HC Deb 02 May 1882 vol 268 cc1997-2009
MR. HUSSEY VIVIAN,

in rising to move— That an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that She will be graciously pleased to withhold her consent from the Statutes proposed by the University of Oxford Commissioners for Jesus College, which Statutes were laid upon the Table of this House on the 7th of February last, said, that Jesus College had always been an essentially Welsh College; and the Government, in the Speech from the Throne, had announced their intention of dealing with the question of Intermediate and Higher Education in Wales. He thought, therefore, that that was an inopportune moment for disposing of the revenues of that College, because they ought to be dealt with as a portion of the scheme which the Government was going to bring forward. The large endowment of the College would form an important element in the question of Higher Education in Wales. It was not easy to state what the income of the College was. But from the Report of 1873 it would appear to fall little short of £15,000. The Statute as it now stood proposed that some of the Fellowships should be exclusively Welsh; but with the Scholarships it was different. Formerly there were 20 Welsh and 2 open Scholarships. The Statute proposed that there should be only 12 Welsh Scholarships and 8 open Scholarships, thus 40 per cent were to be open, and no longer Welsh. But there was a provision that, when the funds would admit of it, there should be 24 Scholarships, so that Wales would then only have half the Scholarships. Then there were 30 Exhibitions, which were formerly confined to Wales. Those Exhibitions were now to be in the discretion of the Principal and Fellows, and were in no way confined to Wales. No doubt, it would be said that most of the Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge were originally confined to particular counties, and that it had been found beneficial to throw them open. But the case was not parallel; for the same language was spoken in all the counties of England, whereas in Wales a language prevailed more different from English than any European language, except, perhaps, Sclavonian. It was, therefore, unjust to deprive young Welshmen of the advantage of competing only among themselves for prizes, founded exclusively for their benefit. Jesus College was founded in Queen Elizabeth's Reign on the petition of Dr. Hugh at Rhys, for the benefit of Wales. It was largely endowed by Sir Leoline Jenkins, a great lawyer and a Welshman, born near Cowbridge, in the county of Glamorgan. Sir Leoline Jenkins, who at one time was Principal of Jesus College, endowed Cowbridge School, where he had been educated, and at his death, in 1685, left his property to Jesus College, subject to a large provision for Cowbridge School. By his will Sir Leoline Jenkins had given priority among his bequests to those which referred exclusively to Cowbridge School. Although, in consequence of a decree of the Court of Chancery, Jesus College had legally taken the whole of the surplus money bequeathed under that will, there could be no doubt that morally Cowbridge School was entitled to its fair share; the College had no moral right to deprive the School of its fair proportion of the bequests. The income of the estate of Sir Leoline Jenkins was at the time of his death £407, and of that amount the School was entitled to 21 per cent. The income was now, however, £6,600 a-year, and the estate itself was a largely increasing one. There were minerals under the land of considerable value, and there was also land in London increasing in value. After paying the charges created by the testator, the School ought to receive £1,260 a-year; but it was at present only receiving £100 a-year. It was proposed by the Statutes to empower the Principal and Fellows of Jesus College to give £200 a-year more to Cowbridge School—£100 to the Master, and £100 to deserving boys. This was only a permissive power. The Statutes inflicted a great hardship on the School, for they proposed to perpetuate the injustice of the last 200 years. The Home Secretary would, no doubt, say the School was only entitled to the sum originally left to it. That might be law, but it was not justice; and it was not the testator's intention. He appealed to the House of Commons as a Court of Justice, and not of law. It was from that House alone that redress could be sought. It was as great a case of hardship as had ever come before the House, and if the Statutes were allowed to pass they would be continuing a great injustice. Nothing would benefit Wales, and especially South Wales, more than the erection of this School into a first-class Grammar School in the county which he had the honour to represent. The Welsh desired not to confine their education to technical subjects, but to have the benefit of a sound classical education, which was a matter the Government would have to deal with before long, and it would be advisable to weld this Institution into any measure they proposed. The hon. Gentleman concluded y moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that She will he graciously pleased to withhold her consent from the Statutes proposed by the University of Oxford Commissioners for Jesus College, which Statutes were laid upon the Table of this House on the 7th of February last."—(Mr Hussey Vivian.)

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

was understood to say that upon the general question of Welsh Education he agreed with his hon. Friend behind him, though upon the question before the House he had expressed opinions at which, if they had proceeded from the Benches opposite, now rather empty, he should have felt no surprise. In these cases a good deal was often said about the intentions of the pious Founder; and no doubt Sir Leoline Jenkins, the Founder of this School, was a man of note, for he was the greatest international lawyer of his day. He thought, however, his hon. Friend had given undue development to the wishes of the pious Founder. The Liberal Party had proceeded on the principle of abolishing close Colleges and close Fellowships; but they were now asked, practically, to adopt an opposite course. He asked on what ground they could keep the Fellowships of this College for a particular part of the country? He was not a particular admirer of the work of the Commission; but it was not possible to review it without destroying it altogether. It was to be deplored that such was the case. He was bound to say that in this matter he did not think the Commissioners were to be blamed. Jesus College was only a constituent part of the Colleges of Oxford; and if one College was thrown out of the whole contributory machine, it would be exempt from any scheme of University reform, and that was not a reasonable proposition. He hoped the House, therefore, would reject the proposal of the hon. Member.

MR. THOROLD ROGERS

said, that something, after all, was to be said for local Scholarships, &c., in connection with the Universities. The system ought to be judged by its results; and he did not hesitate to say that the Welsh endowments in Jesus College had been of considerable advantage both to the College and the University. It not unfrequently happened that persons of humble origin, who would otherwise have been unable to obtain an academical education, were enabled, by means of those endowments, to achieve a distinguished University career; and at present there were two striking instances of the service which the endowments of Jusus College had done. Of course, the present question was only the prelude to a more important one. As a matter of fact, Parliament passed an excellent Bill in 1877, by which at least £250,000 a-year was placed at the disposal of the Commissioners. How the Commissioners discharged their office would not then be proper to mention; but of all the Colleges which had come under their notice, Jesus College was the greatest sinner in the whole University. That College proposed to establish one Tutorial Fellow to every seven undergraduates. Each was to have, at least, £600 a-year; in addition to that he was to have, under certain conditions, a capitation fee of £5 per head on undergraduates, which was to come out of the funds for the advancement of Higher Education, so that £4,300 a-year would be absorbed by the Tutorial Fellows. These gentlemen would be engaged in delivering more or less vapid lectures, more vapid as they got older. The Commissioners had established 131 of these abominations, and there was every prospect of the whole University in time becoming absorbed by them. But, to turn to the particular case of Cowbridge School, it might, perhaps, be hard for the Fellows of Jesus to make any contribution to their funds, as was usually the case when the Foundation was rich; but that was not the question. Parliament had dealt thus with Eton College and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster in relation to Eton and Westminster Schools. It had been done in the case of the Regius Professor of Greek at Christ Church, and it was for the House to say whether it should not be done in the case of Cambridge. The present system inaugurated by the Commissioners, who had aimed at establishing a Body of Tutorial Fellows and enlarging the Professoriate, did not work well. The Tutorial Fellows "Boycotted" the Professors. He had lately spoken to Mr. Stubbs, a gentleman who had a reputation beyond the walls of his College, upon the subject. Mr. Stubbs told him some time ago that he had prepared a course of lectures on the Secular and Social Causes of the Reformation, and that the only audience he had consisted of three Masters of Arts and one lady. He believed that the Statutes which the Commissioners had framed for the University of Oxford would involve the irremediable ruin of the interests of Higher Education. He considered that if his hon. Friend carried his Motion—in which he supported him—they would set an example of how they should deal with Statutes like those in which the general interests of local education were sacrificed, and in which the best future of the highest education was, as he believed, not only brought into peril, but irretrievably doomed.

MR. BRYCE

said, he must protest against the language which the last speaker had used with regard to some persons at Oxford, and more particularly in regard to certain Heads of Colleges. Those Heads of Colleges who had been masters of schools were among the ablest and most energetic of the Oxford residents. No one among them was more generally respected than the Head of Jesus College, nor had any one shown a more sincere desire to do the best he could for the education of the Principality. The real question, however, now before the House was whether those Statutes should pass or not. The hon. Member for Glamorganshire (Mr. Hussey Vivian) had complained that those Statutes did not do as much for education in Wales as ought to be done, and that the right of natives of the Principality to Scholarships and Fellowships was not sufficiently recognized. Now, he thought there was a very strong case for attaching certain special privileges to Welsh schools and Welsh students, and for making grants of money to a country which had been so much neglected, and which was so much in want of those endowments. But if they looked at the Statutes of Jesus College they would find that a good deal was done for Wales and for Welsh students, a considerable proportion of the Fellowships and Scholarships being restricted to natives of Wales or of Monmouthshire. If it was said that more ought to have been done, and that these Statutes ought to have reserved nearly the whole of the Scholarships and Fellowships for the Welsh schools, he replied that that would not be a real benefit to Welsh students themselves. It was far better for them that they should mix in the society of what, more or less, was an ordinary College, and that they should come into contact with young Englishmen, than that they should be confined to a purely Welsh atmosphere while their minds were being formed. In the interests of Wales itself, then, he thought that the Commis- sioners would have made a mistake if they had given a larger share than they had done of the College endowments to the students from Wales. With regard to the share to which Cowbridge School was entitled out of the endowments of Jesus College, the hon. Member asked them to disturb an arrangement which had existed for 200 years. Under that arrangement, based upon a decree in Chancery made in the Reign of James II.—a decree which was evidently right in law—Jesus College had enjoyed the property given it by Sir Leoline Jenkins without interruption or adverse claim. When the Commissioners came to deal with Jesus College they found certain property; they ascertained that that property belonged to the College in exactly the same way as any other property held by the College; and though they might have thought it would have been a good thing if Cowbridge School could get a larger share of them, they had to carry out an Act of Parliament, and they could not legally do what it did not authorize. There was not a single word in the Act of 1877 which would justify the appropriation of any property belonging to the College to any external Body or person. There was a discussion in that House in 1877 as to whether the Commissioners should have the power to devote a portion of the revenues of any College to purposes not directly connected with such College or with the University, and it was decided that they should have no such power. The Commissioners had done all that they legally could, and one might almost be surprised that they should have been able to go as far as they had gone in favour of Cow-bridge School.

SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,

as a Member of the Commission, said, that he should have been content to have rested their defence upon the speech of the Home Secretary, for what had been said appeared to him to be conclusive. There was nothing that would have enabled them to give money to Cowbridge School; and, therefore, there was no case to answer. It was not their fault that the Act did not enable them to do more. If it was desired that more should be done, as in the case of other public schools, let a Bill be brought in to divert some of the endowments of Jesus College to practical education in Wales, and he would promise all the assistance he could in developing the project; but it was not fair to attack these Statutes or the Commissioners for that which they were unable to do. The result of rejecting these Statutes would be to leave things in the position in which they stood previous to the Act of 1877, and to deprive Cowbridge and other schools of endowments they now had, and to restore the former close and clerical character of the Foundation. Unquestionably, the action of the Commissioners, so far as regarded Jesus College, had not been an unfriendly one towards Wales or towards the School at Cowbridge. For his purpose it did not matter what the figures were; the Commissioners had gone to the full extent of their legal rights in doing what they could to improve and aid Higher Education in Wales. Not very much had been said as to the College Exhibitions; but he supposed that those to which allusion had been made were the Leoline Jenkins Exhibitions, which had been thrown into the general Exhibition fund. He believed, but was not certain, that there was a specific application of part of that fund; but, however that might be, the general policy of the Commissioners had been to enable the Governing Bodies of the Colleges to assist needy and deserving students. Many hon. Members who took an interest in this question would, perhaps, have been glad if some of the money which now brought Welsh students compulsorily to Jesus College had been diverted so as to help them to enter other Colleges; but the Commissioners had not the power of making any such change, and were obliged to confine the school and College endowments to the several schools and Colleges. If there was one set of Statutes which were practically unassailable, it was the Statutes of Jesus College, with respect to which the Commissioners had here and there stretched a point, in the belief that the circumstances of Wales were exceptional, and demanded that the Scholarships and Fellowships should be kept close. In any case, however, the hon. Member for Glamorganshire (Mr. Hussey vivian) was mistaken in supposing that Wales would be benefited by the rejection of the new Statutes. Not only was there no authority now in existence which had the power of re-casting them, but no future Commissioners were likely to relax them in a manner more favourable to the claims of Wales. The Commissioners had made an honest attempt, supported by the Principal of the College, to satisfy the legitimate wants of Welsh Education. If it was alleged that the Church of England religious teaching given in the College kept away Nonconformist students, he could only say that there was now less teaching of that kind than there used to be; that attendance at chapel was voluntary; and that nothing was done to prevent Nonconformists from being on an equality with the other members of the College. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers), who, as was well known, had his own views about the University, had made several complaints, but had not made sufficient allowance for the difficulties the Commissioners had had to meet. He (Sir Matthew Ridley) held that, on the whole, they had done their duty well; but it was not easy for them to impress their policy on all the Colleges; and so, wherever they had apparently failed to make reforms, it was to be remembered that they had not been free to act apart from the general feeling of the University. For the sereasons, he could not support the proposal to reject the Statutes of this College.

SIR EDWARD REED

said, that the speech of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) was very unsatisfactory; but a more extraordinary answer than that of the Home Secretary to the statement of the hon. Member for Glamorganshire (Mr. Hussey Vivian) he had never heard. If Liberal principles were what the right hon. and learned Gentleman stated that night, Welsh Members had a good deal to learn. He (Sir Edward Reed) objected to the alienation of the revenues of Jesus College merely for the sake of bringing the English and the Welsh students into more intimate association with each other. According to the admitted facts of the case, in the original bequest in the 16th century of certain properties in Lambeth, it was provided that two-thirds of the income thence derived should go to Jesus College, and the other one-third to Cowbridge Grammar School. That being the case, the same ratio should be now observed when the property had increased seventeen-fold in value. If that rule were followed, Cowbridge School, instead of being pushed aside with £400 per annum, would be entitled to nearly £2,000 per annum. Within three years of the bequest coming into operation a question arose about a certain small residue, and the Court of Chancery decided that it should become the property of the College to which the whole had been bequeathed in trust, partly for the benefit of Cowbridge School, and now the College appropriated the larger part of the increased value. His contention and that of his hon. Friends was that Cowbridge Grammar School was as much before the mind of the testator as Jesus College. But because, 200 years ago, the Court of Chancery decided that the miserable residue then in question should go to the College, they were told that it was not only legally right that this College should go on appropriating nearly the whole of the property, but that it was absolutely wrong for them to ask that the case should be reconsidered.

SIR JOHN MOWBRAY

said, he could not enter into the controversy which had arisen between the hon. Member for Pembroke (Sir Edward Reed) and the Home Secretary as to what were Liberal principles. Nothing could be more difficult than for that House to consider the complicated legal question. The was asked to enter upon that inquiry upon an ex parte statement, and to set aside the decisions come to by the Commissioners after the most minute and careful examination; but there was really nothing which the House could do. This money could not be touched without the consent of Jesus College, inasmuch as the legal right of the College to the surplus of the property had been settled and established bylaw for two centuries. The Statutes could not be altered in part, but must be accepted or rejected as a whole. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) had spoken in so vague and discursive a manner that it was difficult to meet his remarks; but as regarded his observations on dogmatic schoolmasters, he (Sir John Mowbray) could say confidently that the present Principal of Jesus College was an able and accomplished scholar, who had been a successful schoolmaster, and was now an energetic Head of a College. He was one of the few Members now in the House who recollected the prolonged discussion which took place upon the Uni- versity Bills in 1854 and 1877; he remembered the difficulty then experienced in interesting the House, or maintaining its attention to the subject; and he thought even a Select Committee would experience the same difficulty now. If he might venture to make a suggestion, he thought that the University required rest. They had had University Commissions and University Acts in 1850, 1854, and again in 1874 and 1877; and it was most important that the new Statutes should have a fair trial, after which they might, if necessary, be revised. But, if they were to be revised, it would be proper to intrust the task to some Body more competent to deal with the question than that House—and that Body was the Universities Committee of the Privy Council, which ought to be strengthened and made efficient for the work.

MR. MORGAN LLOYD

said, that their case was that Jesus College was a Welsh College, founded and endowed for Welshmen; and the Commissioners, in failing to recognize that fact, had failed to satisfy any class in Wales. Jesus College, though locally situated in Oxford, was as much a Welsh College as Trinity College, Dublin, was an Irish College; and as all the endowments were intended for the Welsh people, and were, in justice, the property of the Welsh people, the Commissioners had no right to divert any portion of those endowments towards any other object. He believed the Commissioners had taken pains to form a fair scheme; but they had adopted a wrong principle, and had dealt with the College revenues as if they had not been the special property of the people of Wales.

MR. RATHBONE

said, he well remembered that the House was assured they might trust the Universities to deal with the Commission in a much more liberal way than they had done. The practical question was how they could best remedy the evil. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Mowbray) had referred them to future legislation as the only means of gaining what was due. They would probably have an opportunity of dealing with the subject when the question of Welsh Education came on; and he would suggest that it would be well to leave this matter to that opportunity.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

said, there had not been a single opportunity for the discussion of the important Statutes connected with the Universities and Colleges, which in a very few days would become law. The intention of Parliament, in providing that they should lie on the Table for a certain time before they became law, would thus be defeated. There was an important Body—the Universities Committee of the Privy Council—to which alone hereafter would belong the revision of any of these University Statutes. Some proposition should be made by the Government for the re-constitution of that Committee before the Session ended. The matter bad been brought before Parliament at the end of last Session; but, owing to a disagreement between the two Houses, nothing was done. It was the duty of the Government not to delay in that matter. He hoped that the hon. Member for Glamorganshire (Mr. Hussey Vivian) would be satisfied with the discussion, and would not press his Motion to a division.

MR. HUSSEY VIVIAN

said, he could not avoid thanking his right hon. and learned Friend (Sir William Harcourt) for his kind lecture upon Liberalism. His right hon. and learned Friend appeared to be greatly in love with any arrangement, however unjust, which had the prescription of 200 years in its favour. Now, certainly, he (Mr. Hussey Vivian) had learned his Liberalism in a different school. He had always been under the impression that no prescription gave any right to the continued existence of an abuse, if it were an abuse, and he could not help thinking that it was an abuse, when they had a College which educated some 60 students, and which spent in doing so a sum of £15,000 a-year. He did not think that Institutions of that kind could be defended, or that anyone who took exception to Institutions of that kind should be accused of a want of Liberalism. He thought that true Liberal principles would rather lie in the proper use of ancient endowments to develop and extend, as far as possible, the benefits of education in the present day. His right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary said that no property would be safe if a prescription of 200 years was to be attacked. This property was not private property, but a public endowment left for the benefit of the public. That was a doctrine he was astonished to hear come from his right hon. and learned Friend; and it was very much in contrast with the calm and excellent statement made by the hon. Baronet the Member for North Northumberland (Sir Matthew White Ridley). He (Mr. Hussey Vivian) had no wish whatever to attack the Commissioners, nor did he think he had said anything which could be construed into an attack upon the Commission. He had simply taken an exception to a Statute proposed for Jesus College. He did not say that the Commissioners could have proposed a larger provision for Cowbridge School, because he believed that their powers in that respect were limited. He had taken exception to that one Statute becoming the law of the land, because he thought that it was absolutely necessary that they should protest in the strongest manner against the perpetuation of what he still held to be one of the grossest cases of injustice which had ever come under his notice. Certainly, the matter should not rest where it was. It was probable that if he went to a division now, with the combined opposition of the Government and the Conservatives, he would be left in a small minority; but he thought that it would not have been consistent with his duty, if he allowed this Statute to become law without protesting in the strongest manner against it, and bringing forward publicly the gross injustice which had existed for the last 200 years. He was sensible that it was of no use whatever to put the House to the trouble of a division after the declaration of Her Majesty's Government that they did not intend to support him in this Motion. But, at the same time, he wished to state that, whenever an opportunity occurred of redressing this grievance, he should undoubtedly endeavour, to the best of his ability, to do so, and especially when they were afforded an opportunity of discussing the question of Higher and Intermediate Education in Wales. He begged distinctly to give Notice that when that question was brought on he would revert to this subject, and that he would do his very best to obtain for the ancient Grammar School at Cowbridge the full enjoyment of the endowment left to it 200 years ago. He begged now to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.