CLASS IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.

HC Deb 06 August 1884 vol 292 cc4-72

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £12,378, 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 1885, in aid of the Expense of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland.

MR. PARNELL

This Vote, although it looks small for the Queen's Colleges, yet, in reality, involves a considerably larger sum than that stated in the Estimates, other sums having already been obtained on account. The amount which we are required to vote by the Estimate before us is £12,378; but, in addition, there is £21,000 per annum charged upon the Consolidated Fund for the salaries of Professors and Officers, and allowances for Scholarships, Exhibitions, and Prizes under 8 & 9 Vict. c. 66, s. 12, which makes, within a fraction, £33,400 as the entire amount provided by the State for the institution called the Queen's Colleges, in Ireland, to maintain such Colleges. Now, the case I propose to make out, I trust to the satisfaction of the Committee, is that this sum is practically thrown away, so far as the ostensible objects for which it is paid are concerned, and that if it were applied in some way for the benefit of higher education in Ireland, in accordance with the wishes and feeling of the vast majority of the Irish people, the result would be quite different, and that, so far from the money being practically wasted, it would be of the utmost advantage in enabling the youth of Ireland to obtain that University education which, during so many years, they have been persistently denied by Parliament. This question Sir, is a growing question. In the last Parliament, the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, the right hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), brought in a Bill to establish what was called the Royal University of Ireland, and he offered the measure as a solution of the question of University education in Ireland. It was accepted pro tanto, at the time, by those who had a right to speak on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland; but the reservation was distinctly made, however, both by the higher dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, and also by the Members of this House, that the question of the Queen's Colleges would be still deemed an unsettled question, and one that would be periodically brought before the attention of Parliament until some action was taken in the direction I have indicated. Under this enactment the Queen's University, which then existed as a State institution, was abolished; but the three Queen's Colleges of Cork, Galway, and Belfast, which were in connection with the University system of the Queen's University, were left practically intact, as they were then, with their large endowments, amounting, as I have shown, to £33,400 per annum. Last year I moved an Amendment to reduce the Vote we are now considering by the sum of £4,696, being the amount out of the Vote which is used for the Scholarships, Exhibitions, and Prizes given away to the students of the Queen's Colleges; but this year I propose to move a more substantial reduction still upon the Estimates, as the question has grown considerably since then, and the offer that we then made, that we should be given the sum of £4,696 19s. 8d., the value of the Scholarships, Exhibitions, and Prizes, would not now be accepted by those interested in the question in Ireland. Our claim now is that these institutions should be swept away altogether, and that the Royal University Act should be amended in such a way as to confer equal justice on the Denominational Colleges throughout Ireland, now affiliated to the Royal University, so as to enable the objects of the Act to be carried out in accordance with the wishes of the Irish people. In dealing with this question, I would wish to call attention for a moment to an institution known as the Catholic University of Ireland, which is still in existence, notwithstanding the establishment of the Royal University, and which still maintains itself in a very efficient condition as regards the number of students on its rolls in Arts, who are pursuing their studies with a view to taking degrees, and also with regard to the very large proportion of the higher prizes of the Royal University offered to public competition by the Senate of the Royal University which the students of the Catholic University have been successful in carrying off. I have desired to make this reference to the success of that institution on account of the observations of the right hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Playfair) regarding the want of support to local education in Ireland. This is an institution which is entirely self-supporting, and which obtains no State aid. I make the allusion as an answer to the assertion which has been often made by English Members in this House in the educational and other debates as to the want of local support for Irish educational institutions. I may say that the undergraduates of the Royal University have set on foot an agitation with a view of having the Scholarships and other prizes of the Queen's Colleges provided out of the public purse, and now reserved exclusively for the students of the Queen's Colleges, thrown open to competition among all the students of the Royal University. This is a movement not confined to Catholics, and not intended for the benefit of any particular institution. It is based on the principles of equality and freedom for the different religious sects in Ireland. But, as I have already explained, it was upon that movement that my Resolution was based regarding the £4,600 and odd—tho value of the prizes, Scholarships, and Exhibitions to the three Queen's Colleges. But the question has considerably advanced beyond that point now; and it will be my duty to-day to direct the attention of the Committee, with a view to the rejection of this Vote, to a change in the character of the Queen's Colleges nearly altogether, which seems calculated to have a very injurious effect upon the Denominational Catholic Schools of Ireland. The Queen's Colleges have hitherto professed to be University Colleges; and they were certainly, after the passage of the Royal University Act, a part, of course, of the system of University education in Ireland. Since the passage of the Royal University Act—and they had received up to that time only University students—they have been forced, in order to retain their position, notwithstanding that they are in receipt of this large annual endowment from the State funds, to throw open their doors to University and non-University students alike, thus entirely abandoning their character of exclusively University establishments; and, with their advantage of State patronage and endowments, with their great advantage of State buildings and laboratories, and their educational apparatus, they are now entering into a competition, as Intermediate Schools, with the unendowed Denominational and Intermediate Schools throughout Ireland—not very much, as yet, to the injury of those schools, but still very much to their own discredit, and manifestly most unfairly, and contrary to the intentions of Parliament. Notwithstanding this, however, the students coming up from the Catholic Denominational Schools to these immediate examinations have outstripped and surpassed all others in the number of distinguished students they have sent up to the examinations held in June, 1883, being the latest Return on the subject to be had. Out of a total number of 535 candidates at the Royal University ex- aminations, 332, or 62 per cent of the students who obtained Exhibitions and prizes came from the Catholic Denominational Schools. This, I think, will be taken as a very remarkable testimony to the efficiency of these Catholic Denominational Schools, and on their behalf, amongst other unendowed schools, I protest against the unfairness of this State Vote in aid of what are practically Intermediate Schools in competition with the Voluntary Schools throughout the country. Well, Sir, another aspect of the question is the fact that, owing to the endowment of the three Colleges, they have now become Intermediate Schools, and that, therefore, two sets of endowments are provided for them at the public expense. The Colleges have first the prizes of the Royal University, which are open to all schools throughout Ireland, as well as to these State-endowed schools, and next the prizes of the Queen's Colleges themselves, which are especially the monopoly of the students of this Institution. This arrangement I believe to be a very great grievance to the students of the Catholic and other Intermediate Schools throughout the country and to the other undergraduates of the Royal University who are not students of the Queen's Colleges. In reference to this question, I may call to the recollection of the Committee a very strong argument, which is entirely within my contention in moving the rejection of the present Vote, and on account of which I shall claim the support of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. I will recall to the recollection of the Committee a very clear statement made by that hon. Gentleman when the Bill for the establishment of the Royal University was passing through the House in the last Parliament, and before the hon. Gentleman had attained to his present well-deserved position in the Ministry. After having listened to the representations made by the Irish Members in reference to the necessity for the endowment of the Queen's Colleges, the hon. Gentleman said— The Government had Drought out, as if they desired to make it as distinct as possible, the inequality between the Queen's Colleges and other forms of education. As long as they maintained the Collegiate Education, established by a Conservative far-seeing Government, they were able to maintain the system as it stood. The Government now had broken it down, and had put a University upon a basis it would be im- possible to maintain. They could not maintain the endowments to the Queen's Colleges, where students were training for the University, and keep other students deprived of them. He was perfectly pursuaded that the Bill now laid upon the Table, would have to be completed sooner or later, by the disendowment of the Queen's Colleges."—(3 Hansard, [249] 277.) With the recollection of that speech in the mind of the hon. Gentleman, I think I have established my claim to the vote of the hon. Gentleman in favour of my proposal. With regard to the unsuitability of the Queen's Colleges, and the necessity which has been found to exist by their management, in order to justify the continuance of the grant, by turning them into Intermediate Schools, I will quote, as an illustration, the Report of the President of the Queen's College in Cork, Dr. Sullivan. As to the character of the students coming down there, hesays— The students come so badly prepared in what may be called the ordinary instruments of thought, and in the ancient and modern languages—in a word, in every part of school work—that they follow the University manner, and much time is lost before a large number of the students learn how to properly work. The Professor is consequently obliged either to lecture over the heads of a large part of his class, or to divide it into instructed and uninstructed. Now, last October 13 students entering Queen's College had matriculated in the Royal University. Not one of these students gained an Exhibition in the Royal University, or first-class honours in a single subject; and one, and only one, gained second-class honours. The President's Report, which I have just referred to, explains that this is the remarkable result of the working of your endowed, intermediate, hybrid, and Collegiate institutions in Ireland. He says— The students coming up to the Queen's Colleges come so badly prepared in every part of school work; and, of course, it follows that when they go up for the competitions in the Royal University they are unable to compete with any of the more highly trained students from the denominational and unendowed Voluntary Schools throughout Ireland. Well, these 13 students who had presented themselves for the Royal University examinations, 12 of whom have proved themselves to be mere pass-men, enter the Queen's College, Cork, and thereby find provided out of the public Exchequer 10 entrance Scholarships offered for competition, each worth £24 in money, with remission of half fees, which is equivalent to £5 more. In addition, it must be remembered that at the very time when these 13 students are competing for 10 Scholarships worth £29 each, a long roll of students who have gained first-class honours at the examinations of the Royal University are left without any academical prizes whatever. Now, Sir, I said a short time since that the Queen's Colleges, in order to maintain their position, are now competing with unendowed Intermediate Schools throughout the country; and I think I have made out that contention by quoting the small number of students from these Colleges who proceed as University students afterwards, under the Royal University system. In reference to this matter, I may again call attention to the Report of Professor Sullivan regarding the Cork College for the Session 1882–3. In that Report he said that in the academical year just ended the number of students who entered his College was 71. Of these only 13 passed the matriculation examination held by the College itself; six were admitted without passing any examination at all, on the ground that they came up from other Colleges; but the Report does not say on what ground the remaining 16 were admitted. The only explanation that can be reasonably given with regard to these 16 students is that, having been rejected, they were afterwards, through a feeling of compassion, admitted without any examination at all. It is plain, therefore, from this Report, that these 71 students may be divided into four classes. First, there were 13 University students; next, 36 students who came up to the standard of the College entrance examination, which is below the standard of the junior grade in the examination of the Intermediate Board; and then there are 16 students who came up to no standard at all; and, lastly, there are six who were admitted without examination because they came from other Colleges, before presenting themselves to the Queen's Colleges. "Our complaint then is"—I am now quoting from Dr. Molloy, of the Catholic University, who puts the matter into shorter and simpler language than I could employ— That the interests of education are sacrificed, and the public money is squandered, simply to fill the halls of the Queen's Colleges with, ill-trained students; that the Scholarships and other prizes intended to provide higher education are used as bribes to tempt away boys from school before their school work is done, and to press them into a University career before they have mastered the first elements of knowledge. The practical result of such a system can be no other than what Dr. Sullivan, from his actual experience, tells us it is; even intelligent youths, forced prematurely into a course of studies which is beyond their powers, can only limp along, as he says, in an unsatisfactory manner, while their presence must of necessity impede the progress of real University students, and impair the efficiency of University teaching. I would now wish to refer to a debate which took place last Session on an Amendment moved by me to this Vote, and to the position which was taken up by the right hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Playfair). The right hon. Gentleman defended the establishment and maintenance of the Queen's Colleges after the Queen's University had ceased to exist. The question then at issue was, whether it was justifiable that the Queen's Colleges, being State-endowed institutions, should be allowed to compete with unendowed schools and Colleges throughout Ireland under both the Intermediate and the Royal University systems, and to compote for Scholarships and Prizes under the two systems, and at the same time to retain their exclusive right to the Scholarships, Exhibitions, and Prizes under their own Collegiate system, which are provided out of the public funds? The right hon. Gentleman contended that they were entitled to this privilege on account of the great success they had hitherto achieved; and he actually went so far as to say in his speech that the Queen's Colleges of Ireland had shown themselves to be superior as University Colleges to the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. He said the test of a College was the number of graduates it produced; that in Oxford and Cambridge there was one graduate produced out of every five; in the Scotch Universities the number was only one in seven; in the London University one in 11; whereas in the Queen's Colleges the number was one in every three students. It will be noted here, as I have already pointed out, that the right hon. Gentleman was arguing for the maintenance of the present state of things, as Intermediate Schools and Colleges after the Queen's University had ceased to exist; and he tried to prove this by referring to what he supposed was the excellence of the Queen's University while it was in existence. The test of a University College, he said, was the number of graduates; and, applying this test, he claimed that the Colleges of the Queen's University had proved themselves superior as University Colleges to those of Oxford and Cambridge. But the right hon. Gentleman forgot that a College connected with a University, and forming part of it, may supply as many graduates as it pleases, provided that it lowers the standard of its degrees to the level of its students. I have shown that by the Report of the President of the Queen's College at Cork, who ought to know as much as anybody about the efficiency of the students who frequent that institution, and of what class those students are; and he has declared that even the rudiments of schoolboy knowledge they follow in a limping and unsatisfactory manner, and that much time is lost before the students learn how to properly work. In any case, the Queen's University, upon the existence and emoluments of which the right hon. Gentleman's argument was based, is now a thing of the past. The Queen's Colleges have now entered upon a new career under the Royal University, and it certainly does not appear so far that they have given any extraordinary promise regarding the number of graduates they are likely to produce. Prom the successive Reports of the Presidents it will be found what the number of students has been, and I will now show the number of graduates relied upon by the right hon. Gentleman as a proof of the excellence of the system of the Queen's College Schools for Colleges. In fact, the number of graduates which the Queen's University now produces has now fallen off very much as regards the connection of the Royal Colleges with the Royal University system. Consequently, there is not the slightest weight to be attached to that portion of the right hon. Gentleman's argument now, for, although the Queen's Colleges, when part of a University of their own, had a considerable number of graduates in proportion to other Universities in England, yet the number of their graduates under the Royal University system had almost entirely fallen away, until it would appear as if, in the course of a year or two, the Queen's Colleges would cease to supply any graduates whatever to the Royal University of Ireland. From the successive Reports of the Presidents it will be found that the number of University students entering the Cork Queen's College as freshmen was 109 in the Session of 1880–1, and 133 in 1881–2. This is the large proportion of graduates relied upon by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Playfair) last year, when arguing for the maintenance of the present Queen's Colleges. But, in the Session of 1882–3, after the Royal University system had got into working order, the number of students who graduated in the Queen's College at Cork fell from 133 to 13. The explanation is obvious. The Royal University had in the interval taken the place of the Queen's University. The entrance examination of the Queen's University for its own Colleges had given place to the more difficultmatriculation examinations under the Royal University system, which the students of the Queen's Colleges found themselves utterly unable to pass, being of so much higher a standard. The result was that, while the number of students entering in 1880–1 was 109; in 1881–2 133; in 1882–3 it fell to 13, because it was impossible for them to become University students without passing the matriculation examination in the Royal University. Now, I think I have conclusively shown, by reference to the Queen's College of Cork, that these Colleges stood condemned as part of the University system in Ireland; that it is utterly useless to maintain them as part of that system; that their present position is most unfair to the unendowed Denominational Colleges throughout the country; and that, in order to support some reason for their existence, the Queen's Colleges of Cork and Galway have been compelled to turn themselves into Intermediate Schools, in which branch they are competing, although not so far injuriously with the unendowed Intermediate Schools of Ireland. The continued existence, therefore, of these endowments for these purposes to the Queen's Colleges is a hardship against both the Voluntary Colleges and the Intermediate Schools of Ireland; and it is utterly impossible for the Government to support the existence of these anomalous establishments upon any principle whatever. I suppose it will be said that a Royal Commission is now sitting for the purpose of inquiring into these Queen's Colleges. But the terms of Reference to the Commission, regarding the distribution of endowments, are of such a character that the Commission does not deem itself justified in inquiring how the Queen's Colleges might be made available for students having conscientious objections to go to them under the present system. But, although the scope of the inquiry has been thus narrowed by the Reference, the Commission has received important statements as to the backward condition of intermediate education in Ireland. Professor Ridgway, of Queen's College, Cork, said that there were no good schools in Ireland, and this statement is derived from his own experience of the students who go to the Queen's College at Cork. As the condemnation of Professor Ridgway is derived from his experience of the students going to one particular College only, it affords remarkable proof that the character of the students entering these Colleges generally is most inferior, especially when it is borne in mind that it is the fact that the denominational and voluntary Intermediate Schools throughout Ireland do send a vast number of well-taught students to the intermediate examinations, and that they are most successful in the competitions under the intermediate education system. I and my Colleagues are, of course, not in a position, not being the Government of the country, to bring forward any detailed plan for the settlement of this question. We can only point out the various anomalies, the abuses, the waste of money, and the unfairness which are taking place under the present system. We call upon the Government to withdraw this large sum of money—this £29,000 of educational grant from the Queen's Colleges as a commencement of action, and to add it to the endowment of the Royal University, which is grievously pinched for money. The Government would then have a further opportunity in the endowment of the University, grievously pinched for money as it is, of considering the whole question of University education in Ireland, and of suggesting such amendments in the Royal University Act of last Parliament as the interval of time which has elapsed since its passage may show to be neces- sary. In any case, we are entitled to ask the Government to commence by cutting down these obnoxious and useless institutions. Practically speaking, they constitute a grave educational scandal, and a very serious injustice to the great mass of the people. Apart from Belfast, there is practically no demand for them. The Queen's College in that City has been turned into a Denominational College for persons of the Presbyterian faith. To that we should have no objection if justice were shown as regards the endowment of the other two Colleges, and if these two were managed in such a way as to enable them to be turned into Denominational Colleges for the Roman Catholics of Ireland. But this is not so, and, therefore, we are compelled to ask for the withdrawal of the endowments from all the three Colleges. I think the Belfast people, who have been maintaining an obstinate attitude on this question, would do well to consider the matter now, before it goes much further, with a view of obtaining for themselves a fair compromise, which will enable them to keep, at least, a portion of what they have got, and of which they evidently appear to appreciate the value. The inequality exists on both sides. To give to one denomination, which is not the religion of Ireland, while you refuse it to the other, which is a much larger Irish denomination, is an anomaly. It is an anomaly which, I venture to think, cannot be much longer continued; and in order to show my appreciation of the grievance I shall think it right to take a Division against the whole Vote.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he looked upon the matter as a somewhat personal one, and he occupied a somewhat peculiar position in regard to it. He was a graduate of the Queen's University, and he represented one of the towns in which a Queen's College existed. He had no desire to speak in any terms except those of deep respect and regard for the officials of that Institution. He would also look to the future of these Colleges rather with the hope of reform and of construction than of destruction. He shared the feeling of his hon. Friend when he said he viewed with alarm and grave apprehension the substitution of mere Examining Boards for that Collegiate training which was the most useful part of University education. He thought the Committee was be congratulated on having an Irish Government, on that occasion at least, represented mainly by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. The Irish Members occasionally opposed that right hon. Member strongly; but it was well known that he had had a distinguished University career, that he had been intimately associated for many years with a leading University, and that he was thoroughly acquainted with the educational aspects of the question. If he did not mistake, the right hon. Gentleman represented a school of educational thought which demanded that there should be a complete supervision between the religious and secular education. He thought, therefore, that it was satisfactory that the right hon. Gentleman should pronounce an effective opinion upon the question, because they would then be dealing with a Gentleman with an open mind, who would be willing to have his judgment swayed by the force of admitted facts. The Royal University was an awkward compromise between two different sets of principles. It was too late in the day to argue against the principle of the Queen's University; but it would be admitted that any system of education was condemned when the majority of the nation to which it was applied refused to accept it. The principle of the Queen's University was condemned by the Irish people long ago, and the rulers of the time found it absolutely necessary to depart from it. The first attempt that was made to do that—and it was an honest and genuine attempt—was made by the right hon. Gentleman the present First Lord of the Treasury, he thought in 1873. Of course, it would be going back to ancient history to express an opinion as to the wisdon or unwisdom of rejecting the compromise of the right hon. Gentleman; but, as far back as 1873, when Mr. Gladstone propounded his principle of University education, the Irish people refused to accept it. It would, therefore, be a waste of time, and an anachronism, to argue against a principle of University education which had been abandoned by statesmen on both sides. But when the Prime Minister brought in the Bill of 1873 it found acceptance among a majority of his chief supporters; and it found its opponents among two very different classes of people—namely, in certain ranks of his own Party and the Irish Representatives, who refused to accept it because they did not consider it a full instalment of the rights and demands of the Irish people. The mutinous section of the Irish Party thought it too large a concession to the principle of mixed education. The result was that the Bill was rejected, and the Prime Minister afterwards declared, in a document now historical, that its rejection was the remote cause of his appeal to the country and the overthrow of the Government. When the next Administration proposed to deal with the question they found that projects existed among a large section of the House against any departure from the principle of mixed education; and the result was that they made a compromise which, like most compromises, was illogical, absurd, unworkable, and unsatisfactory. The principle of the Bill was so far to yield to the wishes of the Irish people as to make the standard of the Catholic Colleges apply to University degrees, and it so far stood by the principle of mixed education as to preserve the existing endowments of the Colleges founded on that system. That was the compromise adopted. He believed that his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was consistent upon this question, because he had been entirely opposed to the compromise offered by the late Administration. Indeed, he believed it was the fact that his hon. Friend would not allow the measure to pass in Parliament without entering an indignant protest against it; and he, therefore, retired to his country residence, and allowed the Bill to pass in his absence. Well, time had justified the hostile view of that compromise, which, as upon many other matters, his hon. Friend had taken when the Bill was before the House of Commons. As his hon. Friend anticipated, the compromise of the late Administration proved utterly unworkable. How had it worked? They had, on the one hand, the Catholic Colleges, and, on the other, the Queen's Colleges. The Royal University was open to both; but this enormous difference existed—that the students of the Queen's Colleges had all the advantages of State endowment, while the students in the Catholic Colleges had all the disadvantages of a purely voluntary institution. The students of the Queen's Colleges, besides having all the advantages of State endowment, had also the advantage of splendid buildings and laboratories, and a most competent staff of Professors; and, as a matter of fact, the students of the Catholic Colleges were altogether handicapped in entering into a competition with the students of the Queen's Colleges—that was to say, that an Act that was meant to give full justice to the Irish Colleges, and to establish a complete equality of education, had carried out those great purposes by placing the Catholic students at an extraordinary disadvantage, and depriving them of the endowments which were given to the students of the non-Catholic Colleges. The case had only to be stated in order to show how absurd, illogical, and unsatisfactory the arrangement was. The real point, however, was whether the Queen's Colleges should be allowed to last until the students had altogether disappeared—whether they should wait year after year, and allow the diminishing attendance to go on, or whether they should regard the evil as having been seen afar off, and take heart and courage, and at once deal with these endowments, in the only manner that would preserve educational facilities and, at the same time, satisfy the mind of the Irish people. He must say that he should regard with regret—that he should feel himself bound to oppose with vehemence any proposal to destroy the Queen's Colleges in Galway, or in the other towns of Ireland. He did not think that his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) contemplated any such purpose. The Queen's College in Galway had a splendid building. It had beautiful laboratories, and all the appliances that were requisite for a first-class College, and it was situated in a town which was naturally the chief town of Connemara. These Queen's Colleges had done an enormous amount of indirect good; but he thought that nothing would justify the keeping up of an Institution which was in antagonism to the religious convictions of the people it professed to serve. The best feature of the Queen's Colleges had been this—that they brought education home to the doors of the poor and struggling. In the town of Galway a large number of the children of the poor would have been un- able to enter a College, but for the fact of the College itself being situate in that town. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for them to have obtained University education. In England and Scotland the persons who received University education belonged to a class which was in far more comfortable circumstances. He believed that these local Colleges were of absolute necessity in Ireland. It seemed a small thing, perhaps, to an Englishman that the student should have to go for short distances to the Metropolis of Ireland; but he was able to say, from his own experience, that any University system which compelled attendance in Dublin by the country student of Ireland would be a system that would place University education beyond the reach of the vast majority of the Irish people. He thought, there fore, that the system of local Colleges must not only be maintained, but that in future they might also be considered and extended. What, then, would be a practical method for meeting the present emergency? He urged that the present system could not be maintained. It was a monstrous and illogical absurdity to profess to put students of different Colleges on the same footing, and, at the same time, to endow one and not endow the other. An arrangement of that kind could not be long maintained. He thought the obvious settlement was this—that the Queen's Colleges should be maintained; but, at the same time, that they should be made consistent with the wishes of the Irish people, by turning them into Denominational Colleges for Catholics, Protestants, or Presbyterians. They most strongly protested that they did not regard the exclusive Presbyterian character of the Belfast College with any feelings of opposition or disapproval. As far as they were concerned, the Presbyterians of the North of Ireland, who were among the most able and most respected sections of the population of Ireland, were perfectly entitled to have a College in their Metropolis. But with regard to the Catholics, they were equally entitled to have their feelings respected. The Galway College was situate in the Province of Connaught, which would be naturally pointed out as the site of a Catholic College. The same consideration applied to Cork, where the majority of the people were Catholics. He confessed there was a difficulty in regard to the Protestants, he need scarcely say that he represented the views of his hon. Friends around him when he declared that they were not prepared to demand or accept any system that would do injustice to the Protestants any more than the Catholics. The difficulty with the Protestants was that there were two Catholic Colleges and one Presbyterian, but that no Queen's College was open to them. He thought, however, that a wide change in the arrangements of Trinity College would meet the difficulty. The children of the Episcopalians in Ireland generally came from classes who were rather better off on the average than the parents of Catholic and Presbyterian children; and, on the whole, they were better able to afford to go to Dublin than Catholics and Presbyterians were. So much in regard to the general question. There was one other point he wished to deal with before he sat down. Curiously enough, it did not apply to the endowments of the Queen's Colleges, but to a grievance which he believed the Professors of those institutions laboured under. He hoped he had made it perfectly clear to the Committee that his objection to the general principle of the Queen's Colleges did not apply, on his part, that he had any want of confidence in the learning, energy, or zeal of the Professors connected with those Institutions, nor did he think that the Professors should not be properly remunerated as long as they were retained, and the Institution remained. But the change which had been made in the University had had a most disastrous effect on the prospects of most of the Professors of the Queen's Colleges. The remuneration of the Professors came from two sources—first, from specific salaries; and, secondly, from class fees. In any case, the salary was based upon the class fees, and it had this curious effect—that the more work the Professor had to do, and the more students he had, the less he received in the shape of a fixed salary. For instance, the Professor of Animal Physiology had a large class, and, having a large class, he had a large amount of fees; but, having a large amount of fees, the State had provided that he should only have a small salary, so that his ordinary remuneration should not be in excess of that of the other Pro- fessors; but, owing to the gradual decadence of attendance in the Queen's Colleges, the fees had diminished, while the stipends had remained stationary. The result had been that a number of the Professors had been placed in a very disadvantageous position compared with that which they formerly held. For instance, the Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Queen's College, Galway, had a salary of £220, and formerly he received class fees, amounting to £500, making his total income £720 a-year. But since the dissolution of the University the attendance at the Medical School had considerably diminished, and the result was that while the stipend remained at the same sum of £220, the class fees had fallen from £500 to £171 a-year. He thought that was one of the strongest proofs in confirmation of the statement of his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) that the attendance at the Queen's Colleges had rapidly fallen since the establishment of the Royal University, It would be seen, in this case, that the result was that the Professor's average annual income had fallen from £720 to the sum of £391. He thought that was a legitimate grievance, which called for the consideration of the Government, inasmuch as the Act of 1879, which provided full compensation for the officials of the Queen's University, did not regard the Professors as officials of the University, and accordingly their case had not been dealt with under the Royal University Act. He had brought this matter several times before the House, and had received a promise from the Government that the grievance should be looked into, and remedied in the course of time. They had only too sad an experience of what those promises meant on the part of those who had the control of the Treasury. As a matter of fact, the grievances of the Professors had remained unredressed until this day. Their loss of income was becoming greater year after year, as the attendance in the Colleges decreased; and, if things continued in the same way, a number of these Professors would have nothing to depend upon but the small sum originally given to them at the establishment of the Royal University. A great many of these gentlemen connected with the Queen's Colleges had been there since the foundation of the Colleges in 1848 or 1849. A large number of them were now old men, almost past labour, and the time would soon come when they would have to apply to the Government for pensions. But pensions were given in regard to the amount of income which an official received from all sources, and, as in this case the amount of income had been largely decreased, the pensions of these gentlemen would also be largely diminished, and they would be placed in the unhappy, unfortunate, and unjust position of having been deprived in their old age of that legitimate reward which their services entitled them to. He hoped to have from the Government some clear and explicit declaration of their intentions upon this question. He trusted that the defence of the Queen's Colleges—the lame and illogical defence set up by the Treasury Bench—would not be persevered in, and that there would be a clear statement from the Government as to what their views were in regard to the remedies which ought to be applied.

MR. DAWSON

said, that after having listened to the statistics which the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had cited, no one, he believed, would deny that University education in Ireland, so far as the vast majority of the people were concerned, was wholly unsatisfactory, and unequal to the requirements of the country. Now, he made a saving exception when he said "the vast majority of the people;" for, no doubt, University education was provided, and amply provided, for the other section of the people. The minority was well provided with University education of the most expensive and elaborate character. Irish Members did not complain of that; and nothing gave him more pleasure than to hear, during the discussion which had taken place up to that time, the sentiments of liberality and justice which had fallen from the Leader of their Party and the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, both of whom had avowed that they were not anxious to interfere with the rights or privileges of the minority. Trinity College provided a magnificent academical University education for the Episcopal Body. Trinity College was as Protestant that day in its character and administration as it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. As a distinguished Fellow of the College, Dr. Haughton said— It is still the Protestant College of Elizabeth, and might well he called the Protestant College of Victoria. What was the constitution of that College? The Chancellor of the University was a Protestant, the Vice Chancellor was a Protestant, all the Visitors were Protestants, one of them being the Bishop of Armagh. The two Members who represented it in that House were Protestants, the Provost and Vice Provost were both Protestant clergymen; of the 15 members of the Council 13 were Protestants, and all the Fellows, senior and junior, were likewise Protestants. [Mr. COURTNEY: NO; Mr. Maguire.] He thanked the hon. Gentleman; there was one exception—Mr. Maguire. The Senior Lecturer and Proctor were Protestants, as were also other officials and lecturers. Therefore, he must say that the description given of it by Dr. Haughton, who called Trinity College the Protestant College of Queen Elizabeth, was as true that day as when the words were uttered. The Presbyterians had very ample facilities for academical and University education in the successful Queen's College at Belfast—successful because it was in perfect harmony with the Protestant population surrounding it. Then there was another portion of the minority which he called secular, and that was well provided for in the two Colleges of Cork and Gralway. Therefore, the only portion of Her Majesty's subjects who were at present deprived by conscientious scruples from having the benefit of academical University education was the vast proportion of the population of Ireland. But many solutions had been offered for this state of things, one of which was the Royal University; but a greater misnomer had never been applied to anything that he was acquainted with. It was called a University because it was not a University; it was a University without academic members; it was a University without Professors and without students; it was, in short, a University without any of those characteristics and surroundings essential to modern academic education. Such was this new University, as he saw it lately in the presence of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, assembled in a music-hall in Dublin, in front of a big organ, when a number of young men came up from the country to be branded like spoons and sent away again, and he remembered how the right hon. Gentleman told those poor students how delighted they ought to be that they had all the advantages of a University; it was adding insult to injury. Nothing more aptly described the University, in his opinion, than some lines once written of a dilapidated country seat in Ireland— Here's a park without deer, A cellar without beer, A house without cheer, And Ireland's only Duke lives here. Thus they had a University without Deans, without Professors, without an Academic Hall, and without anything to entitle it to the name. But was he correct in saying that a University did embrace all the things he had mentioned? Ought a University to be something more than an Examining Board? The right hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Play-fair) had stated in one of his pamphlets that— A combined University, when well conducted, aims at and succeeds in producing an educated man; an Examining Board can only be assured that it has produced a crammed man. It is the curriculum of the University, not the examination, which educates a man. And yet it was to this Examining Board, which crammed but did not educate, that the vast majority of the people of Ireland were handed over. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had given details of the hopeless position in which the Queen's Colleges at Cork and Galway stood with reference to the University examinations. The failure of the Cork College was not due to the fact that Doctor Sullivan was unable to conduct it; the College was not a University without buildings; it had not failed because there were no academic advantages there; it had failed because it did not represent the majority of the people, and because those who went there were not from the Roman Catholic schools, but from the highways and byeways, so to speak. The result of the examinations held in 1883–4 showed that in the Cork College there were gained one Exhibition, 12 Prizes, and 17 Passes—total 30. In University College, Stephen's Green—a voluntary institution handicapped in every possible way—there were gained seven Exhibitions, 20 Prizes, and 27 Passes—total 54. But when he turned to Galway College, the comparison was still more in favour of University College. The results in Galway College were becoming "smaller by degrees and beautifully less," for last year there were gained no Exhibitions, only seven Prizes, and eight Passes. This College, getting close upon £30,000 a-year, with all its apparatus connecting it with the State, only produced a total of 15 Passes, as compared with the 54 made by the unendowed University College, Stephen's Green. This was only typical of the relative position of Cork and Galway Colleges as compared with University College. He said that these examinations and the intermediate had set at rest one of the most calumnious fallacies ever brought against the Irish people. In the intermediate examinations the Catholic schools had swept the whole line before them, and had distanced every competitor, and there was one institution in Dublin which was getting not only an Irish and Imperial, but an European name—he alluded to the French Catholic College at Black-rock. It was clear that the reason for the backward state of Catholic University education was that neither Trinity College nor the Queen's Colleges afforded the necessary opportunity for success to the majority; and the moment an opportunity was afforded, the genius of the people demonstrated itself in a manner which could not be gainsaid. Passing to the distribution of Prizes, it was found that the Roman Catholic Colleges surpassed all the others in respect of Passes at the Royal University; but the young men who passed there found that, although they had beaten the others, the latter had privileges which were denied to them—that was to say, they had about £2,000 distributed amongst them in consolation stakes—when they were afraid to appear at the University contests they could go to a place where there were no examinations and get their reward. That, he maintained, was a state of things which the Government and the country could not allow to continue. There must be another effort to settle Catholic University education in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman would remember that the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had said in his speech that afternoon that he approved of the Colleges of Cork and Galway being maintained, provided they did effective work, which they could only do by being brought into harmony with the people. The hon. Member had used a phrase with regard to them which he (Mr. Dawson) echoed, when he said—"You brought education home to their door." He was delighted that it had been so; but when they shut the door in the face of the majority by conditions so inimical to the religious feelings of the people that it was impossible for them to avail themselves of the education provided, he repeated that the system could not be maintained. Religion and education must go hand in hand; education minus religion was nothing. The philological meaning of the words "to educate" meant to draw out of a state of ignorance; and under the present system, although the people might be instructed to a certain extent, they would not be educated—in other words, the Government brought them to the door, but they slammed it in their face. That, in reality, had always been the policy of the English Government in Ireland; they never gave anything; they never offered any solution of Irish questions or cure of Irish grievances; but they left in the cup that which embittered it and rendered it distasteful and impossible of acceptance. He agreed with the hon. Member for Galway that the College at Belfast was doing good work, and he said that Belfast ought to be allowed to continue that work. Certainly Irish Members would never attempt to lay hands upon it. And the same with regard to Trinity College, with all its vast endowments—let its plans be worked out; they would instigate no onslaught upon it. They wished it well. One of the most distinguished men in Trinity College, Dr. Haughton, had drawn attention in his pamphlet to the difference between the effect upon education of the State system in France and the freedom of education allowed under the German system. In defence of his own University, he said that in France they saw the perfection of centralization and identity in the Lyceum and Colleges; in Germany, on the contrary, they witnessed the full development of the ancient Collegiate idea of the University; 27 different and independent University systems of education existed amongst 40,000,000 of Germans, each University differing from the other, and each possessing its peculiar type of excellence to attract its students. He believed that all who were acquainted with the present condition of science and letters in the two countries would be disposed to agree in thinking that the intellect of France was cramped by the Imperial cradle in which it was raised; while the genius of Germany was fostered by the freedom of thought stimulated by such excellent, though diverse, centres of development as Vienna, Munich, Heidelberg, Bonn, or Berlin. That was the opinion of one of the most distinguished scholars of Trinity College; and yet the Government were continually trampling on the opinion of such experts, and forcing their own ideas upon the Irish people. He need hardly refer to what Cardinal Newman, the greatest living authority on University education, said as to its aim and end; the words, however, which were well known, and were doubtless in the memory of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, were— In order to become exact and fully furnished in any subject of teaching which is diversified and complicated, we must consult the living man and listen to his living voice. He would like to draw the attention of the Committee to what the Government did in other places than Ireland in respect of this matter of education. In his Report on the state of education in Malta, Sir Patrick Keenan referred to the University—a Catholic institution—supported by the State—that was to say, by the English Government. The Government supported a University for an Island with a population of 100,000; whilst 5,500,000 Catholics were denied one in Ireland. Sir Patrick Keenan advocated the continuance of the University, even for its 160 students, about whom he wrote that their high gentlemanly tone, dignified bearing, and genial manners unmistakably demonstrated their title to the enjoyment of those academic advantages to which the scholastic youth of England and her Colonies had an indisputable claim. From that expression of opinion by Sir Patrick Keenan, it was clear that mere cramming to his mind was not education, which alone gave culture and refinement. But the Government wanted the majority in Ireland to be satisfied with a mere Examining Board, under the title of Royal University; they did not wish to see them acquire "the high gentlemanly tone;" they wanted them to be and to remain an inferior class as compared with those who enjoyed the advantages to which he had referred. When Sir Patrick Keenan was speaking in high terms of the free Catholic State institution at Malta, he seemed not to remember that millions of his Irish fellow-citizens were without that advantage; they were to have the advantage of the country schools; but were not to have the chance of getting dignity of manner and scholastic tone in the atmosphere of an academic institution, and Sir Patrick Keenan had not a word to say in their favour. There was no doubt the present system of education was of that character that it could not last. The way to meet the difficulty had been suggested by the hon. Member for the City of Cork. If they had equal endowments the Catholic people of Ireland would be inclined to allow Trinity College to remain for its Episcopalian students, and Belfast College to remain, as it was almost, a Denominational College. Let the Government then provide for the Catholic people in Ireland a College or Colleges consonant with their ideas; let such secular knowledge be given there as would be of value to the State; but lot everything else be free. That he believed to be a solution of the question—the only one that could be adopted, and the only one which could offer any proper academic education to the people of Ireland.

MR. MARUM

said, he trusted the Committee would not think Irish Members were taking up their time unnecessarily, because the interest taken in Ireland in this question was very great, and he could assure the Government that the disappointment felt there that nothing had been done that Session with regard to higher education was not the smallest. He stood with reference to this question in a somewhat similar position to that of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), inasmuch as he had not much practical knowledge of Irish Colleges or Universities. In his early days he found that the atmosphere of ascendancy, exclusion, and bigotry of Trinity College, Dublin, and the condemnation of the Queen's Colleges pronounced by the Catholic hierarchy, rendered it desirable that he should enter at the London University, and become a graduate; and he was bound to say that he had experienced in that Body those feelings of liberty, equality, and fraternity which went far to realize the ideal of Doctor Newman, to which his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson) had alluded. But with reference to the endowments, they could not forget that, in 1873, when the then Gladstone Government was upset, the right hon. Gentleman the present Prime Minister estimated the academic revenue of Trinity College, Dublin, from all sources at £86,000. He confessed that, although he fully shared the sentiments expressed on those Benches—namely, that they should have regard to justice, and not trench in the least degree on the rights or privileges of the Episcopalians or Presbyterians in Ireland, yet he could not agree that the national endowments of schools, which had been in existence for centuries, should now be ignored as such, and left to a mere fragment of the population. He believed that the Catholic people of Ireland would never consent to any settlement, or regard any adjustment as final, until the national funds were brought together, and equitably distributed in the manner which the Prime Minister had shadowed forth in 1873. That, however, was a matter of detail. The great difficulty in Ireland was the want of endowments in their Diocesan Colleges for the Professoriate, and other matters wanted in them. It was utterly impossible, in an impoverished country like Ireland, that without assistance the Collegiate staff of these institutions should be what it ought to be, and the students put on anything like an equality with the students of Endowed Colleges; in point of fact, they were entirely handicapped out of the race. Until this evil was remedied they must insist on making their complaints in that House. They should not go for levelling down, but rather for redistribution. As an outsider, he must say that, so far as he could gather the Catholic feeling in the country, it was that Ireland never would or ought to consent to any final adjustment of the University Question, short of having all of what might be called the National property equitably distributed on the denominational system subject to any University system that now existed or might be projected. When they looked at the condition of the country, the great depression in agriculture, and the fact that they had no commerce, they saw that they must look to education as the means of easing the great competition that existed in the sole staple of industry—the land. There was no father of a family who had not to look at the question of the expense of education most seriously at the present time. Even in the Diocesan Colleges, limited as they might be, this expense could not be much under £70 or £80 a-year, and in a poor country like Ireland that sum was entirely beyond the means of the people, so that some endowment for their Catholic Colleges was a matter of immediate and urgent necessity.

MR. MOORE

said, he wished to address a few words to the Committee on the question of the endowments of the Queen's Colleges, and the continued exclusion from them of the Roman Catholics of the country. The Committee would recollect that the Act of 1879 was not passed for the accommodation of the classes who were then well provided in the matter of University education, but for the purpose of providing a University system of education for the rest of the population. So far as that Act was concerned, it dealt with a want very much felt; it was designed distinctly to relieve Roman Catholics from the conditions attaching to the University system of the country. It was not passed for the benefit of those for whom the Queen's Colleges already existed. The anomaly that was now complained of was that whereas that class was richly endowed, the Roman Catholics, who were only endowed under the Act of 1879, were compelled to enjoy the advantages thereby given to them in common with Protestants, while they were excluded from participating in the advantages which the Protestant schools enjoyed. He said that the position was most anomalous and unjust. It was absurd to say that these endowments should be devoted exclusively to the benefit of a very small section of the people. If the latter were to have the benefit of endowments given for the benefit of Roman Catholics surely the Roman Catholics should be allowed a free and open competition for them. He had not yet heard any reply from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury on a subject on which he was very competent to speak; and he (Mr. Moore) would not reiterate what the hon. Gentleman said in 1875, when he summarized the case which Irish Members were now putting most plainly and ably. His (Mr. Moore's) case was this. The Queen's Colleges were not maintained for the benefit of the bulk of the nation—the Roman Catholic people of Ireland; they were not maintained for the Protestant aristocracy, who still had their Trinity College, which had produced so many men eminent in literature. Why, then, were they established? For the middle class Protestants. Irish Members wished that class every enjoyment of the advantages they had; but they said that the Roman Catholics should be placed on equal terms with them. It was impossible that the grants could be allowed to continue under the existing conditions. Would it be tolerated, for anything but a very short space of time in England, that there should be, as there were at one of the Queen's Colleges, 13 students competing for 10 Prizes each of the annual value of £30? Facts like those only required to be stated in the broad daylight of public opinion, and he believed that a remedy would soon be found for the injustice complained of. There was a point which he desired to mention with regard to the Queen's College, Cork. When the students matriculated under the Examiners of Queen's College, there were, in 1880, 133 Passes; but when they were brought into competition with students of University College and were examined by an independent Board there were only 13 Passes. Let the Government mantain those Colleges if they liked to do so; but they would be so maintained against the voice of the Irish Representatives, and simply by means of English and Scotch votes. When the Irish University Bill was passing through that House, some years ago, the House divided against the retention of the Queen's Colleges in their position, and there were found only 34 for maintaining them against 22 for abolishing them. As for the excuse that a Royal Commission was sitting to inquire into the matter, he would be glad to know what further information the Government required than the facts which had been already laid before them. They had the full particulars of the case in their hands with regard to this system, which they knew had always been regarded with feelings of hostility by the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. What possible argument could they use beyond those they had already advanced to induce Her Majesty's Government to come to the aid of the Catholic people of Ireland in the matter of Collegiate education, and, at the same time, secure for them the advantages now restricted to a small and insignificant class? He believed that allusion to the Royal Commission was only an empty pretext for delay—it could be nothing else. If that was the object of the Government he hoped the labours of the Commission would not be prolonged by a single day, and that by that time next year the Vote would cease.

MR. EWART

said, the question raised by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was a very large one, inasmuch as it was no less than the question of the abandonment of the undenominational system of University education in Ireland, and the establishment of Denominational Colleges. It was but a few years since the Colleges in this country were secularized, and he could not help thinking that the attempt of the hon. Member was somewhat Quixotic, and not likely in any degree to be successful, because he considered that the country was not likely to reverse the policy it had followed. The hon. Member based his argument mainly on the want of success of Cork College. He (Mr. Ewart) admitted that the College had many difficulties to contend with; but he hoped that in time those difficulties would be removed, if the present Government and any other Government that might come into Office would allow it to be known that no change would be permitted in the system that had been established. The hon. Member spoke of the system of the Queen's Colleges as not being useful. With regard to their uselessness, he thought he might rely on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Playfair) as a sufficient justification of the view that the Queen's Colleges had been eminently successful. Certainly the language of the hon. Member, if applied to the College at Belfast, seemed strange, because the students there were most successful in learn- ing, and the College had produced many eminent men in its comparatively short existence; it had done much towards the refinement of the people, as well as raising the standard of education in all respects, and to speak of such an institution, comparing it with the Intermediate Schools, was, he ventured to think, presuming too much on the credulity of that House. The hon. Member had sneered at the College as being a training school for Presbyterian Ministers; it was true that that Church had availed itself of the benefits of the Queen's College; but they had done so in strict conformity with the rules as a non-sectarian institution, and the Catholics with whom the hon. Member acted might equally well avail themselves of its advantages, if they would; but this was too matter-of-fact a proposal to be entertained by the hon. Member. The hon. Member for the City of Cork had spoken of the large endowments of these Colleges; but he would ask what was £29,000 a-year for University Education purposes in Ireland? For his own part, he felt ashamed at the smallness of the amount, and instead of voting for its abolition he would gladly vote for its extension. He knew that as regarded the College at Belfast there was need for a much larger sum of money, and that the usefulness of the College was hindered for want of appliances—for instance, the laboratory was quite insufficient. He hoped that in the next Session of Parliament the Government would come to the relief of the Queen's Colleges in this matter. And, inasmuch as he agreed to this Vote, he should give it his support; and he trusted that the Committee would not listen to the proposal of the hon. Member for the City of Cork.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, the hon. Member who had just spoken had shown that the College at Belfast was a thriving and valuable institution, Irish Members admitted that, and they said it was in favour of their case. They did not want any destructive measures; their desire was to have a reconstruction of institutions. They said that the Roman Catholic population of Ireland could not in conscience accept the principle of these Colleges. He wished not so much to say anything on the general subject, as to call attention to the Commission which the Government had appointed. It was no use asking the House to wait till that Commission reported; and it was so narrow that it had nothing whatever to do with the question before the Committee. The Reference to the Committee simply directed them to inquire into the teaching and administration of these Colleges. That was simply a matter of internal re-arrangement and management, and did not touch the wider question. He regretted that that Commission was not to deal with the whole question which the Committee were now discussing, for that would have given a good chance of asking whether the people of Ireland were content with the present system, whether they could avail themselves of the system, and, if not, how and whether it could be so adjusted as to meet their wants. The Commission, he believed, would have to come back and report that the institutions at present existing in Cork and Galway were utterly useless for educational purposes. They were simply kept up for a very small class, who got their education for nothing. Irish Members did not desire any destructive measures; they wanted these institutions not destroyed, but reconstructed and improved; and that could only be done by recognizing the great fact that mixed education would not do for the vast majority of the people in Ireland. If the Chief Secretary would state that the Government recognized that fact, and would take some steps to adapt these institutions to the people, then he thought there would be very little to complain of; but if the Government went on in this matter as they had hitherto in regard to almost all their works in Ireland, and would not look facts in the face, but tried to turn the Irish people into middle-class Dissenting population, such as there was in England, each effort they made would fail, and the whole system would remain perfectly useless to the Irish people.

MR. T. A. DICKSON

said, the question of these Queen's Colleges turned up annually on the Estimates, and every year there was a debate upon them; but no practical results ever followed. In his opinion, the only satisfactory basis upon which this matter could be permanently settled was, that the Galway and Cork Colleges should be given over to the Roman Catholics, while Trinity College and the Belfast College would amply meet the wants of the Protestant population in the North of Ireland. It was useless to expect the people to go on upon the old lines any longer. The principle of general education in Ireland had practically been admitted, and Irish National Education was founded upon that basis. He believed there was no other just or equitable settlement of this much vexed question than that he had mentioned.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, be did not wish to offer many observations upon this Vote; but he gladly endorsed the remarks of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Dickson). If they looked at the Returns showing the number of scholars generally attending these Colleges, they would see how easily the change he had suggested could be carried out. In the Belfast College there were, in 1880–1, 582 scholars; in 1881–2 there were 567, and in the following year there were 502, and of those 502 only 20 were Roman Catholics, 482 being Protestants. That was to say, the Belfast College was already practically a Protestant College, almost exclusively built up by people belonging to the minority of the population of Ireland. He should be only too glad to see the Belfast College given over to the Protestants and Presbyterians; while others who were not Presbyterians would probably find all that they required at Trinity College, Dublin. At Cork the number of scholars was a diminishing number, and the Protestants were diminishing more rapidly than the Roman Catholics. Although the College was under the religious ban of the Episcopate in Ireland, there were 201 Roman Catholic scholars against 138 Protestants; and although the number of Catholics in the Galway College was not so high proportionately, still, out of 144 students, there were 67 Roman Catholics and 77 Protestants. The number in Galway was diminishing rapidly. In 1880 there were 208 students; in 1881, 201; and in 1882, 144. When he came to examine how these were distributed between the Arts, Medicine, Engineering, and other branches, he found that in Belfast there were 192 Art students, 300 medical students, and about 10 students in Engineering or Law. In Cork, there were 54 students in Arts, and 276 in Medicine. That was to say, Cork College was practically a Medical School, with a very small number of Art students. The advantages of making Cork College a Roman Catholic College would be perfectly obvious to those who understood the condition of the Catholic University now established in Ireland with respect to medicine. He did not wish to say anything with regard to the Galway College, because he thought the case of that College might easily be held over for future decision, if the Belfast and Cork Colleges were dealt with in the course of the next 12 months, one being given to the Roman Catholics and the other to the Protestants. The Catholic priests would be glad to see the Belfast College endowed even more than it now was. Unquestionably, Belfast College wanted a chemical laboratory, and nothing could be more reasonable than Dr. Forster's application on behalf of a laboratory. No one would object to an extension of the facilities in Belfast College; but the hon. Member for Belfast had probably not had any experience of the education given in these Colleges. He was sorry to say he had. He went for a time to the Queen's College at Cork, and his experience there was something like this. When he, with a number of other men, presented himself, he found himself surrounded by people who had not learned the elements of Latin and Greek, and the exhibition at the examination was something that would have astonished the Examiners at an English University. Men were allowed to matriculate who could not translate a simple sentence in Cæsar, or conjugate a Greek verb. It was no wonder that the Examiner should tear his hair in desperation at the material he had to deal with, as he had seen him do. Mr. Lewis was Professor of Latin, and he had seen that gentleman take men through comparatively easy passages of Latin as if he were a mere pedagogue. In Mathematics the exhibition was almost worse. One of the greatest mathematicians of the day, Professor Booth, had 30 or 40, not more than six of whom were at all able to keep up with him. He was lecturing all over the heads of these men; at the end of the year they were not able to follow him; and yet they were allowed to pass their Sessional examination. It was an exceptional thing for a man to be plucked. He was glad to say he did not stay longer there, and that was because Dr. Reilly told him that he was wasting his time. He felt the truth of that, and he left the College; but, from personal ex- perience, he could speak as to the absolute inefficiency of these Colleges as teaching institutions. He knew of one man who went up for a prize in modern languages. He was supposed to have been examined in French, German, and Italian; but he was perfectly conversant with this man's attainments, and he knew he could not read a single sentence in German, for he did not even know the letters. His knowledge of Italian was confined to some words printed to a piece of music, and his acquaintance with French was of the most limited description. Yet he got the prize for modern languages. Similarly, there were 13 men who went up for Scholarships, and only one did not succeed, because there were only 12 Scholarships. That was the sort of farce that was going on year after year at these Colleges. What was the consequence? Everyone who presented himself for matriculation passed. It was very exceptional for a man to be plucked, but when the students of the Queen's Colleges were brought to the test with outsiders, the number of men who passed dropped to a very small percentage. He did not say these Colleges might not be made useful, for he thought they might be made very useful, and he should be very sorry to say anything to their injury; but what he complained of—and it was quite within the four corners of this Vote—was that, whereas the Queen's University had been disestablished, these Colleges, which were University Colleges, had now become Colleges of the Royal University, and the students, while never able to make anything like fair running for the prizes of the Royal University, yet, having been hopelessly beaten in the open field at the University, were able to go back to their own Colleges, and find prizes better even than those for which they had been competing at the University. There were, on this Vote, three items of £1,600 for these three Colleges for prizes; and what he and his hon. Friends asked was that, as these Colleges were now Royal University Colleges, they should not be helped by the exclusive enjoyment of this £4,800 a-year for prizes, but that these prizes should be thrown open to competition to the whole of the University of which they formed a part. As they were at present, they were a premium upon inefficiency. They were a kind of bait to lure men into the Col- leges who were absolutely unfit to enter upon a University course at all. They drew from very inferior Provincial schools a class of men who were not fitted, in many cases, for a University life, but were very glad to get an imperfect grammar school course on easy terms. That was all that the present Queen's University did. The men who came from the Queen's University, and who had in past years distinguished themselves, were men who would have distinguished themselves under any circumstances, and the Queen's University had not been able to dwarf their powers, or prevent them making their mark in the world. Their success was not due to the Queen's University; it was achieved in spite of the Queen's University. The suggestion now made was the proposal which Irish Members wished to put forward, and which the people of Ireland, taken in their entirety, were prepared to accept, with the exception of a very small number of Episcopalian Protestants, who were afraid that if any advance was made in the direction now indicated, some time or other the exclusively Episcopalian endowments would be claimed by non-Episcopalians. For his part, he should be sorry to see any attack made on that quarter, and he should be perfectly prepared to give any security to the Episcopolians that Trinity College should remain intact; and if the Episcopalians and Presbyterians were provided with a College in Belfast, the Roman Catholics would be perfectly satisfied if they were provided with one or two Catholic Colleges in Cork and Galway. The hon. Member for the City of Cork proposed to object to the whole Vote, in which £9,350 represented the amount paid from the Imperial Exchequer to Professors on account of Fees received from students. Now, whatever might be thought of the merits of this University or these Colleges, it was clear that the Professors had an absolute right to the fees paid by students who attended their lectures; and as this sum of £9,350 figured as a Vote for "estimated receipts on account of fees," it was a mere set off, and was not money granted from the Imperial Exchequer. But the Vote was substantially £4,800 for prizes, and it was those prizes that he and his hon. Friends wished to see thrown open to the whole University; and if the Secretary to the Treasury could see his way to doing that, he believed that the chief difficulty would be found to melt away. Belfast College, from the circumstances in which it would find itself, would become absolutely a Protestant College, and Cork College would probably become almost exclusively Roman Catholic; and in this way much of the practical difficulty would disappear, and he thought that even the hon. Member for Belfast would admit that that was a practical suggestion. The hon. Member had said that the suggestions made from these Benches were marked by a want of practicability; but this suggestion seemed to him to provide a practical solution of the difficulty, and to be one that would meet the necessities of the case.

MR. STEWART MACLIVER

said, he should strongly deprecate making these Colleges sectarian, for he had always thought that one of their chief recommendations was their entirely unsectarian character. They were open to all religious systems in Ireland, and the proof of it was the fact that Roman Catholics resorted largely to them. [An hon. MEMBER: No, no!] The Committee had heard the statements as to the Catholics in College at Cork, and also at the Belfast College, together with a large number of Presbyterians. These Colleges were not only open to all denominations, but were open to all classes of students, who could not otherwise have had the advantages which were afforded by them. He was rather surprised to hear the complaints of hon. Members opposite of the deficiency of the students who attended these Colleges, for he thought that was not a thing to be complained of. They ought to be rather glad that it was so; but when Irish Members spoke of these Colleges, they should remember that in England the various Nonconformist denominations had Colleges of their own, and did not come to Parliament for any grant or subsidy; and yet Irish Members complained that they did not get enough money from Parliament to promote their own sectarian education. What would happen if the Colleges at Galway and Cork were given over to the Roman Catholics? That would be endowing the Catholic religion afresh in Ireland. He should support this Vote, on the ground that the Colleges were unsectarian, and, therefore, deserved the sup- port and confidence of the people; and that, instead of handing over the money to any one denomination, they should preserve the unsectarian character of the Queen's Colleges.

COLONEL NOLAN

said, that if all this money came from England he could agree with the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Macliver); but the fact that about £8,000,000 a-year came from Ireland constituted an important difficulty as to whether this money, being Irish money, should be disposed of by an English majority, or whether they should deal only with the English portion of the money. Most of this money was spent on education, the larger part going to National School teachers. The other money spent in Ireland they regarded as money spent for the interest of England, who wished to have all the management and patronage, without studying Irish prejudices, but only studying her own. An excellent example of this was to be found in the speech of the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Stewart Macliver), who said "we want" non-sectarian Colleges. He was quite right to say "we," because his Friends were in a majority, and they could force any education they liked on Ireland; but doing that caused a great deal of trouble, and weakened the social state of Ireland and England. The hon. Member called these Colleges "unsectarian." Irishmen called them "irreligious." If they took boys of 14 years of age, say, and trained them altogether by unsectarian subjects, excluding religion, they would be doing their best to train up irreligious people. He did not say they all became irreligious; but if they took young men at a time when their brains were most active, and devoted them solely to secular instruction, and did not show the connection between history and theology, and many of the mixed sciences, they would be apt to look upon science as opposed to religion. The hon. Member for Plymouth also said these Colleges were attended by Roman Catholic students, and urged that, therefore, the Colleges were of great use. He (Colonel Nolan) was well acquainted with the circumstances of the Queen's College at Galway, and had talked to many people who been to that College or had an intimate acquaintance with it. What happened there was this. A certain number of Catholics did go there, and derived a great deal of benefit, so far as secular education went; and a great many who went there did afterwards become religious people; but nothing like the number were there who would go if the system of education was more in consonance with the wishes and feeling of the people. That not being so, a large number—and these some of the cleverest people—stayed away. The Roman Catholic clergy had always looked upon the education there with considerable distrust. They did not excommunicate the people who went there, or cut them off from the Catholic Church; but they pointed out that sending boys there exposed them to great danger—not that they would become Protestants, because practically they never did become Protestants. The hon. Member for Plymouth thought the fear was that these boys would become Protestants; but there were very few instances of that result. What the people feared was that the boy's religion would be destroyed. Trinity College was an excellent Protestant College, with a very fair Conscience Clause; and there students were not insulted about religious instruction, although they saw others getting religious instruction. Then there was a Catholic University; but it had no funds. A very large amount was devoted to education in Ireland; but the Catholic University was practically without any funds. And then there were those three Colleges, which were secular, and were altogether opposed to training young men up in religion. In each of the Queen's Colleges there was £3,000 a-year given for prizes; but that was all there was for higher education. Nonconformists in England would, of course, oppose the Irish proposal. Nonconformist Members were very respectable in some respects, and behaved very well sometimes; but as there were very few Nonconformists in Ireland, he thought they might allow the people to have what they wished in this matter. If the Irish Members wished to crush Protestants or Presbyterians in Ireland he could understand their backing up their brethren in Ireland; but they did not wish to do that. They had Colleges of their own, and the Catholics did not wish to injure them in any way. There would be no agitation got up in Ireland upon this subject, because the people there did not get up furious agitations on such subjects; but it was grossly unjust that one country should be able to inflict on another a system which was opposed to the wishes of the majority of the people. The majority of English and Scotch Members insisted on voting money in a way which the Irish people did not desire. He did not know how many Irish Members would be got to support this Vote; but he did not believe Irish Conservative Members would do so, or that the bulk of such other Irish Members as had not been elected with the word "Home Rule" in their addresses would support these Colleges, and certainly no Home Rule Member would. If actual officials were left out of the calculation, there had always been an overwhelming majority of Irish Members against these Colleges under the existing system. The Government were spending money in a way that was pernicious, and insulting to the country, and by that means were doing their best to rear up irreligious boys; but even if they were right in that effort, supposing this non-sectarian theory was the best, was it always wise to force an unwelcome theory on the country? The people of Ireland were unwilling to have it; was it, therefore, best to force upon them what might be theoretically good, but which they did not wish to have? In this the Government were making a great mistake; but this was only another instance of the way in which they waited for an agitation before they would remove a great wrong—and in this case a wrong from which England derived no advantage. Any spirit of irreligion in Ireland only weakened England, and the fear now was that there was more danger from no religion than from too much religion.

MR. COURTNEY

said, that words which he had used in 1879 with reference to the Queen's Colleges had been quoted by hon. Members; but he had no intention to withdraw anything he then said, for he thought his remarks then had been completely justified by the results. At the same time, he was not willing to enter into this discussion while leaving those words as the only words quoted from what he had said on that occasion. Although he did not wish to go over the whole argument again, he must say that he still held to the opinion he then expressed—that these Colleges had practically never failed. These Colleges, when first established, were welcomed in that House by the most eloquent Catholic Members, especially by the late Mr. Sheil, in a glowing description expressing praise of the scheme, and anticipating great and useful results, and all that he could wish in any University arrangement in Ireland. An integral part of the scheme was the establishment of residences, which would have enabled the Roman Catholics, and Presbyterians, and the Church of Ireland to have houses of their own, where their students would be, where every safeguard for their control and education in a domestic and a religious sense would be perfectly obtained, while the students could attend the lectures at the Colleges, and so mingle with students of other religions. That was the principle of the scheme, and that was not so very different from a great deal of what the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson) had said. That hon. Member had told the Committee of the great advantages he had derived, while attending the lectures at the Catholic College in Dublin, by being also allowed to attend the literary and historical discussion classes attached to Dublin University; and the experience of the hon. Member for Carlow warranted him (Mr. Courtney), he thought, in saying that he would not have found the Queen's Colleges an inhospitable home. But it was known that not long after the establishment of the Queen's Colleges there was a dispute in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as to whether they should or should not utilize the Colleges, and the dispute was decided ultimately at the Synod of Thurles by a very narrow majority. It was said that the majority was only one, and also that if it had not happened that one particular Bishop was absent through ill-health, the division numbers would have been equal. He did not allow that the Queen's Colleges and the Queen's University had failed, nor would he accept the statement of the relative numbers of Protestants and Catholics attending the Colleges as proving failure. He did not wish to enter upon that arguable matter; he was simply stating grounds upon which he demurred to the statement of the necessary failure of the Colleges. If they excluded the Divinity Schools belonging to the Catholics at Maynooth, and if they paid regard to the relative num- bers of the Catholic and Protestant University-going population, they would find that the number of students in the Queen's Colleges did not inaccurately correspond to the number of parents in Ireland who might be able to give their children a University education. He was safeguarding himself from the admission that these Colleges were a failure. What he said was that, despite the ban put upon them by the Bishops, the attendance of the children of Catholics who were able to send them to such Colleges had been adequately satisfactory, considering the proportion of the Catholic population. He did not wish now to go through the long series of difficulties that had accompanied the Parliamentary treatment of this question during the last 20 years; but there were one or two observations that might well be made. First, he would remind the Committee of Lord Carling ford's Supplementary Charter; but, with regard to that scheme, he doubted whether, even if it had been successful, it would have met the views of hon. Members opposite. Then, it would be remembered that Lord Mayo entered into negotiations with the Irish Catholic Bishops, but failed. Then there was the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the Government, which also failed in this House, and which, again, was a Bill which he (Mr. Courtney) thought would not have satisfied hon. Members opposite from Ireland. Lastly, there was the Royal University Bill of 1879, which placed the Queen's Colleges substantially in the position in which they now were—a position which was attacked by hon. Members opposite as indefensible, they insisting that if that Bill became law the Queen's Colleges would be placed in a very precarious condition. They now adhered to that conclusion, and, no doubt, he (Mr. Courtney) had said the same thing at that time; but there was a great difference between admitting that the position was a precarious one, and at once saying that he saw the way to a remedy for the evils alleged by hon. Members opposite. The position was this—there were endowments open still to the students of the Queen's Colleges as such which were not open to Roman Catholic students resorting to the Royal University. Several methods had been suggested to remedy that inequality. Let him point out that the Bill brought in by the late Government in 1879 was not the only Bill presented to Parliament in that Session on the subject of Irish University Education. There was another Bill backed by Representatives of different divisions of Irish opinion in that House. That Bill proposed to deal with the question not identically on the same lines as the Bill brought in by the Conservative Government, but to a large extent on those lines. It proposed to set up a Roman Catholic University of St. Patrick and Colleges in Dublin, to which were to be attached certain Professorships, and certain endowments. But it was to be noticed, with respect to that Bill, that it left entirely untouched the position of the Queen's Colleges and the Queen's University. The framers of that Bill felt the difficulty of dealing with the Queen's University and Colleges; and he thought that when the Government were now charged by hon. Members opposite with the duty of undertaking the settlement of this Queen's Colleges' question, he might remind them of the difficulties others had felt. The Bill to which he had last referred was brought in by the O'Conor Don, and was also backed by several other hon. Members of great authority on the subject; for instance, by the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. W. Shaw), by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), and by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The hon. Member for the City of Cork now encouraged the Government to take up this question, which in 1879 he thought it convenient and prudent to leave alone. He would not press that argument with any force; but nothing appeared to him to be more easy, or, if the word would not be considered offensive, more vulgar, than to attack hon. Members with an apparent inconsistency in not carrying out to-day that which they might have said yesterday. Nothing was so easy as that; and he was rather surprised to find several hon. Members of great ability stooping so often to it. The hon. Member for the City of Cork, who was in the responsible position of being a party to a Bill dealing with this question, had deliberately left out this matter; and the Government, if they did not see their way to dealing with the question now in a practical manner, might point to that circum- stance. There were other reasons for the necessary delay, arising from the discussion this afternoon. Several propositions had been made to the Committee; but they did not agree with one another. What was the proposition of the hon. Member for the City of Cork himself? Practically, it amounted to this—he would not touch the three Queen's Colleges. He would leave them intact; but he would take the prizes now open as Scholarships at the Queen's Colleges, and throw them open to public competition. [Mr. PARNELL: That was my proposition last year!] He was speaking of the proposition made to-day. The hon. Member's proposal was to detach the prizes from the Queen's Colleges, and attach them to the Royal University. [Mr. PARNELL: The whole of the endowments.] Still, that proposition was not the same as that of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor); and the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) made a third proposal of a very different character. He (Mr. Courtney) wished to point out that the last proposition would be a direct retrogression upon all they had done in recent years both in England or in Ireland. In Ireland they had taken away the denominational character of Trinity College; and although it still remained saturated with Protestant feeling it was yet essentially a College, frequented by members of the Catholic Church, and the recent legislation must in no long time have the effect of changing its character. If hon. Members would read through the lists of the Fellows of Trinity College, they would see that Roman Catholics were being introduced, and it was only in that way that the character of a College could be changed. Dr. Maguire was, he thought, the latest instance, and he was a very distinguished man.

MR. O'DONNELL

asked whether Dr. Maguire had been a Professor at Queen's College?

MR. COURTNEY

replied that he believed that was so. It appeared to him that even if the Government were prepared to defer to the different opinions advanced that day by Irish Members, they would not be able to find among them any definite view which would guide them in legislation upon this matter, and that they would be justified in waiting for a further development of opinions in order to see what it would be possible to propose. But there was an additional important reason why the Government could not, at that moment, attempt to formulate any scheme in reference to this matter. A Royal Commission had been issued to inquire into the condition of these Colleges, and among the subjects referred to that Commission were several points which must be cleared up before any decision could be arrived at with regard to future legislation. Allegation had been made to-day as to the shortcomings of the Queen's Colleges, and the incapacity of their students to pass examinations at the Royal University; but, really, great credit was due to the Professors for the results they had attained, considering the rawness of the material with which they had to deal, transforming, as they did, the rawest of raw students into educated and accomplished gentlemen. He had had the honour of acquaintance with some Presidents and Professors of the Queen's Colleges, and they had told him that the results of the teaching had been in the highest degree satisfactory. No one could contest the success of the Belfast College. That College had not only maintained its position in the Queen's University, and in the Royal University; but its students had not unfrequently gone to Oxford and Cambridge, and there obtained the highest distinctions. Two of them had been Senior Wranglers in the last two years. Now, what were the terms of Reference to the Royal Commission—for that was an important point?

MR. HEALY

asked who drew up the terms of Reference?

MR. COURTNEY

said, he was not in a position to state that; but he presumed the terms were drawn up under the direction of the Irish Government, and certainly they derived their authority from the Irish Government. The Commission were to ascertain, first, "what was the standard of education maintained in the Queen's Colleges, or any of them;" and that was an essential part of the inquiry, for without that information it would be impossible to do anything, whether the Colleges were changed or not. Then they were to ascertain "in what mode the honours and rewards were distributed in the three Colleges respectively, having regard to the numbers of the students and the various branches of learning taught," "to what extent, and with what results, the students availed themselves of the advantages offered by the Royal University." Another point was the question of the affiliation of these Colleges with the Royal University, because of any active and steady connection with the University; and they were also to ascertain whether any large number of students went from the Colleges to the University, and "what were the fees charged to the students?" These were the four heads of reference. The Commission was issued in the spring, and he had ascertained that the Report could not possibly be ready before the end of September or the beginning of October. That was not a very distant date to look forward to; and when the Report was presented, it would be the serious duty of the Irish Government to consider that Report in relation to the whole question. Before the Report was presented, they could not be expected to take action. Although he was himself only in indirect communication with the Irish Government, he was well aware that they had never lost sight of this question. Every road, it had been said, led to Rome; and so every piece of legislation led to the Treasury. Every piece of legislation in regard to Irish education involved an outlay of money in some way; and negotiations between the Treasury and the Irish Government would, of course, be resumed when any further steps were taken, and hon. Members might feel assured that this matter was not wholly set aside. The Government had issued this Royal Commission to ascertain facts upon which further legislation must necessarily proceed; but they had been considering the problem independently of the Royal Commission, so that their minds might be ripe for dealing with these facts when they had been ascertained, and in course of time it would be the duty of the Irish Government to adopt some definite attitude upon the matter. In the meantime, it was obviously impossible for them to consent to the harsh step suggested by the hon. Member for the City of Cork. As the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had pointed out, that course would be indefensible, because there was in this Vote a sum of £9,000, which was simply a repayment of fees for students. It would be impossible to take that from the Vote, even if the hon. Member wished to push the matter to a Division. They could only look on the action of the hon. Member as a strong reminder, although that was not necessary, because the Government had had the subject in their minds. The hon. Member for Gal way (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had referred to another matter, described as a bargain with the Professors, and had made a strong appeal on their behalf. He (Mr. Courtney) thought their case was somewhat hard; but it seemed to him that it was a hardship in the action of life. They were to receive certain incomes, dependent, to a large extent, on the people who attended their classes; and he was afraid there was no means of dealing with the losses that fell on the Professors.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney), who had just sat down, in the course of his speech had deprecated any allusion being made by one hon. Member to the inconsistency of any other Member, either in regard to his acts in the House or out of it. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) could quite understand the feelings of the hon. Member upon that point, because it had been the subject of an immense amount of remark not merely on that, but also on the other side of the House. An extraordinary metamorphosis had come over the hon. Gentleman since he left the place on the back Bench, where he used to sit, next to the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth), and had taken his seat upon the Treasury Bench. There had been a total change in the ideas of the hon. Member as to political, or Parliamentary, or Ministerial acts. [An hon. MEMBER: No!] His hon. Friend said "No;" but in his calmer and more unguarded moments he (Lord Randolph Churchill) felt sure his hon. Friend would feel inclined to agree with him, particularly in regard to questions which had been discussed in the past. In 1879 the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was one of those who threw a good deal of cold water on the efforts which were made by the late Government to deal with the question of Irish University Education, and at that time the hon. Gentleman was one of those who would have rendered the position of the Queen's Colleges untenable. He declared the Queen's Colleges could no longer be justified or defended; yet now he was defending them. That was the position he occupied then. What was the case now? The hon. Gentleman, that afternoon, had spent more than three-quarters of an hour in an able and ingenious defence of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. He must say that although he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had regretted the absence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland last night he did not regret it to-day. Of course, they were all very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman was ill; but, with regard to the present discussion, nobody could have dealt with it in a more hereditary manner than the hon. Gentleman. He had assumed the tone and all the old arguments of Dublin Castle, as if he were in a manner born with them, and knew them by heart long ago; and with a gusto which was absolutely refreshing. He hoped the Committee would allow him to go over a few of the points which the hon. Member had dealt with in his speech. First of all, he would deal with the objection which the hon. Gentleman had taken to the action of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The hon. Gentleman said—"We have appointed a Commission to inquire into the matter." Well, from his (Lord Randolph Churchill's) experience of Commissions in Ireland appointed to inquire into educational questions, the fact of one being appointed meant in itself a death-blow to any legislative action. They had had Commission after Commission appointed to inquire into every branch of Irish education. In 1867 Lord Powis's Commission sat for several years at a very large cost to the public. A few years afterwards another Commission sat to inquire into the endowed schools of Ireland. That Commission sat for four or five years also, at an immense cost to the public; and it presented a very long and valuable Report, but one which led to no legislative result. Then, in the year 1876, there was another Commission to inquire into the condition of the endowed schools of Ireland. But, although the condition of the endowed schools of Ireland was so disgraceful that the House of Commons granted a Commission in the teeth of the opposition of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and that Commission produced a Report, after sitting for some time, there was no legislation upon it. And now the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury thought he could delude those hon. Members of the House who were acquainted with the result of these various Commissions to inquire into Irish Education into the belief that another Commission was to be the prelude to legislative action. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) was perfectly convinced that there was no probability of the Commission, which the hon. Gentleman said the Government intended to appoint, producing legislative action, and the Government had not got it in their minds to deal with the question of University Education either this Session or next Session, or as long as they remained in Office. If there was one subject more than another which required attention it was this question of Irish education. The Government had refused to deal with elementary education on a large scale; they had refused to deal with the endowed schools, and now they refused to deal with University Education. He said they had refused to deal with the question, because they had declined to receive the various Bills which had either been laid on the Table or talked about, or to make any bunâ fide attempt to legislate upon them. The matter was a very serious one, and one which the House ought not to allow the Government of the day to trifle with. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury stated that the original plans of the Queen's Colleges had been favourably received by the Catholic Party, and he stated that Mr. Sheil had favourably received them. Now, he (Lord Randolph Churchill) thought it a very unwise thing to pry into the motives which had actuated the Catholic Party in that day, and it was quite as unwise to pry into the political motives which actuated the Catholic Party now. He did not know that the Catholic Party of this day were pledged to the opinions of Mr. Sheil any more than they were to hold the Prime Minister pledged to the views he had formerly expressed about the Irish Church. He thought, if he were to suggest such a thing, he would excite shouts of disapproval from hon. Gentlemen opposite. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury stated that the idea of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland was an excellent one. So it was. It was far too excellent for this world. The ideal was most excellent. The idea was that of religious instruction combined with secular University teaching; but it was an idea which never recommended itself to the minds of the Catholics of Ireland, and for this reason—that the Catholic Party in Ireland were never satisfied that the religious teaching should be confined entirely to the boarding-houses, rather than the Colleges or the Universities, and should be altogether separated from the great centre of University teaching. The House of Commons knew perfectly well that in the minds of the Roman Catholics education and religion were absolutely inseparable, and any attempt to give one without the other was only a waste of time and money. Therefore, the idea of the Queen's Colleges, although apparently very suitable on paper, was never accepted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. No doubt, opinion was divided on the question; but what was the position of affairs at that time? There was no University Education at all which the Roman Catholics could receive. The Government made certain proposals, and there was a certain Party in the Roman Catholic Church, represented by Archbishop Cullen and other liberal-minded men, who were in favour of giving that system not in any way the sanction of the Catholic Church, but a little longer trial, in order to see whether it could be modelled into their idea of a satisfactory system. But although the opinion of the Catholic Party, owing to the devoted efforts of Archbishop Murray, was in favour of a trial, the Committee would make a great mistake if they arrived at the conclusion that the Roman Catholic hierarchy ever sanctioned the institution of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury proceeded to throw grave doubts on the statement which had been made by the Irish Members with regard to this question; because he said—"I do not think they represent the classes who resort to University Education." He said—"They represent the democracy, and the democracy are not the class likely to enjoy the benefits of University teaching." Surely that was a charming sentiment to come from a Radical who was also a democrat himself. He thought, however, that the hon. Gentleman was mistaken in the matter, and that the Irish Gentlemen who sat behind him (Lord Randolph Churchill) in that quarter of the House did represent, and represented entirely and completely, the opinion of the whole Catholic Body in Ireland. It was absurd to say that because they represented the democratic portion of the population, that therefore they did not represent the people who would avail themselves of University Education. The great feature of the Irish peasantry—and in this they differed almost from any other peasantry in the world—was that if the chance were given to them, although they sprang from the very lowest class of the people, they could raise themselves to the position of the highest. Many of the most distinguished men Ireland had produced had been raised up from the lowest classes of society; and if they could provide a condition of elementary and intermediate education which should be thoroughly in accordance with the Irish idea of education, they would bring about a marvellous development of the Irish mind and intellect, and would raise the tone of the Irish people in a way it was impossible to exaggerate or appreciate. The hon. Gentleman stated that Lord Mayo had made a proposal to the Irish hierarchy upon Irish education, and that he had been defeated by the exorbitant demands made upon him by the Catholic people. There, again, the hon. Gentleman was terribly inaccurate; but he (Lord Randolph Churchill) presumed the hon. Gentleman had only made the remark for Party purposes. The fact was the very opposite. Who was it who opposed Lord Mayo? It was the Liberal Party, by their menacing attitude, when the Conservative Party were in a minority in that House. Lord Mayo, on behalf of the Conservative Government, brought forward a proposal for University Education; but the attitude of the present Prime Minister, who was Leader of the Opposition at the time, was so menacing and so violent—the denunciations of the right hon. Gentleman against anything like a Charter to a Catholic University were so powerful, that Lord Mayo was obliged to drop the proposal for the moment. But to say that Lord Mayo was defeated in arriving at an agreement with the heads of the Roman Catholic clergy was to make an absolute misstatement in regard to what was historical. There could be no doubt that the action of the Conservative Government was hampered and impeded by the opposition of the Liberal Party of that day, and by the fact that they were in a minority; but if there had been the slightest encouragement by the Liberal Party, it would have been in the power of Lord Mayo at that time to have settled, and settled for ever, the question of University Education in Ireland. The hon. Gentleman said they ought not to be interfered with, because the late Government, when in Office, left them untouched. [Mr. COURTNEY: No.] Certainly the hon. Gentleman went on to speak of the courage of the late Government in having left the Queen's Colleges untouched, and dealt only with the Queen's University. But the question was, how much was to be done at that time when the Bill was introduced, which contained a clause sweeping away the Queen's University? There was no chance of passing the measure. [Mr. COURTNEY: The Queen's University was swept away.] The Queen's University was not swept away at that time. It was not swept away, but merged; and the Roman Catholics at that moment had a large representation on the Queen's University. Thanks to the hon. Gentleman who now sat upon the Treasury Bench defending the Queen's Colleges, thanks to that Opposition, and that of the Prime Minister, the late Government found themselves unable to deal with the question of University Education in the complete manner they, no doubt, desired. He was perfectly certain that if they had proposed to abolish the Queen's Colleges in that Bill, they would have had no chance of passing the proposal through the House. The system of University endowment was another question. They had set up a system of University endowment in Ireland which had worked well, never mind if, in itself, it had never been more than tentative, and had never been meant to be complete. The moment had now arrived for considering whether the endowment should be continued to the Queen's Colleges of Ireland. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury said the plan proposed by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), of handing over the College of Belfast to the Presbyterians, and the Colleges of Cork and Galway to the Catholics, was a reactionary and a retrograde proposal. Nothing of the kind. The House of Commons alone deluded itself as to the question of Irish education, and it would never understand or deal satisfactorily with that question until it recognized the fact that Irish education at the present day, as far as it was popular, was denominational. The Government and the House were labouring under a delusion when they said that those educational establishments which were purely denominational were educational establishments in accordance with the opinion of the country. He did not know what Body in the Catholic Party should be treated with by the State as to handing over the endowments; but if there were any such Body, he would fearlessly make this assertion—that there was nothing reactionary or retrograde in the proposal; but that, on the contrary, the whole policy of the English Government ever since the year 1827, when Lord Stanley first introduced the principle of mixed education in Ireland, had been to base Irish educational legislation on the principle of mixed education; while the efforts of the Irish Party had been to escape from that false and untenable basis. As long ago as that, the direct and necessary action of the Irish Members had not been retrograde, but progressive. Why did not the hon. Gentleman get up and denounce the policy of the late Lord Derby, in 1827, as retrograde and reactionary?

MR. COURTNEY

said, that Lord Stanley introduced his Education Bill in 1831.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he referred to the well-known letter of Lord Stanley, which, he believed, was dated 1827.

MR. COURTNEY

said, the noble Lord was mistaken. The date was 1831.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, that 1827 and 1831 were very close together. His impression was, that the letter was written in 1827; but probably the hon. Gentleman might have the letter before him.

MR. COURTNEY

said, no; he had only a reference to it.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, that was quite enough. The hon. Gentleman next went on to say that there was no unity of opinion among the Irish people about this question, and that, therefore, they were justified in waiting before dealing with it. Now, what they really had was a great grievance, and there was perfect unity among the Irish Members in representing the grievance; but no unity as to the mode in which it should be dealt with. But that was not their business; it was rather that of the Executive Government, whose duty it was to prepare measures for dealing with it; and if they were to wait in dealing with national or minor grievances until they could secure perfect unity, their legislative programme would be as barren in the future as it had been in the past. He wished now to allude to the speech which had been delivered by the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Stewart Macliver). The hon. Member undertook to enlighten the Committee and give the Committee his opinion as to the value of these Queen's Colleges; and he had afforded another melancholy instance of the invincible and indestructible ignorance which prevailed in the English mind upon most Irish questions. Hon. Members opposite sometimes abused the House of Lords, and said that its action had been prejudicial to Ireland; but the action of the House of Lords had not been nearly so prejudicial to Ireland as the tone and substance of speeches such as that just delivered by the hon. Member for Plymouth, and such as he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had heard over and over again in that House. There was a kind of smug, self-complacent, Puritanical air of respectability about them which was so well represented behind the Treasury Bench. The hon. Member looked upon all Irish Members with an eye of contemptuous pity, as not being quite respectable enough to receive the serious consideration of Parliament. That was a tone of thought which injured Ireland much more than the action of the House of Lords. He would recommend the hon. Member and other hon. Members to shake off a little of this cold, insular prejudice, and approach their Irish fellow-countrymen as if they really were on an equality with themselves. If they did that, he believed they would do much more to cement the Union than any legislative measure. The hon. Member said that these Colleges were unsectarian. Any hon. Member who said that the Queen's Colleges in Ireland were unsectarian would say anything. There were, in the year 1883, 597 Protestants attending the Queen's Col- leges, and 297 Catholics; and on those figures, no doubt, the hon. Member relied for proving to the Committee that the Colleges were unsectarian.

MR. STEWART MACLIVER

explained that he had referred to the facilities which the Colleges offered. He had not alluded to the number of the students at all, but to the fact that the Colleges, being open to members of all denominations, were unsectarian.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the explanation of the hon. Member only made the matter worse. He had stated that the Colleges were unsectarian, without having the slightest idea of the number of the students that belonged to the different denominations. He knew that the hon. Member had been speaking in ignorance of the facts. Now, 297 Catholics and 597 Protestants was the proportion on which the hon. Member based the unsectarian character of these Colleges. Why, the proportional population between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland was as 4,000,000 to 1,000,000; so that if the unsectarian argument was worth a breath, there should be an attendance of about 2,000 Catholics for 500 Protestants, instead of which the figures were 597 Protestants against 297 Catholics. But so long as they insisted on basing education in Ireland upon such wretched statistics as those which they had, so long would they fail to meet the wishes of the Irish people on the subject. He hoped the Committee would proceed to follow out the lines deliberately adopted in 1879 on Irish University Education, which were to subsidize all religions and all sects in Ireland upon a footing of perfect equality. The Committee apparently, perhaps without knowing it, was directly or indirectly endowing large numbers of Catholic schools and many Catholic Colleges in Ireland; and there was no reason, therefore, why they should not proceed on those lines. If they did, they would certainly facilitate the progress of English legislation on English matters through the Committee, because they would remove from the Irish people a real grievance, and they would be dealing with Irish education in the only way in which, from the nature of the case, Irish education could be dealt with. If they gave State money, as they were doing under this Vote, they must give it in such a manner that all classes and sects in Ireland could avail themselves of it. He need not assure the Committee that the Catholics as a body could not avail themselves of the present endowments. No doubt they could find a very small number of Catholics who resorted to the Colleges; but they did so, principally, to obtain a medical education. The students in Arts were so small in number that they were not worth considering for a moment. Even those persons who, under such circumstances, resorted to the Colleges did, in nine cases out of 10, violence to their consciences, and placed their parents and relations in a position of the greatest difficulty and the greatest unpleasantness so far as their religious position was concerned. It was impossible to alter the facts. The Irish Catholic hierarchy were strongly opposed to any of their flocks resorting to the Colleges; and unless the Committee recognized facts of this kind, they would never be able to satisfy the Irish people. He hoped the Committee would pardon him for having ventured to make these few observations. Having had some experience in Ireland, he was glad to take this opportunity of expressing the hope that the day for the abolition of these endowments might be very near at hand.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN

said, in the absence of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan), he would trespass on the time of the Committee for a very few moments. The question of Irish education was not a new one; and, for his part, he was quite prepared to make an admission, and it was right and proper that they should make every admission that had anything to do with the case. He did not consider himself in that House a sample of denominational education; because, for many years of his early life, he was educated by a Protestant clergyman, and lived within his tutor's house, during the time that he received his education; but what might occur to an individual was not the question for the consideration of the Committee on an occasion like the present. They were required to see what would be the effect of a measure of education upon the general population of Ireland. So far back as the General Election of 1857, he made upon the hustings a promise which he had fulfilled—that, upon the question of education, he would be the delegate of those who had a right to look to the education of the Irish people, at least of their own communion—that, in fact, he would act upon questions of education as the Bishops and priests of his Church seemed to think it was right he should act. At the time he made that declaration things were very different from what they were now; at that time there was a strong feeling for mixed education. The Presbyterians of the North were unanimously in favour of mixed education, and many members of the Protestant Church in Ireland were of the same opinion. But what was the state of affairs now in Ireland? Why, from Cape Clear to the Giants' Causeway, they could collect in any small house the intelligent men who advocated a mixed education. That being so, what was Parliament to do? It was to see how education could be best carried out for the advantage of the whole community, and it must have some regard to the ways and means in that direction. If there were three or four institutions in Ireland, however well circumstanced by their past conduct, now ignored by all classes in Ireland, it was the duty of the House, upon an occasion like the present, to see how they could be turned to the best advantage. He re-echoed the statement made by the hon. Gentleman opposite that the feeling of the country was against the maintenance of the Queen's Colleges. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) differed from him (Sir Patrick O'Brien) in religion; yet he had seen the effect of the Queen's Colleges upon the people whom he now came forward to lead. He did not hear the speech of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Parnell); but he had had the opportunity that others had of learning the substance of it. He thought that amongst hon. Gentlemen opposite representing Irish constituencies there would be union upon this question; but, on the contrary, he found that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was quite at variance with the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork. Owing to that fact, it seemed to him that the position of the hon. Member for the City of Cork was very like that of the devil groping in the dark. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), no doubt, was Member for Galway, and he was full of educational instincts, and he was more especially full of Catholic instincts, yet, to his (Sir Patrick O'Brien's) surprise, the last glimmer of hope for one of those institutions came from the hon. Gentleman, and though not a Leader in the House he was a Leader of his Party, through the papers in which he gave his opinions to the community in general, and to the Irish people in particular. The hon. Gentleman came forward—he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) was not present when the hon. Member spoke. [Mr. HEALY: Hear, hear!] Yes; he knew the "Hear, hear!" of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Healy); the charm of the hon. Gentleman's voice had often struck upon his ear, and the charm of his voice was only equalled by the charm of his manner. He was not talking of the hon. Gentleman now; but perhaps he should have something to say to him later on; at present he was dealing with the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). How could they hope to succeed, if they had a Saxon Government below them, and they had the strong feeling of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and the religious feeling of his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson), opposed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Galway? Was it true, as O'Connell used to say, in times long gone by, that the West was asleep? Upon what principle could the hon. Gentleman support the retention of this College; upon what principle could the hon. Gentleman support the retention of the College in Galway, and deny the College to Cork, or deny it to Belfast? He did not know whether his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had yet spoken upon this question; but he should like to hear him, and he would tell the Committee why. He should like to hear his hon. Friend, because there was no one, humble as he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) was in the House of Commons, who had a greater appreciation of the hon. Gentleman's great knowledge and information, and of his great ability than he had. The hon. Gentleman was educated in Galway College; but he had never been loth to attack the education he received in that College, which education made him the distinguished man he was in the House of Commons.

MR. O'DONNELL

I must beg to correct the hon. Baronet. Though I attended the Queen's Colleges for the sake of their degrees, I attended the Jesuit College of St. Ignatius, and it was there I received my education; I was, however, obliged to go for my degrees to the only institution which the legislation of this House permitted.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN

said, he was very happy to hear from the hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Donnell) that he did not receive his education in the Galway College; because formerly, when he heard the hon. Gentleman make speeches in relation to the Queen's Colleges, he had said to himself and to others that, much as he might be opposed to the education given in the Queen's Colleges, if he had received his education in them he would not be the person to throw a stain on those who educated him. He thanked the hon. Gentleman for the statement he had just made, and he apologized for the mistake he had fallen into. They often heard they were to regard the opinions of people elsewhere; they were told that this question of Irish education was being discussed in America as well as in this country. They had been told that there were millions of Irish people abroad who shared in the aspirations of the Irish people at home. It was right that that should be so; but had it never occurred to hon. Gentlemen opposite that the same feelings might operate in English breasts? Violent statements were made by compatriots of his at Chicago and New York, and San Francisco. If that was right, and if people who went to live in other countries did not forget their nationality, there was nothing to prevent the Scotch and the English people appealing to those residents in America who were of their own nationality and opinion. It was ridiculous, in his opinion, to appeal to people who had left the country and gone to live under other Governments. ["Question!"] Well, he had simply said that en passant. [Cheers.] He thanked hon. Members for their cheers; he knew that, if ever there was a fervent Catholic, it was the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy); and he was fully persuaded that the hon. Gentleman would be quite willing to pitch Australia and America away for the sake of the faith for which he (Mr. Healy) and himself (Sir Patrick O'Brien) had so long suffered. But he had risen on this one question of the Estimates, and upon this one question, little as he knew, or as any Member from Ireland knew, of the opinions of Her Majesty's Government—["Hear, hear!"] Yes; he heard those cries of "Hear, hear!" and he trusted that in the Convention at Boston, to which the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had gone, the hon. Member would dilate at length upon the influence hon. Members opposite possessed upon Her Majesty's Government. He was certain the hon. Gentleman would make out a good case. They all knew his power of expression, and they knew full well how he would tell the American assembly at Boston how the people of Sligo and elsewhere were Irish to the backbone.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Baronet (Sir Patrick O'Brien) is clearly out of Order in the observations he is making.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN

said, he would not pursue the matter further, because the hon. Member for Monaghan knew full well he would have an opportunity of reading in the American journals the statements which he was only beginning to allude to. Upon the question of the "Godless" Colleges in Ireland, as they had been so long called, he had only to say that, in his opinion, it was false economy to force a certain class of education upon people who were not willing to receive it. Knowing that Presbyterians and Churchmen, as well as Catholics, opposed the present system, he should certainly vote against the retention of this Vote.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he was obliged to the hon. Baronet who had just sat down (Sir Patrick O'Brien) for affording him an opportunity of making an explanation on a subject in regard to which the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) had ventured to sneer. He (Mr. O'Donnell) received his education at a Catholic Denominational College, and went to the Galway College for degrees; but he did not at all hold that Irish students who had been obliged to receive their education in the Queen's Colleges, or in Trinity College, on account of the prohibition by the Government of denominational education, were by that debarred from demanding denominational education in Ireland. It so happened that the reproach did not in any case attach to him; but even if it did, it would not alter his feelings upon the subject. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury laid a stress which was to be expected from a mind to be taken as still virgin of sound information upon this question, upon the alleged unsectarianism of the Queen's Colleges. As a matter of fact, the Belfast College was a sectarian establishment; it was not only sectarian in fact, but it had been from the commencement sectarian in design and in intention. He could prove that by the original compact entered into between the Government and the General Assembly. Chairs of Arts in the Queen's College, Belfast, were always intended to be filled, and had been filled, by gentlemen who possessed the confidence of the heads of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. He made no reproach—quite the contrary—against the heads of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland when they insisted upon guarantees that the holders of Professorships in the Belfast College should be men worthy of their confidence. But what he did complain of was that Presbyterians should have kept up the sham and pretence of the unsectarian character of that institution, in order to afford a colour for the denial of denominational education to their Catholic fellow-countrymen. He found that the Rev. Robert Wilson, Moderator of the General Assembly, was sworn and examined before the Queen's College Commission which sat in 1857. The rev. gentleman showed how the Presbyterian Body had intended, by their own subscriptions, to erect a College for themselves, and went on to say— A certain amount of subscriptions had been put down for the purpose of erecting a College for ourselves; but we were induced to suspend our operations until it should be seen whether the College to be established in the North of Ireland would be suitable for our object. We had the strong assurances of Sir Robert Peel on the subject. One of his statements was that he intended the Northern College to be a boon to the public at large, and especially to the Presbyterians of the North of Ireland, and he hoped it would be so arranged as to suit our object. The Committee could imagine how thoroughly the Queen's College, Belfast, was arranged to suit the Irish Presbyterian Body when, still quoting from the evidence of the Rev. Robert Wilson, he read the following Resolution passed by the General Assembly, at their meeting in October, 1849— That whereas Her Majesty's Government have enabled us to provide for the religious instruction of all our students by the endowment of the theological faculty under our exclusive jurisdiction, and whereas one of our ministers, in whose capacity we have confidence, has been appointed Dean of Residences, and whereas the qualifications and character of the persons appointed in the Queen's College, Belfast, for those classes which the students of this Church have hitherto been required to attend, are such as to justify this Assembly in accepting certificates and degrees from that College as we have hitherto done from other seats of learning"— Presbyterians used to attend Colleges in Scotland— we now permit them to attend the classes of the Queen's College, Belfast. Now, in that Resolution it was explicitly and clearly laid down that the Queen's College, Belfast, had been arranged, and its classes provided with Professors, whose character and qualifications commanded the confidence of the heads of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; and yet the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney), a quarter of a century afterwards, was still so verdant of any knowledge on the subject that he ventured to describe the Queen's College, Belfast, as an unsectarian institution. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that critics had been shy of commenting on the education given in the Queen's College, Belfast. No critic acquainted with the circumstances of that College had ever been shy of commenting on the education given there. Low as the education in Galway and in Cork had been, the root of the evil was planted in Belfast. It was the Belfast Collegiate authorities who beaded the movement for the degradation of the degrees of the Queen's University, which took place in 1856 and 1857, and which took place, in the words of the evidence of the President of the Queen's College, Belfast, before the Queen's College Commission, for the very reason— That, if the degrees were not lowered, it would be very inconvenient to have our annual Assembly in St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle, and be able to present the public with no degrees. It was this action on the part of the Belfast Collegiate authorities which had led to such disastrous consequences; and, for the information of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney), he might say that the degradation of the degrees took place, in spite of the protests of the graduates of the Queen's University of that time. At Cork, at Belfast, at Galway, deputations from the then graduates waited upon the Commissioners, and protested against the disastrous intention of the heads of the Queen's College, Belfast, to lower the degrees. The graduates stated that all that was then required was a sufficiently high matriculation to keep out nominal students. But the Belfast Queen's College authorities preferred to lower the matriculation, to make it nominal; they preferred to enter into a disastrous competition with the schools of the country; they preferred to strip the schools of the country of the boys who ought, for years longer, to be at school, in order to swell the nominal roll of the attendances at the Queen's College Hall. With the practical abolition of matriculation, it became impossible, within the three years, to turn raw lads into the University Colleges, and, therefore, the degrees had to be lowered and made nominal. The degrees were lowered in order to correspond with the low and nominal matriculation. That was done at Belfast, and was done in spite of the protests of the graduates of the Queen's University. He had always pointed out the disastrous effects of that system, and he had warned the authorities that the day would come when they would be found out. All his efforts to bring about reform were derided, and now the day of reform had gone by, and the Queen's Colleges must be abolished root and branch. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had spoken with emphasis of the absence of Catholics from all the classes except the classes of the Medical Schools. Of course, in the Queen's University medical education was always purely and exclusively professional training. A man might go through all the classes of the Queen's College Medical Schools, and obtain his degree of medical doctor and full surgeon, and yet he would not receive even a smattering of literal education. The Medical School at Galway had been enabled to quote a certain amount of semi-success by the expedient of opening its classes for six months to the students of the Dublin Medical School, who came down to Galway, attended the qualifying classes for six months, and, having done that, went up and obtained their medical degrees as Queen's Uni- versity students, and then they could be quoted in the House of Commons by the Secretary to the Treasury as proof of the success of the Queen's Colleges. Whatever the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury might say, as to the so-called unsectarian education given in the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, he (Mr. O'Donnell) maintained it had never been unsectarian, and could not be unsectarian. It was absolutely impossible for a Professor, in taking his classes over all the ages of ancient and modern culture, in dealing with all the varied subjects of importance passing before his mental vision—it was impossible for any Professor to avoid expressing some opinion or other upon the innumerable points on which human progress and human retrogression touched matters of dogma and matters of religious morality; it was impossible for a Professor to deal with the history of civilization for the last 10 centuries, without having occasion and necessity to estimate the influence of Mohammedanism upon every point and upon every country and every subject throughout the East for that past time. Was he to be told that a Professor could take his classes over the history of the last 18 centuries, could come upon the innumerable subjects, from before the Crusades and since, before the great changes introduced by Luther and Calvin, could deal with the innumerable questions, bristling with inuendoes and difficulties, and not inform his class of his views upon one or other of the points? Why such a Professor, if he were to attempt to act up to the letter of his obligations, must be a dummy. He could not express himself upon any subject whatsoever; and, of course, as a matter of fact, the best-meaning Professor, no matter how desirous he might be to avoid interfering with the beliefs of any portion of his audience, if that audience were a bonâ fide mixed audience, combining a large number of boys of different religious persuasions, and especially if it contained a large number of Catholics, must inculcate opinions which ought not to be the opinions inculcated in the minds of Catholic students. But how had the Queen's Colleges guarded against that? They had guarded against that danger, the danger of Professors teaching untrue sectarian matter, by practically excluding Catholics from all the Professorial Chairs or Art. Catholics were admitted to the Medical and Legal Chairs; but, as a matter of fact, Catholics had not been admitted to the Professorial Chairs of the Queen's University; they had not been admitted to such Chairs in Belfast in consequence of the expressed compact of the General Assembly; and they had not been admitted to any of the Chairs, except in the most limited cases, and most inoffensive Chairs in Cork or in Galway. The time had gone by for trying to patch up the Queen's Colleges. It was a perfectly legitimate ambition on the part of Cork and of Galway to be the seats or centres of education, and he was quite certain that any preference expressed by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) for the maintenance of the College at Galway, was a preference for the maintenance and establishment of a University College in Galway, suitable for the people, and not a preference for that useless and expensive Institution which was now established there. The hon. Gentleman desired an education which could be given to the people at large, and not the hollow pretence which was defended by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury in the House of Commons. There must be fairness in the treatment of education in Ireland—either levelling up, or levelling down, they did not care very much which. If there was to be an endowment of non-Catholics sects, there must be an endowment of the Catholic Denomination. On the other hand, they were quite ready to enter the open field against all comers; throw all education endowments fairly, and fully, and completely, to be fought for by fair competition by the boys and youths of all creeds, and let the best carry off the prizes. Throw the endowments of Trinity College; throw the endowments of the Queen's Colleges; throw every endowment of a public description which existed in Ireland into the common field, and then see if the Protestants, if the non-sectarians in the existing Queen's Colleges, could carry off the majority of the prizes. If they did, they were quite welcome to the honour and the profit; but the present system had long since been judged and condemned, and no efforts of any Government would ever be able to set it up again on its former foundation.

MR. MACARTNEY

said, the hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who repre- sented Roman Catholic constituencies had spoken very fairly the views of their constituents. The hon. Baronet the Member for King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien), who spoke in such a humble capacity, but in such dictatorial tones, wandered over a great number of subjects; but he said that one small room would contain all those in Ireland who were in favour of maintaining the present system of Queen's Colleges, and he (Mr. Macartney) supposed the hon. Baronet would add the supporters of the model schools. He (Mr. Macartney), on the contrary, believed it would take a very large room, indeed, to hold all the people, even in the parish in which he lived, who were in favour of the present system of education. He thought, too, that in Belfast a very large room would be required to hold those people; and also in Derry those in favour of unsectarian education could not be confined within so small an area as the hon. Baronet seemed to imagine. At all events, fully one-third of the population of Ireland were in favour of unsectarian education. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, very nearly that number—it depended upon the religion; those who were non-Catholics formed very nearly one-third of the population. ["Question!"] He was addressing himself to the Question. This was a question of religion; indeed, the question of education was a question of religion all the world over. In almost every country where education had advanced, the system adopted was unsectarian. The Roman Catholic Church was fighting determinedly to regain the power she had lost, to regain the entire control of education in the countries where she was predominant. He hoped that that control would never be granted to her. The Roman Catholic Church had full power and full swing to select the education of its own people; but if it expected that special endowments were to be given for the education of Roman Catholics, as such, in separate Institutions in Ireland, he maintained that the Disestablishment of the Protestant Church was the very greatest injustice that could be conceived. At the time of that Disestablishment, they were told that sectarianism was to be done away with; they were told there was to be no difference between one man and another in this country; that the law would not recog- nize any difference between the Protestants, the Roman Catholics, the Presbyterians, and the Quakers; but they now were told that a certain belief in this country was to have privileges which no other beliefs had. Trinity College had been thrown open, in the most generous way, to the people of every religion; there was nothing to prevent men professing any known religion going into Trinity College and carrying off the first prizes. The objection which was raised to the Queen's Colleges was that the Professors were not bound to teach in such a way as to please the Roman Catholic majority. They were told by the hon. Baronet that he was educated by a Protestant clergyman, but that he still remained a Roman Catholic. He (Mr. Macartney) was educated in a French school, where the teachers were all priests, but he was still a Protestant. He also attended two Universities in Roman Catholic countries, but he never found his religion interfered with. In those Institutions, no sectarianism was taught except in theology, and there was a Chair in Theology for each particular religious belief; one Roman Catholic, one Lutheran, and one Calvinistic. He believed there was no place in Europe which was more strictly Roman Catholic than Munich was, at which he studied. At present, education in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium was free and unsectarian. A desperate fight had been carried on in Belgium, just as it was being carried on in Ireland, and just as unsuccessfully, in favour of sectarian teaching.

MR. O'DONNELL

Is not the agitatation in Belgium against atheistical teaching?

MR. MACARTNEY

said, it always did happen that when education did not please Roman Catholics, it was godless. That was a doctrine held by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, and so far as he was concerned they were quite entitled to hold it. He and others did not believe that the teaching in Belgium was atheistical, or that that in Germany, or in Oxford, or Cambridge, or in the Queen's Colleges was atheistical; he believed there were no more religious students sent out in any part of the world than those sent out from Belfast College. He denied that the standard of education at the Belfast College was very low; the students of the Belfast College had distinguished themselves in competition with students of every other educational establishment in the Three Kingdoms; they had carried off a great number of the most valuable prizes, and that was the best proof of the excellence of the education they received. He trusted that the Government would not be led away by the dictatorial tone of the hon. Baronet, or by the wheedling manner of the hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who sat below the Gangway on his (Mr. Macartney's) side of the House.

MR. HEALY

said, he had a question to ask with regard to the terms of Reference under which the inquiry into the Queen's Colleges was now being held. They knew what the terms were; but they had not been told who were the persons who drew up the terms? A good deal must necessarily depend upon that. Of course, the Committee were labouring under a disadvantage, owing to the absence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)

The terms of Reference were settled by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan). I saw the draft in his own handwriting.

MR. HEALY

said, that no more unsatisfactory terms of Reference could have been submitted to a Commission. Besides the unsatisfactory character of the terms of Reference, there had been placed at the head of the Commission a very able counsel who kept the witnesses as closely to the terms of Reference as he would keep to the issue of a trial before a jury. Altogether, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had managed to restrict the inquiry within very narrow limits. And it was this Commission which the Government told them was to settle everything. It was to this Commission they were to look for some amelioration of the present Collegiate system of Ireland. He was also desirous of knowing who settled the personnel of the Commission, because he did not hesitate to say that from the point of view of the Irish people, the personnel of the Commission, as a whole, was most unsatisfactory. It was said in Ireland, that the Commission, which the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr.Courtney) stated was to settle the difficulty, was a suggestion which emanated from some of the Queen's College authorities who argued—"We were in a hobble before we got a Commission, and it whitewashed us; we are now in another difficulty, let us get another Commission and be whitewashed once more; we shall then be able to struggle on for another quarter of a century." The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury threw an ungenerous taunt at him (Mr. Healy) and his hon. Friends, when he said that few of them represented the University-going classes. He (Mr. Healy) took comfort in the assurance of Sydney Smith, that he never knew a Senior Wrangler who was not a fool. He did not know whether the hon. Gentleman was a Senior Wrangler; but, of course, if he was, he should not think of associating him with the statement of Sydney Smith; but he was surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who, in 1879, held such strong views on this question, should have made the speech he delivered this evening. The hon. Gentleman once informed the Women Suffrage Conference that he was not a man who was prepared to change his opinions at a moment's notice; but, after deliberately stating, four or five years ago, that, in his opinion, the Queen's College system could not be maintained, they now found the hon. Gentleman prepared to back up the system. The hon. Gentleman taunted the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) with having put his name to the back of the Bill of The O'Conor Don. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork put his name to that Bill under great pressure. At that time, the hopes of the Irish people were extremely low. Mr. Butt's Bill had been rejected, and the Irish people, not having made the advance they had since made, the Irish Bishops, in a spirit of compromise, were willing to accept, under pressure, the Bill of The O'Conor Don. Strong pressure was also brought to bear upon his hon. Friend (Mr. Parnell) to put his name to the Bill. What had happened was, that they had cut off the head of the University system, and it was now wanted to keep the wriggling body alive with infused blood, represented by £5,000 on the Estimates. As they were fast approaching the hour when they must adjourn, and as it was desirable that a Division should betaken, he did not propose to press the matter further on the present occasion. The Irish Members fully believed that, after the next General Election, in which the Party would be returned to the House 70 or 80 strong, they would be able to eat up the Queen's Colleges at a bite.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 100; Noes 35: Majority 65.—(Div. List, No. 212.)