§ MR. CALDWELL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the following facts:—That in the parish of Lochs, in the Laws, Scotland, with a population of 6,284 and a valued rental of only £4,670, 12 schools, under the direction or at least by the authority and approval of the Board of Education or Scotch Education Department, were built at a cost of £20,311, and that the assessment for school rate alone amounted, in 1884, to 5s. 8d. per *1, and is at present 4s. 6d. per *1; that in the parish of Barvas, in the same district, with a population of 2,600 poverty 1414 stricken inhabitants, and a total assessable rental of only £2,900, the assessment for school rate alone amounts to 5s. 4d. per £1, in addition to which there is an assessment of 7s. 6d. per £1 for parochial and other public rates; that the average school rate assessment for all Scotland is under 6d. per £1; and, whether, considering the extreme poverty of the people in these and other parishes in the Highlands of Scotland, and the above exceptional and practically unbearable burdens resting upon them in respect of education and the poor, the Government will, in the distribution of grants for relief of local taxation, grant such extra relief to the Highlands of Scotland as will bring the assessment for education and the poor down to a rate not exceeding the average rate of such assessments for Scotland?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster), in reply, said, there were certain points in the statement of the hon. Gentleman to which exception might be taken—for example, his omission of the fact that of the stated cost only £7,763 fell upon the locality, £12,428 having been defrayed by grant from the Education Department. The responsibility for the number of these schools rested with the Board of Education in Edinburgh and the local School Boards, and not with the Scotch Education Department. The hon. Member was also in error as to the population of Barvas, which was 5,325, and not 2,600, as stated. But the Government were a ware of the difficulties under which these parishes were placed, and were unable to say more at present than that the circumstances were receiving their careful attention.