HC Deb 07 April 1873 vol 215 cc634-5
MR. DIXON

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, When he intends to introduce the Bill for the amendment of the Education Act 1870?

MR. GLADSTONE

Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to reply instead of my right hon. Friend; for the general arrangement of Business after the Recess is a matter for which the Government are responsible as a whole rather than any particular Department. The arrangement with regard to Public Business stands thus. It is understood by the House that the first Monday after the recess will be devoted in the first instance to the consideration of the Bill for the Abolition of Tests in the University of Dublin. We look, in conformity with usage, to the Thursday following as the earliest day when we could invite the attention of the House to the discussion of the financial measures of the Government. After that, it would have been our first duty immediately to proceed with the Bill for the amendment of the Education Act, 1870; but the hon. Gentleman will have observed that the hon. Baronet the Member for South Devon (Sir Massey Lopes) has given Notice of a Motion for Tuesday, the 29th of April, with respect to local taxation, one of the subjects referred to in the Speech from the Throne at the commencement of the Session. That being so, we think we must anticipate that, as a natural and necessary consequence of that Motion of the hon. Baronet, who is not in any concert with us, we should proceed, perhaps, to declare the intentions of the Government on that important question, and probably to give effect to those intentions. In consequence of that change, for which we are not responsible, it will be necessary for us to postpone for a time the introduction of the measure for the amendment of the Education Act of 1870. I do not, beyond this question of local taxation, anticipate any other cause of postponement in the bringing in of the Bill referred to in the Question of my hon. Friend, and I hope he will in the meantime be satisfied with my assurance that no inconvenience to the question in which he is interested is likely to arise in consequence.