HC Deb 13 August 1883 vol 283 cc416-29

[Progress 10th August.]

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 (Definitions).

Amendment proposed, in page 1, to leave out lines 12 and 13 as follows:— The term 'efficient school' in this Act means any public or State-aided school in Scotland."—(Mr. Mundella.)

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.

Words struck out, accordingly.

MR. J. A. CAMPBELL

said, he had an Amendment on the Paper in page 1, to leave out "State-aided," in line 13, and insert "other inspected." This Amendment, however, since the adoption of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella), was unnecessary, and he should not move it.

Clause farther amended, and agreed to.

Clause 4 (Amendment of s. 69 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872.)

MR. DICK-PEDDIE

said, that even at this late hour, he must trespass on the attention of the Committee for a short time, while he stated his objections to the provisions of this Bill in the clause now under consideration. He might remind the Committee to what the Bill owed its origin. In March of this year his hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire (Mr. Cochran-Patrick) directed the attention of the House to the want of harmony between the Scotch Education Act of 1872 and the Factory and Workshop Act of 1878. He showed, among other things, that while under the Education Act the school age terminated at 13 years, so that' all children, when they attained that age, passed out of the control of the boards, under the Factory and Workshop Act no child under the age of 13 could be employed as a full tuner, and that no child above 13 and under 14 could be so employed, unless he complied with one of two alternative conditions: he must either have passed a certain Standard of education, fixed by the Education Department at the Fifth Standard, or he must have a certificate of due attendance at a certified school, such due attendance having been fixed by the Education Department at 250 attendances during each of five years, not necessarily consecutive, and at not more than two schools in each year. It happened frequently that a child who had reached the age of 13 had neither of these qualifications for employment. The consequence was that while he had in virtue of his age passed out of the control of the school board he was not eligible for employment under the Factory and Workshop Act. This state of matters led to very serious evils. Many children had either to occupy themselves with any desultory work they could find or to go about idle. The evil of that was very great to children at a critical age when habits were being formed for life. It was also attended with great evil to their parents, who found themselves deprived of the benefit of the labour of their children, when their children had reached an age at which their parents might fairly have looked for relief from the burden of their support. He need hardly point out to the Committee how serious this was to many parents. If they remembered the class to which most of those belonged whom the provisions of the Education and Factory Acts affected, hon. Members would see how serious must be the loss to them of having their children left in idleness on their hands. A working man with a large family to support, for whom he had, at great privation, provided education, found himself not only still further burdened with their support, when they should have been doing much towards supporting themselves, but burdened with the cost of school fees. To bring the Education and Factory Acts into harmony was the chief motive of the Bill. Now, there were two alternatives, either of which it was in the power of the Government to adopt; they might either have altered the provisions of the Factory Act, so as to admit all children who had attained the age of 13 to take employment as full timers, or they might have altered the Education Acts, so as to have enabled school boards to lay hold of all children between 13 and 14 until they were able to fulfil the conditions of employment provided by the Factory and Workshop Act. The former was the course approved of by some of the most important school boards in the country. It had been recommended by the school boards of Glasgow and of Paisley. Indeed, the latter board had gone the length of recommending that children beyond the age of 12 years who had passed the Fifth Standard should be capable of being employed as full timers. The school board of one of the burghs which he (Mr. Dick-Peddie) had the honour to represent—namely, Kilmarnock—had also by resolution (of which he held a copy in his hand) recommended that all children above 13 should be allowed to be employed as full timers. That he believed to be the opinion of the working classes generally in Scotland, and he concurred in that opinion. It appeared to him that 13 was the age at which, in framing the Education Act, it had been considered by the State that elementary education should be completed; and it was right that, when that age was attained, a child should be free from the control of the State in the matter of education, whether it had attained the Standard of education it should have attained or not. He thought, too, that as the Factory Acts themselves recognized that 13 was the age at which a child became physically fit for full employment, no hindrance should be placed in the way of his accepting such employment, unless some great public end was to be gained by such hindrance. Now, he could not see that any such justification existed for the hindrance which the Factory Act now interposed. That hindrance imposed a great burden on parents ill able to bear it. It did not much benefit the child; or, rather, the children who derived any important benefit from it were few, for it was the fact that many of the children who could not pass the Fifth Standard at 13 years of age were, either by reason of less quickness, or of want of application, not likely to pass that Standard even if kept one or two or even more years at school. To retain them at school might be defended as a punishment to them for their shortcomings. But if their inability to pass was due to inferiority of intelligence, that was not a ground for punishment; if it were the result of carelessness and want of application it might be reasonable to impose some punishment on the child; but then it must be remembered that the punishment fell not so much on the child as on the parent. The Government had not adopted the course of altering the Factory Act; but they had endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between that Act and the Education Act, by giving the school board a hold on the child who could not pass the Fifth Standard. But they had gone beyond the severity of the Factory Act, because they proposed, in this clause, to deprive the child of the alternative of obtaining employment as a full timer by obtaining a certificate of due attendance. They thus put the child in even a worse position than at present; instead of giving relief from the oppressive provision of the Factory Act. That he greatly regretted. The course adopted by the Government would, he knew, cause great disappointment to many, and would be felt as entailing on them a serious burden. He trusted his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) would reconsider the matter, and get quit of the objectionable provision. He believed that the proposed provision was unworkable, and that it would be impossible for school boards to enforce compulsory education on children above 13 years of age. To attempt to do so would only create irritation and a reaction of feeling against compulsory education. Education could not go too far, but compulsion could easily be overdone, especially when education was not free. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 5, after "Act," insert "or a certificate of previous due attendance at a certified efficient school. The standard of due attendance shall be such as may be from time to time fixed for the purposes of the Factory and Workshops Act, 1878, under section 26 of the said Act, by the Secretary of State, and with the consent of the Education Department."—(Mr. Dick-Peddie.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. MUNDELLA

said, his hon. Friend's (Mr. Dick-Peddie's) complaint was really against the Factory Acts, and many people had been to him urging him to altogether supersede the clause in the Factory Acts which prevented a child being employed as a full timer at the age of 13 years. Whether it was a reasonable provision or not, he was sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would not allow him, in an Act dealing only with Scotland, to interfere with the Factory and Workshops Act, which applied to the whole of the Three Kingdoms. He could not, in a local Act, touch that part of the question. The hon. Member said—" You are laying an increased burden on the working classes;" but he (Mr. Mundella) denied that the provisions of the present Bill would lay a feather's weight on any child who was at work. The object of the section was merely to put two classes of children on the same footing. The Factory Acts required children of a certain age who were at work to attend school half-time; but if they were not at work, and were purely wastrels about the streets, the school authorities had no control over them. The object of the Bill was simply to put the child who was not at work on the same footing as the child who was. That, he thought, was a very reasonable provision. As to the due attendance order, these children never could avail themselves of it. They knew, from their English experience, that these children could not attend school for five years, giving 250 attendances a-year. He (Mr. Mundella) hoped the hon. Member would not expect him, at that hour of the morning, to accept the Amendment. He was sure there would be no complaint in the future as to the working of it.

MR. DICK-PEDDIE

said, the right hon. Gentleman had failed to properly understand the purport of the Amendment, which had no reference to half-timers. He did not wish to interfere with those children. The right hon. Gentleman must know perfectly well that there were many children who had never been half-timers at all who had attended school regularly until they were 13, and had been unable to pass the Standard. It was for these children that he wished to modify the provision.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, he could assure the hon. Member (Mr. Diek-Peddie) that he did not know "perfectly well," as the hon. Member seemed to suppose, that there were many children of the age of 13 who attended school who were unable to pass the required Standard. The evidence was all the other way, and showed that children who attended school regularly were able to pass at that ago. As a general rule, taking the average of Scotch children, they passed the Fifth Standard at the age of 12.

MR. DICK-PEDDIE

said, that at that hour of the morning it was impossible properly to discuss the Amendment, therefore he would withdraw it; but, if he had time, he could satisfy the right hon. Gentleman that he was quite ignorant of the state of matters in Scotland in regard to this subject.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to, with Amendments.

Clause 7 agreed to.

Clauses 8 to 10 agreed to, with Amendments.

Clause 11 (Duty of school board to take proceedings under this Act).

On the Motion of Mr. MUNDELLA, the following Amendment made:—In page 3, line 28, leave out "efficient," and insert "public or inspected."

Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

MR. HENDERSON,

who had an Amendment to omit the whole clause, asked the right hon. Gentleman to explain its meaning and object, as an explanation might perhaps obviate the necessity for his (Mr. Henderson's) opposition to it.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, this clause was a copy of the clause in the English Act, extending the Bill to Scotland, and the words were almost identical. That clause had worked exceedingly well for several years; and it was necessary in this Bill to show that where an Inspector of Factories or Schools, or a teacher, or a school attendance officer, or a clergyman of the parish, gave notice that such children were not attending school the school officers should follow up the matter.

MR. HENDERSON

said, the right hon. Gentleman had not explained the clause to his satisfaction. It appeared to him that it was quite a new method of legislation for Scotland that a school board, on the intimation of any person, should take certain proceedings, and that if they did not do so, they should state their reasons with their Minutes. It was quite true that in the English Bill a school board might be informed by any person; but the obligation was not laid upon them of recording their reasons on the Minutes. He did not wish to prolong the discussion, or imperil the passing of the Bill; but, at the same time, he felt that there was great objection to the creation of a new system in Scotland. He did not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman meant it, or that the clause should be acted upon to any great extent; but the clause did empower any layman to give information to a school board that some one was not educating his children in a proper manner; and upon that intimation, however ill-qualified the person might be to judge of the question whether the children were being educated in accordance with the various Acts or not, the parent was to lie under the stigma of such an accusation, and the board was to be bound to make inquiry into the state of the education of the children; and however false the information might be it might still cause considerable ill-feeling. It was a clause which he thought would be repugnant to the feelings of the people of Scotland; and he did not see that it was of such importance as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to believe, because the Act of 1870 required school board officers to ascertain the educational state of every child in their districts, and if they did not do their duty then the Board would be held to blame. They were bound to see that the officers did their duty; and if a clergyman, or a teacher, was the only person interested in the matter, and it was upon him that the right hon. Gentleman depended for giving information. why should he not be named in the Rill? The words "any person" seemed too wide, and under any circumstances they might be the means of creating a great deal of ill-feeling. He should like to hear the opinions of other Members before the Division was taken upon the clause.

MR. WILLIAMSON

hoped the clause would be maintained, believing it would be most useful. When he was in Scotland he found a number of children playing about during school hours, and he had felt it his duty to give information.

MR. DICK-PEDDIE

said, he entirely concurred in the objection of his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee to the clause. No great harm would be done by the Board inquiring into cases reported to them; but if they were to be bound to take proceedings against the parents in all cases in which information might be given them, or to record their reasons for not doing so, serious injustice might be done to persons who had really been guilty of no neglect of their children, but had been informed against out of spite or malice. The clause was utterly unnecessary, and he should support the opposition to it.

MR. A. GRANT

said, he was very much inclined to support the objection to the clause, as he believed it would create a large amount of bad feeling in the community. That was very undesirable. It had been remarked that this was only importing into Scotland what had hitherto been the law in England; but it must be remembered that Scotland stood in a very different position from England. In every parish they had a school board, who had an officer, whose duty it was to do what was laid down in this clause; but in England there was not a school board in every parish. On the whole, he thought this clause might be perfectly well dispensed with.

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)

said, that provisions of this nature were intended as a kindness to the children, and not as a penalty. It was suggested that the school board officer was adequate; but, in large towns particularly, there might be children playing about the doors, without being seen, and it seemed reasonable that anyone who had cognizance that they were not attending school should mention the matter. No stigma would appear in the books, because what would be given would be reasons why proceedings were not taken. It would be a great misfortune if the clause was not passed.

MR. J. A. CAMPBELL

said, he thought the clause might be useful in country parishes as well as in towns. There was, perhaps, no part of the work of Scotch school boards as to which they heard more frequent complaints than the enforcing of attendance. If boards showed a slowness to act upon the compulsory powers given to them, it was, in many cases, because their officers were not so active as they might be.

Question put.

The Committee divided:— Ayes 45; Noes 3: Majority 42.—(Div. List, No. 292.)

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 12 agreed to, with Amendments.

Clause 13 (Mode of procedure and expenses of prosecutions).

On the Motion of Mr. MUNDELLA, the following Amendments made:—In page 4, line 15, after "penalties," insert "or for the purpose of obtaining any order; "Clause 13, page 4, after line 28, insert as a new paragraph:— Where a prosecution, as in this section mentioned, is instituted by a school board before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, no member of such school board shall be qualified to act as a member of such court.

MR. WILLIAMSON,

in proposing the Amendment of which he had given Notice, said, the municipal boundaries in Scotland were not, in a good many cases, co-extensive with the school board area. In these extra burghal areas the burgh magistrates had no jurisdiction, and it was desirable they should have for the special purposes of this Bill. Although there was a little technical difficulty in admitting his Amendment, still if the Committee thought it a valuable and useful one he hoped they would accept it.

Amendment proposed, at end of Clause to add— In the case of Royal or Parliamentary Burghs having School Board are as extending beyond the municipal boundaries, but having their school buildings within the same, the provost or baillie of such burghs may, for the special purposes of this Bill, have jurisdiction over defaulting parents residing within the entire School Board area."—(Mr. Williamson.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

SIR JOHN HAY

said, he did not know what legal difficulties there might be in inserting this Amendment; but if it was inserted he thought it would be a great advantage to the communities interested. He should be glad to hear that there was no legal difficulty; and he was confident that in the smaller boroughs the Amendment would be of great advantage.

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)

said, he was afraid the difficulty was more than one of technicality. It was one of substance; because the proposal was one to confer upon an elected baillie of a burgh jurisdiction over a country district outside the burgh. That was a formidable proposal, and contrary to the principles of jurisdiction.

MR. WILLIAMSON

For the special purpose of this Act.

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)

said, the proposal was to give elected baillies jurisdiction over rural districts. It seemed to him that there was ample provision for reaching defaulting parents in other ways.

MR. WILLIAMSON

said, he would withdraw the Amendment, but he regretted having to do so. Country people had no power of choosing the Justices, any more than the neighbouring burgh magistrates.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, he should have been glad to agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member if he could; but he thought his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate had shown that there was a serious objection.

MR. WILLIAMSON

said, the objection would vanish if the Amendment were accepted.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 14 agreed to.

New Clause, to follow Clause 7—

(Meaning of passing a standard.)

"Passing a standard within the meaning of the two immediately preceding sections signifies passing in each of the three subjects of reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic, as prescribed for the respective standards of examination by the Minutes of the Scotch Education Department regulating the administration of the Parliamentary Grant for Education in Scotland for the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, or for any subsequent year,"—(Mr. Mundella,)

—brought up, and read a first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

MR. DICK-PEDDIE

asked, why it was necessary to define the Standard?

MR. MUNDELLA

said, the reason was that several school boards and employers and others had complained of the present arrangement. The Glasgow and Edinburgh School Boards had pressed for a plain definition in the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.

MR. HENDERSON

said, that at the request of the hon. Member for Forfar (Mr. J. W. Barclay), he would move the clause standing in his name with respect to the remission of fees. As the Committee were aware, under the Act of 1870 those children, whose parents were unable to pay school fees, were referred to Parochial Boards in Scotland, as they were to Boards of Guardians in England. Great difficulty was experienced in Scotland with respect to getting those boards to pay such fees; and, in consequence, the clause was practically inoperative. But the Act of 1878 gave the School Board power to remit fees; but very remarkable consequences ensued. He believed that in most of the districts the boards gave relief in every case which was certified by the School Board officer as being a deserving case, and it would be seen from the Return of the amounts which the boards had granted, that they had increased every year by leaps and bounds. Still, there was always a stigma attaching to parents who had applied to the Parochial Boards for relief of this kind, and the effect had been to create a new class of paupers in the country. The independent spirit of the Scotch people had, to a certain extent, been broken down; and he was assured that workmen of a class, who never before had applied to the boards, were now coming in in greater numbers every year, and he could distinctly trace the rise of a new class of paupers as the result of this provision. He had long been thoroughly convinced that there was no worse method of relieving these children than by sending them to the Parochial Boards. It was degrading in the extreme, and its effect was to greatly demoralize the people, and to create a new class of paupers in the country. The clause proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Forfar did not disturb the existing system where the School Board chose to refer the application to the parochial authority to deal with in the manner laid down in the Statute; but if they were of opinion that, in any district, this method of relief would have an injurious effect, they could dispense with it. The sending of parents to Parochial Boards for the fees for their children's education, had had a most injurious effect in most of the large towns. If any opposition had arisen to the proposed clause it came from the school boards, who were unwilling to undertake the duty of discriminating between those who were and who were not the proper persons to be relieved. But no valid excuse could be made for them; it was a duty they were far better able to discharge than Parochial Boards, for they could fix a better standard of relief than the Poor Law Boards, who applied a very severe standard. When relief was asked from a Parochial Board, they simply considered subsistence for men, women, and children; they did not contemplate anything beyond that. He, therefore, moved the clause standing in the name of the hon. Member for Forfar.

Now Clause:—

(Remission of Fees.)

"The sixty-ninth section of 'The Education (Scotland) Act, 1872,' is hereby amended, to the effect that a parent alleging that he is unable from poverty to pay the school fees of any child may, instead of applying to the Parochial Board, apply to the School Board of the district in which he resides to be exempted from payment of school fees, and the School Board may either remit such fees, or part thereof, for such time as they think fit, or may transmit the application to the Parochial Board, who shall dispose thereof in terms of the said sixty-ninth section; but such remission of fees shall be without prejudice to the emoluments of such teachers as may have the school fees as part of their emoluments,"—(Mr. Henderson,)

—brought up, and read a first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

MR. MUNDELLA

said, he was sorry to interpose before the Scotch Members who desired to speak upon this proposal, and he would say very briefly why he could not accept the clause; and he hoped the hon. Member (Mr. Henderson) would not consider it necessary to press it to a Division. For his own part, he was in favour of giving school boards the same power they had in England, and he believed that, ultimately, it would be found to work well; but he would ask the hon. Member not to invite a vote now. In time public opinion would come round to the views he advocated; but that opinion was against them now, and that opinion was strongly expressed when there were rumours that it was intended to give this power to remit fees, and the Department had to protest such was not the case, and circulated copies of the Bill to allay the strong feeling against the introduction of a new principle. It was a most contentious question; and if this new principle were proceeded with now half the Members for Scotland would rise to protest against it being carried, and a fair discussion could not be expected at such a late hour. He hoped his hon. Friend would he content with having ventilated the subject, and would withdraw the clause.

MR. WARTON

said, he did most earnestly hope that the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Henderson) would not withdraw the clause. It was all very well to talk of the hour being late; but whose fault was that? It was the fault of the Government, who did not arrange their Business properly, unreasonably pressing on measures with indecent haste. It was perfectly scandalous that the House should be kept sitting in such a manner through the fault of the Government alone. He sympathized with the view of the hon. Member for Dundee, and hoped he would press his point. The right hon. Gentleman conducting the Bill did not really object to the clause, for it had his concurrence; but because the Bill had been circulated in its crude state, and before the House had settled it, throughout Scotland, the Committee were to be bound by its second-reading state before it had passed Committee. Such an abdication of its functions by the House he had never heard of. Had the Committee full power to deliberate, or were they victims of the hasty action of the Department in sending the Bill round Scotland? Such an action was most unconstitutional; though, of course, constitutionalism could not be expected from a Liberal Ministry. They sent the Bill round; but what business had they to do that? Why send round the Bill for the opinion of school boards? Were not the Committee there to judge for themselves? He hoped the hon. Member for Dundee would divide on the clause; or it would be better still to report Progress at once, and adjourn the discussion to a more reasonable hour.

Motion made, and Question "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Warton,)—put, and negatived.

MR. HENDERSON

said, after what had been stated, and in the interest of the clause, he thought it was undesirable to divide the Committee, and he, therefore, begged leave to withdraw it.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.