Commons Sitting of 3 April 1882

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Charles Thomas Dyke Acland, esquire, for the County of Cornwall (Eastern Division).
SELECT COMMITTEE—Ecclesiastical and Mortuary Fees, nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATE—Class IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Electricity Supply*[122]; Militia Acts Consolidation*[123]; Reserve Forces Acts Consolidation*[124]; Artillery Ranges*[125].

Second Reading—Army (Annual) 105
.
Select Committee—Partnerships*[114], nominated.

QUESTIONS.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—TREATMENT OF PERSONS ARRESTED UNDER THE ACT.
  MR. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Prisons Board have received and considered complaints made by Messrs. Finn and McGrath, at present in Dundalk Gaol, with reference to punishments inflicted upon them for breaches of prison regulations; whether these punishments were in the one case the stoppage of all correspondence for three days, and in the other a sentence to punishment diet for three days; and, whether the Prisons Board have taken any action in the matter?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that Messrs. Finn and M'Grath, at present in Dundalk Gaol, were punished because during Divine Service, at the prayer for the Queen, they rose to leave the chapel, and refused to obey the order to keep their places. They were not compelled to attend Service. The Prisons Board approved the infliction of the punishment, and he saw no reason to dissent from the Board.

PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—GUN LICENCES.
MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is a fact that Mr. Charles Burke, of Ballinamore, county Galway, has been refused a, gun licence by Mr.

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Paul, R.M., although the local magistrate and police constable were favourable to his application; whether the grounds of refusal were that he had not a letter of recommendation from his landlord or land agent; and, whether it is a fact that Mr. Burke, under previous Acts, had always been granted a licence?
MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, with regard to this matter, the officer for granting licences to carry arms in this district, in the exercise of discretion vested in him by law, had refused the application made to him by Mr. Burke. He understood that Mr. Burke had a licence under the recent Act; but the local constabulary objected to his having the licence now.

POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—BELFAST POST OFFICE.
MR. BIGGARasked the Postmaster General, If he is aware of the existence of a local rule in the Telegraph Department of Belfast Post Office, that clerks joining that office since 1878 are only granted an annual leave of two weeks although performing night and Sunday duties; clerks appointed before 1878 performing same duties being accorded three weeks' annual leave; is this rule enforced in any other large office, and is it with his sanction; and, if not, will he take steps to compensate those against whom this rule has operated?
MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that at Belfast there is no local rule in restriction of the authorized period of annual leave. In 1879 it was discovered that in this matter of leave the Telegraph Department at Belfast was being treated exceptionally—that it was enjoying privileges which were not conceded elsewhere in the United Kingdom at offices similarly circumstanced; and it was then decided that, if only with a view to uniformity, these privileges could not be extended to new entrants. From those who were then enjoying them, however, they were not taken away.

EVICTIONS (IRELAND)—CARNACUN, COUNTY MAYO.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been called to the circumstances attending the
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eviction of three families, lately carried out on the property of Mr. C. Crotty, in the parish of Carnacun, county Mayo; whether it is true that the relieving officer of the Union of Castlebar, whose duty it was to be present, was not in attendance at the eviction; and, if so, who is responsible for his non-attendance; whether it is true that outdoor relief has been refused to these families; whether it is a fact that they have been evicted for the non-payment of an admittedly exorbitant rent, and that Mr. Crotty, on other tenants of his serving notices to have fair rents fixed by the Land Commission, agreed to a reduction of more than one-third of the former rental; and, whether it is not true that the district in which this property is situate is free from outrage and disturbance?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he had inquired into this case. The relieving officer was not present at the evictions; relief had been offered either in the workhouse or by outdoor relief. In another case the relieving officer was informed that the tenant had settled with his landlord. The tenants had been evicted for non-payment of rents due for two years and a-half and three years. He was informed that the landlord had given a reduction. This place was not free from outrage and disturbance. Attempts had been made upon Mr. Crotty's life, and he was now under police protection.

CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND)—DEATH OF A WOMAN THROUGH REFUSAL TO VISIT HER SON IN PRISON.
MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been drawn to a notice in the "Freeman's Journal" of 28th March, of the death of a woman at Ballinglera, Donegal, whose death was attributed to anxiety about the imprisonment of her two sons, who were imprisoned on the charge of obstructing the sheriff in the work of eviction; and, whether the Lord Lieutenant refused to mitigate the punishment by a few days, to allow the dying woman to see her sons before her death?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that the name of the woman was Julia M'Donogh, and she had sent a memorial asking that she might see her son, who

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was a prisoner in Sligo Gaol. A telegram was at once sent to the Sub-Inspector of police, asking whether her statement was correct, and a reply was sent back to the effect that the woman was dead. M'Donogh was, with 23 others, convicted before Baron Fitzgerald of riot, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment with hard labour, at the expiration of which sentence he was to give security for his good behaviour. He wished to point out that he was not a prisoner under the Protection Act.

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—CHARGE AGAINST CONSTABLE MOLLOY.
MR. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the inquiry into the charges brought against Constable Molloy, of Fahy Police Station, has yet concluded; and, if so, with what result?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, the inquiry had concluded. It was conducted by officers and others wholly unconnected with any previous inquiry, and the result of the investigation was the acquittal of the accused.

STATE OF IRELAND—ALLEGED ASSAULT ON MR. BOYLAN.
MR. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the inquiry instituted by the Commissioners of National Education into the alleged assault on Mr. Boylan, National School teacher, by Captain L'Estrange, R.M. has yet concluded; and, if so, with what result?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that the inquiry in this case had also concluded. The Commissioners thought it necessary to point out that their rules and regulations required the manager of a school to receive visitors courteously. Those who had not done so were admonished severely. The Commissioners, at the same time, were of opinion that Captain L'Estrange had acted hastily.
MR. REDMONDasked whether they were to understand that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would reprove Captain L'Estrange as the others had been reproved?
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not think there was any necessity for doing so; but he thought Captain L'Estrange had acted hastily.

PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE.
MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the speech of Major Traill, R.M., as reported in the "Ballenrobe Chronicle," in which that gentleman is reported to have said—
"I myself have supplied him with revolver and ammunition, and I have taught him how to use them, as I am prepared to do for any one in my district, under similar circumstances, and I now tell him and them that every honest action of his for his own safety is an action of self-defence, for which 27 and 28 Vic. c. 47, s. 7, says, 'No punishment or forfeiture shall be incurred by any person who shall kill another by misfortune or in his own defence, or in any other manner without felony;'"
and, whether he proposes to draw the attention of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland to the use of such language from the Bench?
MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, I believe Major Traill did take the course mentioned, and I entirely approve of his having done so. I believe that something may be done to stop the outrages which are now so constant and so deplorable if men are encouraged to defend themselves and their families. I believe so from what has happened in other countries, and also from the conviction that the men who attempt these outrages are as cowardly as they are bloodthirsty.
MR. HEALYasked whether, in these circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman would consider the advisability of more generally granting licences to carry arms?
MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, before licences are granted we must have some security that those to whom we grant licences will not use the arms for the purpose of breaking law and order. No refusal has been given to any man who wanted arms when it was reasonable to suppose that he wanted to keep them for his own defence. There are some persons to whom it would be unsafe to give arms, because they have not the courage to keep them from the men who go about at night and break into houses in order to get arms. But whenever men have shown courage they have succeeded in keeping their arms. I think Major Traill was perfectly justified in the course he took, and I hope other magistrates will follow his example.

PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MESSRS. JOHN REA, D. HAYES O'CONNOR, EDMOND SYNAN, J. R. MURPHY, PATRICK O'BRIEN, AND JOHN R. O'GORMAN.
MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the fact that John Rea, D. Hayes O'Connor, Edmond Synan, J. R. Murphy, Patrick O'Brien, and John R. O'Gorman, all of Charleville, in county Cork, have been imprisoned, under the Coercion Act, in Naas Gaol, since the 21st October last, and, during this period of over five months, have not received any intimation as to the reconsideration of their cases by the Lord Lieutenant; whether it is true that the Charleville district is, and has been, since and before the imprisonment of the persons named, entirely free from outrage; and, whether, in accordance with the principle adopted by him, he will now consider the propriety of releasing the men arrested in the Charleville district? The hon. Member said, he understood that since he had given Notice of this Question three of them had been released; but he wished to know whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland would adopt a similar course with reference to the others?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he had looked carefully into these cases when he was in Ireland last. As the hon. Member was aware, two of these men had been released, and John Rea had been released on parole for a week. With reference to the other three, it was unusual to release prisoners unless a Petition in favour of doing so was presented. The state of the district showed signs of improvement; but they had still to keep an extra force of police there, and there was no immediate prospect of their withdrawal.

PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—ARREST OF EMPLOYES OF "UNITED IRELAND."
MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is a fact that all the clerks employed in the commercial department of "United Ireland" have been released with the exception of Mr. Shelley; and,
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whether there is any exceptional reason for this gentleman's continued detention?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, it was a fact that all the clerks in the commercial department of United Ireland, had been released with the exception of Mr. Shelley. His ease was different from those of the others, and the Government did not consider he could be released with safety at present. He was recently transferred from Armagh to Kilmainham at the request of his relations.

STATE OF IRELAND—PROHIBITED PUBLIC MEETING AT LIMERICK.
MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the fact that a proposed public meeting of the citizens of Limerick, to protest against the introduction of the Clôture system into the House of Commons, was prevented by the local magistrates; whether the troops in garrison were kept under arms, in order that they might be ready to disperse the meeting if any attempt should be made to hold it; whether he has seen the Resolutions which were to have been proposed at the meeting, and which have been published in most of the London papers, or is aware that they were Resolutions in condemnation of the Government's Clôture proposal, and of any Irish Member who should support or refrain from opposing it; and, whether, under the circumstances, the action of the magistrates has the approval of Her Majesty's Government?
MR. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, within the present week and up to the present date, the Irish Executive have caused the police to tear down placards calling upon the electors to instruct their representatives to vote in opposition to the Clôture; whether the police have seized and confiscated parcels of such placards in different parts of the Country, and have arrested men engaged in distributing or posting them; whether the police and military forces of the Crown in Ireland have been called into requisition for the purpose of preventing electors in different constituencies from assembling constitutionally in public meeting for the purpose of expressing to their representatives in Parliament their view on the

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question of the Clôture; and, upon what principle of constitutional Government the Irish Executive justify such abolition of the constitutional rights of electors and constituencies in Ireland?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, it was a fact that the Mayor and magistrates of Limerick, acting on the responsibility which devolved on them for the maintenance of peace and order in the city, did prevent the meeting referred to, and the Government fully approved of their action, which was attended with good results. With reference to the Question of the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond) he denied that the Irish Executive gave any instructions to the police as to these placards. In all cases the local police acted on their own responsibility. The placards, which were of a violent and inflammatory character, were calculated to lead to a breach of the peace—[Mr. REDMOND: No!]—were, no doubt, intended to intimidate hon. Members of that House from the performance of their duty. In several parts of the country these placards were taken down by the police, and in some instances bundles of them were seized, and the parties in whose possession they were found taken before the magistrates, who discharged them with a caution. The magistrates did not appear to have acted elsewhere as they did in Limerick; but, undoubtedly, if there was the same probability of a breach of the peace occurring they would be justified in acting as the Limerick magistrates did.

ARMY—AUXILIARY FORCES—MILITIA UNIFORMS.
COLONEL RUGGLES-BRISEasked the Secretary of State for War, in reference to the order to Militia officers to change their lace, facings, and accoutrements, Whether he is aware that a statement made by him has been interpreted by Militia officers generally (not Rifle Regiments) to mean that they have the right for many years to come to appear at a levee, or on parade, with a gold lace sash and a silver lace waistbelt, or with a helmet with silver plate, and gold lace on the tunic, or at mess with gold lace on jacket, and silver lace on waistcoat; and, if the above is not the correct interpretation of the statement, whether he will further consider the great expense that is entailed upon Militia officers (not Rifle
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Regiments) by these changes, and make a proportionate allowance to meet those expenses similar to that which is proposed for Rifle Regiments?
SIR HERVEY BRUCEasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will re-consider the amount proposed to be given to Militia officers obliged to purchase new uniforms owing to a change in their Regiments, as£25 will be wholly inadequate for the purpose?
MR. CHILDERS: Sir, perhaps the hon. Baronet the Member for Coleraine will allow me to answer his Question at the same time as that of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. In doing so I must be permitted to remind the House that since 1857 there have been no less than 15 occasions on which Militia regiments have been ordered to alter their uniforms to and from Rifle, Artillery, Highland, red, and Fusilier dress, and that in no case was any allowance made to officers. In the same way the Yeomanry were ordered in 1877 to alter their lace from gold to silver, and no allowance was made to them, time only being given to make the change. I must express my regret that at the present time, when the change from silver to gold has been urgently pressed upon us by the general wish of Militia officers, and when for the first time we are making an allowance of£25 to each officer in every case of compulsory change of the more expensive character, these claims for money should be set up. In June last the clearest instructions were given as to the change from silver to gold, and officers were allowed full time to make it. Of course, nobody anticipated that they would think of wearing a mongrel uniform; and I, therefore, can only reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Essex that the change must be complete, and may be deferred as long as the officer wishes before it becomes necessary to replace the uniform he possesses. To the hon. Baronet I can only say that, compared with the 15 cases I have spoken of, the grant of£25 a-head is liberal, and I have no intention to increase it.

CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND)—THE LATE RIOT AT KILROSS—SENTENCES UPON THE PRISONERS.
MR. O'SULLIVANasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether the prisoners convicted of riot at Kilross, at

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the last Winter Assizes in Kilkenny, and sentenced to four months imprisonment and a fine of£10, or, in default of such payment, two months additional imprisonment, will, if unable to pay this fine, have to commence the additional term of imprisonment, as if it were an entirely different sentence, for a different offence; whether, in fact, they will have to sleep for another month on the plank bed; whether, in the opinion of the Law advisers of the Crown, the sentence passed on these prisoners ought to be treated as one sentence, and not as two consecutive sentences; and, whether several of these prisoners are quite unable to pay this fine; and if, under the circumstances, the Government would consider the propriety of remitting it?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, in the absence of his right hon. and learned Colleague, that these prisoners would not have to commence an additional term of imprisonment, and, therefore, would not have to sleep another month on plank beds. If they did not pay the fine, there was no reason for interfering with the sentence of the Judge.

ATTEMPT UPON THE LIFE OF HER MAJESTY—THE PRISONER M'LEAN.
MR. HEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that the person who recently fired at the Queen has been persistently described in the "Scotsman" and the "Glasgow Mail" as an Irishman, and is called "Patrick M'Lean;" and, if he can state what is the correct name and nationality of the accused?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I do not know whether the hon. Member observed that on the night when I first stated to the House the fact of the outrage attempted on the Queen I was very careful to state the name and place of birth of the prisoner, for the express purpose of preventing any misapprehension or prejudice on this subject. I can give no other information than I gave then on the subject—namely, that the man's name, as far as I know, is Roderick M'Lean, and that he was born in London. As far as I know, there is no reason at all for supposing that he is of Irish extraction. I have a letter from the editor of The Scotsman in reference to the hon. Member's Question. He states
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that the first day after the news arrived some remarks appeared in that paper, indicating that the prisoner was of Irish parentage; but they were careful to contradict this the next day, and to put the matter straight; and that, consequently, they are not liable to the charge of having persistently represented that the prisoner is an Irishman.
MR. CALLAN: I should like to know from the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether a similar contradiction has been given by the proprietor or responsible owner of The North British Mail, which published the following in double-leaded type:—
"Attempt to assassinate the Queen—The prisoner an Irishman—The would-be Assassin sane and sober?"
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I really cannot state anything on that subject, for I have no knowledge of it.

POST OFFICE—THE PARCEL POST.
MR. O'SULLIVANasked the Postmaster General, Whether he intends adding to the present monthly payments made to mail cart contractors and other carriers, or otherwise compensating them, for the additional labour which will be entailed on them by the new parcel post arrangement, as well as interfering directly with them in their business as carriers of parcels?
MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that the sum which is paid for mail cart services is arrived at either by agreement or by public competition. When a parcel post is introduced the terms of existing contracts may, in many instances, have to be revised. With regard to the latter part of the hon. Member's Question, I may repeat what was stated the other day—that as the Post Office, in establishing a parcel post, would not ask for any monopoly, or for any new exclusive powers, it has been concluded that no claim for compensation can arise.

POST OFFICE (TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT—TELEGRAPH EXTENSION.
MR. ROUNDasked the Postmaster General, If he is able to make any announcement with reference to the reduction of the amount of guarantee now required by the Treasury in cases of telegraph extensions in rural districts?
MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I have to state with regard to future telegraph extensions under guarantee that, by an arrangement lately sanctioned by the Treasury, the amount of the guarantee need not be lodged in advance with the Post Office; but guarantors will merely be called upon at the end of each year to make up the deficiency of revenue if any. This, I think, will be found to be a substantial concession. On the other hand, the Treasury have somewhat altered the principle upon which the amount of the guarantee is to be calculated; and the effect of this will, in some cases, be that the amount will be slightly larger than it would have been under the old system.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (SCIENCE AND ART)—"HALL OF SCIENCE."
SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Vice President of the Council, "Whether his attention has been called to a statement in the public press on the subject of the employment of Mrs. Besant in the Hall of Science Classes, and their connection with the Science and Art Department of the Government; whether any letter has been addressed to him by the Committee of those classes; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table; and, whether the daughters of Mr. Bradlaugh are employed in those classes, or in any way in connection with the Science and Art Department of Government?
MR. MUNDELLA: Sir, I have seen the statement to which the hon. Member refers, and I will read the letter addressed to me by the Committee—
"Science Classes, Hall of Science, Minor Hall, 142, Old Street, London, E.C.
"Sir,—Referring to so much of the answer given by you to Sir Henry Tyler on Tuesday, March 21, as relates to Mrs. Besant, the Committee of the above classes desire me to state that there has been no withdrawal by them of Mrs. Besant's name as teacher; and as some misconception may arise from your answer as reported, the Committee would feel obliged if you would take such early occasion as may be convenient to yourself to make the necessary correction.
"I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
"ROBERT FORDER, Secretary."
I certainly understood from two Members of the Committee that Mrs. Besant had withdrawn her name as teacher for this session, with the intention of subsequently renewing her application. The
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Misses Bradlaugh are teaching chemistry and botany, I believe, to the adult classes of the Hall of Science. I understand they are well qualified, and hold certificates from the Science and Art Department to that effect. I may say we do not inquire into the theological opinions of teachers of art and science.

EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS (SCOTLAND)—LEGISLATION.
MR. BUCHANANasked the Vice President of the Council, When the Government intends to introduce the Educational Endowments Bill for Scotland?
MR. MUNDELLA, in reply, said, that he hoped soon after Easter to introduce an Educational Endowments Bill for Scotland, and to give ample time for its consideration before the second reading.

LAW AND POLICE—THE SALVATION ARMY.
MR. CAINEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the action of the magistrates of the Crediton Petty Sessions, 29th March, who committed to prison for seven days Susan Emily Saville, Charlotte Hartnall, William James Dunn, and James Norman, members of the Salvation Army, for holding a religious service in the open air on Sunday morning, 26th February; if his attention has been called to the action of the magistrates at Weston-super-Mare, 29th March, who sentenced William Beatty, Thomas Bowden, and William Henry Mullins to three months imprisonment, in default of sureties to keep the peace for twelve months, their only offence being that of walking through the streets peaceably, and without annoyance to the law-abiding population; and, if he will order their immediate and unconditional release?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, that he had received no communication on this subject, and was unable, therefore, to give the hon. Member the information he desired.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—PHONETIC SYSTEM IN BOARD SCHOOLS.
MR. HEALYasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he has

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any objection to the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the comparative number of years occupied in teaching children to read in English Board and other schools, as compared with Continental schools, and the advantages which would arise from employing a graduated phonetic system in teaching reading; and, if he will state the number of School Boards which have petitioned in favour of a phonetic course for teaching children to read?
MR. MUNDELLA: Sir, three or four years ago several School Boards petitioned in favour of a phonetic course of teaching children to read, and the London School Board was allowed to try the experiment in two of its schools. It was not found to be successful, and was consequently discontinued. I am told it was tried under very favourable conditions by a competent and enthusiastic teacher. Under the circumstances, I could not ask the House to appoint a Committee to investigate the subject.

POST OFFICE—BANK HOLIDAYS.
MR. SCHREIBERasked the Postmaster General, Whether the approaching Bank Holiday on Easter Monday will be observed as a Sunday in the Post Offices of the United Kingdom?
MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that, following the rule which has been hitherto adopted with regard to Bank holidays, Easter Monday will not be observed as a Sunday in the post offices of the United Kingdom. With the view, however, of meeting the case as far as public convenience admits, orders have already been issued that the staff shall be given as much relief as may be found practicable.

POST OFFICE (TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT)—DIVULGATION OF TELEGRAMS.
MR. MONTAGU SCOTTasked the Postmaster General, Whether, having regard to the correspondence which has appeared in the public press as to the contents of a telegram addressed to Mr. T. Wright, the aeronaut, by Colonel Fred Burnaby, having been divulged by an official of the Submarine Telegraph Company to the President of the Balloon Society, if such a course of proceeding is one which meets the approval
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of the Postmaster General; and, if not, whether any steps will be taken by the Postmaster General's department, with a view of preventing the contents of private messages being divulged to others not being the persons to whom they were originally addressed; and, whether the Submarine Telegraph Company, which receives and delivers telegrams in London, and has specific powers conferred upon it by the Government, and is worked in connection with the Postal Telegraph system, can be compelled to respect messages sent over its wires?
MR. FAWCETT: Sir, as far as my individual opinion is concerned, I certainly think that the contents of the telegram to which the hon. Member refers ought not to have been divulged; but the Post Office has no power in the matter, because the Telegraph Acts of 1863 and 1868, which secure the secrecy of inland telegrams, do not inforce secrecy on foreign telegrams transmitted by the Submarine and other foreign telegraph companies.

INDIA—TEA LABOURERS' ACT.
SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether he has yet decided what course to pursue in regard to the Act of the Indian Legislature extending the term for tea labourers under the special and penal Law from three to five years?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, as I have already stated in reply to a Question from my hon. Friend, this Act and the documents relating to it have received very careful consideration in the Council of India. The Bill attracted my attention while it was under discussion in the Legislative Council, and I informed the Government of India in the autumn of last year, that, considering the unhealthiness of some parts of Assam, and the high rate of mortality which prevailed among the Coolies in that Province, it appeared to me that great caution was necessary in legislating on the subject, and that, unless the Governor General entertained a very strong opinion in favour of extending the maximum period for which a contract of labour enforced by penalties might be entered into, I was inclined to think that it would not be expedient to enlarge the period from three to five years. The Act has, however, been

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passed in its original form. Although I am assured by the Government of India that the death rate in Assam has fallen, and that the healthiness of the Province has improved, and is likely to improve, I cannot say that my doubts as to this clause have been altogether removed. As the measure, however, contains many provisions likely to be beneficial to the Native labourer, as well as to the planter, and as it is already in operation, I am, on the whole, unwilling to advise Her Majesty to disallow it, and my hon. Friend is aware that I have no power to alter the Act or to disallow a particular clause. I have, however, thought it necessary to direct the Government of India to furnish me, at the close of every year from the time of its coming into operation, with a Return of the number of persons suffering criminal punishment for breach of contract under this law; and that, at the end of three years, the Secretary of State may receive a special Report on the working of the Act, with a view to considering the possibility of abandoning all exceptional legislation respecting contracts of labour in the Indian tea districts.

SCIENCE AND ART—H. B.'S CARICATURES.
MR. GEORGE HOWARDasked the Right honourable the Member for the University of Cambridge, Whether a complete collection of the original drawings for H. B.'s Caricatures has been offered to the Trustees of the British Museum for a sum probably much less than the amount which would be realised by the sale of the collection if it were broken up; and, whether, considering the great historical interest of this series, the Trustees will be in a position to accept this offer?
MR. WALPOLE, in reply, said, an offer had been made to the Trustees of the British Museum of the original drawings for H. B.'s Caricatures for a sum probably not much less than the amount which would be realized by the sale of the collection if it were broken up; and the Trustees had determined to sanction the purchase, and had applied to the Treasury for a special grant to effect it. He was informed that the Treasury had replied that they were willing to sanction the purchase, provided that the amount was met by other savings, so that the Estimates for 1882–3
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were not increased. Of course, the hon. Member would see that it would be premature for him to state whether such a saving could be affected or not. The sum asked for was£2,000.

SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACT—COFFEE AND CHICORY.
SIR EDMUND LECHMEREasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the Treasury Minute of the 20th of January 1882, by which the importation, under a Duty of two pence a pound, of
"Coffee or chicory, roasted and ground, mixed, without reference to the proportion of the mixture, and the permission to extend to any other vegetable matter applicable to the uses of chicory or coffee,"
was made, upon the recommendation of the Board of Trade, as stated in the reply to a Memorial lately presented to the Lords Commissioners of the Treaasury on the subject; and, if so, if he will explain the reasons for such a recommendation, which appears to be in contradiction to the Adulteration of Food Acts?
MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Sir, as the subject of this Question has excited a good deal of interest, I am much obliged to the hon. Baronet for giving me an opportunity of making an explanation. I should say, in the first place, that the change in the Treasury regulations does not make any alteration whatever in the law with regard to adulteration; nor does it, in my opinion, tend to increase the practice of adulteration. The matter was brought to my knowledge in the first instance by a number of tradesmen of Leeds and elsewhere, who complained of what they considered to be the anomaly in the Custom regulations. They informed me that while coffee which was pure could be imported and that chicory and other vegetable substances applicable to the use of coffee could also be imported, and having been imported could be legally mixed in this country and legally sold, the same articles could not be imported if they were mixed abroad. When I came to inquire into the matter I found that the anomaly had arisen from the fact that at one time the duty on chicory differed from the duty on coffee, and that it was necessary that it should be imported separately, and not be allowed to come in mixed. The regulation was purely one relating to

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revenue, and was not passed to prevent adulteration. The change which has been made amounts to this only, that whereas previously coffee and chicory could only be imported separately and mixed afterwards, they can now be imported ready mixed. I should say that the interests of the consumer are protected, not by any regulations of the Customs, but by the provisions of the Adulteration Act. The Sale of Food and Drugs Act provides that no article of food, or drug, shall be mixed with any ingredient injurious to health and sold under a penalty of£50, and that no article shall be sold to the prejudice of the purchaser mixed with any ingredient unless at the time of the sale the article so sold is described as mixed under a penalty of£20. Under these circumstances, the interests of the consumer will, I think, be protected.

REVENUE ACT, 1880—BEER LICENCES (IRELAND).
MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he is aware that persons in Ireland who sell beer merely by retail have, in addition to the ordinary retail licence(£1 5s.), to take out a wholesale dealer's licence, at a cost of£3 6s. l¾d., while this latter Duty is not imposed on retailers of beer in England; and, whether he intends, in his next Revenue Bill, to remove this manifest injustice?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. Gladstone): Sir, I think the hon. Member will recollect that the hon. Member for the City of Waterford (Mr. R. Power) asked me this Question so lately as the 28th of March.

REVENUE ACT, 1880—GROCERS' LICENCES, IRELAND.
MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, having regard to the fact that grocers in Ireland, whose premises are rated under£20, have to pay for licences to sell spirits, beer, and wine, not to be consumed on the premises, in total the sum of£16 4s. 7d. while a publican's licence for premises of the same rateable value can be obtained for the sum of£8, he will provide in the forthcoming Budget Bill a scale of Duties for the first mentioned licences, same as set forth in section forty-three, sub-sections one,
550
two, and seven, of "The Revenue Act, 1880?"
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GLADSTONE), in reply, said, that these licences, as the House knew, were a class peculiar to Ireland, and the reduction to which the hon. Member pointed was a reduction to which the Treasury would have no objection on account of revenue. The spirit grocers were not placed under the jurisdiction of the magistrates in the same way as the publicans, and on that account, as a matter of magisterial authority, it would not be a matter with which he could deal.

INLAND REVENUE—INCOME TAX AND BREWERY LICENCES.
SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTONasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, in the financial arrangements of the coming year, he will take into his consideration the possibility of affording some relief in payment of income tax to tithe-owning incumbents who (being assessed under Schedule A without deduction for poor rates or collection) are paying generally on one-fifth or one-fourth more than their income, either by allowing such deductions as would be allowed in other Schedules, or by removing them from Schedule A to Schedule E, a precedent for which might be found in the transfer of railways from Schedule A to Schedule D; and, after the experience of the last financial year, he will at the same time consider the expediency of making some modifications in brewing licences, so as to extend the facilities granted to houses of£10 value to houses of£20 value, being bonâfide farmhouses, seeing that the conditions of such employers is different to the same in towns, that the present arrangement has been found inconvenient, and has added 25 per cent to the cost of a necessary article of consumption and wages?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GLADSTONE): Sir, with respect to so much of the Question as refers to tithe-owning, I think the case is one which ought to be dealt with as a tithe-owner's question, and not as a matter of detail under a Revenue Bill. The tithe-owner at present is authorized to obtain a refund of income tax for sums paid with respect to parochial rates and rent-charge. As regards col-

551
lection, that is a general question, and it cannot be allowed in that case any more than in the case of other income derived from real property. With respect to Schedule E, I do not think that that could be entertained, because the property subject to tithe-rent charge has always been treated as realty. With regard to the latter part of the Question, our experience under the Beer Act is not such as would lead us to entertain any proposal for altering the rating with regard to private brewers.

SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSKEI WAR EXPENSES.
SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, When the moneys advanced to the Cape Government, from the British Military Chest, for the expenses of Colonial Troops in the Trans-kei War, have yet been recovered?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GLADSTONE)said, the Cape Government had invited the Colonial Department to provide the sum of£150,000 in respect of the claims of Her Majesty's Government on account of the sums advanced for the expenses of the Colony in the Transkei War; and that Correspondence relating to the subject was now being printed, and would be in the hands of Members shortly.
SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Has Her Majesty's Government agreed to accept the sum of£150,000?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GLADSTONE): What the Government would accept must sometimes depend on the merits of the case, and sometimes on what could be obtained. The hon. Member will, however, learn all the facts when he sees the Correspondence.

CRIMINAL LAW—THE CONDEMNED PRISONER LAMSON.
SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the statement, apparently semi-official, which appeared in the papers this morning as to a respite of the convict Lamson is true; and, if so, whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be good enough to state the reasons which induced him to grant the respite?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I am much obliged to the right hon. Gen-
552
tleman for giving me an opportunity of making a statement on the subject. I received through the Foreign Office a letter from the Minister of the United States, dated the 31st of March, stating that it was the personal request of the President of the United States that the execution of Lamson should be suspended until certain evidence which had been collected and transmitted to the Attorney General of the United States should be forwarded for my consideration. In my opinion, it is the duty of the Secretary of State in such a case carefully to consider anything that may be adduced by any trustworthy authority from whatever quarter it may come, not with a view to revising the sentence or verdict, the responsibility for which rests solely with the Judge and jury, but in order to determine whether there are any grounds for recommending the exercise of the Prerogative of mercy by the Crown. When there has been any reliable evidence to that effect it has been the practice of the Secretary of State to order a respite until that evidence was duly examined. In the case of Mansell, in 1857, four successive respites, extending over a period of six months, were granted by Sir George Grey, at the end of which time the prisoner was executed. In the case of Michael Barrett, two successive respites were granted by Mr. Gathorne Hardy before the execution, in order that further inquiry might be made as to the facts. Acting, therefore, upon the principle of the precedents established in this grave matter—precedents which apply to evidence whether proceeding from abroad or obtained in this country—I have acceded to the request and directed a respite for a fortnight, until the 18th of April. This case has been and will be dealt with exactly as if a similar representation had been made upon reliable authority in England. In my opinion, it is a sound principle, which ought not to be departed from, that before the capital sentence is carried into execution all the evidence advanced subsequent to the trial should be duly considered. But the prisoner has been fully warned that the respite in these circumstances carries with it no implied presumption of a reprieve or commutation of the sentence. I will also, with the leave of the House, answer now the Question which the hon. Baronet (Sir Eardly Wilmot) gave Notice that he

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would put to-morrow. I have not received the document to which he refers; but in any case to lay on the Table Papers with respect to the exercise of mercy by the Crown would make it absolutely impossible that that Prerogative should be exercised.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE "COUNT OUT" ON FRIDAY.
SIR JOHN HAY: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister a Question, of which I have given him private Notice, with reference to the "count out" on Friday night. The House must be aware that on Friday night at half-past 9 o'clock, after three attempts, the House was counted out by an hon. Gentleman, an Irish Member. The subject under discussion was a subject very interesting to Scotch Members, of whom nearly half of the total were present, and attending to the discussion. The Question was being answered by the Lord Advocate for Scotland at the time in a very interesting statement, and I am sure if it had been the Home Secretary answering a Question raised by an English Member, or the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant answering an Irish Question, the House would not have been counted out under such circumstances. Therefore, I have to ask the Prime Minister, If his attention has been called to the "count out" on Friday night, while the Lord Advocate was making a statement on important Scotch Business; and whether he will endeavour to arrange in the future that, as Scotch Members are not very numerous, a House will be kept with Government assistance when Scotch Business is under discussion?
MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, perhaps I ought to say, at the outset, that I was not in the House on Friday night, not from pleasure or ceremony, but from a serious cause. The state of the case is this—that my noble Friend near me (Lord Richard Grosvenor) really exerted himself to the best of his ability, and did contrive to keep 33 Members out of those over whom alone he can be supposed to exercise any influence. I ought also to say that it was not very wonderful that a thing of this kind should happen, because it should be observed that
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the House had been sitting for six hours before this "count out." I regret it extremely, and I can only say that we shall continue to do our best to carry out what is an understanding—namely, that on Friday night the Government shall do its best to keep a House.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—CORRUPT PRACTICES (DISFRANCHISEMENT) BILL.
Mr. LEWISasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether the Corrupt Practices (Disfranchisement) Bill, which had only been delivered this morning, and which was on the Orders for the Day, would be proceeded with to-night?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, there was no intention of doing so.
Mr. LEWISgave Notice that, on the second reading of the Bill, he would move as an Amendment—
"That, having regard to the evidence given before the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices at the recent elections for the cities of Chester and Oxford, as to the proceedings of the President of the Local Government Board and the Secretary of State for the Home Department at such elections, this House declines to impose any penalties upon the constituencies or electors named in the Bill at the instance of Her Majesty's Government."

CRIME (IRELAND)—MURDER OF MRS. H. M. SMYTHE.
SIR EARDLEY WILMOT: In the absence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, I wish to ask the Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether there is any truth in the statement in to-day's Morning Post that Mr. P. B. Smythe, who is known to and greatly esteemed by many in this House, was shot at yesterday in County Westmeath while returning from church, and that, although the shot did not take effect on himself, a lady in the carriage was seriously wounded?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): Sir, I regret very much to state that the report is to a great extent true—that the facts are even worse than stated in the papers. A shot was fired at Mr. Smythe's carriage; and I am sorry to add that the lady who was stated to have been wounded was unfortunately shot dead upon the spot.

INDIA—BENGAL STAFF CORPS—CAPTAIN J. B. CHATTERTON.
MR. GRANTHAMasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether, as he cannot grant any compensation to Captain Chatterton for the suffering caused by the delay in the treatment of his ankle joint owing to his being improperly ejected from hospital in India, he will advance to Captain Chatterton a further sum of£250, on security of his pay, to enable him to have proper surgical treatment, the former advance of a like sum having been duly repaid to the Government?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Without admitting the accuracy of the preamble of the hon. Member's inquiry, I may state that Captain Chatterton's request for a further advance nearly equivalent to two years' pay has been not long since under the consideration of my Council, and it was decided not to comply with his application. I do not propose to reverse that decision.

GIBRALTAR (RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS)—DR. CANILLA—THE PAPERS.
SIR. H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Prime Minister, Whether he was aware that Papers with regard to Gibraltar were promised three weeks ago by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs; that they had not yet been produced; that Questions regarding them had been constantly asked, and that hon. Members asking them had always met with evasive answers? ["Order!"] Such conduct was disrespectful to the House, and almost amounted to a breach of faith. He wished to ask—
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is entering into controversial matter, and he must know that ought never to be done in asking a Question.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: I only wish to ask the Prime Minister whether he will exert himself to obtain these Papers as quickly as possible?
MR. GLADSTONE: I have no information on the subject, nor upon any other Departmental matter. I regret that the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs is not now in the House, as, no doubt, he would have been able to answer the Question.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFgave Notice that he would call attention to
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the matter on going into Committee of Supply.

PARLIAMENT (ORDER)—THE PRECINTS OF THE HOUSE—THE HOME SECRETARY AND MR. ANDERSON.
MR. CALLAN: Sir, I beg to give Notice that to-morrow I will ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the statement which appeared in The Daily Express, a leading journal of Ireland, on Saturday last, to the effect that, after Mr. Anderson made his famous speech against the clôture, he (Sir William Harcourt) met him in the Lobby, and instantly attacked him, using words substantially to this effect—"You call yourself a Liberal Member for a Scotch constituency. We shall see. I have some friends in Glasgow. I shall write to them and let them know how you support the Government. I shall ask them whether they approve your conduct;" and, further, I shall ask the Home Secretary whether that account of the conversation is correct? And, Mr. Speaker, as this is a matter affecting freedom of speech and the Privileges of hon. Members—[Cries of "Order!"]
SIR WILFRID LAWSON: I rise to Order. I wish to know, Sir, whether it is in Order to give Notice of a Question concerning a private conversation?
MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member is founding a Question upon conversation which took place in the Lobby of the House, or in the Division Lobby within the precincts of the House, and not upon a matter in the House itself, he is not in Order in taking notice of it.
MR. CALLAN: I should be sorry to found a Question on a conversation. I am founding it upon a report published in one of the leading journals in Ireland—The Daily Express—and I may ask, as this is a matter affecting the freedom of speech—
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is indirectly founding himself upon a conversation within the precincts of the House.
MR. HEALY: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask you, upon a matter touching the Privileges of Members of this House, whether an hon. Member is not in Order in calling attention to language of a threatening character used by one hon. Member towards another while in the

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exercise of his Privileges as a Member of this House?
MR. SPEAKER: As I understand the observations of the hon. Member for Louth, that is not the point raised by him.
MR. CALLAN: Virtually and substantially it is the same.
MR. ANDERSON: Sir, as this is a Question referring to me, perhaps the House will allow me to say that it is not asked at my instance nor on my behalf. I consider myself quite able to defend myself against the right hon. and learned Gentleman—to maintain my own position and my own independence against the right hon. and learned Gentleman or anyone else, and I do not want any other Members to interfere on my behalf at any time. I have not the slightest idea how this matter got into the Press. I never was aware that it was published till five minutes ago, when the hon. Member brought me a cutting from a newspaper, and asked me about it. I do not know how it got there. I begged the hon. Member not to ask any Question about it, because, as I said, very likely the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought he was only giving me a little friendly advice.
MR. CALLAN: Now, Sir—
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Perhaps I may—
MR. CALLAN: I beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. I have not finished my Question. This is a matter affecting freedom of speech and the liberty of action of Members of this House. It, therefore, concerns our Privileges generally as Members. As the facts are within his own knowledge, perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will at once answer the Question without consultation with his Colleagues.
MR. MITCHELL HENRY: I beg to give Notice that if this system of eavesdropping and making communications to the newspapers of matters which have occurred in private conversation between hon. Members in different parts of the House is continued, especially by the Members of the House who themselves communicate with the newspapers, I shall move that the Lobby be entirely cleared of strangers during the Sitting of the House.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I may, perhaps, be allowed to say a word upon this subject. If it is the pleasure of the
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House that this matter should be entered into, I have not the slightest objection to state what occurred, so far as I recollect. I met my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow in the Lobby. I had, as I thought, a very friendly conversation with him. That was in the Lobby. I was perfectly aware that he did not agree with me upon the subject of the clôture, and I said to him—"Well, it seems odd. That is quite a different impression from the one I derived when I was at Glasgow with you last October." I expressed my views as to the opinion of the people in Glasgow. As to the use of any language that can be by any perversion described as threatening the hon. Member for Glasgow, that I deny.

PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—ARREST OF MISS O'CONNOR.
MR. O'DONNELL: I desire to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the report that a lady in delicate health—the sister of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor)—has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the common gaol in default of finding bail for an offence which she denied having committed, and in connection with which she received no proper trial? In explanation of the urgency which induces me to put the Question without Notice, I shall read the following telegram just received by the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond), from San Francisco, where this matter is attracting deep attention. The telegram is from Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., who says—
"Sister ought to be sent to infirmary. Suffering last two years from ill-health, which cold of cell would make torture, and perhaps incurable."
I hope the political views of the hon. and learned Gentleman will not prevent him giving this matter attention.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)desired that Notice should be given of the Question. He had no information of the state of the lady referred to.

PRISONS (IRELAND)—OUTBREAK OF FEVER IN CLONMEL PRISON.
MR. HEALYasked the Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether he could

559
give any information relating to the outbreak of typhoid fever among the "suspects" in Clonmel Gaol?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the Chief Secretary for Ireland was unavoidably absent from the House, and he himself could not give the hon. Member any information on the subject.
MR. HEALYintimated that, as the matter was of so much importance, he should repeat the Question on the adjournment of the House.

GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OF ROADS (SOUTH WALES).
In reply to Viscount EMLYN,
MR. DODSONsaid, that the salary of the Superintendent of Roads in South Wales had stopped since the 25th of March, and he presumed he had suspended the performance of his duties.
VISCOUNT EMLYNgave Notice that he should raise the question on going into Supply.

INDIA—THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE—SALARIES OF THE JUDGES.
MR. PUGHasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether he had had an opportunity of considering the many representations that had been made to him from India with reference to the reduction of the salaries of the High Court Judges in Bengal, proposed by his Predecessor in Office; and, whether he had arrived at any decision as to the expediency or otherwise of enforcing such reduction?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have very carefully considered in Council such representations as I have received on the subject, and have arrived at the decision that the resolution referred to, so far as it equalizes the salaries of the Puisne Judges of all the High Courts, should be enforced—that is to say, that the Puisne Judges hereafter appointed to the Calcutta High Court shall not in future receive larger salaries than the Puisne Judges of the Bombay and other High Courts. There is, however, a small question still unsettled as to the precise amount at which the salaries of all Puisne Judges are to be fixed.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.— [BILL 105.]
  (Mr. Secretary Childers, The Judge Advocate General, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN), in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he rose for the purpose of explaining certain of its provisions which were necessary to correct some clerical errors which had crept into the Army Act of last Session, owing to the fact that one of two Acts, which it consolidated, not having left that House—in consequence of the system of "blocking" persistently applied to it—until within a very few days of the Prorogation; so that only three days were left for the printing and circulating of the Bill, and passing it through all its stages. That Act was a Consolidating Act, and the most important of the Amendments now proposed was contained in Clause 5 of this Bill. By the 86th section of the Army Discipline Act, following the old Mutiny Act, it was provided that where a soldier of the Regular Forces was discharged or transferred to the Reserve in the United Kingdom, he should be entitled to be sent at the public expense to the place where he was attested. A question had been raised as to the operation of that section, and, in order to remove all doubt on the point, it was proposed by the clause to confine the right of a Regular soldier, on his discharge, to be sent to the place of his attestation, provided that place were in the United Kingdom. Such a right could not fairly be claimed where the place of attestation was, say, India or Canada. If the opposition to the Bill, of which the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had given Notice, were successful, the Army would be disbanded altogether, a result that would hardly commend itself to the House, however much hon. Members from Ireland desired it. The right hon. and learned Member concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The Judge Advocate General.)
  MR. SEXTON(who had given Notice that he would move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months) said, he thought it almost unnecessary to explain that his object was not the disbanding of the British Army; and the observation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Osborne Morgan), that the Irish Members might desire such an event, was altogether uncalled for. He (Mr. Sexton) put down the formal Motion of opposition to the second reading, solely in order that he might protest against the uses to which the Regular Army was now being applied in Ireland. The statement lately made to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War disclosed the fact that more than one quarter of the 132,000 men whom it was proposed to retain for the service of Her Majesty were being employed in Ireland for the purpose of striking terror into the people. It was a remarkable fact, calling for the best attention of the House, that the Army now maintained in Ireland for stimulating the carrying out of evictions, was almost as large as the whole Army they maintained in India for safeguarding that great Empire. The reason why they had to keep so great a force in Ireland was the want of intelligence displayed by the Administration in dealing with that country. Instead of pursuing the intelligible course of placing reliance on the passing of remedial measures, and on a readiness to supplement those remedial measures already passed, as the people required, the Government had deluged Ireland with soldiers, pouring them in by battalions. And. what was the result? The first effect was to stimulate the landlords to execute cruel and unjust evictions; and another effect was to strike terror into the hearts of the tenants, so that, even where they had a just claim to get their rent reduced, when they saw flying columns of troops moving about all over the country, their spirits were damped and their courage was destroyed. The consequence was that, by the use to which the Government was putting the Army in Ireland, hundreds and thousands of tenants were deterred from asserting their rights, and were shut out of the Courts of the country. He trusted they would receive some indication from the Government that they were approaching the time when the
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  Regular Army would be withdrawn from its present scandalous occupation of enforcing contracts which their own Courts admitted were impossible to carry out, because they were unfair and unjust. Again, with regard to these evictions, he had to complain that the military officials and the magistrates who were acting in connection with them had lately taken upon themselves to seize cars and horses against the will of the owners. In many instances he had known those horses to have been overdriven and cruelly used by the soldiers, and to have been returned to their owners almost useless. He should be disposed to ask, when the Bill was in Committee, that provision should be made against the injustice done to the owners of cars and horses, whose property was seized against their will, and who had violated no law. Further, he understood that the police engaged in evictions received a special allowance of 2s. 6d. a-day, and he was informed that soldiers in the Regular Army, employed in similar work, received no such extra allowance. He did not desire to see soldiers treated less liberally than police, and if soldiers must be employed at evictions, he was at a loss to understand why they should not also receive an extra allowance, or why policemen were paid an extra 2s. 6d. a-day for performing work which soldiers were obliged to do for nothing. In Committee he would, therefore, move an Amendment to the effect that, as long as it was thought necessary to employ English soldiers in that sort of fatigue service, they should receive as large an extra allowance as policemen now obtained. It was a very peculiar fact that the whole military service in Ireland rested with Englishmen, for all the Irish regiments, and those regiments having a considerable proportion of Irishmen in their ranks, except one, had been removed from Ireland, and the Government did not propose to call out the Irish Militia this year. With respect to billeting and the diet of soldiers, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War ought to consider whether it might not be possible to increase the scale of payment. The scale of 4d. a-day for the providing of such furniture as was necessary for the lodging of the man, and such articles as candles, salt, pepper, and vinegar, was absurdly inadequate; and he would ask the right hon. Gentle-

  563
  man whether it would not be possible to pay for domestic services to the soldiery on a more liberal scale? He had further to complain of the immunity given to soldiers from liability to maintain their wives and children. A clause, creating that immunity from a natural obligation, was in 1837 smuggled into the Mutiny Act, where it remained for 40 years to the disgrace of British legislation. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) more than once had called the attention of the House to the license given to the British soldier to evade his natural and social obligations in respect of wife and children; and in the Mutiny Bill of 1873 a change was made, with, the professed object of placing soldiers and marines on the same footing as civilians; but the clause was accompanied by restrictions which made it practically inoperative. For example, a soldier or marine who deserted his wife and children was not liable at present to any such punishment as a civilian received. He contended that if it was necessary to maintain a Standing Army in this country, that Standing Army should be maintained on a basis consistent with the principles of public morality and public right, and with justice to all subjects, and particularly women and children. They should not indicate to members of the humbler classes that if they deserted those whom they deceived, if they evaded their natural obligations, they would find in Her Majesty's Service a refugium peccatorum. Military interests ought not to be conclusive in a matter of this kind. Soldiers should be liable, either civilly or criminally, to make good the wrong they had done. He defied the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, or anybody else, to show any good moral reason why this system should be continued. Of course, he might give a military reason, but justice should be equally done between all subjects of Her Majesty, whether civilians or soldiers; and he must say that if a Standing Army could only be maintained upon principles of injustice to women and others, he thought it would be much more civilized and honest to resort to conscription, which could be administered with a fair regard to morality and the rights of individuals. As the law now stood, the right of a master over an apprentice was more sacred than that of a soldier's
  564
  wife in relation to her husband. If a soldier had been legally ordered to make contributions to the support of child or family, the order could not be enforced without the sanction of the Secretary of State for War. The provision for the maintenance of women and children in the Act of 1873 was a scandalous one. In 1874 the payments so sanctioned amounted to only£1,500, which was as a drop in the ocean compared with the obligations that were evaded; and he believed that if the moral sense of England was once directed to this subject, he thought the system would presently have to go by the board. There was another scandalous provision with regard to the present system of maintaining the wives and children of soldiers. A wife had to go to the nearest workhouse with her children and become an inmate. If such a woman issued a summons against a soldier, it had to be served on the commanding officer, and a sum of money given to the officer to defray the travelling expenses of the soldier from where he was quartered to the place where the summons was to be heard. This protection made the law a bitter and contemptible mockery, and amounted to a denial of justice to all those women and children. If there was a proper complaint against a soldier, why should he not pay his own expenses, or why should they not be paid for him in some other way? If a soldier was under orders for foreign service, he could snap his fingers at any woman who had a claim upon him. That should not be. Nothing could be easier than to postpone his departure until he had answered his legal liabilities. The only reason he had for putting his Motion in this form was to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to the points he previously mentioned, and to this point in reference to the maintenance of wives and children, which concerned England more than Ireland, because the Irish did not desert their wives. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give the subject his attention. For his own part, in view of the Bill going into Committee, he should place upon the Paper Amendments which, he trusted, would put the law of England on a basis of justice, morality, and common sense as regarded the responsibility of a soldier towards his wife.
  SIR.WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he did not rise to second the Motion of the hon. Member who had last spoken (Mr. Sexton), but to make two or three remarks upon the Bill. The hon. Member, he felt sure, really put down the Bill to be read a second, time that day six months. [Mr. CHILDERS: The hon. Member has not moved that Resolution.] He was not aware of the fact. Many of the remarks of the hon. Member were quite pertinent to the Bill under discussion, and, hardships having arisen, it was right that the matters should be considered and dealt with. He rose to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War whether there had been any diminution in the practice of desertion and fraudulent re-enlistment in the Army? It was well-known that something not unlike an actual trade in fraudulent enlistment was going on in the Army, and that many men thus enlisting were well known, but were not punished because they were doing their duty well in the regiments into which they had fraudulently re-enlisted as soldiers, and their officers did not like to part with them. As the practice was so extensive and so culpable, he wished to know whether the Secretary of State for War, on thinking over the question of punishment, had thought of any method of dealing with these offenders, for they ought to be punished severely. He held in his hand a Return of Desertions from the Army, which showed that in 1880 there were no less than 3,284 cases of absolute loss to the Army. It was a considerable increase upon 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879. He should also be glad to learn from, the right hon. Gentleman as to certain punishments introduced into the Army last year. When the question of military punishment was raised last year, new punishments were devised, and the House would now be glad to hear what had been the effect of these punishments, which were a greater degradation than even flogging. Would the right hon. Gentleman state how many men had been subjected to these punishments, and whether any such punishment had been administered in South Africa? He should like to know whether the men had been tied to horses or to cart tails, and also what was exactly the code of punishment for very grave offences in the field and before the enemy? He
  566
  thought he had a right to ask the right hon. Gentleman what these punishments really were, and on what occasions they could be used? They ought to know how drunkenness and other grave crimes in the face of the enemy had been dealt with by the officers in command? He thought the present a fair opportunity for raising the question, and he felt quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman would give them all the information in his power. It was in that House that information of that kind should be given, for he felt sure that the country would be glad to know what was the exact state of discipline in the Army.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, there was one point upon which he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to give them some information. After a great deal of attention given to the subject by Members of the House, they had at last obtained an Army Act consolidated in one Code, so that officers and men could easily understand the Regulations under which they served. They had since had Amendments made to the Act, and in the Bill before them there was an additional Amendment proposed to be made; and, looking as he did with some suspicion lest that proceeding should lead to the confusing state in which the Army was placed by having many Acts instead of only one Code, he was anxious to know whether measures could not be taken to prevent a yearly amendment of this important Act? He was afraid if the present course were continued, of Amendments year by year, they would fall into the same confusion they got into in former years, and they might never have a complete Code. He wished the right hon. Gentleman would devise some means by which the Army Act could be amended and annually brought into a consolidated state. The Annual Act should be kept confined to one subject—namely, the number of men; and the changes that might be needed in the General Code should be put forward in a separate Bill, stating the Amendments and the Clauses of the Code as they would read when so amended. In this way the Army would annually be informed as to the Law under which it served. With respect to the observations that had been made on the necessity for an annual Report as to the working of the Army Act, he fully agreed with them.

  567
  An annual Report could be presented on all branches of the Army, the Judge Advocate General reporting on all points connected with courts martial and the action of the Military Code; and in that way many defects would be brought to light, and Members of Parliament would have the opportunity of giving advice and endeavouring to remedy these defects. If it were not possible to present a Report, the Secretary of State or the Judge Advocate General could explain the state of the Army in a speech to the House. The subject was a very large one, and well deserved the attention of the Secretary of State for War.
  SIR HARRY VERNEYhoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would be able to give the House some information with respect to the working of the present Army Hospital system. No subject demanded the more careful consideration of the House than the welfare of their soldiers who were sick. Invalid soldiers were now entirely under the care of the Army Hospital Corps, and he trusted full information would be given with regard to that body. He should like to know the number of the Corps, its distribution, and its relation to the Army Medical Department, the mode of selection of men in the Army Hospital Corps, and of their promotion, what training they received, and their length of service. And the House ought to be informed how the present plan of attaching medical officers to the station, instead of, as formerly, to the regiment, was found to answer. On these points, and on other measures taken for the welfare of sick soldiers, he thought the House was entitled to information.
  SIR HENRY FLETCHERcontended that the new Rules of Punishment were not sufficiently explicit, and asked for some information upon the point. For instance, one of the Rules provided that a soldier might be attached to a fixed object for certain limited periods; but it did not state whether his hands were to be tied behind his back, or whether they were to be placed in an upright position in front of him. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman would not inflict any punishment which would amount to torture; but the House ought to have more information as to the exact character of these punishments, and the occasions on which they were applied.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he did not at all complain of the observations of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), and he had to thank the hon. Member for not having moved the rejection of the Bill; because, if the Bill were much longer delayed, it would have involved the disbandment of the Army. Unless the Mutiny Bill were passed within a few days the Army must disappear, and he was sure that it was not the intention of the hon. Member that that should take place. He would answer in order the suggestions that had been made upon the details of the Bill, although he was bound to say that some of them would be better discussed in Committee. The hon. Member for Sligo had, in the first instance, spoken of the impressment of cars in Ireland under the authority of the Statute for the use of the military. The law upon the point, which was perfectly plain, was passed after a good deal of consideration and discussion; and all he could say was that to the best of his knowledge it had not been in any way strained. The Act provided that every magistrate, on the demand of a commanding officer, was bound to issue his warrant requiring a constable to provide, in a fit condition and within a required time, such carriages, animals, and drivers as were required for the purpose of removing military baggage and stores from place to place, and the necessary provisions for obtaining them followed. These provisions were absolutely necessary for an Army under all circumstances, not only in Ireland, but in every country in the removal of troops. So far as he was aware, there had been no well-founded complaint of any injustice having been done under that clause. The hon. Gentleman then asked whether he thought the present state of things satisfactory, under which they had a large increase of troops in Ireland, and whether he hoped the time would soon come when it would be possible not to employ so large a number of soldiers in aiding the civil power in respect of the differences between landlord, and tenant? All he could say was, that no one would rejoice more than he would do when it was possible to diminish the forces in Ireland. It was, of course, most inconvenient, from a military point of view, to employ Her Majesty's troops, as they were now largely employed, in aid of the civil power. It

  569
  was difficult for them to get that amount of drill which it was imperative they should have, and they were kept at places where there was not the same barrack accommodation as in other parts of the United Kingdom. At the same time, the impressions which had got abroad as to the force in Ireland were altogether exaggerated, one hon. Member at the early part of the Session having stated the number at 50,000, and another at 60,000; whereas the total number was just 30,000, the normal number being 23,000. Still, he would not wish to employ the additional number, and he should be glad when they were able to withdraw them. The Department which had to advise in this matter was, of course, primarily the Irish Executive, and they had conferred with him and explained what they thought would meet the requirements of the case, and it was for him (Mr. Childers) to supply what the responsible authorities thought necessary. That was a course he had followed consistently, and he believed that the force in Ireland was neither more nor less than was requisite. In regard to the hon. Gentleman's observations on billeting, he thought it would be better to discuss that subject in Committee. He had heard no serious complaints as to the rates for billeting soldiers; at the same time he would gladly consider the point, if the hon. Member had any evidence bearing upon it. The rates had been increased of late years, and if he should be satisfied that they were insufficient he should be prepared to have them amended next year. With respect to the respective allowances for special work by soldiers and police in Ireland, he (Mr. Childers) was naturally jealous as to soldiers being properly treated and paid; but, having consulted the Commander of the Forces at Dublin, and other military authorities, he did not think there was any ground for saying that the allowances to the soldiers, in comparison with those to the police, were insufficient. The hon. Gentleman had also asked him a question with regard to the liability of a soldier for the maintenance of his wife and children, and had said that only£1,500 had been paid on that account under the present Army Act. On this point he (Mr. Childers) had no information before him. The hon. Gen-
  570
  tleman had complained that it rested with the Secretary of State to decide how much deduction should be made from the pay of a soldier for the maintenance of his wife and children. He (Mr. Childers) thought it was not unreasonable that the Secretary of State should have some voice in the deductions made by magistrates from soldiers' pay, because, otherwise, such orders might be made as would make it impossible for a soldier to maintain himself. The question was not a simple one, and the hon. Member must remember that they had not only to consider what should be done as between the father and the Union to which his family were chargeable; they must also consider what was right as between the Crown and the soldier, considering the circumstances of a soldier's engagement and enlistment. He did not think they could treat a soldier in the same way as an ordinary citizen. He was subject to a particular engagement, absence from which might seriously prejudice Her Majesty's Service, and that Service was to be regarded as well as the interests of the other persons concerned. He was not aware of any case in which the Secretary of State had exercised his discretion unfairly. The hon. Gentleman had said that, practically, there was no remedy against a soldier who went on foreign service. It would be impossible to issue a ne exeat regno against a soldier in such cases; and, in point of fact, the claim might be altogether unfounded. All these points, however, should be carefully considered; and if, next year, he thought Amendments were required he should not hesitate to propose them. With reference to the Question of the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) respecting fraudulent enlistments and their remedy, he only knew of two remedies for that evil—one was branding; and the other was the improvement in the general character of the men who entered the Army, and the treatment of soldiers with consideration during the first few months of their service. In both these respects much had been done; and he believed that, while in 1881 there was less fraudulent enlistment than there was in 1880, this improvement would continue. He had considered the proposal that some method should be devised of marking men,

  571
  They could not be branded, for Parliament would never sanction—and, indeed, he hoped no Government would propose—such an expedient; and he was satisfied that the plan of distinctively marking men by vaccination would not be practicable or successful if adopted, according to the best medical and professional opinion. He could not, therefore, propose such a course for the adoption of Parliament. The country would have to trust to the exercise of increased vigilance, and to an improved system of enlistment, under which greater care would be taken not to enlist men who had already served. The great majority of recruiting officers ought to know whether a man had served as a soldier or not. He hoped that by the means which he had indicated fraudulent enlistment would be minimized in the future. He had also been asked by the hon. and gallant Member what the Code was with respect to the Rules for summary punishment? The Code was laid on the Table on the 5th August last; but, in point of fact, its provisions had not been applied, because they would only be carried into execution on active service, and, happily, there had been no such service of late. Nobody, therefore, could tell whether the change from flogging was a wise change or not, for no one had yet had an opportunity of judging its effects. The manner in which a soldier undergoing punishment would be attached had been intentionally left to the discretion of commanding officers, and, subject to the instructions framed under the law, those whose duty it would be to put the law into operation must be trusted. The object of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kincardineshire (Sir George Balfour), who had asked a question about the consolidation of Acts of Parliament, and who had complained of its not being done, was being carried out fully. The complaint would have been true the year before last; but it was not true last year, because all the Army Acts were consolidated last year, and, as far as the present Bill was concerned, express power was given to the printer to reprint the former Act with the verbal Amendments now enacted. He was shortly about to bring forward one Bill consolidating the Laws relating to the Militia, and another consolidating
  572
  the Laws relating to the Reserve Forces. He hoped hon. Members from Ireland would not block these Bills, as they did the Consolidating Bill of last year, for the present measures would be a great public advantage, and it would be much better that their stages should be taken in the middle rather than the end of a Session. With regard to the suggestion that there should be an annual Report on the working of the Army Discipline Act, he doubted whether such a Report would conduce to the public advantage. Very voluminous annual Returns were published at the present time. He would, however, give consideration to the suggestion. A question had been put by the hon. Baronet the Member for Buckingham (Sir Harry Verney)on the subject of Army Hospitals and the staff of men employed in them. When the Estimates were being considered, he would endeavour to satisfy his hon. Friend. In conclusion, he expressed a hope that the Motion he had made that the Bill be read a second time would be now agreed to.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, there was one remarkable ground for passing this Bill alleged in the Preamble, which he thought required abolition. It occurred in that paragraph which commenced—
  "Whereas, no man can be forejudged of in life or limb, or subjected in time of peace to any kind of punishment within this Realm, by martial law or any other manner than by the judgment of his Peers, therefore it is necessary to pass this Bill for the maintenance of the standing Army."
  It was quite clear that in a part of this Realm—namely, that part of Her Majesty's Dominions called Ireland, the statement in this Preamble to the effect that no man could be subjected to any kind of punishment in any manner than by the judgment of his peers, did not apply; and consequently, if the Preamble of this Bill which they were asked to pass was to be brought up to the most recent developments of the Constitution under the administration of the Liberal Party, it would be necessary to strike out of the Preamble the words declaring that no man within the Realm of Great Britain and Ireland could be subjected to punishment in any other manner than by the judgment of his peers. The English Army was the most expensive and

  573
  least effective in the world; and if some of the money spent upon ornaments or sinecures were made available for the legitimate, just, and more natural wants of soldiers, much would be done to raise the morale of our Army and its popularity. He thought some of the grievances of which the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had complained might be redressed without delay. He referred principally to the question of the cruel, monstrous, and immoral immunity from punishment which a man who had deserted his wife and family enjoyed if he enlisted in the Army, and to the question of the expense which was thrown on a deserted wife or the mother of an illegitimate child who sought redress from a soldier who was not quartered in the town where the trial would be heard. A couple of years ago, when he referred to these matters under the late Administration, he was told that no small amount of the infanticide which took place in garrison towns was due to the utterly miserable condition of the women seduced by soldiers, and who had no earthly means of obtaining any help or assistance from them. With regard to the forcible seizure of cars by the military, he was not satisfied with the answer of the right hon. Gentleman on the point. A mere passing expression of goodwill and sympathy, he contended, was insufficient to compensate for the wholesale seizure of cars in Ireland for military purposes. In its connection with evictions, this system involved the greatest amount of loss and suffering in Ireland. Of course, he was ready to admit that when the Government were determined to have the cars, the cars must be had. But he suggested that they should be so used and so paid for as not to cause any loss to their owners. Cars might be paid for at the rate of £1 a-day, with 5s. a-day for the driver, while not more than four soldiers should be allowed on each. Four heavily-accoutred soldiers, with the driver, were a sufficient load for any horse. On the ground of the prevention of cruelty to animals alone, no car-owner should be compelled to grant his vehicle for a journey of more than four miles each way, and there should be an engagement that the horse should not be driven at a higher rate of speed than six miles an hour. He had known of cases in
  574
  which they had been driven for as many as 35 miles.
  MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Member that he was alluding to matters which would be more properly discussed in Committee.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, his reason for referring to matters of that kind was to save time, as he did not wish to move absolute Amendments in Committee, but rather to make suggestions for the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. As regarded the question of billeting, he believed that the present system entailed wholesale plunder on a portion of the public. The scale of charges was totally inadequate. He hoped that the Secretary of State for War, in consideration of the large number of Catholic recruits that entered the Army, would take some efficient steps to provide that when these Catholic soldiers in the regular stations of the Service, went out to the foreign Dependencies of the Crown, they should enjoy the same advantages for the exercise of their religion which were secured to their Protestant fellow-subjects in Her Majesty's ranks? In India, especially, Catholic soldiers were placed at a great disadvantage in that respect, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would impress upon the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India the necessity of causing the Indian Government to meet the requirements of the Catholics upon this point. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would take every step which lay in his power to raise the moral tone of the Army generally.
  COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he only rose in consequence of the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, he believed, to the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He understood the Secretary of State to say that there was no power to increase the prices for billeting. Of course, it was not open to anyone to propose any increase of cost without the usual forms being observed; but he wished to observe that the object of placing the prices in the Schedule and of removing them from the body of the Act where they formerly stood was that Parliament should be able to revise them from time to time, according to circumstances. He wished to remind the House that formerly the Billeting Law in Ireland was

  575
  much more severe than it was at the present time. Previous to the Act of 1879, which assimilated the English and Irish Law of Billeting, billets were made on private houses, while innkeepers were allowed no remuneration for occupancy. He had no doubt the Schedule would be from time to time revised, and trusted the Government would take steps to do so, if it should appear necessary.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that with regard to the hiring of cars, the rates were fixed by Statute; but he would inquire into the matter, so that if any hardship did occur it might, if possible, be remedied. He believed that far more than the statutory rates were usually paid. With regard to the revision of the scale for billeting, he would consider it before next year. He never intended to say that it was not within the competence of the House to alter the Schedule, provided a Committee for that purpose was set up by a Minister of the Crown. He would also take care that the complaint made by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) should be inquired into. The question of chaplains in India was quite out of his jurisdiction, and was under the control of the Governor General in Council and the Secretary of State in Council. As to the Contagious Diseases Acts, the inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons, instituted by the late Government, was still proceeding, and until it was completed he could not do anything in regard to the matter.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he felt bound to protest against the injustice done to Irish car-owners by the military demands upon them. The simplest way to provide for the children of soldiers who had deserted their wives would be to require affidavit evidence on the subject from the wives, and to deduct a competent part of the soldiers' pay for the maintenance of the deserted wives and children.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  SUPPLY.—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

PROVINCIAL ART GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS.—RESOLUTION.
MR. JESSE COLLINGS, in rising to move—
"That, in the opinion of this House, grants in aid of Art and Industrial Museums should not be confined to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, but that a special grant should be made to the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, to enable them to supply Provincial Art Galleries and Museums with original examples and reproductions of Industrial Art adapted to their special local acquirements, and also to maintain and to still further develop the circulation system now administered by the Department; that gifts or loans of such articles and works as may be available from the National Art Collections, and from the British Museum, should be made to Provincial Art Galleries and Museums; and that such aid be confined to those towns or localities which are rated under the Free Libraries and Museums Act, and that the amount of such aid be proportioned to the sum raised and spent in each locality; and that, in order to give due effect to these proposals, it is desirable to place the whole of the National Art and other Collections, including the National Gallery and British Museum, under the direct control and administration of a Department of the Government,"
said, that he did not intend to take up much of the time of the House, as the subject of his Motion had already been debated. Nearly all the leading towns were forming themselves together in order to bring the question to a practical issue. It was one of the highest moment, involving the national prosperity in no small degree. This country had the finest workmen in the world, and it was only right they should be well educated; but we did less in that respect for them than any other country in Europe did for its workmen. In the face of the increasing competition in all our manufacturing industries on the part of foriegn nations, and when they saw those nations using great efforts to bring before their people everything relating to Science and Art, it was most important that we should do all we could to improve the artistic and industrial education of our workmen. Nothing could be further from his intention than to oppose the grants that were made to similar Institutions in London for these and other purposes, or to interfere in any way with the South Kensington Museum. On the contrary, his Motion pointed rather to an increase of the grant and to generalize its application, so that the various localities in the country might be benefited thereby.

577
He did not wish to imply that there was any jealousy in the large Provincial towns of the South Kensington and British Museums, and the other Collections in London. On the contrary, they were thoroughly satisfied with those institutions, and with their management under gentlemen like Sir Philip cunliffe Owen and Mr. Wallis. They were quite aware that South Kensington was doing all the good it could, and as well as it could, considering the means at its disposal. What they wished was that the advantages conferred by such institutions should be extended to the large towns in the Provinces. The authorities at South Kensington referred in their Report to the manner in which they were carrying on the circulation system by loans, and to the way in which they were endeavouring to get reproductions by electrotype and other processes. They went on to state that the system of loans was better than any permanent and unchangeable exhibition could possibly be. That might be true to a certain extent; but the large central industrial towns wanted exhibitions of works of Art, not for a short period of time, but continually, so that working men might have opportunities of examining the articles, whether they were pictures, jewellery, or other things, which illustrated the manufactures of their particular localities. The splendid and unique collection of jewels in the British Museum, for instance, was comparatively unknown, there being, on the last occasion he (Mr. Collings) visited it, only seven persons present, three of whom were ladies; while in the town of Birmingham there were said to be from 10,000 to 20,000 working jewellers, who had but a small chance of seeing such splendid examples of their art. The loans which were made were not at all sufficient to meet the requirements of the time, though, no doubt, the loans and the extension of them to corporation museums had done a great deal of good. The people of the country would not now submit to be governed by the mechanical plans of London coteries in this respect. Indeed, the country governed London by its riper and more generous ideas, and well for London that this was so, as the events of recent years had demonstrated. Again, there ought to be a circulating department, by which what was known as high art might pass through the land
578
and vivify the national life. A small Museum of Casts from the Antique was being formed at South Kensington; and why, he asked, should not Mr. Perry, instead of providing one reproduction or set, provide, say, a dozen, and let each of our principal towns have one of them? He wished to urge on the Treasury that grants for what he would call the higher life of the nation should be considered in a very liberal spirit. The authorities at South Kensington must not be content with offering their reproductions at half price to the country museums. He would suggest that when a reproduction was made, copies should be sent free of cost to such towns and localities as were rated under the Libraries and Museums Act. It was said—"Where would you draw the line to all these expenses? "Well, his Resolution, by limiting the grant to towns which rated themselves, provided for that. It would be a self-acting scheme, and he could see no objection to it, seeing that it meant that the locality which raised £1,000 should have twice as much as one that raised £500, and that would work fairly all round. It had been alleged that the Provinces wished to break up the National Collections; but he was unable to discover how the apportionment of selected specimens to localities appropriate to their exhibition was less national than confining them to one place in London, where, comparatively speaking, they were unvisited and unknown. The Turner drawings, for instance, were kept, as Mr. Ruskin had said, in a cellar in London. At all events, there were, doubtless, many duplicates, and many examples as nearly duplicate as possible, which might be spared for the Provinces, without injuring the unity of the Collections in the Metropolis. His Resolution recommended that all these institutions ought to be under one Department of the State. That seemed to him to be merely a matter of common sense. Where three or four managements existed, they, as every business man knew, must clash with one another. The results he desired could not be obtained without some such change as that indicated by his Resolution, the real intention of which was, of course, to put pressure on the Treasury, and, if possible, to induce the authorities to spend more money on the national education.

579
It seemed strange that there should be national pictures at the British Museum, when they had a large National Gallery. They wanted a more active management of these institutions. Instead of being a vital organizing body, the Trustees of the British Museum were mainly ornamental. They included such personages as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Law Officers of the Crown, as if those Gentlemen had not enough to do in other directions. The management ought to be, as South Kensington was, more responsible to Parliament. Then, again, the managers of the National Gallery were elected for life. These facts showed that there was a want of unity between the national institutions of the country. The management of them did not secure the highest results. The Trustees, knowing the new requirements of the country, must exert themselves. As he had said, he hoped that the time would come when all the educational institutions of the country would be under one management. The sooner they got hold of the idea that expenditure for education was in its infancy the better. They should not hold their hands in the matter, for many persons in the country, who took great interest in education, would not complain of grants for education generally until they found the sum exceeded that for military purposes; and he believed the working classes especially were in favour of that. There was nothing which the taxpaying people were so ready for as a large increase for educational expenses, always provided the moneys were well spent. Now, it was sometimes suggested by the opponents of his scheme that the Provinces might help themselves. But that was precisely what they had done already, and were still doing, and that to an extent that would astonish Londoners. But there was a limit beyond which they could not go. He had a table showing that 42 towns, with a gross population of 5,500,000, had provided a capital for fittings and other things for free libraries and museums to the extent of £1,000,000; and the 1d. rate, representing the sum for their maintenance, was about £100,000. But those amounts did not represent the whole of the amounts that had been spent in these localities. Birmingham, for instance, had in the past
580
10 years spent over £750,000; and, no doubt, Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool had been equally liberal, and had shown an equal public spirit. But the inequality of rating made it difficult to obtain all that was wanted out of the rates. The complaint that the Provinces did nothing for themselves might rather be retorted on Londoners, whose parks and museums were provided out of the whole taxation of the country. He found that £106,000 was spent by the Government on the parks in and around London, and on the London museums and public buildings £304,000, of which the British Museum got £116,000. He did not object to that; but he wanted an extension of the principle. It might mean an increase of taxation, but not necessarily, as the country thought there were many ways in which the current expenditure might be reduced. For instance, the Government might spend less upon the Army, or upon some other Department of the State. An increased education expenditure would be cheap; it would, in the end, be an economical policy, to say nothing else, to secure the civilizing and elevating influences which would follow the increased Art culture of the nation. At any rate, the people would not object to a larger expenditure for good results. He hoped the Government would be alive to the manner in which the Provinces regarded this subject, and would consider whether it would not be well that the Provinces, which were taxed for London and rated for themselves, should, after they had done all that they could for themselves, have their needs considered by the Government in no mean spirit. To show how the people in the Provinces valued these institutions, he might state that in Birmingham, in 1877, the number of visitors to the Art Gallery was 394,645, while the number of visitors to the British Museum in the same year was only about 30 per cent more. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words" in the opinion of this House, grants in aid of Art and Industrial Museums should not be confined to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, but that a special grant should be made to the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, to enable them to supply Provincial Art

581
Galleries and Museums with original examples and reproductions of Industrial Art adapted to their special local acquirements, and also to maintain and to still further develop the circulation system now administered by the Department; that gifts or loans of such articles and works as may he available from the National Art Collections, and from the British Museum, should he made to Provincial Art Galleries and Museums; and that such aid he confined to those towns or localities which are rated under the Free Libraries and Museums Act, and that the amount of such aid he proportioned to the sum raised and spent in each locality; and that, in order to give due effect to these proposals, it is desirable to place the whole of the National Art and other Collections, including the National Gallery and British Museum, under the direct control and administration of a Department of the Government,"—(Mr. Jesse Collings,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, there were certain portions of this comprehensive Motion on which his right hon. Friend near him (Mr. Mundella) would answer his hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Collings) in more detail, and more to his satisfaction; but he (Mr. Gladstone) wished to take a general view of its wide scope, and especially to refer to the closing portion of the Motion, which determined the course the Government must take on this occasion. The Motion began by affirming that grants in aid to industrial museums should not be confined to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin; but the fact was they were not, at that moment, confined to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. His hon. Friend would say that was done in an insufficient degree; but, in practice and in a form not thought objectionable, they did go beyond these cities; and independent loans formed a very important part of the system. The Motion of his hon. Friend, however, would seem to suggest the interpretation that there should be an indeterminate extension of the grants. As to the second part of the Motion, that a special grant should be made to the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, to enable it to supply Provincial Art Galleries and Museums with original examples and reproductions of industrial art, he might observe that, as far as reproductions went, something was already done. But, as far as regards original examples, he must own he thought the
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House would do unwisely to pledge itself to that subject until it had considered and adjusted, in very carefully weighed terms, the manner in which a system of purchasing original examples for those Provincial Museums was to be worked. It would, undoubtedly, be a matter of very great difficulty. These subjects and others connected with them were necessarily unending. Let not his hon. Friend, however, think that he (Mr. Gladstone) complained of his making this Motion. It was the result of a healthy appetite; but there was no end to its extension. His hon. Friend dealt with the centres. He had got into his head the cases of those enormous communities of 300,000 or 400,000 people; but after the central authority had settled its account with those large towns, which by that time would probably have swollen to 700,000 or 800,000, there would be a different set of candidates, and, instead of this amicable controversy taking end, they would have to hand it down from generation to generation. His hon. Friend would derive some consolation from observing that they had been travelling at no inconsiderable rate already. If he understood the speech of his hon. Friend aright, they ought to expend£25,000,000 a-year on these branches—that was to say, it ought not to be less than the expenditure on the Army and Navy. [Mr. COLLINGS: No, no; the Army only.] Well, his hon. Friend certainly held out some hopes of economy to be effected in a marvellous manner; but he (Mr. Gladstone) would like to see some examples of that kind from him in a practical shape before he could commit himself even to the reduced estimate of £15,000,000. He would point out, however, that they were, as he had said, travelling at a considerable rate already in this direction, though it might not satisfy the sanguine mind of the Parliamentary youth of the hon. Member for Ipswich. If they took the summary of expenditure as it stood in the Estimates presented to the House, it would be seen that a sum of £4,533,000 was taken for Science, Art, and Education. His hon. Friend might say that was not an adequate sum; but he (Mr. Gladstone) had known in his Parliamentary life when the sum given was little more than a fiftieth part of what it was now; and if that were so, it was now growing

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at the rate of between £100,000 and £200,000 a-year; and probably his hon. Friend, in the course of his Parliamentary career, might see it reach what he would admit to be a very respectable figure. The administrative Department at South Kensington had actually initiated and greatly extended a system wholly new, highly beneficial, undreamt of 30, or even 20 years ago, and undergoing a great and progressive extension; so that in principle, as far as regarded the administrative part of his Motion, there was no quarrel between him and his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella). In the last clause of his Motion, the hon. Member had ventured on a matter quite distinct from the earlier part of his proposition, as to the extension of the present administrative operations; and he had proposed what would, in effect, be a very difficult subject of actual legislation, when he said that all these Departments ought to be brought together, and placed under the direct control and administration of a Department of the Government. He (Mr. Gladstone) would not affirm absolutely the negative of that proposition; but yet he was inclined to affirm very decidedly these two things—first, that it was open in certain branches to doubt and qualification; and, secondly, that it involved a work of very considerable difficulty, and one to which, it would be most unwise for the Government, on whom the whole responsibility would lie, to pledge themselves to at this moment. First, as to the qualification; looking at an institution like the National Portrait Gallery, that institution appeared in the Estimate for one of the most modest sums inscribed in it. £2,585 was the sum at the disposal of the National Portrait Gallery. That Gallery had been satisfactorily managed for a long series of years, owing to the very enlightened representation of the late Lord Stanhope, with results very remarkable indeed. And though it had been worked by an independent Body, yet its relations to the Government had been uniformly satisfactory; and he owned he should be very loth, on the mere ground of administrative symmetry, to interfere with an arrangement of that kind, unless he were well satisfied he could well mend it. Take the case, again, of the National Gallery. That Gallery, at a period not very remote, was the subject
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of incessant controversy and contest. At present, with a certain control through the Treasury, not involving interference in detail, they had made a harmonious combination of the two elements—firstly, that which was strictly professional, and which predominated in the person of the Director; secondly, that friendly aid which the Director now had it in his power to obtain from the Trustees, who were always chosen as among the best instructed, most enlightened, and best disposed of those gentlemen who were willing to give their services. He was exceedingly struck with the fact that whereas, a certain number of years ago, the columns of the newspapers were filled with controversy about the price that had been given for this picture, the manner in which that picture had been cleaned, scoured, and scarified—for that was the sort of accusation then constantly made—they appeared to have reached the time when public opinion was, on the whole, very well satisfied. Then there was the larger and more difficult question as to the British Museum. About that, all he could say was that he thought there was very much to be said in favour of a change of the present system; for he was by no means prepared to say there was nothing to say against it. It was a matter in which, men of great acuteness and competency had found the greatest difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, and, even after seeming to have arrived at a conclusion, had been shaken in it. But the point he wished to raise was that the British Museum had in it certain elements of its old character of a private or semi-private foundation; and his hon. Friend would find very great difficulty indeed when he came to sweep away the old Trustees and their present complicated constitution. He (Mr. Gladstone) did not wonder that the hon. Gentleman was struck with the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prime Minister, and the First Lord, of the Admiralty were among the Trustees. At the same time, the anomaly was not so great as it appeared, because, while they were official Trustees, yet, in point of fact, they were not the managers. The Trustees, from amongst themselves, chose a standing Committee, and that was the Body which really managed, except as to the matter of election of new Trustees and the matter of patronage in the Museum,

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which was regulated entirely by a small body of three persons, called the Principal Trustees. The question of sweeping away that Body required really, before it was adopted, much more searching investigation than they could give it now; and it was not a very easy thing to say, in his opinion, how far the State, not having the gift of prophecy, and never foreseeing in the slightest degree to what vast dimensions that little institution would extend itself—how far the State, having recognized private rights in the appointment of Family Trustees, was in a condition, at a moment's notice, to sweep them all away for the purpose of bringing them under a Department. It was a question not altogether easy to dispose of, and would require more close examination before the House could be called upon to decide upon it. He quite admitted with his hon. Friend that such arrangements ought to be made as would obviate entirely the serious evils and inconveniences that had arisen in former times, and that might arise now, to a certain extent, from the competition of one Department with another in the same field of purchase. That was a thing which ought not in any well-regulated system to prevail; but as to the matter of unification, and bringing these institutions under the direct sway of a Department of the Government, that, he thought, was a matter which they were not ready to determine. He recognized the vast importance of the work; but it was not yet ripe for decision. Perhaps they were not able to travel so fast as his hon. Friend; and he hoped his hon. Friend would not ask them to give a legislative pledge, which would certainly be premature, and which might involve them in difficulties it would not be easy to extricate themselves from.
MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he heartily sympathized with much of the general intention of the Motion of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Collings), as he believed every right-minded man would, in so far as it recognized the elevating influence of Art upon the human mind. He had great pleasure in seeing all over the country a general agreement that it was not mere grind and greed that elevated a people, but that the mind must be fed by feeding the eye. He could not, however, regard with an equally favourable view the
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manner in which the details of the Motion were worked out; and he regretted that the hon. Member for Ipswich should have loaded it with so much debatable and, in some respects, not strictly accurate matter. For his own part, he would not traverse the whole field opened up by the Motion, but would deal with the subject from the point of view of the particular institution with which he happened to be administratively connected—namely, the British Museum—which the hon. Gentleman had only referred to in a sort of offhand postscript to his speech. He could quite understand the idea of a hard, merciless concentration of Art treasures under State administration. That was the idea of France and other countries. But a National Collection, presided over by a body of Trustees chosen for their capacities and station, who possessed something of individual independence, and who took a disinterested personal interest in the objects of Art under their care, was a thing peculiarly English; and he was a little sorry and jealous to see that its advantages had been somewhat overlooked. The British Museum, in seeking the advancement of Art in its historical aspect—Art which illustrated ages long gone by, which was the key of history—nay, which was an embodiment of history itself—had its own special mission to fulfil, a mission at least as important as its other function of the education of the eye, however important that might be, of the individual workman or student. People talked of the British Museum as a mere collection. They did not realize it as a Body which extended its long tendrils all over the world, and which, through the medium of men like Smith or Rassam, laid bare the wonders of a long-buried civilization. It was not merely that the British Museum sat at the seat of custom buying articles tendered by dealers. To give one instance of its work, it quite recently secured an invaluable prize in the shape of 5,000 Assyrian tablets from Sipporah, or Sepharvaim, and it was assiduously exploring the secrets of that fateful city of Babylonia, which was so much older than the days of what used to be the limit of authentic history, and in which, according to the quaint legend of Berosus, the Chaldean Noah had deposited the antediluvian records. It might be said that this was a fantastic

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legend; but certainly in the Sipporah records which had been dug up they possessed memorials of the very greatest antiquity. In the diffusion of a knowledge of Art, as well as in the region of discovery, the British Museum, too, was doing a great and earnest work. If it did not do quite so much as the hon. Member for Ipswich might expect, it was not the Trustees, but the Treasury who were to blame; and, though he had no desire to see the expenditure of the British Museum equal that of the Army or Navy, he could assure hon. Members that it could very well do with a little more. If the hon. Member for Ipswich could descend from his high, exalted, and wide scheme, and squeeze a little more money from the Treasury, he (Mr. Beresford Hope) was sure the Trustees would be most thankful to get all they could, and would spend it in the best possible way. They were not to be blamed for selling their duplicates; but the Treasury was for making it necessary. The system of management of the British Museum had been criticized. What, it was said, did the First Lord of the Admiralty, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Prime Minister, know about Art? Well, assuming, which it was surely fair to do, that no man could become First Lord of the Admiralty, or Archbishop of Canterbury, or Prime Minister, without having a greater share of brains than fell to the lot of most mortals, he should certainly prefer the opinion of those three personages on questions of Art to that of the first Brown, Jones, or Robinson one met in the street. But, as he should show, these high personages had not, in fact, much to do with the internal regulations of the Museum. Then, as to Family Trustees, it ought not to be forgotten that their position was not only an acknowledgment of great gifts made to the nation by the self-sacrifice of individuals, but possibly tended to encourage contributions of that kind. If so, it was a cheap price to pay for advantages so considerable. But, above all, it was well to have the general body of Trustees large and varied, seeing that out of them were elected the Standing Committee upon whose shoulders the practical work of administration fell. The extent of the powers of the Trustees who were not upon the Standing Committee was, besides the election of that Committee, pretty well limited to meet-
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ing four times a-year, and receiving a Report which, as a general thing, was accepted as it stood. If he were asked to state a practical advantage due to their having Family Trustees, he would mention the presence on the Standing Committee of that Family Trustee, Lord Derby, with whose great common sense and administrative capacity the country was familiar. They had also as Trustees such men as Lord Sherbrooke, the Duke of Somerset—although he must confess that most able administrator laboured under the disadvantage of having been a First Lord of the Admiralty—the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), Sir Henry Rawlinson, and the Presidents of the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and the Royal Academy, while their great network of officers included men of European reputation. Need he name Owen, Newton, Günther, Birch, Franks, and the Principal Librarian, Mr. Bond, all of whom met and discussed the common weal with their official Professors on a footing of manly independence, which might not be so easy with a Minister of Museums, holding Office on a tenure of from six months to five years. No doubt, there was a large and an intelligent body of workmen employed at Birmingham, Sheffield, and the other great centres of trade, in the development of which a knowledge of the Fine Arts was of the utmost importance; but still it would be impossible to cut up the National Collections piecemeal and send them in a fragmentary condition into the Provinces. They were told of the great number of "almost duplicates" Now, an "almost duplicate" was just the last thing which ought to be sent away, for the diagnosis of historical Art so much depended on the comparison of the differences, or the details of objects generally resembling each other. It was said that if the masterpieces of Art were retained in London, the manufacturers of Birmingham and Sheffield could not come to London to visit them. Well, that was true; but so was the proposition that if these specimens of the Fine Arts were sent down to Birmingham and Sheffield, much fewer of the Londoners would be induced to go down to visit them. From that it was apparent the Museums should be kept where they were most accessible, and where visitors from all parts of the

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Kingdom might obtain as much enjoyment from them as did the Londoners themselves. When Birmingham became the capital of the Empire, by all means let them send the British Museum and the National Gallery there; but while London, with its millions of inhabitants against Birmingham's hundreds of thousands, continued to be the capital, on the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number their National Collection ought to remain there. They should be chary, indeed, in dispersing and breaking up those Collections. If there was zeal in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Liverpool, or in Sheffield, so much the better. He was a very warm friend to the system of reproduction, by which all the Art Schools throughout the country might be furnished with the most perfect copies of valuable originals, and be stimulated to the production of the elegant, elevated, and pure. That system had begun with spirit within the British Museum, and he trusted that it would go on with increasing liberality; and if the hon. Member for Ipswich would withdraw his somewhat crude and visionary idea of boiling up all these institutions in a cauldron, and would propose a practical method of securing the most complete system of reproduction, he would have the support of those who now felt themselves compelled to oppose his Resolution in its present shape.
MR. SLAGGsaid, he felt bound to say a few words in support of the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Collings), because he thought there had been no reasonable or sufficient answer made to his request that larger support and greater facilities should be given in the way of encouraging the Arts throughout the country. He (Mr. Slagg) had the honour of seconding a similar Motion to that of his hon. Friend last Session; and also in the Session of 1880 he brought under the consideration of the House a scheme for the reproduction of National Art treasures. He was therefore encouraged still further to press on the Department the propriety of supporting this proposal. However much the Resolution might be deprecated as being unnecessary or impracticable, it was only by bringing such propositions before the House, and pressing them upon the attention of the Government, that any steps would be taken in a matter which
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was so essential to the welfare of the commerce of this country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope) argued in favour of keeping the National Art treasures under the control of a cultivated group in London, with whose administration the right hon. Gentleman and his friends were very well satisfied, although, in its practical working, there was no result produced on the vast populations of the manufacturing towns, who were more in need of artistic influences than the cultivated people who lived in this Metropolis, and who had large means of gratifying their refined tastes. The Prime Minister also appeared to be satisfied with the present state of affairs, so well satisfied, indeed, that he deprecated every proposition of the hon. Member for Ipswich. He (Mr. Slagg) could, however, ask the House to compare the results with those achieved by foreign countries. For example, when they compared their position artistically with that of France, there was not only very much to wish for, but also very much to be ashamed of, in relation to their present position. It was said that vast and yearly increasing sums were now expended on education and artistic objects; but these sums would appear very paltry compared with the sums and efforts which were willingly made by their French neighbours in regard to all that related to artistic culture. It seemed to him that in that country no expenditure was too large, no legislative effort too great, no administrative power too perfect, in order to supply, not only Paris, not only the cultivated few, but to extend the influence of Art to every town and province, and every centre of industry, throughout the whole country. When satisfaction was expressed with England, he thought they could not have their attention sufficiently called to the state of things in France, where the Ministry of Fine Arts spent no less than £2,000,000 annually upon Art purposes alone, not only to supply the great museums of Paris, but to present treasures to all the museums in France, and to give grants directly subserving the Art industry of every district. The result was to place the Art products of France in a position of very great and deserved preeminence. Were they, however, on that account, to despair of the Art cul-

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ture, industrially speaking, of this country? He claimed that, at the present time, they must bestir themselves in the matter. The foreigner was encroaching upon their industries in every direction, and though they could still claim a complete supremacy in the power of mechanical production, when they compared their artistic powers and measured their artistic manufactures with their Continental neighbours they were very much in arrear. He had recently had the opportunity of making inquiries on the Continent in connection with the French Treaty negotiations, and he had never been more convinced of the necessity of bestirring themselves in that matter than by seeing the assistance which was afforded in France to the great industrial classes in the culture of Art as applied to manufactures. When we looked at our large industrial towns we had certainly reason almost to despair; but still he thought the English nation should never entertain the idea that they were not capable of becoming equal to the French and the Continental nations in artistic manufactures, and if they only encouraged the development of the natural gifts of their people, they might still hold their own in competition and excel their rivals. But what encouragement was given? What assistance was afforded to their industrial classes in such a way that they could apply it to the improvement of their industry? They were depressed by the miserable surroundings of their dwellings and the complete absence of artistic objects that were worthy of being studied. No doubt, London was the place for principal and original objects of Art; but duplicates were unwisely sold, instead of being distributed, and the fragmentary and unsystematic reproductions that had been made hitherto were totally inadequate to meet the necessities of the Provinces, to supply the examples that were needed by the designer and the artist, and to enable the managers of Provincial Museums to make the best selections of illustrations that were locally required. Could they not do much more in reproducing existing Art treasures? He had never seen anything obtainable that the British Museum had reproduced. He understood that the reproduction of ancient coining had been abandoned by that institution. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE said, that was going on.] He
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was glad to hear it. They had, however, not seen much evidence of it. Collections ought to be copied on a business-like principle, and he desired that the managers of their Provincial museums should know where they might go with a certainty of success in completing their Collections. He was pleased that South Kensington had done so much. He might be told that the advance had not been very largely responded to by the public; but there were one or two reasons for that. One was that he thought where towns undertook the erection of museums, and provided proper places of deposit and exhibition, the Directors of those institutions should not be called upon to pay so much as half the cost, but should become entitled to them when they could show that they had done what was required. It had been suggested that the local rates should be called to bear the cost of filling the museums; but they were pretty well over-burdened already; and in regard to local subscribers they were really a very small body of persons, and naturally felt somewhat being called upon for so many purposes. The successive demands necessary, therefore, fell upon a limited few; and he claimed that the matter should be met by the Government. Only the nation possessed the supply—the local authorities could not find it if they wished. South Kensington Museum now swept the whole country; and he could only look to his right hon. Friend to do more to assist those industrial centres which had become to so great an extent the taxpaying power of the country.
MR. MUNDELLAsaid, the Prime Minister having replied to the first part of his hon. Friend's Motion, all that he (Mr. Mundella) had simply to do now was to notice that portion of the Motion which proposed that a special grant should be made to the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, to enable them to supply Provincial Art Galleries and Museums with artistic examples and reproductions of industrial Art, adapted to their special local requirements. He had often told his friends that it was impossible that South Kensington or any other Department could undertake to supply original examples to the Provinces. But South Kensington could supply assistance and advice in the making of purchases, and a collection

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which had just been purchased for Birmingham had been very greatly admired. If it were possible for South Kensington to provide original examples for the Provinces, there would immediately arise contests as to which museum should have particular specimens. But his answer to this demand was that if they distributed their Collections in that way, they would disintegrate the whole National Collection. There must be in the great centre of this Empire the very best original examples that could be found in the world. There were not only 4,000,000 of people in London, but they had all the people of the Empire visiting the capital some time or other. When men came to London from the Provinces they expected to see there the very choicest objects of Art which the British nation could produce. Those original articles could not, therefore, be distributed from one side of the country to the other without the present great National Collections of Art objects being broken up. While he could not accede to his hon. Friend's demand for originals, he was quite ready to accord to the utmost of his ability anything in the shape of reproduction which was necessary to stimulate Art. What the Government had done in the past year in this respect had been a great advance on anything that had ever been done before. The Estimates showed the great advance which had been made. The Vote for Schools of Science and Art was this year £160,000, against £154,000 in the previous year. Then the sum spent in the purchase and circulation of works of Art was £28,954, against £24,561. The whole increase, then, was in order to increase the circulation of works of Art in the Provinces. The Vote for South Kensington had increased from £39,000 to £42,000; the total amount of the two Votes having increased from £63,000 to £73,000. He would tell hon. Members what had been done. A few years ago South Kensington commenced to make loans of objects for temporary exhibition at different towns in the Provinces. Those loans had gone on increasing from year to year until the mere cost of the carriage came to £4,000 a-year. Last year they circulated throughout the Provinces 15,047 objects—that was to say, paintings and other original objects, to something like 80 or 100 museums. They were continually sending fresh streams of objects from South Kensington to the different mu-
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seums. One museum had a collection for six months, then it was exchanged with another, and so a circulation of objects was kept up through the different towns of the Kingdom, care being taken that those kinds of works of Art which were best calculated to stimulate the taste of any particular locality should be sent to it. No part of the work which he was engaged in was more interesting than to witness the active, useful work done in connection with the South Kensington Museum; and yet the hon. Gentleman came down to the House and reproached the Government for not having done sufficient. They could only say—
"We give you all we can, no more,
Though poor the offering be."
He could not honestly say that the Treasury had been illiberal in this matter, for he thought that an increase of £10,000 upon a Vote for one Department was a very substantial increase. The hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Slagg) had said that they compared poorly with foreign nations; but he would probably find that more was done for Art by the State in England than in any other country. He was very doubtful whether Prance did as much for Provincial Art as England. France did a good deal, but it was for Paris alone, while Lyons and the other large centres had to pay for the Art they required from their local rates. They did it, and he could not believe that Manchester would be behind Lyons, or Birmingham behind any corresponding town on the Continent. Moreover, this country did a great deal in the way of reproductions. Already £3,000 worth of reproductions had been ordered for next year. When the State supplied Birmingham, Leeds, and the other large towns with casts and facsimile reproductions of all kinds of works of art at half the price they cost, he did not think there was any reason to complain. The hon. Member for Manchester thought they should be supplied gratis. He (Mr. Mundella) was not of that opinion. He thought it was only fair, when the State contributed 50 per cent of the cost, that an effort should be made by the locality to pay the remainder. Everything that could be done to stimulate Art throughout the country was done. Already industrial Art in many towns and places in the Kingdom had been greatly benefited by what South Kensington had

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effected. There were Schools of Art all over the conntry, which were doing a great work, assisted by the loan of an increased number of objects of Art, which were constantly in general circulation by means of an increased staff appointed for the purpose. The larger the increase in the Vote, the larger would be the number of objects of Art which he would be able to circulate throughout the country during the year. He thought that everything that could fairly be asked was now done by the Department to realize the aspirations of his hon. Friends, and that the localities might justly be required to have sufficient public spirit to pay their moiety. He trusted that, after the assurances the Prime Minister had given, and the explanations he had tendered to the House, the Motion would not be pressed.
MR. GEORGE HOWARDsaid, that the Trustees of the National Gallery were fully alive to the desirability of circulating throughout the Provinces drawings and artistic works, and were doing the utmost in their power in that direction. Only recently they decided to transfer a Collection from Dublin, where it had been 10 years, to Liverpool. As a Trustee of the National Gallery, he denied that Turner's pictures were being kept in a cellar there or in the dark. As many of Turner's drawings as could be lent out were on loan. With respect to Mr. Ruskin's suggestion that the Trustees of the National Gallery should place the Turner Collections in some conveniently-built garret or upstair room, all he could say was that he wished the Treasury would enable them to extend the National Gallery. The Trustees found themselves very much cramped, not only with respect to the Turner drawings, but in other respects, and they were unable to act in the matter without the assistance of the Treasury. He fully agreed with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Manchester as to the great advantage which would result from co-operation between the National Museum and the Provincial Museums in the purchase of original works of Art. There were, no doubt, large numbers of original paintings, which, although they might not be suitable for the National Collection, might be well worthy of a place in a Provincial Museum. He was sure that anyone who had seen the objects of art which Birmingham had purchased for its Museum with its own money would
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feel a wish to assist the development of Provincial Museums.
MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, that there was a growing feeling of discontent at the practical monopoly enjoyed by the Metropolis in the Art treasures concentrated in London. It was high time that it should be understood that the Metropolis could not supply the demands of the whole Kingdom, for, after all, London had only one-tenth of the population of the country. It was practically impossible for the great bulk of those artizans who wished to improve themselves in every branch of industry to come to London to obtain a practical acquaintance with the Art treasures in it. It was absolutely necessary that these should be brought to their own doors, that they might study to improve the branches of industry for the purpose of meeting the competition of the Continent. He did not doubt that the right hon. Gentleman had done everything in his power; but this Vote was most insufficient and almost contemptible. A sum equal to this was spent in despatching Embassies to decorate Foreign Sovereigns with the Order of the Garter. He thought it was time for the public voice to be heard in that House, in order that the adjustment and distribution of the public money should be controlled. What in the past had been the condition of the people of this country? They lived in gloomy homes in narrow streets; their hours of labour were excessive, and the taxation was excessive. The House was reminded that in the last 50 years they had made a marvellous advance. He was thankful for that; but he hoped that the public would put an increasing pressure on the House in order that the public income might be expended in more useful directions than it had been in the past. A new wave of public opinion was arising in favour of State aid being given to the stimulation of Art in Provincial towns. A new demand would be made on the Education Department by the public, who would not be satisfied with the altogether inadequate proposal which the right hon. Gentleman had mentioned, and which appeared in the Estimates of this year.
MR. H. DAVENPORTsaid, that the Vote, which had been slightly increased this year, was inadequate to the wants of the great manufacturing towns throughout the country. Connected as he was with North Staffordshire, he felt deeply

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interested in the question of bringing before the body of artizans in that district a large number of specimens of ornamental Art. He concurred in the observations of the hon. Member who had just spoken as to the necessity of bringing such specimens down to Provincial localities. He hoped that the discussion which had taken place would excite attention on the part of the Education Department to this question.
MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. collings) very properly thought fit to make some reference to the interests of Ireland in his Motion; and although no other English Member manifested the least desire to grant any assistance whatever to that country, it raised a cry of "Divide!" when the first Irish Member rose to speak. He intended briefly to refer to one or two points which concerned the interests of Ireland. He found fault with the Parliamentary outlay sanctioned by the Government for the reproduction of specimens of Art, and, at the same time, must express his concurrence in the remarks of the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth) that the assistance given to the important department hardly deserved to be designated by the name of grants. It was not until they should see £1,000,000 devoted to the culture of the brains and the training of the fingers of their workmen in the higher ideals of perfection in every department of Art and industry could they be justified in saying that a real attempt had been made by the Government to promote this all-important branch of education. However, he thought they might take the observations of the Vice President of the Council as clearly intimating that all his desires were with the increased encouragement of artistic and industrial education in this country. He wished to refer particularly to the suggestion of the Mover of the Resolution that aid of this description given by the Government should be regulated by the degree in which towns or cities were rated under the Towns Improvement Act. A condition of that kind might be very proper in England; but in Ireland, where British administration had made a tabula rasa of all industrial perfection, the policy of the Government should necessarily be one of gratuitous assistance for some time to come, so as to
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repair, in some degree, the vast injuries inflicted upon every department of industry in Ireland. In sending their artistic missionaries to Ireland they should proceed on the supposition that the past history of that country left very little artistic development existing at present, and that their first duty should be to produce that development before expecting any efforts at local and independent initiation. It was admitted in Papers and Reports presented to the House that there was no population more susceptible of industrial culture than the Irish people; and the policy of the Government should be to direct their missionaries to discover that susceptibility in different parts of Ireland, and, by giving it proper and liberal encouragement, to promote industrial prosperity in the country. It might seem rather strange that he should be pleading the assistance of the Government for the Irish people in what might be called the luxuries of refined civilization, while so many of those people were in want of the very necessaries of life; but he trusted there was a better outlook for Ireland than might be immediately visible from the standpoint of English legislation. He was sincerely desirous that some vigorous effort should be made for the development of artistic education in Ireland. There were a dozen places in Ireland where such assistance could be conveniently and profitably given at the present moment, and it was only by efforts such as those that they could expect to bring about the improvement of the present state of affairs of the country. He was aware that his suppositions were rather Utopian, and that to the minds of many hon. Members of that House it was like looking for the advent of the Millennium to expect the day when fair administrative ability would be conspicuous in Irish affairs, and when such institutions as the Board of No Works and the Local Misgovernment Board would be abolished.
Question put, and agreed to.
Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—THE NEW CODE.—OBSERVATIONS.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, in rising to call attention to the following Amend-

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ment of which he had given Notice, but which the Forms of the House prevented him from moving, namely—
"That it is desirable to allow School Boards and Committees to present Children for Examination in any of the recognized Class subjects,"
said, he trusted he need hardly disclaim any intention of attacking the New Code as a whole. Far from it, he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the great care and attention he had given to the subject. There were, however, some points in the Code which he feared would work injuriously. For instance, his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council was taking a retrograde step in excluding children of the Fourth Standard from specific subjects. On some future occasion he should, perhaps, ask the House to allow him to call their attention to this part of the subject, unless, indeed, his right hon. Friend could be induced to reconsider the matter. He would only say now that the clause as it stood would cut off three-fifths of the science instruction at present given in Liverpool. For the present, however, he wished to ask the House to let him direct their attention for a few minutes to the regulations affecting what were called class subjects. The subjects taught in elementary schools were divided by the Code into three heads—obligatory subjects, class subjects, and specific subjects. The obligatory subjects were reading, writing, and arithmetic; the class subjects were English, geography, elementary science, and history, and for girls, sewing. Now, the points of which he complained were that two of these only could be taken, and that one must always be English. Most schools would, he believed, select geography or history for the second, and the consequence was that elementary science, though nominally included, would have but little chance. A good elementary education should surely include the rudiments of all four; and though he would not press schoolmasters to take them all up, at any rate at present, still he saw no reason why they should limit the number to two and exclude the others. Now, the "English" of the Code was mainly grammar. It included, no doubt, the learning by heart of a certain number of lines of poetry; still, the main portion of the time would be devoted to grammar. Of course, it
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sounded very plausible to say that everyone should learn his mother tongue; but the question was how? He believed the child would learn English better by reading Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible than if he knew all Lindley Murray by heart. How many gentlemen in that House ever learnt English grammar? Not even, he believed, a "bare" majority. Had our greatest orators done so? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had told them that he had never learned any English grammar, and he doubted whether the Prime Minister ever had. Still, he had no desire that grammar should be excluded. All he asked was that it should not be given an unfair advantage. Another reason against making grammar obligatory was that they must, to a certain extent, consult the idiosyncrasies of schoolmasters. He did not deny that some men could make grammar interesting; but he believed that they were few in number. To force men who could not make it interesting to teach it was not only to waste time, but worse, for anything that made children hate their lessons did them irreparable injury. Now, he hoped no hon. Members would be frightened by the term "science" Some even of Her Majesty's Inspectors seemed entirely to misunderstand what was desired. For instance, Mr. Holmes, in a Report published in the annual Blue Book, said—
"With all due deference to Sir John Lubbock's opinion, I hope that the children in our elementary schools will long continue to learn about Liverpool and Glasgow, the Rhine and the Danube, the manufactures of England, and the commerce of Australia, rather than about cortical parenchymas and chlorophyll granules, the mesenteric lymphatics and the thoracic duct."
Mr. Ley, again, severely remarked on—
"The notion of some 3,835,272 little Sandfords and Mertons walking about the highways and byways of Great Britain listening to sermons on stones and spiders, or discussing petals and sepals with duly qualified Mr. Barlows."
But he did not wish to introduce technical phraseology, though he might add that there were as long words in grammar as in any other subject. The elementary science of which he spoke was that defined in the 1st Schedule. Hon. Members would see that it meant a progressive course of simple lessons on common objects, such as familiar animals, plants, and substances in

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ordinary life. It might be said that "elementary science" was a very grand name for simple lessons in common and familiar objects. This he admitted; but be must, of course, use the language of the Code, and he thought critics would find it difficult to substitute any better name for "elementary science" Even Mr. Matthew Arnold was driven to fall back on German and call it naturkunde, which we might, perhaps, come to adopt as we had clôure. At any rate, be hoped it would be distinctly understood that he was not asking for anything difficult or advanced; but merely that teachers should not be precluded from giving children interesting and instructive lessons on familiar natural objects in order to torment them with abstruse grammatical technicalities. His right hon. Friend would admit that Mr. Fearon was a great authority on such questions. Now, how did Mr. Fearon say that grammar must be taught? He said—
"The teacher should, immediately after imparting the first elementary notions and general definitions, proceed to the subject and predicate, beginning with the noun and pronoun as the subject, and with intransitive verbs as verbs of complete predication. He should then pass on to the direct objective relations of nouns and pronouns with verbs of incomplete predication."
This was surely as difficult as any branch of science. Few men ever understood children better than the late Dean Dawes, and he supposed his school at Sombourne was one of the very best England had ever seen. What was the secret of his success? The school was specially reported on for the Education Department by Mr. Moseley, who said—
"That feature in the King's Sombourne School which constitutes probably its greatest excellence, and to which Mr. Dawes attributes chiefly its influence with the agricultural population around him, is the union of instruction in a few simple principles of natural science applicable to things familiar to the children's daily observation with everything else usually taught in a national school."
The Committee of that House, which sat in 1868, under the able presidency of his hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. B. Samuelson), recommended that the rudiments of natural science should be taught in all our national schools, and recorded their opinion that
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"Nothing less will suffice if we are to maintain our position in the van of industrial nations" Sir Francis Sandford, in giving evidence before the Scotch Commissioners on Endowed Institutions, spoke strongly in favour of the clause in the old Code on these subjects. He said—
"It is a distinct encouragement for him to take up subjects for instruction of great and lively interest in the school itself, and of practical utility in after life to the great majority of the children when they leave school."
Dr. Percival, also, the late Head Master of Clifton College, speaking of our public schools, said—
"I consider that the introduction of science has not in any way interfered with the successful pursuit of the old studies; while many of our boys who have gained distinction in classics or mathematics have thus acquired a sound elementary knowledge of two or three branches of science, and many others have had all their powers stimulated by thus finding out that slowness in learning languages does not necessarily mean general stupidity."
Remarking on this, Mr. Hance, the able Secretary of the Liverpool Board, truly said—
"If, however, such are the results of the introduction of science instruction into schools whose curriculum already included not only the study of the masterpieces of Greece and Rome, as well as the varied attractions of mathematics, modern languages, English literature, &c, what must be its stimulating effect upon children whose mental food has hitherto been confined to the dull routine of reading, writing, and arithmetic, varied only by a modicum of grammar, history, or geography?"
In this he believed that Mr. Hance expressed the general opinion of elementary teachers. At the recent Conference of the National Union of Elementary Teachers it was resolved—
"That this Conference is of opinion, with regard to Article 19 of the Code of 1876, that each subject taught to the satisfaction of the Inspector should be paid for at the rate of 2s. per subject up to a limit of three subjects."
The advantage of introducing geography and elementary science was strikingly shown by the experience of Liverpool. For several years the percentage of passes was 74·5 per cent, varying only between 74·3 and 74·7; but in 1877 special subjects were added, and in four years the percentage of passes rose to no less than 89 per cent. Again, the British Association, through its Special Committee, had carefully con-

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sidered the subject. They represented the general feeling of men of science in the country; and they felt that under the proposed Code the teaching of elementary science, in which he knew the Vice President of the Council took much interest, would be placed at a great disadvantage. They therefore adopted, and a few days ago forwarded to him, the following Resolution:—
"This Committee has heard with satisfaction that Sir John Lubbock has given Notice to bring the question of the teaching of natural knowledge again before Parliament, and offers him its support in asking that the three class subjects of Schedule II. of the New Code—namely, English, geography, and elementary science—should be placed on the same footing."
If he were not afraid of wearying the House it would be easy to quote many other authorities. They did not ask the House to make science obligatory, but only to give it a fair chance. The next ground on which he based his Amendment was on the undesirability of interfering more than was absolutely necessary with local self-government. His right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had often pointed out the advantages of local self-government with force and eloquence. He intended to propose a wide and comprehensive Bill for County Government, yet in this Code the Government actually dictated to School Boards exactly what subjects they should teach, and forced them to take up grammar instead of elementary science whether they wished it or not. The School Board of London, and, he believed, of Liverpool also, had passed resolutions condemning this provision of the Code. Surely it was a great anomaly that when they had a School Board representing 4,000,000 of people they could not trust them on such a point as that. There was one other body of persons in whose name he implored his right hon. Friend not to harden his heart against the appeal. He meant those mainly concerned—the school children themselves. On a previous occasion he mentioned to the House the result of votes he had taken in several schools between the different subjects, and that elementary science was by far the most popular. Of course, he had never used this as an argument for excluding other subjects; but it seemed to him a very strong one against excluding science. He should never forget a lesson he heard in one of the Liverpool schools. He wished his right hon. Friend could
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have heard that lesson, and seen the eager attention of the children, their vivid interest, and bright faces; it would have pleaded for his Amendment with irresistible eloquence. He would venture to give the House another of his own experiences. He persuaded the master of the school in his village to take up elementary astronomy. The schoolmaster was very reluctant to make the experiment. He had no taste for science, and knew little about it. Still, he consented. A year later came out the last Code, which made grammar and history practically obligatory. The schoolmaster then called on him in some distress, and asked if it was really necessary to give up the astronomy, as he was not prepared to take up three subjects. He explained to him that it was, but said he thought he would have been glad of the change, "Oh, Sir," he said, "you know I did not wish to take up astronomy; but as soon as I began I found the children were so much interested; it brightened them up so much that they learnt their other lessons all the better, and I should, therefore, be very sorry to give it up." That, he believed, was the general experience of those schools in which elementary science had been taught. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, in his charming Life of Macaulay, said that that great man, who had everything which ability, wealth, and rank could give him, derived his greatest happiness from books. That source of enjoyment would be open to the poorest of those children if they taught them how to use it; but the Code forced on all schools one subject, and that the driest and most technical, the most distasteful of all to the minds of children. They were anxious, on the contrary, to make the schools as interesting to the children as possible. People often talked of teaching children to read as if it consisted in the mere mechanical act of deciphering the letters and transforming the written characters into audible sound and mental images. But teaching a child how to read and teaching it to read were two totally different things. They had not taught them to read if they have not taught them to love reading. In reading one of the last numbers of The Journal of Education he was much struck by an experience of a schoolmistress. She had some difficulty with her school, till

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one day she thought of giving a lesson on animals. The effect seemed to have been magical; the children were delighted. She had no longer any reason to complain of absence or inattention, and they strove to behave well at other lessons for fear of being excluded from this one. Thus this lesson actually became are ward. No doubt in education they must have must that was tedious, much that taxed the memory. That made it so much the more necessary to introduce some subject of a different character. They did not ask for the introduction of any subjects of a difficult or abstruse character. They did not ask that any subject should be made compulsory. All they begged for was that those elementary lessons on familiar objects should be placed on the same footing as grammar—that the book of Nature should not be shut out from the schools of England.
MR. STORY-MASKELYNEsaid, that no reasonable person could doubt the advisability of taking some steps in the direction of the Amendment of his bon. Friend the Member for the University of London. He thought the managers ought to have the option of two or three different subjects. There would be difficulties raised, no doubt, to that course, and the same sort of answer would be given as had been given to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Collings); and they would be told that the Code was elaborate, but could not, in present circumstances, be made much less elaborate. The question as between the subjects under discussion, as it appeared to him, resolved itself into a discussion as to the relatively educational character of those subjects. And here he would assert that none of the other subjects presented to his mind a better educational implement than did some of the simpler forms of natural science. It was true that there was some difficulty in teaching those branches of science well, and they might easily be taught in a dry and uninteresting manner, so as to have little value. He knew that in teaching them they were often not made educational; but, on the other hand, neither were the other subjects. The subject of history, for instance, was by no means, even in their aspect as subjects for examination at the Universities, of high educational value. For history, as taught ordinarily, was little more than an exercise for the
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memory. English and literature, he admitted, had a very high educational value, while geography, to be taught at all usefully, trenched on more than one branch of science. Natural science, on the other hand, dealt with what the child was in contact with on every side, exercising his observant faculties and awaking his interest, while forming his mind by the more or less exact study of what was above him and around him. English and literature were not likely to be neglected by managers or teachers who had the whole career of the child in which to teach them; while, of the remaining subjects, he maintained that there was no one which could be made so educational as that of natural science. But the discretion ought to lie with the managers, who would teach what the staff were best qualified to teach, and what was most suitable to the wants of the children and the requirements of the particular district. He therefore supported the proposal of his hon. Friend, and hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to make some concession. But, before sitting down, he desired to express a hope that as time went on and Codes got developed, the right hon. Gentleman or his successors might get a firmer hold, at least on the children in urban and densely peopled districts, up to and beyond their 13th year; so that their education might be of some real value in the class of subjects to which the attention of the House had been drawn in the Amendment of his hon. Friend. In this way primary education might become the stepping stone to, without superseding, that secondary education which it might be hoped the Department would take in hand at no remote future.
VISCOUNT SANDONsaid, that the position of natural science had of late years materially changed in our elementary schools. Men were made shy of the subject by the grand terms applied in the New Code to its different branches. The question, in his view, was—What were really the subjects of instruction in elementary science to which children in the first four Standards were going to be subjected? After all, the first four Standards were the really important matter. Subjects 1, 2, and 3 were common objects, such as familiar animals; then came more advanced objects, such

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as animals and plants, with particular reference to agriculture, art, and manufacture, together with the thermometer. Now, hose were very much, after all, what were considered formerly among the teaching of "common things" Those were subjects of teaching which gave very interesting views; and he thought, unless the Vice President of the Council suggested some very grave difficulties in this matter, that the time had come when it would be well to give a freedom to schools to allow the elementary science being taken up at the option of the manager. He thought the whole tendency of action in regard to schools of late years had been to feel their way towards giving the greater option to managers with regard to the subjects to be taught in the schools. It had been so when he was Vice President, and the same policy had been followed by his noble Friend the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton). As time went on, no doubt the tendency would be to give greater freedom in this respect; and he, for one, rejoiced in the prospect. The greater variety of choice the managers had, the better it would be for the children. His hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) had ably advocated, on that and other occasions, the claims of natural science. He quite agreed with the hon. Baronet that the great thing was to make children, as far as possible, observe and think. Beading, writing, and arithmetic were the three great primary objects. With reference to the Code generally, he would not like to go into details at that late hour; but he very much regretted that they apparently would have no opportunity of discussing this most important document. He did not know whether the Vice President could hold out to them any hopes of further discussing it; but he (Viscount Sandon), for one, must put in a distinct protest against that important Paper becoming the law of all schools without further sifting. It was probable it would be some months yet before those interested in it would have really understood or completely mastered it. He rejoiced at the prospect of simplification, for, from experience of four years in the Education Department, he was not quite so hopeful as the right hon. Gentleman of making it a simple Code. Though he recognized the earnest de-
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sire there was to make it simple, the more he saw the more he felt it was a duty to make it a simple document. However, it had his best wishes, as it had those of all who were interested in the schools. It seemed to him the whole action of the Code in the future turned very much on the conduct of the Inspectors in wielding the great powers which were about to be placed in their hands. It was to be regretted, however, that at the time when the Inspectors were made very important personages, they should be somewhat checked in the freedom of their criticisms on the action of the Department. He gathered from the Circular that in future they were not to criticize the Code which they administered. Whoever had been at the head of the Department had often received suggestions that the criticisms of the Inspectors, in their Annual Reports, should be checked; but he had always resisted any interference with the freedom of the Inspectors in this respect, because he thought it was of the greatest advantage to the country that there should be free discussion in the Blue Books as to our educational system. There was one important change made with respect to the grants for the three elementary subjects; of course, it was one of the cardinal changes of the Code. Just before coming to the House he received an important letter from the clerk of the school board at Liverpool, which had most admirably carried out the whole of the educational system for the last 10 years. With the permission of the House he would read from that letter a passage which raised a grave doubt as to one important matter in the Code. The writer said—
"You will observe that by Article 109 (e) the amount of this grant per head on the average attendance is to be regulated by the percentage of passes obtained to those which might have been obtained at an examination in which all children whose names had been on the rolls of the school for the last 22 weeks of the school year, and are so still on the day of inspection, must be presented. This makes it to be the direct interest of managers and teachers that no child should fulfil these conditions who is not likely to be successful in the examination, and, therefore, inevitably tends to the exclusion of backward children. To illustrate the working of the proposed grants for elementary subjects, I am desired to take the cases of two schools each with an average attendance of 100, one of which (a) having been gradually purged of all backward scholars as the day of examination approached, presents and passes 90 children; while the other (b), which has taken no such

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precautions, presents 100, of whom five fail. The grant to the two schools would be as follows—viz. (a) 100 times 8s. 4d., or £41 13 s. 4d., and (b) 100 times 7s. 11 d., or £39 l1 s. 8d.—the difference between7 s. l1 d. and 8s. 4d. arising from the fact that the first school has passed 100 per cent of the number presented, and the other only 95 per cent, although the latter has actually passed five children more than the former, in addition to having given conscientious instruction to the five children who failed, but whom the first school would have excluded."
This letter raised a very important point, which he felt sure would receive careful consideration from the right hon. Gentleman. There was another point of change in the Code that he personally regretted, although he believed his right hon. Friend was justified in making it—he meant the dropping of the honour certificates. It was a very great pity that the scheme was not re-modelled, instead of being dropped altogether. He might have been faulty in his provisions respecting it; but still he thought the principle itself was a sound one—namely, that when the children of the whole working class were being driven into the schools, certain exhibitions should be provided to act as an encouragement to them. Thus, they would not be merely driven to school, but encouraged to remain there. He believed the honour certificate might be rendered very valuable if it were worth something like a small scholarship; and he hoped that, as time went on, the subject might be re-handled. Another change which he regarded with some suspicion was that relating to the grants to small rural schools. In the Act of 1876 the late Government provided that grants should be made to such schools, and there was a proposal in the New Code to strike off these grants. He must strongly plead for these small schools in the interest of the rural population, as it was most important that the children should not be forced to go to larger schools at a distance, at a greater cost of strength and anxiety. He desired now to make a few remarks on one of the most important clauses of this New Code—namely, that relating to the merit grant. The right hon. Gentleman had omitted the definition of discipline that had been in the Code for seven or eight years. The following was the definition which he put into the Code seven or eight years ago:—
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"To meet the requirements respecting discipline, the managers and teachers will be expected to satisfy the Inspector that all reasonable care is taken in the ordinary management of the school to bring up the children in habits of punctuality, of good manners and language, of cleanliness and neatness, and also to impress upon the children the importance of cheerful obedience to duty, of consideration and respect for others, and of honour and truthfulness in word and act."
He and his Colleagues thought that it was very important that the State should speak out boldly on this subject, after having determined to take no part in religious teaching. School boards and managers of schools—Church of England, Nonconformist, and Roman Catholic—had written letters thanking the then Government, and himself as representing it, for having thus strengthened the hands of managers and teachers in maintaining a high moral tone in the schools. The most valued Inspectors hailed with the greatest cordiality the step which was taken at that time. One of them, who represented the Department in Yorkshire for some time, said—
"It is quite certain that unless discipline is well maintained the best instruction is worthless. I am very glad, therefore, that under the New Code a grant is to be made to schools where the discipline is satisfactory, and that certain requirements must be fulfilled for the grant to be earned. Unless I am much mistaken, this explicit statement of the teachers' duties will mark an important epoch in our educational history. Definite rules are now for the first time given, and the objects to be aimed at are distinctly prescribed. A wider and higher meaning is now attached to the word 'discipline,' which signifies not merely the maintenance of order, but moral training. The best opportunity of testing discipline is afforded by visits paid without notice, when the school is seen in its ordinary working dress."
Another Inspector, in the Sheffield district, observed—
"The special grant for discipline is evidently tending to make teachers more attentive to the bearing and conduct of their scholars. It is, I find, a matter of general satisfaction that the importance of moral discipline, as well as mere outward order, is now recognized by the Department. This declaration on your Lordship's part that the above are essential elements in the education which the nation desires to secure for its citizens is, I feel convinced, having a good effect; it is, as I have found by personal experience, not only a means of strengthening the hands of your Inspectors when they feel obliged to call attention to defects in the moral discipline of any school, but it is also an encouragement to those who cling to the belief that the true ideal of national education includes the training of the mind and heart, and the formation of the moral character."

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Again, an Inspector from Wales wrote—
"But, after all, to give true education, hand-in-hand with this mere instruction must go the discipline of mind and body; and with hearty goodwill did I greet those words on discipline first introduced some two years ago into the Code."
It might interest the House to know how they came to insert this definition of discipline. What first brought it to his mind personally was the reading of a most remarkable definition laid down by the Queen as to the highest qualities of a British sailor on the occasion of Her Majesty giving a gold medal to a sailor on board one of the training ships. In much the same way their object was to lay down in the Code the model of the character which the teachers should attempt to encourage. The right hon. Gentleman opposite was, he knew, as eager as possible to promote the moral character of the schools; and, that being so, there could be no reason for taking away the standard that they wished the scholars to copy. The present time afforded a most admirable opportunity for efforts in this direction, as there would soon be 5,000,000 of children in the schools and an army of 50,000 trained teachers. There were many other matters connected with the Code to which he would not now call attention; but he wished, before he sat down, to make an appeal to his right hon. Friend. The prosperity of schools hereafter, from a monetary point of view, would depend on the attendance of children. For the sake of the thousands of children who attended no school, and for the sake of the hundreds who only attended irregularly, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would lose no opportunity of impressing on the School Attendance Committees of school boards the absolute necessity of enforcing the regular attendance of children. He (Viscount Sandon) put a strong clause into the Act enabling the Vice President of the Council of Education to supersede School Attendance Committees for neglect, and appoint two or three gentlemen at a suitable remuneration for a period of two years to fulfil their duties. If the right hon. Gentleman would only appoint one or two of these Committees, there would be a general alertness aroused on the part of School Attendance Committees throughout the country. The country was greatly indebted to the right hon.
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Gentleman for his labours in reference to the children under his charge; and, having done so much, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not forget that their moral welfare was quite as much cherished by the people of England and the parents of England as their intellectual qualities.
MR. LYULPH STANLEY, who had the following Amendment on the Paper:—
"That the existing system of training colleges being mainly under denominational management, and the admission of students being entirely in the hands of the college authorities, is unsatisfactory and inadequate at the present day as affording no protection to the rights of conscience of the students, and as tending to exclude those students who come from Board Schools who are desirous and well qualified to pursue the career of elementary teachers; and that the School Boards of this country, which now educate a continually increasing proportion of all the children attending public elementary schools in England and Wales, are entitled for their teachers to an un-sectarian system of training, with the protection of a conscience clause,"
said, he agreed with the noble Lord opposite as to the importance of regular school attendance; but thought that this was a matter upon which his speech should have been addressed to the Home Secretary rather than to the Vice President of the Council. The experience of the London School Board was that the magistrates formed the most serious obstruction in the way of carrying out the work of elementary education; and, moreover, after parents had been brought before the magistrates, and after the magistrates had imposed a fine upon them, the Summary Jurisdiction Act, by substituting distress for imprisonment, had imposed an almost insuperable obstacle to the work of school boards. The London School Board had been obliged to leave the coercive bye-laws almost in suspense, because they shrank from applying so cruel a remedy against the poor. The imposition of a term of imprisonment in 99 cases out of 100 produced the payment of the fine; whereas, to enforce distress, might cost from £1 10 s. to £2, and often caused great misery to innocent wives and children. In listening to the remarks of both the hon. Baronet and the noble Lord, be felt the difficulty of discussing the details of the Code in the House of Commons. Many of them were for the consideration of experts, and the question raised by the

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hon. Baronet was pre-eminently one of that category. The House was fitted well enough to deal with great principles, but not to settle minute details, and the Privy Council ought to have a wide discretion allowed to it with regard to minor matters. As to the subject of his Resolution, the Vice President of the Council stated in the debate last year that he was strongly of opinion that no student ought to be excluded from College on account of his religious opinions, and that he would look into it and take steps to remedy any grievance. Since that time the matter had been taken up by a great many school boards, including those of London, Bradford, and Ipswich; and the Department, in reply to the representations from Bradford, had stated that it was contemplated shortly to establish three new Training Colleges, two of which would be undenominational. But any such remedy as that would be quite inadequate to the grievance complained of. The grievance was that the entrance to the profession of teachers was almost entirely in the hands of Colleges which were irresponsible in their management, and mainly sectarian in their teaching. If the Training Colleges were strictly voluntary institutions, Parliament would have nothing to say to their management; but they were not in any respect voluntary or private. It was true that a great part of their original cost was defrayed by private subscriptions; but about three-tenths of it was supplied by the State. The question, however, was not the original cost, but the annual maintenance; and of the whole yearly expenditure of those Colleges only 15 per cent was defrayed by private subscriptions, while 85 per cent was defrayed by the State and by the fees of the students. If the Training Colleges defrayed their own expenses without coming to Parliament for a Vote, they might conduct their business on the narrowest basis they pleased. But when the managers came to Parliament for an annual grant to subsidize their labours, the House of Commons was morally as well as legally justified in looking into the system of management, and, if it thought fit, in imposing new conditions upon which the annual grant should be obtained. He did not think that he would have any difficulty in persuading hon. Members on that side of
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the House that the undenominational system of Training Colleges was the best. In 1839, when Lord Melbourne first constituted the Educational Committee of Privy Council, the first proposition was that the State should establish undenominational Training Colleges; but the proposal was defeated by the obstinate resistance of the Bishops and the Tory Party. He hoped the Liberals of the House of Commons in 1882 were not less in favour of undenominational and unsectarian teaching than their Predecessors more than 40 years ago. When the opposition succeeded, the State deliberately handed over to the various sects the task of doing the work of the nation. But all knew that when they undertook to encourage the sects, all the money and the patronage fell, in point of fact, into the hands of the most powerful sect which enjoyed the privilege of establishment. When there was a concordat between the Government and the Bishops, when the Government Inspectors were bound to be clergymen, when their nomination was to be approved by the two Archbishops, who could also, by withdrawing their approval, procure their dismissal, it was no wonder that from 1840 to 1870 they should have side by side a system of denominationalism in the day schools and in the Training Colleges. But in 1870 was passed an Act which, in spite of its shortcomings, was one of the most progressive this country had ever seen, and which first recognized the duty of providing national education. A truly national system was then established, which had increased with such rapid strides that nearly 30 per cent of all the children in this country were now educated in Board schools; and yet the Church Training Colleges had 580 more places than were necessary for supplying the Church schools; the Wesleyan and Roman Catholic Colleges had more than their share; while the Board schools and British schools, forming the undenominational part of our national system, which provided for more than 38 per cent of the children, had only 15 per cent of the Training College accommodation of the country. If undenominational school children had an adequate proportion of Training College accommodation supplied to them, there would be 780 more institutions for that purpose than there were now. He thought

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that great injustice was done by compelling undenominational students to enter the Training Colleges, because they were called upon to violate their consciences by taking part in the religious instruction of the College. It was most undesirable that students should be placed in such a position as to be tempted to barter away their consciences for the material advantages which those Training Colleges offered. He wished to ask hon. Members who were connected with Yorkshire if they had ever considered the wretched state of things existing with regard to Training Colleges there? That county, with all its activity, and what some hon. Members opposite might perhaps call its aggressive Nonconformity, had only two small Church of England Training Colleges—one for masters at York, and one for mistresses at Ripon. There was no choice there whatever. At Ripon the candidates for admission were asked if they had been baptized and confirmed, and the Communion was practically re-imposed as a test, although he should have thought Churchmen would have considered that a desecration of the Sacrament. There was also an entrance examination in the Prayer Book. Now, if the educational results had been good, some might make light of the religious difficulty; but, as the Reports showed, the results were deplorably bad, for at the 1880 Examination York College came out at the bottom of the list. Whereas, in the average of Training Colleges in England, 40 per cent of males passed in the 1st division, at York only 3 per cent passed; and instead of the average of 12 per cent in the 3rd division, it was there the very excessive number of 36 per cent in the lowest rank. Yet, young Baptists from Bradford and Halifax must get baptized in dozens, like the conquered Saxons, and get up a Catechism they did not believe in in order, if they went to a Church College, to have their intellectual ability spoiled and come out in the 3rd division. Turning to another important centre of the country's activity and industry—Lancashire and Cheshire—and omitting reference to the Catholic College at Liverpool, he found that there were only two Church of England Colleges available—one at Chester for males, and another at Warrington for females. At the latter there were the same condi-
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tions of admission as at Ripon; but neither Warrington nor Chester was as bad as Ripon or York, although both fell below the average. Surely much injustice was done to the activity of this great district; and no one could doubt that the energy which had there done so much for other purposes would produce satisfactory results if applied to the establishment of Training Colleges. Insufficiency of means caused this inefficiency; but be refused to recognize any vested interest in the ignorance of the people of this country. He thought the school boards ought to establish Colleges of their own. The interests of the country ought not to be sacrificed to the requirements of denominations. But he should be met with the usual charge of reckless expenditure. Let him take London as an example. The London School Board educated 270,000 children. There were 3,700 teachers, and would soon be 4,000. More than 300 fresh teachers were required every year. Therefore, they ought to have Colleges accommodating 600 pupils, as the course lasted two years; so that they might be enabled to supply annually 100 fresh masters and 200 fresh mistresses. In the existing Colleges the cost to the subscribers was £17 a-year for each male pupil and £12 for each female. He thought those sums were too small, and would allow £30 for the males and £20 for the females. The total annual cost would even then only be £7,000; and, allowing £3,000 as a sinking fund for the re-payment of capital, £10,000, or a sum less than a rate of one-tenth of 1d. in the pound. The Denominational Colleges should no longer be allowed to enjoy the monopoly they had hitherto enjoyed. If something was not done very shortly in that matter, he believed the claim would be raised that they should put an end altogether to that system of utterly irresponsible and private management which neither satisfied the rights of conscience nor gave security for efficient instruction.
LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he wished, before coming to the terms of the Motion to which he desired to call the attention of the House, to refer briefly to some of the speeches which had been made that night. And, first, as to the proposal of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), he confessed that

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he cordially sympathized with it. When he was himself Vice President of the Council, the hon. Baronet brought forward the proposal that natural science should be one of the class subjects in elementary schools; and, although objections were then urged against it by more experienced authorities on education, he had thought the balance of argument was in favour of the proposal. Since then the Vice President of the Council had made alterations in regard to those class subjects, and imposed some limitations to which the hon. Baronet objected; but unless there were very strong administrative reasons to the contrary, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would give a favourable consideration to the suggestion of the hon. Baronet, and allow teachers and managers fuller option as to the subjects they might teach as class subjects. He had listened to the vehement denunciations of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) against the system of Denominational Colleges. That hon. Member had evidently a strong dislike of anything like denominationalism in connection either with schools or Colleges except in the case of the Roman Catholics. He was curious to know why the hon. Member made that exception, and he supposed it was because a great number of Roman Catholics who took an interest in the Training Colleges resided in Oldham. But, be that as it might, those Colleges had long been established, and they were recognized upon a certain understanding. If it could be shown that they had led to the violation of conscience, or to the imposition of unfair conditions upon candidates for admission, then it would be the duty of the Vice President of the Council to interfere. But he believed that, as a rule, the complaints in that matter came from candidates who had failed in the examinations, and who were, perhaps, naturally inclined to attribute their want of success to some unfairness. If it were true that the present Colleges were not sufficient to meet the growing demand for teachers, the remedy was clear; let them add to the number of Training Colleges. He certainly did not think the country would be of opinion that the Government ought to accede to the proposal of the hon. Member for Oldham, which practically meant the destruction of Colleges which had
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unquestionably done much to promote elementary education in this country. Adverting to the important Minute of Council, known as the New Education Code, he agreed with the hon. Member for Oldham that all those Codes must necessarily be very technical, and that it was almost impossible to discuss their detail with advantage in that House. There were, however, one or two points among the minuter details of the Code to which he wished to ask the attention of the Vice President of the Council. One of the alterations made in it was, that the number of hours during which pupil teachers might give instruction in the schools was reduced from 30 to 25. No doubt the motive of that change was a humane one—namely, to prevent pupil teachers from being overworked; but it must be remembered that they formed part of the teaching staff in every school, and especially in the rural schools, and that, if that abridgement of the hours was insisted upon, it would disorganize the whole arrangements of the school. He hoped, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would not be unwilling to reconsider that point. The Resolution which he had purposed putting on the Notice Paper last Friday night if the House had not been counted out was to the effect that the House, while approving of many of the changes made in the Code, was of opinion that the introduction of the new Standard VII., under which children of the middle classes could, up to any age, obtain secondary education in primary schools receiving public money, was contrary to the understanding sanctioned in the Acts relating to elementary education. He had taken substantially the same position in a speech he had made two years ago which had been misunderstood. He admitted it was essential that if we were to maintain our commercial supremacy every facility should be afforded for certain of the children of the artizan class getting education in excess of that described as primary; but we were now going further than that. Of course, all children must start from the same point, and receive primary instruction; but the difference between primary and secondary instruction was considered to be determined by the age at which instruction was expected to cease. Elementary education was supposed to end at 14,

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and secondary education was supposed to be continued up to 16 or later; and there had been a good deal of legislation on the basis of the difference thus defined. Hitherto the Elementary Code had prescribed six Standards; but now a seventh was added, and whereas hitherto a scholar must be presented in a Standard higher than that in which he had already passed, he might pass more than once in the Seventh Standard. That would give masters and mistresses great inducements to keep children at school as long as possible. He would not in the least object to that if they were bonâ fide the children of the working classes; but it was clear that this would be the setting up of a system of secondary education, and that middle-class children would chiefly benefit by it. When he was Vice President of the Council he received communications on the subject from Bradford, Sheffield, and Barrow-in-Furness. They expressed a demand for higher elementary education, which he thought might be safely acceded to on certain conditions, and he sanctioned the establishment of a certain number of higher-grade schools at a fee of 9d. on certain conditions, which were embodied in the Code of 1880. The two safeguards were that the instruction was not to be continued above the age of 15, and that not more than 10 per cent of the scholars were to pay 9d. One school board had proposed to charge 1s. or more, and in order to bring the school within the statutory limits of 9d. per head to associate with the higher-grade school an infant school with a fee of 1d. In the New Code there was no definition of elementary education, so that any subject could be taught; there was no limitation as to the amount of money which might be spent; and there was no definition of the classes who might send their children to the schools. Even a Member of Parliament might send his children to them. He did not object to that so long as it was elementary and not secondary instruction that was given. With payments by results, the system encouraged teachers to prefer intelligent children who could do their home lessons well, pass examinations, and increase the grant earned by the school. One of the difficulties of everyone who had had any personal experience of the administration of the Education Votes was, that if they sanctioned a first-rate
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school with a low fee in a poor district, because the district was poor, there was the greatest possible inducement on the part of the teachers to try and draw into it children of a higher class than was intended for it. Taking all these things into consideration, it was quite clear that if they were going to set up a system of secondary education along with the primary schools, undoubtedly more and more of the middle class would go there, because they would attain, not primary, but secondary education. He believed that various school boards were setting up these schools. The Endowed Schools' Commission were re-organizing, on certain principles, the various endowments in England, and they were establishing secondary schools; but there was nothing to support such schools except the endowments, and, consequently, it was found necessary to insist on the payment of a fee enormously in advance, of the fee paid for elementary education. He had hitherto stated only his own opinions. He frankly admitted that but very little weight might be attached to his opinions, because he had had very little experience in connection with the subject; but the Report on which he based his opinions was a Report made some years ago upon Education in England, which formed the basis of the action of the Endowed Schools and Charity Commissioners, and which furnished Mr. W. E. Forster, the then Vice President of the Council, with many of the arguments he brought forward in support of his Elementary Education Act of 1870. The Noblemen and Gentlemen who sat upon the Commission were Lord Taunton, Dr. Hook, Lord Derby, the Bishop of Exeter, Mr. W. E. Forster, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir Edward Baines, and Sir Thomas Acland. The Commissioners, in their Report, summed up the whole matter in a few sentences, and placed in an intelligible form the precise difference between secondary and primary education. They said—
"It is found that, viewed in this way, education, as distinct from direct preparation for employment, can at present he classified as that which is to stop at about 14, that which is to stop at about 16, and that which is to continue till 18 or 19; and for convenience we shall call these the 3rd, the 2nd, and the 1st grade of education respectively. The difference in the time assigned makes some difference in the very nature of the education itself. If a boy cannot remain at school beyond the age of 14, it is useless to begin teaching him such subjects as re-

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quire a longer time for their proper study; if he can continue till 18 or 19, it may be expedient to postpone some studies that would otherwise be commenced early. Both the substance and the arrangement of the instruction will thus greatly depend on the length of time that can be devoted to it."
And this was the conclusion to which the Commissioners arrived—
"It is obvious that these distinctions correspond roughly, but by no means exactly, to the gradations of society. Those who can afford to pay more for their children's education will also, as a general rule, continue that education for a longer time."
If that were so, what followed? Why, that the richer a man was the longer he kept his son at school, and the poorer he was the sooner he had to take him away. The children of the richer classes stopped at school longer than the children of the poorer classes, and if the Government grant was to go to these schools, then it followed that the longer a child was at school the more he got of the public money. Consequently, as the child of the rich man remained longest he received the largest sum, and that was exactly the reverse of the principle on which the grant was given, because the purposes and object for which the grant was originally given were to promote the education of the children who belonged to the humblest classes. [Mr. MUNDELLA: That is not the Act.] He (Lord George Hamilton) admitted that that was not the Act. There was nothing in the Act which made such a declaration; but he maintained that that was the object of the grant. And what must be the inevitable result? He contended that this spurious system of secondary education was detrimental to the elementary or primary education of the mass of the scholars who went to the elementary schools. He was aware that he spoke a little feelingly upon the matter; but he believed it to be one which afforded considerable ground for complaint. Every boy who went into a great public school was put through exactly the same course of classical instruction as if he were going to College, and were to aspire for honours; whereas, as a matter of fact, 19 boys out of 20 did not go to College, but left early, at the age of 17 or 18, in order to seek employment, and seldom obtained a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek. In other words, their education was sacrificed in order that a few other boys
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might obtain the classical knowledge necessary to enable them to proceed to the Universities. He thought care ought to be taken that the children of the poorer classes, to whom a general knowledge was absolutely necessary, did not suffer from the efforts that were made to provide secondary instruction, and that all of them were thoroughly grounded in all elementary and more necessary subjects. He had now stated very briefly what were his reasons for calling attention to this important matter, in reference to the present Code. The Vice President, or rather the Lord President, was now raising the limitation in regard to age, and a boy could remain at school up to the age of 21. Certainly that was not the education of the children of the working classes. He did not believe that 100 children, above the age of 15, who were bonâ fide sons of working men, were in the schools of the Kingdom at the present moment; and if this system of education were suffered to continue, the children who received it would be the children of the middle classes. Who would obtain the prizes and exhibitions? The children of the middle classes, of course. He quite admitted the difficulties in the way of the Vice President in dealing with these graded schools; but if they were sanctioned it would be absolutely necessary to put a limitation of some kind upon them. Could they limit the expenditure? He admitted that it would be unwise to define the character of the children who were to be admitted; but they could lay down a limit in regard to age—that was to say, that no child after a certain age should attend the elementary schools, and if there were exceptionally able children belonging to the working classes, he would be quite ready to consent to a liberal system of exhibitions, or scholarships, by which such children would go on to the second grade or into the purely secondary schools. He could not consider that if the Code passed in its entirety, and there was no such limitation as he had mentioned imposed on the elementary schools or the scholars in England, it would be soon found necessary to legislate in one direction or the other. In Scotland, although the children of all classes attended the parochial schools, yet the practice was for the children to pay a higher fee in proportion to the Standard they attained, and the parents

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did not object to that. In Ireland there had been an endeavour in the last few years to improve the elementary education by an intermediate system of examination. What he felt was, that if anything was done in order to give facilities for the children in the elementary schools to obtain an education in excess of that which it was anticipated at the time the Education Acts were passed they would demand, he thought they ought to seek to bring forward some scheme that would be a little more uniform, and would not have the disadvantage of allowing one Department to compete with another. At the present moment they had the Charity Commissioners on one side of Whitehall, and the Education Department on the other, with schemes of education absolutely incompatible with one another. There could be very little doubt that if the Education Department were to succeed, and this Code were to become law, it would altogether kill the secondary schools established by the Endowed Schools Commissioners. He said, then, that whatever they did, let them do it openly; and he wished to warn the House against giving its assent to the passing of this Code without a protest, because, if it did so, it would be sanctioning, by a side-wind, a spurious system of secondary education. The proposed system, certainly, did seem to abolish all distinction which previously existed between primary and secondary education, by increasing the age and altering the bye-laws on which the schools now rested. He contended that the children who would suffer most from this spurious system of secondary education were the children of the working classes, for whom the existing system of education was mainly intended. He therefore said to the Government—Do one of two things. If you change the Code so much, bring in a Bill to put under Parliamentary control, not only the higher grade of elementary schools, but all the secondary schools now promoted by the Endowed Schools Commissioners. On the other hand, if they did not propose to go that length, and did not think that the time had arrived when secondary education should be promoted by money from the State, they would have no alternative but to come to the conclusion at which he had arrived, and accept this spurious system of education
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imposing some limit on the money grant, the subjects taught, or on the age of the children who attended the schools.
MR. MUNDELLA: If I do not answer all the speeches which have been made at the length I should if I had had the opportunity of answering them earlier, I hope, looking at the hour of the night (12.15), I shall not be thought disrespectful to any Member of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) complains that we have not given sufficient freedom for science, and he is anxious for several things in reference thereto. His Resolution says—
"That it is desirable to allow School Boards and Committees to present children for examination in any of the recognized class subjects."
Now, Sir, the whole of the evidence and the whole of the experience of the Education Department is that that is really impossible, considering the short school-life of the great majority of English children, to encourage children who leave the schools when they pass the Fourth Standard that they are not only to be acquainted with reading, writing, and arithmetic, but that they must also read history, and must attain English elementary science and geography as class subjects. That is more than can possibly be put on children who leave school when they have passed the Fourth Standard. A great number of our children having passed the Fourth Standard go out to labour at as early as 10 years of age, especially in the agricultural districts. Out of 14,000 there are 9,000 who go out after having passed the Fourth Standard, and I would ask anyone who has examined the question, whether it is possible, within the short school-life of those who have reached the Fourth Standard, to crowd all these subjects upon a child, and have them all equally well taught? The whole object of our Code is thoroughness. We want to secure that what is done is done well, that the children who only have reading, writing, and arithmetic shall attain—the girls needlework, and the boys English, with a knowledge of geography; and that they shall have a good acquaintance with them all. The experience of all of our best Inspectors is that any attempt to force more upon them is to dissipate their energies, confuse their minds, and leave them in the end ill-educated. If the House will only give to us what

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Germany does, and what France has this morning given—namely, the power to keep the children at school up to a definite age, and not to allow a child to leave until he has reached 13 or 14 years of age, then we say—"You may teach such children the whole of these subjects; but, as long as they can in any way pass from the school, and, under bye-laws, go out to work at 10 years of age, it is impossible to exact from them all that you are attempting to obtain." Under pressure from my hon. Friend, I placed certain specific subjects in the Fourth Standard, and I pledged myself to the House that I would thoroughly investigate the question of science-teaching in the case of children who reached that Standard, and satisfy myself whether it would be possible to teach specific subjects properly in the Fourth Standard. And I said if I found I could not do so I would advance a Standard, and put those subjects in the Fifth. But I am bound to say that the result of our observations is, that to attempt to make children physiologists and political economists before they are 10 years of age is attempting too much. A system that aims at that results in mere cram, and under such a system the whole Standard-work is neglected, while the child's mind, so far from its being enlarged, is deteriorated. My hon. Friend refers to the case of Liverpool, and he says that the effect of the Code, as it stands, will be to cut off something like one-half or three-fifths of the science-teaching in that town, that is to say, with regard to children who have not passed the Fourth Standard. But, Sir, we have allowed what is, in fact, a large measure of science-teaching in addition to the Standard-work, and that is a point which my hon. Friend has apparently overlooked. We have made geography one of the class subjects, two of which can be taken up; and my hon. Friend complains that only two of the subjects named—English geography, and elementary science and history—can be taken up. Let us suppose that English, and one other class subject—say, geography—are taken up. Although we have simplified the subject of geography, we have included in that branch physical and political geography; and it no longer means something to be learned by rote, such as a number of names on the map—it is something to be done by means of read-
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ing books and oral lessons, illustrated, so far as possible, by maps, diagrams, specimens, and simple experiments; and the result is that a large amount of science-teaching is associated with physical and political geography, which are included in the 2nd and 3rd classes. The plan of instruction may, therefore, be so varied and worked as to include a large amount of what is really good and suitable in elementary science. I am well aware that science has been most successfully taught in the Liverpool schools. Liverpool has had rare advantages in this respect. It possesses one of the best and most public-spirited School Boards in England. In its schools, however, science is not taught by the ordinary teachers—it is specially taught, and a special Science Demonstrator is employed by the Liverpool School Board, with the successful result which I have alluded to. But if you were to engage the ordinary teacher to take this subject, he would most probably fail in all his work. Therefore, I think it is better to limit the teacher to two of the class subjects named in the Schedule, and that one of these should be English. I believe that a knowledge of our language imparted by the reading of standard English poetry and prose is of more value to the child than any other teaching which can be given to him. In this branch the main portion of the child's time would not, as my hon. Friend supposes, be devoted to grammar. English, in the sense used in the Code, does not mean the teachings of Lindley Murray, of which, I have no doubt, many hon. Gentlemen have a horror. It is a different thing altogether, and our arrangement is one that cannot fail to be most instructive to the child. Then, again, what can be better than to cultivate the imagination of children by imparting a knowledge of good poetry at the time of life when their memory is most capable of retaining imaginative impressions? On the whole, we considered that we could not do better than insist upon English in the First Standard. My own predilections are favourable to freedom, and I have endeavoured to carry out that principle in the Code. I shall give this subject further consideration, and will submit the question to the Council of Her Majesty's Inspectors and the able men who have assisted in framing this Code; and, if it

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be possible, I shall be only too happy to yield to what seems to be a general wish. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Viscount Sandon) has asked me whether there would be further opportunities for discussion? Sir, I regret that this opportunity has been spent in almost anything but discussion of the Code. That, however, has not been my fault, or the fault of the Government. This is not a time for requests and supplications to hon. Members to set aside their Motions in order to meet the wishes of other hon. Members, and I can only again express my regret that there has not been a better opportunity for discussion on the present occasion. But the noble Lords opposite, who have had so much experience in this matter, and who know all the bearings of the question, and who have faced all the difficulties which I myself have encountered, have, I think, expressed everything which, to their minds, appears in the nature of a shortcoming in the Code. Now, I believe that whatever may be the other merits of the Code, it has at least the merit of simplicity. For the first time we have a Code without cross-references, without foot-notes, and which anybody can understand. The credit of this is not due to me, but to the permanent officials in the Department, who deserve all the credit the House can give them. The next point which the noble Lord called attention to was that the Code gave enormous powers to the Inspectors. This is quite true; but in this respect the present Code is the same as its predecessors. Every School Board Code that has been issued gives enormous powers to the Inspectors; and I do not think, on the whole, that, except with regard to the merit grant, the Code gives larger powers than any which has preceded it. We were bound to secure fairness, and some approximation to uniformity of tests applied by Inspectors—a thing which at the establishment of our educational system was much easier than it is now, because formerly there were only some 20 Inspectors, whereas at the present time there are between 110 and 120. The noble Lord must be aware that there has been a great deal of heartburning at the different tests applied by Inspectors; but we believe we shall be able to get rid of these difficulties by the system we have organized, which
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places the whole supervision in the hands of a small number of Inspectors. The noble Lord has expressed some regret at the issue of the Circular, which places some restrictions on the criticisms of Inspectors with regard to the Code which they have to administer. But the Circular in question is not a new one, and I find it was in use when the noble Lord himself was in Office. It is, I believe, simply a reprint of a form which has been in use for many years. The noble Lord has given us the opinion of Mr. Hart, the clerk to the Liverpool School Board, who has expressed his fear that the effect of the regulation of the grant by the percentage of passes would be, in the case of some schools, that the masters would purge them of the backward scholars at examination time, in order to obtain a higher percentage of passes. No doubt, all schools are exposed to some acts of this kind; but it would be the duty of the Inspectors to see that the registers had not been cleared of the backward scholars, and if, on examination, it was found that children were absent without sufficient reason—in other words, if we discovered that any shcool-master had turned out the dunces for the purpose of obtaining a higher percentage, I think it would be right to treat the act as a fraud, and to deprive that schoolmaster of his certificate. I do not think it very likely that such a practice will be resorted to; nevertheless, it is a matter we have not overlooked, and measures will be provided to deal with it. The noble Lord has also expressed regret that a change has been made in the matter of honour certificates. But, as a matter of fact, it has been found that the system of honour certificates, as given by the Department, did not always produce the best results, and we think that better results may be looked for from a system of honour certificates administered by the local authorities. We think that more encouragement to diligence is afforded to a child by the possession of a parchment testimonial, which can be taken away, framed, and hung up at home, than by any intangible proof of merit. With regard to the objection by the noble Lord to the omission of a definition of discipline from the Code, I must remind him that this is hardly a subject which can be dealt with in the Code. It is a matter for the Inspector,

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and the principles referred to in the definition read by the noble Lord are, of course, expected to be enforced in every school. With regard to the apprehension expressed by him, that the extra grants to rural schools would be diminished, I can assure him that there is not the smallest intention of any such reduction. The object of the change in relation to these grants is to prevent large schools in small districts which are fed by neighbouring parishes, from getting extra grants. The noble Lord has referred to the need of impressing upon School Boards and Attendance Committees their duties with respect to the regular attendance of the children, and has also recommended the disestablishment of two or three Committees in case of their failure to enforce regular attendance. Perhaps the noble Lord will be surprised to hear that I have already done this, in some instances with very excellent results. In one district, where the attendance was very bad, we found that the chairman of the Attendance Committee was a large employer of children, who were kept at work contrary to the Act. In this case—the action of the chairman being supported by his brother committeemen—we simply dissolved the Committee and insisted upon the appointment of a new one, with the result that the school attendance nearly doubled. The whole success of this Code turns upon the School Attendance Officers doing their duty; and I can assure hon. Members that the statement of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) is not at all exaggerated when he says that some of the magistrates in the country believe that they are doing parents a kindness in not enforcing the attendance of children at school. We have many appeals from poor men to allow their children to escape from what they believe to be the hardship of the Act; but it must be borne in mind that the hardship is not in compelling the attendance of the children at school, but in the fact that unless they pass the requisite Standards they cannot obtain certificates. Magistrates, therefore, do a most cruel thing in not enforcing the attendance of children at school during their early years. I will do my best to insist on local Attendance Committees doing their duty; and I wish I could do something with regard to the Summary Jurisdiction Act, which is a
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matter of much greater difficulty. Now I come to the very important point raised in the able speech of the hon. Member for Oldham. Nobody could have presented the case to the House with greater force, and yet I cannot agree with the proposition the hon. Member has made. I say at once that we should never have succeeded as well as we have done in enforcing compulsion in England if we had not enlisted all the forces at our command—religious and other bodies. We have 2,000,000 children in the Church schools. Why are they in the Church schools? Because the Church is willing to pay £500,000 or £600,000 a-year to give those children definite religious instruction in the principles of the Church. But how can she do this if the teachers are not trained in these principles? I cannot see how we can insist on sending teachers to Training Colleges which are founded on distinct conditions—which are the subject of special trusts, and have received money for special trusts. We cannot ask them to admit persons of all faiths and creeds, or of no faith or creed, into the family life of those Colleges—and it must be remembered that, after all, it is a family life. I have visited several of these Colleges, and what do I find? In Liverpool there is a Catholic Training College for women, excellently conducted, but practically of conventual life? How can you insist on persons of all creeds being admitted there? I want to know how we can carry out compulsion in England if the Catholics are not to be allowed to teach religious principles in their own schools? In towns like Liverpool, where you have 200,000 or 250,000 Roman Catholics, and like Manchester, Sheffield, and other great towns, it would be impossible to force children into the schools unless you had all the assistance which the religious denominations can give you for that purpose. My hon. Friend says we can trust to the day schools, and why not to the Training Colleges? But day schools and Training Colleges are not on all fours. In regard to the day schools, parents give religious instruction to the children, and can take them to their own church or chapel on Sundays; but what can be done in Training Colleges? There you may have 100 or 200 young women living a life in common, and joining in prayers in common; and how

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can you possibly separate the various religious faiths of those people? I must say I cannot see my way out of this difficulty, except by one method—and there I meet my hon. Friend. Any person who is a fit subject to enter an undenominational College, and desires to enter it, ought to have the right to receive that training. To that extent I am entirely with my hon. Friend, and I will endeavour to secure it; but if my hon. Friend says that will not meet his case, and what he insists on is that we shall break down the denominational principle in these Colleges, then I say you must first change your Act of Parliament, and break down the denominational principle in your schools. The Training Colleges are a necessary corollary of your denominational schools. Let us take the case as it stands. There are about 2,000,000 children taught in denominational schools, to educate whom the various Denominations spend about £750,000 a-year. Why do they do this? In order to give them religious instruction. Then we have the Training Colleges, on which the Church of England has spent £271,000; the Roman Catholics, £60,000; the Wesleyans, £68,000; the British and Foreign Society, £80,000; and the Congregationalists, £30,000; making altogether nearly £520,000, in addition to the Government grant of £114,000. Then let us take the annual income. The total cost of maintenance is about £149,000 a-year. Of this, £109,000 is the Government grant, and the remaining £40,000 is made up of £23,000 in voluntary subscriptions, and £16,000 or £17,000 in rates. The Board schools have 30 per cent of the children on the register; 30·4 per cent of the certificated teachers; 31 per cent of the pupil teachers; 24 per cent of the pupil teachers were admitted into the Training Colleges as students in 1881 from Board schools. In the Church of England Colleges alone about 19 per cent were from Board schools, and 17 per cent of the females and 20 per cent of the males in the Wesleyan Colleges were also from Board schools. It cannot, then, be denied that the teachers employed in the Board schools are of all religious denominations. Many of them—probably as large a proportion of them as of the people generally—are members of the Church of England, many are Wesleyans, many Congregationalists, and many
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of other denominations. Why, then, is the case so unfair as my hon. Friend seems to suppose? All I can say is, that men whom I believe to be thoroughly impartial, and who have investigated the matter with the greatest thoroughness, assure me that there is no practical injustice. However, there are two or three undenominational Colleges under the consideration of the Education Department. Further, I should be glad if I could see my way to establishing day Training Colleges in London. That, I think, would meet the whole case. I think the Church Colleges, and all the other denominational Colleges do very wisely to provide a conscience clause for day students. But my hon. Friend is not content with that, and says it must be outside the existing Colleges. I think that is pushing the matter to an extreme; for if there is room inside, I do not see any necessity for going outside. I stand up as strongly as my hon. Friend for the rights of conscience, and I should resent as strongly as he would the violation of the conscience of any pupil teacher. I will do my best to secure that every pupil teacher who desires undenominational training shall have it; but, at the same time, I cannot say that I would be a party to any attempt to destroy the religious teaching in these Training Colleges. I was sorry to hear what my hon. Friend said about the rudeness, coarseness, and absence of refinement in these Training Colleges. The last Report I have on the Colleges says the Inspector cannot speak too highly of the morale and general tone of the whole body of students. He says the arrangements are excellent, and that efforts are made in every direction to refine and cultivate the taste, and enlarge the ideas of the teachers; and I am sure, when that Report reaches the hands of my hon. Friend, he will find it in striking contrast with his remarks. Just one word more. I have two letters—one from the Principal of one of the British and Foreign Society's Schools, the other from the Principal of the College at Bangor—saying they hardly know how to place the teachers; that there are too many in the market; and that there is no necessity for any more Training Colleges for the middle students. Now I approach the remarks of the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton), my Predecessor

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in the Office I now hold. The noble Lord first raised the question of the hours of work for pupil teachers; and I will tell him what decided me in reducing these hours. Since I have been in the Education Department, I have received frequent representations from the pupil teachers, especially the females, as to their breaking down through extreme stress of work; and I have proof positive from clergymen and medical men of the pupil teachers being shamefully overworked. I have a Memorial from the Liverpool Council of Education praying me to take some steps to reduce the hours. In January, I had an opportunity of going to Liverpool, and I visited the whole of the Training Centres there. There are three or more of them, assisted by the Lady Superintendents. I examined the female pupil teachers as to their hours of work, and I found numbers of those young women working from 7 or 8 in the morning till 10 and 11 at night—week in, week out. The representations made to me were that it was most distressing to see how they lost their health and tone, and became nervous and dyspeptic, through the overwork. I laid the matter before the Council and the whole of the senior Inspectors, every one of whom agreed that a change was desirable; and everyone since appealed to said the same thing—that, if the senior teachers will so arrange their time-tables that at certain hours these pupil teachers may get relief, the necessary relaxation can be provided. However, I am as anxious as the noble Lord that we should not derange the organization of the schools, and the matter shall have my most serious consideration, and no mischief shall result. No mischief can result, because the arrangement does not affect the existing contracts. By the existing contracts the teachers are bound to work 30 hours a week, so that at present no harm can arise, and it will only be the future teachers who will be affected. The final point raised by the noble Lord, and the most important one probably to the House, is that we are trenching on the domain of middle-class instruction. I assure the noble Lord that he has been fighting a shadow, a ghost, or a monster of his own creation. What are the facts? The noble Lord said that we allowed children when they had passed the Sixth Standard to be considered as
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"ex-6," and to go on year after year taking three specific subjects, and, as the result, taking up what an Inspector to-day called "fads," and not solid instruction—this and that of the specific subjects requiring the concentrated attention of the master to manage these few advanced and, probably, clever boys. But the Code of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Viscount Sandon) and the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) allowed these "ex-6" boys to be presented again and again till they were 18 years of age, if they chose to be presented. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON: I put the limit at 15.] The noble Lord put a limit on the 15th year; but let us settle one thing at once. First, as to the curriculum. Is it better that boys who have passed the Sixth Standard in reading, writing, and arithmetic, should get no more instruction, no continuous and regular instruction in plain, good work, which could go on year after year—taking, say, a language and two science subjects, and two class subjects—and draw the full grant; or that, having passed the Sixth Standard, they should do something better in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and so raise the whole tone of the ordinary work of the school? That is all round education; the other is incomplete education; and that was the sole reason for introducing the Seventh Standard. I have the authority of all the best Inspectors for this. I have received hundreds of Memorials in its favour; and the first protest I have heard against it is that by the noble Lord, who thinks he sees an attempt to bring in middle-class education by a side-wind. I assure the noble Lord that that was the very last thing intended. What we want is that the clever boys shall not be driven out of the schools. Every year children are passing at an earlier age. Last year the noble Lord will find, by the Returns, that 150 children passed the Fifth Standard before they were 10 years of age; and some of them also passed the Sixth Standard. What are we going to do with them? They will be "ex-6" at 10 years of age. Can you turn them out of school? Are they to go on to 14, and have no continuous instruction? Are they not improving the whole tone of the reading, writing, and arithmetic, for the benefit of the whole of the children? That is the sole object

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of the Seventh Standard, and I am satisfied that the noble Lord will, on inquiry, find that I am right. But I will grant him one point—namely, that the limitation of age is well worthy of consideration. We simply adopt 18, because there are no children who stop till 18, except poor cripples or children who have been injured in early life, or have suffered long illness. We thought it unnecessary to continue that age any longer, and that misled the ordinary reader of the Code. But as for this year, children can only be paid on passing the Seventh Standard, and, as all the children who are now "ex-6" must pass the Seventh Standard, no harm can happen this year; and T will take care, before the Code is laid on the Table again, that there shall be a limitation of ages to prevent such a possibility as the noble Lord points out. The noble Lord himself created the very schools in which the clever boys are found; I have not had to certify for one; and it is rather hard that he should reproach me for giving this higher education of which he is himself, practically, the author. There are the Bradford School and the Sheffield School; they are the creation of the noble Lord, and they are doing excellent work; and in many instances the children are maintained from 12 to 16 years of age. How? The noble Lord visited the school at Sheffield, and he put forward a particular child, and then said—"This will not do." What was the case? The child had won a scholarship of £10 a-year given by the manufacturers in the town. The child was the son of a poor woman who earned a living by mangling. She was paid £10 a-year to allow the child to continue at the school, and he is the most promising scholar in the school. I hope I have now said enough to satisfy the noble Lord, and to allay the fears of hon. Members who think that we are going to establish, under the pretext of secondary education, a system of middle-class education. That is the last thing we desire. I am afraid I have wasted my own time and the time of the House; but it was necessary to say this much to satisfy the House. I hope I have met, as far as I can, the wishes of the hon. Members who have addressed the House; and that, even late as it is, the House will allow me to make my Statement and to take my Vote.
MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he thought this was one of the most inconvenient debates that the House had ever been called upon to take part in. Having had a desultory discussion for some hours on a subject brought forward by the Government—the Army Bill—and after a long and desultory discussion, the right hon. Gentleman now asked the House to allow the Speaker to leave the Chair at 1 o'clock in the morning, in order that he might make his Statement on the Education Estimates. He never had been an Obstructionist, and did not wish to be; but he thought, if ever there was a case for insisting upon delay, it was this. Of course, he might have to give way; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would himself give way, and allow hon. Gentlemen an opportunity of considering the Statement, and would promise that, on the Report of the Education Vote, there should be an opportunity for the discussion which could not be taken tonight—
MR. MUNDELLA: I have no command of the time of the House.
MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, the points he wished chiefly to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman were—first, the conditions under which the Inspectors were to act under the New Code. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman had sought to minimize the effect of the new alterations, and that his statements were unintentionally misleading, and would lead the House and the country to imagine that Inspectors would have no more influence on the ultimate grant in aid of education than they had previously had. But upon this he wished to point out that, with regard to the merit grants, the schools were to be considered excellent, good, or fair. If they were excellent, they received 3s.; if good, 2s.; if fair, 1s.—all on the average attendance. The case was stronger as to infant schools, which received 6s. for excellent, 4s. for good, and 2s. for fair. All that was to depend entirely upon the individual judgment of the Inspector. A few days ago he had put a question to the right hon. Gentleman, whose answer was, to some extent, satisfactory—namely, that he hoped to organize some system of appeal to the head Inspectors, in order to mitigate, in some degree, the extreme discretion given

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to the Inspectors. It was, however, a question of extreme importance whether, unless instructions to Inspectors were most specific, the schools which did the hard work of teaching the poor children in large towns and in the remote rural districts would not be injured by this extreme discretion. This license to Inspectors was given now for the first time. The right hon. Gentleman, in his natural anxiety to commend his work to the House, had rather misled the House by pressing upon them the necessity for this discretion being given to Inspectors. Then the right hon. Gentleman had gone out of his way, in kindness of heart, to make alterations in regard to pupil teachers. But kindness to one person might be cruelty to another; and there was such a thing as apparent kindness to pupil teachers which would inflict hardship upon the other teachers. Upon the question of reducing the hours of work, a body of school managers and teachers, meeting in Oxford, and having, unfortunately, no Member of their own for that City, had adopted the following resolution:—
"That serious inconvenience and embarrassment would be caused to managers and teachers by the proposed rule to restrict the employment of pupil teachers to 25, instead of 30, hours a-week, as at present. In support of this resolution it is submitted:—I. That the proposed change would he injurious to the order and discipline in the school. II. That in some schools, particularly in rural districts, it would be all but impossible for the head teacher to carry on the work of the school during the occasional absence of a pupil teacher, who may happen to be his sole assistant. III. That it would tend to the withdrawal of pupil teachers from the hour of religious instruction, as a convenient plan of reducing the time of their service to the 25 hours. IV. That there is great danger that the inconvenience resulting from the change would lead to a serious diminution in the number of the pupil teachers employed. V. That the reduction of the hours of employment in school is not the most desirable way of giving relief to pupil teachers, even supposing it to be a fact that they are in any cases suffering from an excessive strain."
Some weight ought to be given to the representations of these school managers, and the House should be very careful lest, in attempting to do an act of kindness to the pupil teachers, they were injuring the other teachers. The right hon. Gentleman had rightly remarked upon the strain put upon the pupil teachers; and if he (Mr. J. G. Talbot) had his way, he would agree with the hon. Baronet (Sir John Lub-
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bock) as to preferring specific subjects, and in the case of almost all the pupil teachers, except the most advanced, he would not require them to be instructed in out-of-the-way subjects, and so diminish the strain put upon them by cramming into their minds all kinds of subjects, which were neither profitable to them nor necessary for them to teach.
SIR HENRY FLETCHERsaid, the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) alluded to many subjects connected with the Code; but they had been mostly subjects relating to schools in large towns. He, being connected with rural populations and immediately connected with rural schools, wished to point out one or two facts which he thought ought to be brought before the attention of the House. The people in rural districts were most anxious that education should be promoted in every possible way; but, having himself been for many years a trustee of a national school and chairman of a Board of Guardians under whose superintendence the school education had been placed, he wished to express his hope that over-education would not be produced among the rural classes. He maintained that for the rural classes the rudiments of education were quite sufficient, and it was a great mistake to over-educate them. Let them have instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic; but do not let their minds be crammed with other matters, which would not be of any use to them in their future walk of life. With regard to the question of the magistrates, who, the right hon. Gentleman had said, did not support the Committees in enforcing attendance, he wished to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the magistrates were placed in a very difficult position. The Attendance Officers were supposed to bring cases before the magistrates, and to require the attendance of the children's parents; but there was a certain laxity in the law at present, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would do his best to alter the law in such a way as to provide better punishment for persons who did not send their children to school. At the present time, if a parent was brought before a magistrate for the non-attendance of his child, a fine of 5s. could be enforced; but if that 5s. was not paid at

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the time, the law provided a very roundabout way of enforcing that payment—namely, by a distress warrant, which increased the cost to the parent. He would urge on the Vice President of the Council that he should devise some means of imposing on a parent who did not pay the fines a certain term of imprisonment, say, seven or ten days. He urged this, because it was known amongst the people generally that there was this laxity in the law, and the magistrates were, in consequence, placed in a very unfortunate and very unpleasant position. If this alteration could be made, those who were members of school boards, and trustees of schools and Chairmen of Guardians, would use their best efforts to carry out the Code which was now proposed.
SIR MASSEY LOPESsaid, he thought the managers in small rural districts and poor suburban districts would feel great anxiety under the new proposal. He had had some experience of these small schools, and he thought the effect of this Code would be to increase the ordinary expenditure, decrease the Government grant, and throw a great many of the voluntary schools into the hands of the school boards. There were at least 30 per cent of these small schools in the country, with an aggregate attendance of 60 children. What would be the effect of this Code upon them? The Code changed the whole system. The basis of the grant was to be the average attendance of the whole year, instead of 250 attendances as before; and that, he thought, would be very detrimental to the small schools, because, though in towns there was no difficulty in the way of children attending schools, in the country, where distances were long and roads often bad, it was frequently impossible for the small children to attend. He had seen some of them coming two miles in the wet, and had known them remain four and five hours in their damp clothes, and without any refreshment. Under such circumstances as these, it was cruel for parents to send their children. Well, as to the other point—namely, the maximum they were going to give for the "three R's," they had reduced it from 9s. to 8s. 4d., whilst for class subjects they were giving the opportunity of obtaining 12 s.; but small rural schools would not earn a farthing for these special subjects.
MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that, as against that, there was the 4s. 6d.
SIR MASSEY LOPESsaid, he was aware of that; but he was going to point out that, in increasing the amount from 4s. to 4s. 6d., the right hon. Gentleman had imposed new conditions which would render it impossible for small schools to avail themselves of the increased grant. There was one other grant—that in regard to music—which had not been touched on. They were giving 1s. per child for music; but that was to be curtailed by 6d., unless the children were taught by note or by some regular system. He maintained that it was impossible for children in rural districts to learn by note, for the reason that they would never be able to secure the necessary instruction. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that there was also a merit grant; but that grant was entirely at the discretion of the Inspectors. He wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that, in his opinion, the key to this Code was in his (Mr. Mundella's) pocket at the present moment, because he had not given them the instructions he was going to issue to the Inspectors. The right hon. Gentleman had promised that these instructions should be placed upon the Table; but they were not yet completed. Until, however, they were presented to the House, hon. Members would not know what the effect of the Code was to be. He would like the right hon. Gentleman to tell them whether the same standard of intelligence and attainments was to be applied to the small rural schools as was applied to the large schools in towns? In forming an opinion as to whether these schools were good or bad, were the same rules to be applied to one class as to the other? If so, a considerable grievance would be created. What he (Sir Massey Lopes) urged was this—that the whole of the Code depended upon the instructions they were going to give to the Inspectors. There was another complaint he had to make—and the subject of it had been already alluded to. It was, that they were really by this Code going to give what he called "secondary education," instead of that education which it was the sole object and intention of the Education Act to impart. They were not only undertaking to give primary education to the lower classes, but they were undertaking

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to give an advanced education to the middle classes. That was a grievance which many conceived to be a great one. They did not object to paying their rates for elementary education; but they said the Government were now not only imposing burdens on ratepayers for purposes which were never contemplated when the Act was passed, but they were also taking a Parliamentary grant, and using it for purposes for which it was never intended. He would not, at that hour of the night, any longer detain the House; but what he wanted to impress upon hon. Members was, that to small schools in rural places this Code would be a very serious thing, and would affect them very disadvantageously. It would be found for good schools a very good Code; but for indifferent—or what an hon. Gentleman had called "less satisfactory," schools, it would take from them, the very means they required for improvement. In the Code the Government were making no allowance for special circumstances and difficulties, and for what he would call the inequality of conditions in the different examinations.

GIBRALTAR (RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS)—DR. CANILLA—THE PAPERS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to call the attention of the House to what appeared to him to be a breach of good faith on the part of the Government. He was obliged to bring the subject on at that late hour (1.30 A.M.) and he was sorry to be obliged to do so in the absence of the Prime Minister, of whom he had asked a Question earlier in the Sitting. They had Ministers of consequence in the House early in the day; but late at night only Ministers of less consequence remained, and it was sometimes a misfortune to hon. Members that they could not address themselves to all the Ministers. He was about to mention a breach of faith on the part of the Colonial Office; and if he did not obtain an answer he should renew it tomorrow, and whenever it might be open to him to do so. Before the 9th March he had brought before the House a question concerning Gibraltar. He had asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there would be any objection, on the 9th of March, to lay Papers on the Table relating to the
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  appointment of the Vicar Apostolic of Gibraltar, and the hon. Gentleman had informed him that there would be no objection. The next day, after the hon. Gentleman had arranged with him that he should put down a Motion for an unopposed Return of these Papers, the hon. Gentleman came to him and asked him to withdraw his Motion on the understanding that the Papers would be presented to both Houses of Parliament. He waited until the 17th of March, when he again asked the hon. Gentleman a Question on the subject, and the answer he received from him was that the Papers were already on the Table of the House. He (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) was certain the hon. Gentleman would not, knowingly, have made a mis-statement; but what had taken place showed an enormous administrative carelessness on the part of the hon. Member, inasmuch as he was the Minister who ought to have placed the Papers on the Table, and they had not been handed in up to the present moment. On the 24th March the hon. Member for Hertford, on his behalf, asked the Under Secretary for the Colonies when the Papers, which he had been told were laid on the Table on the 17th, would be presented; and the hon. Gentleman replied that he had been promised proofs on the following day—the 25th—and would then present them to the House, if no unforeseen circumstances occurred to prevent him. Another week passed, and on Friday last a noble Lord asked a Question of the Secretary of State for the Colonies (the Earl of Kimberley) in the other House, the reply being that these Papers would not be laid on the Table until after Easter. There were particular reasons why these Papers should be presented; but he would not detain the House by explaining them. He would merely say that he believed acts of great illegality had occurred at Gibraltar. At the present moment British subjects were imprisoned on accusations brought against them before a military magistrate. They had been condemned, and were not allowed to appeal; and it was for this reason, he believed, the Government dared not produce these Papers. But there was something more. It was perfectly well known that the action of the Government at Gibraltar had been taken at the dictation of the Vatican, and that this subject had an

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  intimate connection with the negotiations between Mr. Errington and the Pope. [Lauqhter.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh, but it was, nevertheless, the fact. If he was to be interrupted in this way he should move the adjournment of the debate, and bring the subject on again to-morrow. What had been done was part of the arrangement with the Vatican for the appointment of Archbishop M'Cabe to the rank of Cardinal. That, he believed, was beyond a doubt. The Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Courtney) chose to laugh at what he (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) said; but before he did that he ought to learn to keep his word.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. To say that an hon. Member has not kept his word is an expression hardly befitting an hon. Member.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, that if he had used an improper expression he would withdraw it, and express regret for having used it. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Courtney) chose to treat with contempt statements made on the Opposition side of the House, and considered himself entitled to make allegations which were not borne out by facts. He wished to ask the hon. Gentleman whether it was the intention of the Government to lay these Papers for which he asked on the Table? If it was not, he should have to bring the matter forward again to-morrow.
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, he quite allowed that the hon. Member, at 5 o'clock that afternoon, had considerable ground for complaint; but at 1 o'clock in the morning he could not be said to have the same ground for complaint, because a letter explaining the delay which had occurred in the publication of the Papers, which letter was in the House at 5 o'clock, but, unfortunately, had not been delivered, had since been received by the hon. Member. For his own part, he was as much annoyed as the hon. Member could be at the delay which had occurred in the printing of the Papers in question, and he still hoped that they would be on the Table on Tuesday. With regard to the suggestion that the matter to which the hon. Member referred was connected with Archbishop M'Cabe's Cardinal hat and Mr. Errington's visit to Rome, it might just as reasonably have been connected with the transit of Venus.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he really did not know whether the hon. Member had any ground for his opinion that there was some connection between Mr. Errington's visit to Rome and the proceedings at Gibraltar. But, whether he had or not, it was quite time that some official information of what had occurred should be furnished to the House. He understood the hon. Member to say that before the 9th of March the Under Secretary for the Colonies had promised him these Papers as an unopposed Return, and that on the 17th he had told the hon. Member that they were already on the Table of the House. He (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) certainly thought it did not speak well for the arrangements in the Colonial Office that, in spite of those statements, the Papers should not have been laid on the Table by this time, and that it should be impossible to say that they would be delivered on Tuesday. The hon. Member had a Notice of Motion down for an early day after the Recess, and it was obviously essential that he should be in possession of these Papers before he brought on the discussion. He trusted, whether or not the Papers were presented to the other House, that there would be no delay in presenting them to this House.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, it appeared that the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies had not carried out a promise he had given. He had first promised to lay certain Papers on the Table, had afterwards declared that they had been laid on the Table, and it now turned out that they had not been presented at all, and were not likely to be until after Easter. The Under Secretary had just stated that he had written a letter to the hon. Member which ought to have appeased his indignation at the non-laying of the Papers on the Table. Well, the hon. Member had shown him (Mr. A. J. Balfour) the letter, and he was bound to say there was no more explanation in it than there was in the speech they had just listened to from the Under Secretary. The letter, written by the Private Secretary to the Under Secretary, merely said that the hon. Gentleman "was sorry he could give no other answer than that which was given on Friday by the Earl of Kimberley"—that was to say, that the Papers would not be laid on the Table until after

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  Easter. If the indignation of the hon. Member was justified at 5 o'clock, his indignation was not likely to be allayed by the receipt of that letter.

GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OF ROADS (SOUTH WALES).

  OBSERVATIONS.
  VISCOUNT EMLYNwished to ask the indulgence of the House whilst he called attention to a matter arising out of a Question put to the President of the Local Government Board to-day. He did not wish to allude to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman which was down on the Paper; but he desired to draw attention to the action of the Government at the present time apart from that measure. Under an Act of Parliament—the 7 & 8 Vict.—the Government had power—or were, he thought, obliged—to appoint a General Superintendent for turnpike roads in South Wales; and his contention was that under the provisions of that Act the Government were compelled to make such an appointment, and that until the Act, or a section of it, was repealed, they could not remove a General Superintendent from his office unless they appointed someone else to act in his place. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had informed him to-day—though rather vaguely—in reply to a Question, that the General Superintendent's Office had ceased to exist, that the gentleman was no longer continued in his office. He (Viscount Emlyn) would read the section of the Act of Parliament upon which he founded his Question; and he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to take the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown upon it, and see whether his contention was correct, and, if it was, to appoint someone to carry out the duties which now no one could properly carry out, the Government not having given the county power to appoint anyone in the place of the Superintendent. The section to which he referred of the 7 & 8 Vict., c. 91, said—
  "It shall be lawful for one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, in any writing under his hand, to appoint a fit and proper person, or two fit and proper persons if required, to superintend the management, maintenance, and repairs of all the turnpike roads within the said counties; and from time to time the discretion of the said Principal Secretary of State shall move such person from such office, and appoint another in his stead,"
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  He contended that unless the Government appointed "someone else in his stead," they were not justified in removing the officer who alone could perform the duties. He would not argue the point, which was a legal one, but would merely submit to the right hon. Gentleman, who could refer the matter to the Law Officers of the Crown, that he was bound to continue the Superintendent in his office, or appoint someone in his place, at any rate until he had passed an Act to enable him to follow a different course.
  MR. DODSONsaid, he did not concur in the interpretation which the noble Lord had placed on the clause he had cited from the Act of Parliament—namely, that—
  "It shall be lawful for one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State to appoint a fit and proper person," &c.
  The words, "It shall be lawful," were sometimes obligatory and sometimes permissive, according to the nature of the Act in which they were found; and if the noble Lord would give a little further consideration to this Act, he believed he would perceive that in the present instance they were not intended to be obligatory upon the Secretary of State. The Government having advanced money in the Welsh counties, a Superintendent was appointed for the double purpose of superintending the efficiency of the roads and their expenditure, in order to maintain the productiveness of the tolls and provide the Government with security for the debt. He was also to guard against any further debt being incurred calculated to impair that security. The debt having been paid off, the reason for the appointment ceased both with regard to the finance and the superintendence of the roads. The noble Lord said that the Act made no provision for the discharge of the duties of Superintendent. Although he agreed with him that the present was not the time for entering into a discussion of the Bill which had been introduced, he would point out that the County Boards had power, by the 74th section of the Act, to appoint clerks, treasurers, and any officers they might require, and power, under the 95th section, to pay them out of the tolls. But there appeared to be no power for the Boards to appoint a General Superintendent, or Superintendents, and obtain payment out of the

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  county rates to make good a deficiency of tolls without such an officer. The Bill which he had introduced, however, gave power to the County Boards to appoint such Superintendents, if they wished, jointly or separately, and to obtain assistance out of the county rates. That Bill had been delayed principally at the wish of the noble Lord himself. He was only waiting until the noble Lord and other hon. Gentlemen came to an agreement upon it, and as soon as their wishes with regard to it were ascertained he should be quite ready to proceed. But no practical inconvenience would result from this delay, inasmuch as the Estimates for the year had been framed by the late Superintendent before his term of office expired.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he had understood his noble Friend to ask two questions—first, as to whether the Government were not under an obligation to appoint a Superintendent in place of the gentleman who had been dismissed; and, secondly, as to whether the Government had power to dismiss the late Superintendent under the section of the Act to which ho called attention? It appeared to him (Mr. Sclater-Booth) that the section referred to did not contain the power of dismissal; and he could not but regard it as great neglect on the part of the Local Government Board to remove this Superintendent of the Roads in the six counties without providing an entirely new system. The Superintendent who had been dismissed would seem to have been the key-stone of the system; and he regretted that a change should have been made which might lead to a complete break-down of the road management in the district concerned.

PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—RETURNS AS TO NUMBER AND COST OF ARMS SURRENDERED.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HEALYasked when Returns relating to the surrender of arms in Ireland, and the amounts paid for the same, would be laid upon the Table of the House?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he would
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  make it his business to procure the information asked for.
  VISCOUNT SANDONsuggested to the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education that, in view of the lateness of the hour—1.50—it might be more convenient if his Statement were postponed until to-morrow.
  MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he thought it best to proceed, not with standing the delay which had taken place. He should, however, address the Committee as briefly as was consistent with clearness.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
Supply—considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)

Class IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.
(1.) £2,199,863, to complete the sum necessary for Public Education (England and Wales).
MR. MUNDELLA: Sir, the sum required for public education in England and Wales for the year 1882–3 is £2,749,863, as compared with £2,683,958 granted by Parliament for the year 1881–2, showing an apparent increase of £65,905, or £82,086 less than the estimated increase of the previous year. But the real increase on the expenditure of last year is £111,500, the Estimate for 1881–2 having proved to be £45,000 in excess of the sum actually required for the service of that year. The true difference between the two years, therefore, is the increase in 1882–3 of £65,905, as it appears on the Estimates, to which is to be added a saving on 1881–2 of £45,500, making a total increase of £111,500, almost the whole of which occurs under the sub-head of the Annual Grant for Elementary Schools, and is accounted for by the anticipated increase of 140,000 additional children on average attendance at day schools. The rate estimated last year at 15 s. 8½d. has proved to be less by l½d. per head than the sum actually assigned; and the estimated rate of 16 s. per head for the coming year allows for a further increase of 2d. per scholar, as compared with the increase of 2¾d. of the previous year. There are also some small increments

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under various sub-heads, with the particulars of which I will not, at this late hour, occupy the attention of the Committee. I may, however, mention a slight increase of charge for two senior Inspectors and six Sub-Inspectors at a lower rate of pay, an arrangement that will ultimately effect a saving on the Inspectorial Vote. The sum granted in 1881–2 was £2,683,915, and the sum expended, £2,638,500. The saving occurs almost entirely under the subhead of Annual Grants to Elementary Schools. We estimated the average attendance in the day-schools for last year at 2,983,682; but the result has shown only 2,909,000 in average attendance, and an increase of 150,000 scholars on the rolls. There has been a considerable decrease in respect of the evening schools, the estimated average attendance at which was 42,763, and the expenditure £18,709; whereas the actual attendance and expenditure were 37,940 and £15,142 respectively; and there seems to be no doubt that, under the existing Code, the night schools will gradually become extinct. The attendance at them has been steadily decreasing for some years past. The statement I have made will show that it is becoming more and more difficult to get in a number of the neglected children who are still outside. The attendance is certainly not as large as it ought to be; nevertheless, when I come to show the educational progress we have made, I think the Committee will have every reason to be satisfied with the work of last year. Probably at no period since the passing of the Act of 1870 has there been more satisfactory evidence of solid progress in education than there has been during the past year. The by-laws are beginning to tell on the quality as well as on the quantity of the education given in the schools. The number of children who leave our schools for labour may be reckoned for the past year at 7,000 per week, whereas the number entering the schools weekly is no less than 10,000; and this excess has been going on year by year during the last 10 years. The increase during last year in the number of scholars is 120,000, and we anticipate for next year an increase of no less than 140,000, the normal increase, according to the growth of population, being something like 150,000. Now, there are only two tables which I shall trouble the Committee by referring
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to, for the purpose of illustration. The first of these shows the decline of the dunces, or neglected children, and the second the advance of the children in intelligence. I have here a table showing the number of scholars over 10 years of age presented for examination in the three lowest Standards. In these Standards the total number presented in 1872 was 118,931, and of these 14·71 per cent were presented in Standard I.; in 1875, 481,094 children were presented, of whom 11·83 per cent were in Standard I; in 1878 there was a percentage of 10·48 in Standard I., out of a total of 775,772 presented; while in 1881, out of a total of 1,011,208 children presented for examination over 10 years of age, only 5·48 per cent were presented in Standard I. I will now take the higher Standards. In Standards IV. to VI., in the year 1872, the number of children presented was 144,799; in 1875 it was 194,509; in 1878 it was 324,517; and in 1881 it was 535,442, showing a growth of about 420 per cent since 1872. The statistics of the past year show that there is now accommodation for 4,389,000 children in our schools, being an increase in that respect of 159,000 in the past year. The number of scholars on the register is 4,045,000, or an increase of 150,000 on last year, and the scholars in average attendance number 2,863, which shows an increase of 112,000. The average attendance is the highest yet attained, and amounts to 71 per cent of the number of scholars on the Books. Of scholars examined the total number is 1,995,000, which shows an increase of 91,000 on the year 1880. The percentage of passes in the "three R's," as it is termed, was 81·82, and that is the highest number of passes we have ever had. The proportion of scholars in Standard IV. and passing was 23·8; on the whole, a very large increase upon previous years, and showing a steady increase. The certificated teachers numbered 44,600, being an increase of 3,174, and of pupil teachers there were 33,639, showing a slight decrease. Now, as to the expenditure and the cost of maintenance of these schools. The cost per scholar in board schools averaged £2 1s. 6d., or a decrease of 5¾d.; and in voluntary schools, £1 14 s. 10¼d., or a decrease of 2½d. But in the London board schools the cost per scholar was £2 15 s. l0½d., a reduction of nearly 2s.

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per head; and the cost per scholar in the Provincial board schools was £1 17 s. l0 d. The London board schools earned 16 s. 9¾d. per head, or an increase of 2d.; and the voluntary schools earned 15 s. 7¼d., or an increase of 2¼d. Satisfactory as these figures are as to the increase in numbers and payments, there is still great scope for improvement. We have school-places for 4,389,000 children, and there are 4,045,000 on the registers; but the highest average attendance we have yet reached was 2,863,000. This shows an average daily absence of 1,182,000. Now, what does this mean? It means a waste of expenditure, a loss of power, and a loss of grants to the schools. The teachers are there, the buildings are there, the expenditure on the schools is the same; but yet there is this large absence. Everything that can be done, as the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Viscount Sandon) suggests, shall be done to increase this average attendance and to improve the quality of education in this country. I will not detain the Committee at this late hour with a statement as to Scotland; but I want to mention one illustration as to the attendance. There are two or three instances of the same kind to show what can be done when there is a proper staff, and when there is a steady pressure to increase the average attendance. There are two schools in this country which are striking illustrations of what can be done under the greatest possible difficulty. First, there is the Jews' School at Manchester, a very large school, and 50 per cent of the parents speak broken English. Three or four languages are spoken in the families of the scholars, yet 99 per cent of the children pass. At the Jews' schools in London 2,400 children passed this year, which is 98⅓ per cent, or the highest education obtained by any children in Her Majesty's schools. These children, many of them, have come to the schools within the year with an imperfect knowledge even of the English language. Well, the figures I have given for England, although they show a general steady advance, compare unfavourably with those for Scotland, as I will point out. The percentage of average attendance of the number on the Books in England is 71, whilst in Scotland it is 75·2. The percentage of passes in Standard subjects in 1881·2, in Scotland, was 88·32. In England the per-
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centage of scholars, in all schools individually examined in Standard IV. and upwards, was 26·83, and in Scotland 36·13, showing that there were at least 10 per cent of older children in Standard IV. in Scotland more than there were in England. I believe that in England there is just a trifle over 1 per cent of all the 4,000,000 of children in the schools over 14 years of age. In Scotland there are more than 3 per cent; and when you come to the payments there is no comparison between the two countries. It must be remembered that the public schools in Scotland combine elementary education with secondary education, and that every year they are sending up increasing numbers to the Scotch Universities. The rate of progress is shown by the Returns of Inspection made on the 30th of September. These seem to indicate that the school boards in Scotland have not much more room for gathering in children. They only increased the number in the schools last year by 11,000. They have completed nearly the whole supply of accommodation for the whole of the children, and, no doubt, the field they have before them now is a very limited one. But the attainments of the children are increasing in a greater ratio than their numbers. The estimated grant in Scotland for 1881–2 was 17 s. 6d. per head. They actually earned 17 s. 7¾d.; and I have estimated for the present year 18 s. per head, which will give Scotland 2s. per head more than England. They have accommodation in the schools of Scotland for 612,483 scholars. There are on the registers 545,000, and the average attendance is 410,000 scholars. The percentage of attendance to the number on the Books is 75·24. The percentage of passes in the "three R's" is 88·32, and the expenses of maintaining the schools in Scotland are these—In the public schools, £2 2s. 7¼d. per head, being an increase of 3d. per head; in the voluntary schools, £1 16 s., being a decrease of 1s. 3¾d The grants earned in the public schools were 17 s. 9¾d. per head; and in the voluntary schools, 16 s. 8½d. It is impossible for me to close my remarks about Scotland without saying that that country has done wonders since the passing of the Education Act of 1870. Great as has been the progress in England, the progress in Scotland, both as regards numbers and completeness of attainments, has

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been much more marked; and, no doubt, Scotland has done more, in an infinite degree, towards the completion of her national system of education than England. Nevertheless, the educationists in Scotland are now looking forward anxiously and impatiently to the further development of their national system. Some localities are, it is said, without the means of higher education. There are gaps that require to he filled up, and which demand, and are receiving, the best attention of the Scotch Education Department in connection with the recommendation made last year by the Endowed Schools Commissioners. The most important and pressing measure for Scotland is the Endowed Schools Bill, which, I hope, will receive the sanction of Parliament this Session. With the power to utilize her endowments, with a Code that admits of increased expansion and usefulness, with the elementary schools linked to the Universities, Scotland will become possessed of a truly national system of education which Englishmen must, I fear, be content, for at least a generation to come, to regard with envy and admiration. I had intended to say something about the New Code; but, at this hour of the morning, I will not detain the Committee longer. I have made a statement which, I hope, will warrant the Committee in granting the Vote for which I ask. I can assure the Committee, in conclusion, that there never was an educational proposal more thoroughly considered, and one where the suggestions made were more carefully weighed and sifted. I admit the friendliness with which the Code has been criticized; and I believe the fears expressed by some hon. Members as to its operation will be dissipated in the first 12 months' experience. I beg to move the Vote of £2,199,863, for Public Education in England and Wales, and the expenses of the Education Offices in London.
LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of opposing the taking of this Vote, even at that very late hour of the morning; and he hoped the Government would duly appreciate the great consideration hon. Members were exhibiting towards them, especially when he reminded them that when he held the Office of Vice President of the Council he was never allowed to take a Vote after half-
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past 11 without having every prominent Member of the present Administration dividing the House against him. His reason for not opposing the grant tonight was that about 10 days back, when he questioned the Government as to the propriety of giving hon. Members an opportunity of considering the Education Estimates before the Easter Recess, those Estimates were put down for to-night. It was not the fault of the Government that the whole evening had not been devoted to the discussion of them. The Votes for England and Scotland might be taken to-night; but the Government should undertake not to bring on the Report to-morrow, but to postpone it until after Easter. They had already sufficient money to last them for two months, and the Education Question should be allowed to come on at a time when it could be thoroughly discussed. Would the noble Marquess give them an assurance that the Report would not be put down until after Easter?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: An arrangement that would be convenient to the noble Lord would be, that we should not attempt to take Supply to-morrow, but put down the Report, in order, if there is time, that discussion should be taken. If there is not time, then, of course, it could be postponed until after Easter. I would not propose to take Supply to-morrow, but to put down the Report of this Vote after the Committee on the Army Bill.
VISCOUNT SANDONthought that if the debate on the Report were put off until after Easter, hon. Members would, in the meantime, have an opportunity of consulting with their friends outside the House who were interested in the subject of education. The matter was much too formidable to be hurried over. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) had himself stated that he had intended to go into the question of the New Code, but had been prevented by the lateness of the hour. He (Viscount Sandon) was quite sure the Government would not lose anything by accepting the suggestion for the postponement of the Report.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: If it would be more convenient to the House for us to postpone the Report until after Easter we will adopt that course.
SIR HERBERT MAXWELLsaid, he rose to call attention to a question which

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was of some importance to Scotch constituencies. He proposed to move the reduction of the Vote.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Scotch Vote will come on presently.
SIR HERBERT MAXWELLsaid, he wished to move the reduction of the English Vote. If he had waited for the Scotch Vote to come on, he believed he would not have had the opportunity he sought; otherwise he should have been most happy to meet the convenience of the Vice President of the Council and the Committee. He proposed to reduce the Vote by £1,000, in order to call attention to a point on which, he believed, Scotland was rather unfairly treated. There was no allowance made to Scotland in respect of needlework. It was provided for in the English Code. The grant in Scotland was conditional on plain needlework being taught in elementary schools. Article 17 of the Scotch Act was to this effect—that before any grant was made to a school, the Department must be satisfied that, among other conditions, girls were, as a rule, taught plain needlework and cutting out as part of the ordinary course of instruction. But needlework was entirely excluded from Schedule III. of the Scotch Code, and was excluded from the subjects in Schedule IV., for which alone the grant was made, whereas in the English Code there was provision for a grant of from 2s. to 4s. per head; and if they examined the Irish Estimates they would find a still greater discrepancy—£140 was provided for needlework in the Normal School in Dublin; and a salary for an instructress in needlework of £45 a-year was provided in the Model School. The amount was only £39 last year, and it had since been increased. There was also a sum of £ 100 for needlework materials. [Mr. MUNDELLA: Not in the English schools.] No; in the Irish schools. He was pointing out the discrepancy between the Scotch Votes and the English and Irish Votes, and the apparent unfairness with which Scotland was treated in the Estimates. It would appear, further, from the Irish Estimates that a sum of no less than £2,500 was provided for the salaries of 170 work mistresses in the National Schools. He did not mean to say that full value was not obtained for the money voted, and he believed that it
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was most desirable to teach needlework; but what he wanted to draw the attention of the Committee to was this—that Scotland was not fairly treated in the matter. He had often been told as the reason why Scotland did not obtain fair consideration in regard to these grants in aid was that the Scotch Members were too bashful to ask for them. He wished to impress upon his Scotch Colleagues that it was their duty to ask the Vice President of the Council for some encouragement in this branch, or some equivalent, at all events, equal to that which had been offered to the Irish schools. If he failed to obtain such encouragement he should feel obliged to put the Committee to the trouble of dividing.
MR. MUNDELLAremarked, that it had been found unnecessary to provide needlework in the Scotch schools, except where it was taken as a special subject. Where it was taught as a class subject, according to the Schedule, a grant was given, and the same principle applied to Scotland and England equally with Ireland. He could assure the hon. Member that Scotland already earned her fair share of the grant.
SIR HERBERT MAXWELLwas satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman.
Vote agreed to.
(2.) £358,512, to complete the sum necessary for Public Education (Scotland).
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum not exceeding £291,400, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Science and Art Department, and of the Establishments connected therewith."
MR. SALThoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council would not press this Vote at that hour of the morning (2.30). It was clear to him that it was impossible for the Vote to receive a fair discussion. He was quite aware of the difficulties which the Government had to contend with, and he was not desirous of interposing additional ones in their way; but it was really a serious matter, in regard to the financial arrangements of the country, that, night after night, the Votes in Supply were brought on for discussion

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at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, and that many most important Votes were passed without any discussion at all. Now, with regard to this Vote, and to the question of education generally, it was most important that suggestions and expressions of opinion should be obtained from hon. Members in every part of the House, in order that full information as to the feeling of the country might be obtained. They had already passed two Votes quietly on the assurances which had been given to the Committee by the right hon. Gentleman, and they had agreed to stop what might have been a most valuable discussion.
MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he thought the subjects involved in this Vote had been very well discussed in the early part of the evening. The debate, indeed, had been almost entirely confined to matters connected with this Department, and he hoped the Committee would now allow the Government to take the Vote. He had been in attendance since 4 o'clock in the hope that he would be allowed to take these Votes.
LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he thought the Committee ought to have some little regard for appearances. Either they had a serious function to perform or they had not, and it was a perfect farce to pass Votes of this magnitude at that hour of the morning. When he filled the Office of Vice President, he was never allowed to take a Vote after half-past 12 o'clock. The Government had already got two large Votes, and had been able to make their Statement; and he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President ought now to rest content. They had so far succeeded without a division, and he hoped the Government would give way.
MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he could not press the Vote against the desire of the noble Lord and hon. Members opposite; but in regard to the remark of the noble Lord that he had never pressed forward a Vote at so late an hour, he must remind the noble Lord that he never had the same excuse.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
House resumed.
Resolutions to be reported upon Monday 17th April.
Committee to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

MOTIONS.

  ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, Bill to facilitate and regulate the Supply of Electricity for Lighting and other purposes in Great Britain and Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHAMBERLAIN and Mr. ASHLEY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 122.]

  MILITIA ACTS CONSOLIDATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, Bill to consolidate the Acts relating to the Militia, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, The JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL, and Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 123.]

  RESERVE FORCES ACTS CONSOLIDATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, Bill to consolidate the Acts relating to the Reserve Forces, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, The JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL, and Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 124.]

  ARTILLERY RANGES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, Bill to extend "The Artillery Ranges Act, 1862," ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, The JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL, Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, and Mr. TREVELYAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 125.]

  PARTNERSHIPS BILL.
  Select Committee on Partnerships Bill nominated of,—Mr. LEWIS FRY, Mr. SALT, Mr. COURTNEY, Mr. WHITLEY, Mr. EUSTACE SMITH, Mr. MOLLOY, LORD ALGERNON PERCY, Mr. BAXTER, Mr. SHAW, Mr. ECROYD, Mr. NORWOOD, Mr. KNOWLES, Mr. RYLANDS, Mr. COMPTON LAWRANCE, and Mr. MONK, with power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Three o'clock.