§ MR. CHARLEYasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether, as Article 32a (3) of the New Code of 1872 (which provides, for the first time, that any grant made to a school shall be "reduced by its excess above one-half of the expenditure on the annual maintenance of the school,") involves a considerable reduction in the grant, especially to poor schools worked economically, he will consider the expediency of apportioning the grant so that the new reduction may apply only to that portion of the year which is subsequent to the publication of the New Code, and not operate so as to deprive a school of the additional amount that would have been earned under the Code of 1871, if the New Code had not a retrospective effect?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that at the beginning of each Session a new Code was placed upon the Table of the House, and was put into operation on the 1st of May. That course had been adopted in regard to this Minute, and he did not think it would be fair to other schools, or in accordance with right policy, to alter it in this particular case, and therefore he could not hold out to the hon. Member any prospect of its being put in force. With regard to the Minute itself, it merely carried out the expressed policy of the Department, that the annual grant should be proportioned to the annual expenditure.