§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONasked the Vice President of the Council on Education, If the Council has come to any definite conclusion as to whether or not any provision shall in future be made for granting annuities upon their retirement from old age and infirmity to those certificated teachers whose certificates date prior to 1860?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERin reply, said, that was a departmental question, but one that would have to be decided ultimately by the Treasury. With regard to the matter itself, he might state that there was a Committee which sat last year on the subject of pensions to teachers, which was presided over by his hon. Friend the Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell). The Report of that Committee stated that many teachers regarded the Minutes as a promise of pensions to teachers; but, after the fullest consideration of the subject, the Committee were of opinion that the Minutes were not entitled to hold out any such promise. That was the construction put on them in the Minute of the 6th of August, 1871, and in that opinion his noble Friend (the Marquess of Ripon) concurred with him.