secular instruction. Accepting that which undoubtedly appears to be the general desire, I will assume that religious instruction should not be excluded from schools, even during school hours, taken in the strictest sense of the term; and if a plan is to be adopted to carry out that object, I believe this is one which is perfectly practicable, which to a large portion of the community would be highly acceptable, and which, to all those to whom it was not absolutely acceptable, would yet be much less unacceptable than any other that could be adopted. We think, therefore, upon the whole, that the proposal of my right hon. Friend is one which in substance we ought to adopt and incorporate in the Bill. We think it is the best mode in which we can recognize the prevailing and very general desire and conviction of the people for including religion in the career of education within rate-founded schools, and that it is the most equitable manner in which, while imposing a certain limitation upon the discretion of local Boards, we can, on the one hand, bring together the conflicting opinions of various parties, and, on the other, if not wholly get rid of what may be called denominational controversies, yet in a very great degree abate their acrimony and diminish their range, besides, in a large number of cases, abrogating them altogether. That is the mode in which we propose to meet the objection taken to the unlimited discretion of local Boards so far as the rate-founded schools are concerned. Now I come to the important case of the rate-aided schools, and here the very same objection has been taken, and I must say with, even greater force. The voluntary schools contain every variety of full denominational teaching; they raise in the broadest form whatever controversy may be connected with the subject; and they raise controversy especially in connection with one portion of the community, whose case is the most difficult to deal with, whose case is also one which demands justice at our hands, and which cannot be overlooked—I mean the case of the Roman Catholics, who may be said to form 5 per cent of the entire population. I believe they assume that the proportion is higher; I take it at that. But that proportion by no means represents the share they ought to have in the operation of this Bill, because they are massed together in the great towns, and probably a tenth, an eighth, or even a sixth of the educational destitution sought to be relieved is that of the children of Roman Catholic parents. Of course, the fact that they would claim full denominational education in their schools would, in many cases, provoke acrimony at the local Boards when the question had to be decided whether or not they should give aid out of the rates to denominational schools. It would be quite idle to propose that the denominational schools should be required by the local Boards to abandon their denominational character; and, if that is so, on the other hand we feel that whatever objection applies to the free exercise of discretion by local Boards in the case of the rate-founded schools, applies in an enhanced degree and with augmented force in the case of rate-aided schools. There is another point of view from which it is right to contemplate this part of the question, and it adds great force to the considerations on which I have been dwelling. It is this—What sort of assistance is it that the local Board may be enabled to give to these rate-aided schools? If persons are to be encouraged to expend their own resources by the prospect of public aid, it is perfectly plain that the public aid, of which the prospect is held out to them, ought to have something like permanence attached to it. I do not mean from generation to generation, but from year to year. It ought to carry the same sort of confidence as to its continuance as has been carried by the annual Votes of this House of sums dis- bursed by the Privy Council. How could the local Board give aid under these conditions? A local Board might with the utmost sincerity and good faith vote assistance to local schools by a majority attained after a contested election; but who could secure the continuance of it? The fluctuating and unstable character which must attach to any assistance given by a local Board out of the rates to voluntary schools has come prominently under our notice, and appears to me to be a consideration of the utmost importance in any attempt to bring about a practical settlement of this question. There are two modes in which this difficulty may be met; but, unfortunately, in removing that particular objection we encounter others still more formidable. We may either forbid or compel a local Board to aid voluntary schools; but if we forbid them, and make them leave voluntary schools, as they are, dependent on the modicum of aid which they now obtain from the Privy Council, that would not be consistent with the view with which this Bill was brought forward, and it would not fulfil that engagement under which all along we have admitted ourselves to lie—namely, that of giving fair terms to voluntary schools, so as to enable them to lend to us all the aid they are capable of lending in the accomplishment of this great work, in which there is plenty for us all to do. Therefore, as our sole measure for dealing with that part of the case, we cannot forbid the local Boards to give aid to voluntary schools, because the promoters of those schools would be liable, equally with others, to contribute to the rate, and, contributing to it, to aid and found schools to compete with and beat down the school for which they were paying out of their own private resources. That is a state of things we do not desire to bring about, and cannot be responsible for. Then, would it do to compel the Boards to aid voluntary schools? We might give schools which communicated an effective secular education, and which adopted a time table Conscience Clause, a right to draw a limited amount from the rates, carefully limiting and defining that amount, so that in no case when added to the grant of the Privy Council it should come up to the full value of the secular instruction given; but we cannot conceal that even that form of drawing from the rate, although it is done at the discretion of the local Board, might embarrass the operation of a measure of this kind, for if a payment were made out of the rates, as to which the ratepayers as such were not consulted, and over which they had no control, it might become a cause of discontent and exasperation. As our desire is to avoid bringing such feelings into activity in the inauguration of this great and important measure, we should not think it wise and desirable to ask Parliament to invest a voluntary school with an absolute claim on the rate. There is one other mode in which we might proceed, and in which we may gain a great variety of objects. We may entirely escape from the evils attending these controversies in the local Boards in connection with voluntary schools, and we may at the same time do justice to these voluntary schools, and prevent any of that action of religious prejudice against particular, and possibly in some place obnoxious, Communions, which may give great cause of complaint, and we may at the same time adhere to what I hold to be the fundamental principle of the Bill—namely, that the funds of the Exchequer, whatever discretion you give to the local Boards, are to be dispersed solely and exclusively for secular results. I say these objects we may gain in one way, and it is the way we now propose to the House—that is, that we shall sever altogether the tie between the local Board and the voluntary schools; but then we must fulfil the engagements we have already entered into with the voluntary schools. We all along held out—and I think in every scheme of education that has been propounded it has been held out—to the promoters of voluntary schools, that in their competition with rate schools they should receive some assistance towards lightening the burden of their expenditure. What we propose is this—that in lieu of the mode now inserted in the Bill, of giving this augmentation from public sources to the means available for secular education in voluntary schools, the amount of that augmentation shall be drawn from the Exchequer, instead of from the rates. We do not accomplish this object so much by positive provisions in the Act of Parliament as by negative changes. It would be carried out principally by a modification of the Minutes of Council under which these grants are now made. As to the amount of that augmentation the Government have considered the objections which have been taken to unlimited assistance given to voluntary schools, and we are strongly of opinion that that assistance ought to be so limited that the whole amount which they would receive, whether from the rates, or from the Privy Council, or from both combined, ought to be so limited as that it should be less than it would cost the ratepayers under any circumstances to establish a purely secular school. We think that an addition to the present grant from the Privy Council to the voluntary schools, which may be taken at its maximum at 50 per cent, would fully gain that object. I do not know whether the House is aware of the computations generally current as to the expenses of schools and the contributions to them. I believe that none of those computations can be said to be exact; but, speaking roughly, it is said that the expense of educating a child in an efficient secular school is 30s., of which it may be said one-third is now provided by the Privy Council, one-third from voluntary sources, and one-third by payments from the children. We think that if to the third which is now dispensed the half of the second third were added, subject to the strict conditions which I have described with regard to secular education, the voluntary schools would have no reason to complain. But of course it will be necessary that further voluntary subscriptions should be contributed by the Exchequer with regard to the rated schools; because whatever the Privy Council might do in regard to the amount of its contribution, it is clear—and I believe it has never been disputed—that it can only be fair if the amount given to voluntary schools from the general taxation of the country be equal, and no more than equal to that which should be given to rated schools. Some changes will be necessary in the body of the Bill if the proposition to which I have just referred should be adopted by the Committee. It will be necessary to change the 84th clause, which provides the assistance to be given from the Exchequer to secular schools in case the rate should exceed 3d. in the pound, because the relief to the rates by this plan would be so considerable that, in point of fact, the rate would never come to 3d. in the pound. We might, therefore, altogether dispense with this, contingent reserve of assistance from the Exchequer. We think, also, that if this liberal annual assistance were granted by the State to schools—whether voluntary or rated—it is quite unnecessary to maintain any system of aid for building grants. The building of schools is the easiest of all the efforts made by the promoters. Their great difficulty is the maintenance of the schools; and when we give liberal assistance to the maintenance, I think we may fairly leave to the locality the cost of the building. Another point has been the subject of continued discussion and much interest. I mean that which has been called the "year of grace." This is mixed with various matters which enter into the most complex part of the machinery of the present Bill, and I cannot say precisely whether we shall be able to offer any modification with regard to the proposal in respect to the "year of grace." But there is a very great desire undoubtedly that a system of rated schools, by which local deficiencies are to be supplied, should be brought into action as rapidly as possible. It may be found that the adoption of the provision which I have recently referred to may make it practicable to accelerate the operations proposed to be taken under the Bill, in such a manner as to allow that some shorter period should intervene before the system of rating is brought definitely into action. These are changes which may perhaps follow from the adoption of the plan which I have described. I hope the House has understood the nature of the changes which the Government propose to make. But I will very briefly repeat them. We propose to, in substance, adopt the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple) with regard to the rate-founded schools. We propose that a time table Conscience Clause shall cover all schools whatever receiving any description of aid, whether from rates or from the Privy Council. We propose that local Boards shall cease to have any connection with or relation to voluntary schools, and that these voluntary schools, so far as they have depended on public aid, shall only stand in relation to the Privy Council; we propose that the contribution of the Privy Council towards the annual charge of schools shall be augmented in such a manner as to afford an increased amount of support to the local schools, whether voluntary or rated. That increase or amount of support would vary in detail according to the different heads under which it would be given. It is not necessary for me to refer to them separately; but the augmentation would be within a maximum of 50 per cent. It might not be so much; but taking it at about that amount, I think if our propositions be acceded to we may fairly require the promoters of voluntary schools to supply from their own resources and the pence of the children what, with the grant from the Exchequer, will enable them to perfectly well stand in competition with the rated schools. I need scarcely say that our plan would not have any effect on the Estimates of the present year, though they must be considered in connection with future rates. The changes, therefore, in the body of the Bill will be very slight in order to give effect to the propositions which I have described. Indeed, to give effect to the change with regard to the altered relations between local Boards and the voluntary schools requires the omission of three clauses, the 22nd clause, which principally deals with the subject, the 23rd, which is supplemental to it, and the 84th, which provides for a contingent draft upon the Exchequer, which the Government consider to be quite unnecessary under the circumstances of the case. Sir, before sitting down, I would say I am deeply sensible of the great disadvantages under which we approach the consideration of the Bill. Those disadvantages are many, both as regards time and circumstances. This Session the House has not been idle, and I believe that its exertions have not been unfruitful. If we have passed through the months of February, March, April, and May, and are half through June, in Parliamentary business I believe we have no cause to be ashamed of the work which has been under our hands, and which has been the result of our hands. Still, we must not disguise from ourselves that we are now approaching the practical consideration of a measure which, from its importance, its complexity of machinery, its variety of objects, and its grave difficulty, when all taken together, may well be compared even with the measure upon which we have spent the greater part of the Session, and is equaled by very few Bills which, in recent years, have been presented to Parliament. We are approaching the middle of June, when general legislation of a secondary order cannot be said to be forward, and when, of the necessary business of the Session, connected with the Votes in Supply, a very large proportion still remains entirely undischarged. Under these circumstances, when I ask myself what we have to set against this disadvantage—the disadvantage of that growing exhaustion which, as long as men are men, must affect the House of Commons as well as any other assemblage in proportion as its labours are prolonged, I know of but one thing that can be set against it—and that is the earnest desire of the country—faithfully, as I believe, reflected in this House—that the Bill shall pass during the present Session on the great subject of the elementary education of the people. There has been, I think, no single occasion in which the Bill has been mentioned, even in the incidental form of Question and Answer across this Table, when the cheers, the spontaneous utterances of the Members of the House have not testified to the earnestness, and I may say the vehemence of that desire. That it is entertained in good faith I do not for one moment question, and that it is entertained by both sides of the House, I fully believe and am aware. I hope that, being as it is, perfectly upright and undeniably strong, it will also be attended with that careful computation as to the means by which we can attain our end, and on which we must wholly depend for any hope of eventual success. That desire can, after all, only be attained by a disposition on the Benches opposite, and upon these to abate private opinion, to put aside subjects, not of party—because they have never been introduced—but of sectional difference of whatever kind, and to join in one common effort for the attainment of a common object. There was a man who left a name which is ever to be mentioned with honour in this country—Mr. Cobden—whose declaration long ago on this subject is well worthy of our attention. He certainly had no religious or sectarian prejudices, but was a man of popular principles and ideas, and one who would have taken fright, if any one could, at the idea of too great a scope being given to the power of religious communities or to the ministers who preside over them. He spoke, too, at a time when the deficiency in the means of elementary education was far less glaring than it is now, for the sentiment to which I am about to refer was uttered nearly 20 years ago. Addressing a meeting in Manchester, he declared that— Such was the sense he entertained of the necessity of a universal, efficient, and accessible secular training for the children of the mass of the community, that he was ready, so long as private conscience was protected in the school, to accept a measure that would attain that end on any terms whatever, he did not care what, in regard to the details of its religious arrangements. A prolonged consideration of the subject has enabled us, I have no doubt, to deal with some of the difficulties which were unsolved in the days of Mr. Cobden. We have, at any rate, endeavoured carefully and impartially to weigh the claims that might fairly be made by the various sections of the community, and in the proposals that we now make we have been governed by a sense of the great responsibility that we shall incur—a responsibility which others also will incur if they pursue a course that will produce the same result—if we abstain from using any means in our power to promote and expedite the passing of this measure. We have, therefore, sought to meet, as far as we could, the demands that may be urged from any quarter, and to make a liberal provision to enable the promoters of voluntary schools to continue their Christian and philanthropic enterprize. We have sought to meet the objections, the fair objections, of those who wish to exclude, as far as possible, from the area of local Boards the painful subject of religious controversy; and to meet the strong, the widespread, the everywhere manifested desire of the people that the general education of this country in secular matters shall not be separated from religion. Upon this broad basis we present our proposals, and as to the particular form which they have assumed, we present them as the best and fairest plan, in our judgment, by which, in the existing state of opinion and feeling, without involving the State in religious controversy, but confining its central function strictly to its work of obtaining beneficial secular results, we can give not only facility, but also respect, honour, and aid to religion, and secure—as we hope to do for the people of this country, wherever it is still deficient—the great and paramount advantage and blessing of elementary education.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Gladstone.)

MR. DISRAELI

Whether we look to the gravity of the subject, or to the unexpected manner in which the communication has now been made to us by the Prime Minister, I must say, both for its importance and for the rarity of the circumstances, I hardly know any occasion since I have sat in Parliament that can be compared with the present. The right hon. Gentleman commenced his observations by dwelling on the impossibility of our arriving at any satisfactory conclusion on this vital subject, unless we acted in a spirit of mutual concession, and he terminated his remarks by an appeal to the co-operation of all sections of opinion in the House for a common object. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has anything, so far as this measure is concerned, to complain of in the conduct of those who sit opposite to him. It is four months ago since Her Majesty's Ministers, after having had no trifling time to mature their measure, and to consider its provisions, placed upon the Table of this House, after an able exposition from the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education—which it was my misfortune not to hear—the measure for the elementary education of the people which had been so long promised and expected. What was the chief provision of that measure? A provision which delegated to school Boards the power and the privilege of deciding upon the religious education of the scholars. The right hon. Gentleman remembers well our long contests and controversies about the Conscience Clause. In this instance we waived all question of the principle of a Conscience Clause; we testified the sincerity of our support by dealing with the right hon. Gentleman in a spirit of co-operation and concession, by abrogating for ever all ground of controversy, and meeting him in a manner which greatly facilitated the progress of the measure, and permitted us to accede to some of his most novel propositions.

When I speak of the principle of a Conscience Clause, I allude, of course, to that contained in this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has since given Notice of an Amendment to that Conscience Clause; but we have not yet had any reasons stated in favour of the change, and I think the most legitimate and natural manner would be to allow us in Committee to express our opinion upon it. The principle of that Conscience Clause was unanimously, sincerely, and cordially accepted by those who have hitherto been opposed to it, and by that course they greatly facilitated the plans of the right hon. Gentleman, and permitted him to expect that with our co-operation the arrangements that he had proposed to make in delegating to the School Boards this power of deciding upon the matter of religious education of the pupils in schools would be carried. What, however, is one of the leading features of the statement which the Prime Minister has made to-night? I came here to support the Bill which the Government introduced four months ago, and the character and provisions of which have been maturely considered. I came here to candidly consider in Committee any Amendments, whether they were made by the Government or by hon. Members sitting on either side of the House, which might have modified, improved, changed, or developed the principle of the measure; but so far as the Bill of the Government was concerned, I was prepared to support it. I take it for granted that, in this discussion, we are not to enter into any arguments respecting the abstract excellencies or disadvantages of secular education; and I understand it is agreed on both sides of the House that we are to recognize the determination of the great majority of the people of this country that "national education" is to be a "religious education." I understand that is the admission of those who are avowedly, and no doubt conscientiously, advocates of a strictly secular education. I understand that, as far as the House of Commons is concerned, in our efforts to carry a measure of elementary education, we are not to deviate into barren arguments upon the subject of secular education. Then, if we are to have a religious education, I am at a loss to understand how it is to be secured by the change which the right hon. Gen- tleman has notified to-night for adoption by the House, though I shall listen with candour, if opportunity offers, to any arguments that may be advanced in favour of views to which at present I do not give my adhesion. Our course is clear. The country demands a "national education" which will be a "religious education." The country will not entrust that education to the Church, but has agreed to entrust it to the community; and the right hon. Gentleman, acting on that principle, has proposed to us, in the measure before the House, that to the community shall be delegated the power of deciding upon the religious education of the people. To-night, however, we are told that the powers of the school Board are not only to be abridged but even to be abrogated, and it is proposed that we are to take refuge in an Amendment, Notice of which has been given, but which cannot be moved. This appears to me a most extraordinary course for a great Minister and the Leader of the House to take. After having devoted a portion of his time, and that of his Colleagues, to the consideration of this question, after having laid a matured and deeply-considered Bill before the House, and after Parliament and the country have been considering it for four months, the right hon. Gentleman suddenly comes down and tells us he is going to make a great change—a change which is expressed in an Amendment by a private Member who cannot move it. This appears to me to indicate vacillation of purpose. I do not wish to depreciate the proposition of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple); but I want to understand it. It is easy to say that no catechism or formularies should be used in these schools distinctive of any particular denomination. But I think that before we can accede to such a proposition, it would have been convenient if we had had the advantage of having it explained to us. When the original Bill was brought in we had the advantage of an explanation of its principles. Without, therefore, depreciating in any way the suggestion of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire, I wish to remind the House that we have never had from the right hon. Member (Mr. W. E. Forster), nor from the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, any explanation of what may be the possible or the probable consequences of this principle if admitted, or what really is the meaning we may annex to it. The right hon. Gentleman has very properly expressed his belief that it would be impossible to give any definite and precise meaning to such words as "unsectarian" and "undenominational." In dealing with the proposition of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire, which we are now told is to be the leading principle of the Elementary Education Bill—of this Bill which has been so long before us—which has been before us for four months in another shape—I am merely giving my first impressions of it; but when a proposition of this importance is started without Notice, called upon to discuss the subject upon the spur of the moment, I can see nothing but the utmost difficulty in the course which has been indicated by the Government. I am speaking now in the hope of eliciting some information which may guide us in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that he, for one, would not be content with religious education in our elementary schools if it merely consisted in reading chapters of the Holy Scriptures without comment. Why, there are but few of us who read chapters in either the Old or the New Testament who do not require comment, and sometimes considerable comment, upon them. Therefore, nothing would be more unfair than that the children of this country, without any previous religious instruction, should be told by Parliament that they must find adequate religious instruction in merely reading passages from the Holy Scriptures. I am, therefore, not at all surprised to hear that the right hon. Gentleman is not inclined to sanction such a course; but, as far as I can ascertain from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, the new scheme would be this—that, although no creed nor catechism of any denomination is to be introduced, yet the schoolmaster would have the power and opportunity of teaching, enforcing, and explaining the Holy Scripture when he reads. Now, he cannot do that without drawing some inferences and some conclusions, and what will those inferences and conclusions be but dogmas? They may not be the opinions of the rector, nor of the Presbyterian minister, nor of the Nonconformist mi- nister, but they are the opinions of the schoolmaster. You are contemplating the establishment of a class who must be endowed with great abilities, and who certainly will have to perform most important functions and to exercise great powers, and I want to know in the present state of affairs where these school-masters are to be found? You will not intrust the priest or the presbyter with the privilege of expounding the Holy Scriptures to the scholars; but for that purpose you are inventing and establishing a new sacerdotal class. The schoolmaster who will exercise these functions, and who will occupy this position, will be a member of a class which will, in the future, exercise an extraordinary influence upon the history of England and upon the conduct of Englishmen. That was the second great announcement made by the right hon. Gentleman. I say that that announcement, if the right hon. Gentleman intends to adopt that scheme of elementary education, is not only one of which we have had no notice, but it is one which we are not in a position even to discuss. I, for one, am not prepared to discuss it; it is too grave, big, comprehensive, and wide a subject for discussion at so short a notice; but I am stating the first impressions that occur to me with regard to it. The right hon. Gentleman, after abridging or abrogating the functions of the school Boards, after announcing that new powers of a most remarkable description are to be intrusted to a class with whom we are at present but little acquainted, enters into details of the most complicated kind with regard to voluntary schools, assisted schools, and rate-established schools under the Bill. The details produced by the right hon. Gentleman, although he said they were very simple, appeared to me to assume almost the character of a Budget. I followed his explanation with difficulty, and my right hon. Friends near me were not able to assist me in the matter. That is to say, my right hon. Friends shared what I believe was the universal feeling of the House, that when a complicated statement was made involving financial details, it would have been more convenient for a popular Assembly to have received it in a more precise and formal manner. Of one thing there can be no doubt—that the details of the right hon. Gentleman, and the changes generally, which he has announced, show that we are called upon to consider an altogether new Bill. The Bill which during months of the autumn was carefully prepared by the Government—which was brought forward with so much comment upon its details four months ago—the Bill which for four months has been studied by the House of Commons, is not the Bill which we are now called to go into Committee upon, and which, if we enter into Committee upon, we shall do so with the greatest disadvantages. I am bound to say that there is not a man out of the Cabinet—and I believe not every one in the Cabinet—who has at this moment a precise and clear idea what the right hon. Gentleman is going to do with voluntary schools which are not to be supported by the rates of the school Boards. Now, Sir, how have we been treated by the Government in this matter? The Vice President of the Council on Education only very recently placed some important Amendments upon the Paper, and he told us that those were all the Amendments he meant to propose. These were his last words just before the Whitsuntide Recess. No doubt, the Government have acted with the utmost straightforwardness in the matter—no doubt the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council really meant what he said—no doubt the right hon. Gentleman the First Minister meant what he said four months since, and meant what he said to-night. We are dealing with a very difficult subject, and it will not do to make—I will not say a claptrap appeal to the House, because that would not be respectful to the Prime Minister, but that ordinary appeal to the House that it is of the utmost importance that we should legislate upon this subject during the present Session. I had hoped until to-night that we should be able to legislate upon this subject this Session; but allow me to impress upon the House that there is one thing much worse than not dealing with this question this Session, and that is to pass a sham Bill, evading all difficulties by loose phrases to which no one can annex a precise idea, and which, when attempted to be carried into practice by a practical people like the English, will end in the utmost mischance, and result in public disappointment and mortification. Now, the course that I should have thought would have been taken under the circumstances is, that the right hon. Gentleman should have moved this Committee merely pro formâfor the purpose of inserting these clauses, and should have then postponed further discussion upon it until the Bill had been reprinted. I will not, under the circumstances, move the adjournment of the debate, because I am anxious that on this question we should proceed with as much accord as possible; but I desire to put it fairly to the House and to hon. Members opposite, whatever may be their peculiar opinions respecting elementary education, whether they think that we are now going into Committee with that ample and precise information as to the intentions of the Government which it is desirable, and indeed, which it is absolutely necessary, we should have. Ought we not to have an opportunity of considering the new scheme of the Government? And although we have wasted four months in studying the first Bill, is it right that we should not have four days nor four hours to consider propositions which so intimately concern the interests of the country? The right hon. Gentleman tells us they are very simple; he has only to take out three or four important clauses and we might then go to work; but the right hon. Gentleman took an hour and a-half to explain this new scheme, and I believe the right hon. Gentleman did not waste a word in that explanation. As far as I am concerned, I candidly confess I cannot comprehend the scheme; there may be others who have more confidence in themselves, and who are not so ready to confess a weakness, which I fear is rather my characteristic; but I candidly confess myself utterly incompetent to decide at present upon the momentous propositions and the minute details set forth by the right hon. Gentleman. I trust, therefore, he will accede to my proposal that he will move this Committee pro formâ, insert his new clauses, and let the Bill be reprinted. This done, I care not whether it be at a Morning or an Evening Sitting, I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will find the House ready to give his propositions a candid, and, I hope, an efficient examination.

MR. VERNON HARCOURT

said, he was obliged to join the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) in his confession of weakness. He was quite unable to master the new scheme of the First Lord of the Treasury, and he was sure the House would concur in the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the matter should be postponed. As far as he could understand, it would be absolutely impossible that the principle of compulsion could be applied, for voluntary schools would be removed from the operation of the local Boards, which would alone have the power of enforcing attendance. This was a question that affected the whole framework and texture of the Bill; and it was a matter which they must have time to consider. It was, in fact, a new Bill framed upon new principles. As to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple), he would ask who were to determine whether a religious formulary was the distinction of any particular denomination? Every objection that the right hon. Gentleman had urged against his (Mr. Vernon Harcourt's) Amendment appplied equally to that of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire. There ought to be some tribunal to decide as to religious formularies. The New Testament was a religious formulary of Christians, as distinguished from those who were not Christians. He hoped, on a future occasion, to show that there was such a thing as unsectarian religion. He had heard with the deepest regret the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury that he did not understand what was meant by undenominational and unsectarian religion. He believed that the great body of the Christian people of this country knew thoroughly well what was meant. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I never used the words.] He was extremely sorry to find he had misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman; but the incident showed how true his statement was that he did not understand him. Certainly he gathered from him that there was no such thing as undenominational religion. He was glad, however, to find he had misunderstood him. The country did not desire to have a national system of education founded on denominational principles, though he agreed with the Prime Minister that the country desired religious education; and if the right hon. Gentleman was of opinion that he could not secure unsectarian religious education, then he was perfectly certain that at no distant period the country would have a system of secu- lar education. The Amendment adopted by the Government on this subject was in very vague terms. While it pretended to do a great deal it really did nothing at all; it simply prevented the formularies of religion being taught, as if the substance of those formularies could not be taught without the words. It would be easy to teach the Apostle's Creed without the form; even the Athanasian Creed could be put into vulgar and intelligible English, if it were possible, and imparted to the children. He would be no party to a proposal which forbade the form and yet permitted the thing to be done. The proposition would be offensive to the Churches of England and Rome, which had formularies, and unsatisfactory to the Dissenters, who objected to the substance which those formularies taught. As he thought that they were not in a condition to discuss the Bill, he would move the adjournment of the debate.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Vernon Harcourt.)

MR. DIXON

agreed that it would be utterly impossible adequately to discuss the important questions involved in the new proposals of the Government without an adjournment; and he submitted that if the Bill were pressed forward that evening the new propositions would not be approached in a proper spirit. There were two principles discussed out-of-doors, both of which were seriously affected by the statement of the First Minister. The strongest feeling existed among Nonconformists and almost all those who supported the National Education League, that, whatever was done, there should be no extension of the present denominational system, and that there should be no increase of public grants to the existing denominational schools. Yet, if he understood the Prime Minister, his new propositions involved an increase of the grant to denominational schools of 50 per cent. There was another principle which was held to as strongly, and which was under consideration, as to whether the money of the ratepayers should be given to support sectarian religious teaching. If he correctly understood the proposition of the Prime Minister, it was that the teachers might be allowed in all rate-provided schools not only to teach religion, but to teach religion of the most sectarian character. It would be permissible to teach the sectarianism, not only of 20 Churches, but of thousands of individuals. These two principles had been prominent throughout the whole agitation which had been going on in the country, and he would suggest to Her Majesty's Government that they ought to allow a little time to elapse before asking the House to approach the discussion of these new propositions, lest they should give utterance to feelings and opinions that might afterwards be painful to themselves, as well as unjust to the Government. In conclusion, he expressed a hope that the House would, without hesitation, agree to adjourn the debate.

VISCOUNT SANDON

rose with very great regret to approve a course of procedure similar to that recommended by his hon. Friends opposite. Entertaining, however, as he did, an earnest desire to press the Bill forward, he felt that the course proposed by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt) would lead to some unnecessary delay. He therefore urged the House to go into Committee pro formâ, so as to delay as little as possible the consideration of this important measure. As to the proposals of the Government, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that they made the Bill almost a new one. With regard to many important details, the measure had been entirely transformed. The adoption of the Amendment of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple), respecting the exclusion of formularies, was one of very great importance, now it had been adopted by the Government, and hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House required time to consider whether they could support it. Again, the future position of the existing schools would be different from what was originally intended. He did not say that the Government proposals might not turn out to be highly valuable; and, for his own part, he hailed with delight the concession with regard to the relief of the rates, for he believed the inhabitants of populous towns had no idea of the unfair burden they would have to bear if all schools were put upon the local rates. Seeing the magnitude and importance of the changes proposed, he trusted the Government would allow hon. Members at least two days to consider them. He recommended the hon. and learned Member for Oxford not to persist in his Motion for the adjournment of the debate; but to assent to the milder course of allowing the Bill to go into Committee pro formâ, with a view to its being reprinted with the Amendments, and to its further consideration on another day.

MR. COWPER - TEMPLE

said, he thought it very desirable that hon. Members should have time to consider the proposed changes. He agreed with the last speaker that the best course of procedure would be to go into Committee pro formâ. The impression he had formed from listening to the speech of the Prime Minister was, that the right hon. Gentleman had dealt with the subject in a most statesmanlike manner. The hostility with which this comprehensive measure had been met proceeded from other causes than a desire for the best education of the poorer classes of this country, and some changes had become necessary to conciliate objectors. The Amendments acceded to would diminish the opportunities for sectarian strife. Against the Bill there had been urged difficulties which the Government were willing to endeavour to remove; and he thought that the solution proposed this evening was, on the whole, the best. He would, however, forbear from entering into a discussion on the subject on the present occasion.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY

I believe the going into Committee pro formâ and the subsequent reprinting of the Bill, with the Amendments, will be advantageous alike to the House and to the Government. I should be extremely sorry to be compelled to support the Motion for the adjournment of the debate; but I do not see what other course I could take in the event of the Government not consenting to reprint the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman seemed adverse to such a course; but it was surely to the advantage of the Government to have the Bill in their hands in its altered form, so that every new Amendment must proceed from other quarters. There is another point that strikes me as being one on which it is very important the Government should give us some information—namely, as to the projected change in the Revised Code. You are about to make changes which will affect some 12,000 schools, according to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman; and it is all important for the carrying on of the best part of the education of this country that we should know the position they are to be placed in under the new Revised Code. I do not mean to say that the Code is to be altered now; but I think the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Education Department here ought to put on paper what it is proposed to do in reference to the Revised Code next year. Speaking for myself, I came down here to assist practically in carrying out what I deemed to be the principle of the Government measure, although I am aware there are certain points which will have to be discussed at considerable length in Committee. It was with the same view that I abstained from speaking on the second reading; and now I shall be as brief as possible, because I desire to facilitate the passing of the Bill. I trust, however, that the right hon. Gentleman will give us two or three days to consider his proposals, instead of driving us into apparent opposition to the Bill, by rendering it necessary for us to vote in favour of the adjournment of the debate.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I do not think we have the slightest right to complain of the wish which has been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and by the other hon. Members who have asked for time to consider the change which has been proposed by my right hon. Friend. I do not deny that that change is an important one; but I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) rather exaggerated the effect of it when he described it as an entirely new Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) suggests that we should go into Committee pro formâ, for the purpose of having the Bill reprinted. Now, on the part of the Government, I am quite ready to assent to the postponement of the debate until Monday next; and it is entirely for the House to consider whether they would prefer going into Committee pro formâ or to have the Amendments laid on the Table. I would only remind hon. Members that if the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman opposite is adopted, the effect will be that all those Amendments which now stand on the Paper in their names will disappear. That would be an inconvenience. If the House approves, the new Amendments might be printed and in the hands of Members to-morrow morning. In point of length these Amendments will be slight, being simply the omission of three clauses and the addition of a few words to the 14th clause. The right hon. Gentleman has asked for a detailed statement as to the relations which all the public elementary schools would in future bear to the Parliamentary Grant. In reply, I would observe that it is impossible for us until the Bill passes to say how that would be. I can only repeat the statement made by my right hon. Friend, that in framing the new Code we shall frame it on the principle of contemplating an additional grant of not more than 50 per cent. The precise mode in which it would be given it is impossible to state now, because we do not know what may be the alterations made in the present mode of distribution. We have been all along aware that as soon as the Bill passed the framing of the Code would be a most important matter, and I have every hope that when brought before Parliament next year it will receive the most attentive consideration. As to the Bill itself, I have no wish to enter into any defence of it on the present occasion; but I feel confident that those who take an interest in education, and whose object is the extension of the advantages of education to every child in the kingdom, will regard the Bill as being improved by the alterations in it which have been proposed to-night.

MR. LIDDELL

said, there was one reason not yet urged why the House should not vote the Speaker out of the Chair then. By doing so they would preclude themselves by the usages of the House from discussing the Bill upon its principles. Though not wishing to say a word against the proposals enunciated that night, they were so novel in their character, and they had been introduced so unprecedentedly, that he thought it most undesirable they should preclude themselves from discussing the principles of the Bill in connection with those proposals.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON

said, he saw no advantage in prolonging the discussion. But no person could for a moment dispute the fact that, considering the important statement they had heard that night and the changes proposed by the Government, common fairness required that both sides of the House should have time to consider those Amendments. The best plan, then, in his opinion, to adopt was to go into Committee pro formâ, to reprint the Amendments, and to proceed as soon as possible with the consideration of the Bill in its now shape. He thought Monday was too soon to fix for resuming this discussion, although he hoped that no time would be lost in the progress of the measure.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, there was not the slightest objection on the part of the Government either to the adjournment of the debate or to the going into Committee pro formâ as had been suggested. The latter course was one which the Government themselves could not well propose, inasmuch as it would be the first step towards giving effect to their plan. With regard to the reprinting of the Bill, if they were to do so it would appear again exactly as it was, with the exception of three clauses, which would be omitted, and a short Amendment to the 14th clause. It it be the wish of the House, the Amendments already on the Paper might be reprinted. The proposals of the Government, so far from being complicated, could be written in three lines. The principal question, that with regard to formularies, could be contained in two lines, and in regard to voluntary schools, it was a transfer from the local Board of the function of administering to the wants of voluntary schools. He hoped that the Motion for adjournment would be withdrawn.

MR. VERNON HARCOURT

asked the Speaker in what position would hon. Members be who had Amendments on the Paper, in case they assented to the committal of the Bill pro formâ?

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. and learned Member will be in a much more advantageous position than that in which he is now placed; because at present, having moved the adjournment of the debate, he has exhausted his powers of speaking. If the House should go into Committee pro formâ, and the Bill should be reprinted, then every hon. Member will, at the re-commencement of the debate, be informed as to the main principles of the change proposed by the Prime Minister.

MR. HORSMAN

When the debate was recommenced, would every Member who had an Amendment on the Paper have a right to speak?

MR. SPEAKER

replied in the affirmative.

MR. VERNON HARCOURT

said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. DISRAELI

suggested to hon. Members who had Amendments on the Paper that they should replace them, or otherwise they would not have an opportunity of discussing them, should the House go into Committee pro formâ.

MR. HIBBERT

observed that, in respect to the proposal for recommital, every one of the 200 or 300 Amendments on the Notice Paper would be replaced at the cost of much time and trouble. He suggested that both Motions before the House should be withdrawn, and then let the Amendments that were really to be proceeded with be placed on the Table of the House.

MR. RUSSELL GURNEY

considered it would be a great advantage if they got rid of all the Amendments on the Paper, so that they should be able to start with the consideration of those Amendments only that involved any material changes in the Bill.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

asked if the Government would be prepared to put on the Paper their Amendments with regard to the school Boards, or the compulsory part of the question.

SIR MASSEY LOPES

also wished to know if the Government would insert in the Bill a provision with reference to the extent and the amount of the Government grants, so as not to leave them to the caprice and whim of the Educational Department, more especially when they exercised such arbitrary and absolute powers?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, it was absolutely impossible to put upon the Paper at present the new or additional Code, for reasons quite irrespective of the changes proposed by his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. They were unable then to form any opinion of the precise details of the provisions under which the annual grants should be made under the altered circumstances caused by the passing of this Bill. What had been said was, that the Government looked forward to additional grants to schools not exceed- ing 50 per cent. It was not the intention of the Government to place Amendments on the Paper with reference to the school Boards and compulsory education. Throughout the discussion there had been an unusual desire to anticipate discussion in Committee by arrangements beforehand; but the Government felt that these difficult questions must be left to be dealt with in Committee.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, there was a very strong and prevalent feeling that that Bill should be a complete educational measure, in every sense of the word, and he felt certain that many hon. Members would give their support to any attempt to make it such. He suggested that, in order to make it so, the new Code should be incorporated, if possible, in the Bill, so that the minimum as well as the maximum amount of the grants should be known.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee, and reported; to be printed, as amended [Bill 167]; re-committed for Monday next.