§ MR. WALLACE (Edinburgh, E.)said, his apology to the House for bringing on his Motion at an inconvenient hour was the importance of the subject in the locality interested, and the fact that the time wherein to take objection to the scheme was fast running out. He would confine his argument entirely to impugning the conformity of the scheme with the Act under which it was formulated. Into the policy of the Act he would not enter at all—he would simply ask the House to consider if the scheme before it complied with the Act. 891 He did not deny that, like many other schemes of the Commissioners, it did its best for secondary education, whether University or technical education, nor would he deny that this was good and necessary work, more particularly in the peculiar position in which secondary education was placed by the operation of the Elementary Education Act. But while the Commissioners had benefited education, and secondary education particularly, beyond the requirements of the Act to his mind, they had in this particular scheme, as they had in many others, forgotten to a considerable extent another most important requirement of the Act under which they drew up their scheme—that which demanded that when the founder of any educational endowment had expressly provided for the education of children belonging to the poorer class generally, or within a particular area, then the Commissioners should, so far as requisite, continue the application of the fund for the benefit of such children. The Act was clear and distinct, and, whatever might become of secondary education, these benefactions; should continue. But his contention in regard to this scheme was—and he was ready to think it was by oversight—that the Commissioners had forgotten the claims of poor children within a particular area. On the propriety of the Act itself he would not speak—he would take it as a thing "past praying for," as done, concluded, and beyond dispute; he only questioned compliance with the Act in this particular instance. He would accept this as due to accidental circumstances, and in reference to this he had questioned the Lord Advocate whether it was a fact that, owing to imperfect advertising, the inhabitants of the parish where the endowment was applied practically lost their statutory opportunity of lodging objections with the Scotch Education Department against the scheme? The Lord Advocate, of course, could only give the information supplied by his subordinates, and, to a certain extent, the information was correct. There were three advertisements, as required by the Act, in connection with any scheme framed by the Commissioners; one by the Commissioners, one by the Education Department in its central stage and another in its final stage. In regular course, no doubt, these advertise- 892 ments were published; but they were published in such a way that the people most interested would not, in the ordinary course of events, have seen the advertisements. The Lord Advocate said the advertisements were issued in newspapers published in the two towns west and east of the parish; but the newspapers had practically no circulation in the parish. It would be ridiculous for him to go into geographical details, nor did he know that even the Lord Advocate had any clear idea of the geography of the district; but he might as well have had a scheme interesting to South Norwood inserted in The Highgate Express or The Harrow Road Telegraph, or any local papers having no connection with the locality concerned. If the Commissioners or the Education Department had advertised in any of the Scotch papers circulating all over Scotland, such papers as The Scotsman, The Glasgow Herald, or The Scottish Leader, that circulated in every town and village, then there would have been a bonâ fide advertising of the scheme. But nothing of the kind was done, and, for all the publicity given among the people concerned, the Commissioners might as well have hung up a description of their scheme in their own dining rooms. The inhabitants of the parish did not know that such a scheme was in formation until it had been approved by the Education Department and all power of objection gone. No doubt, the managers of the endowments did receive an intimation from the Commissioners two or three years ago that such a scheme was going to be drawn up, and they did lodge objections which were taken into account; but the people of the parish were unaware until the time when the only resource open to them was a Petition to Parliament. It was a tedious subject for hon. Members generally at such an hour; but the House had a duty to perform, and he hoped, unless he was very unreasonable, hon. Gentlemen would be patient with him. His first contention was that the scheme was in the teeth of the letter and spirit of the Act. The endowment was known as the Geddes Trust, and combined with it in the scheme were the Bill's and Law's Mortifications and the Valleyfield Endowment; but these local terms had no significance for an Assembly like the 893 House of Commons. The principal trust in the group was the Geddes Trust. The Commissioners, in consolidating those funds, had done good work; they had saved a great deal of expense, and had accumulated a sum that under the spirit of the Act might be devoted to University or technical education. But from want of information the Commissioners had gone wrong. Take first the Geddes bursary. It was really a very good bursary of £30 a-year for students to attend the Universities or the higher seminaries for technical education, and in continuing that bursary and enlarging its scope the Commissioners had done well. But what were the conditions under which the founder established the bursary? They were four-fold; first, the holder was to be a native of the parish of Culross, his circumstances of life were to be those of poverty; he was to be born of parents unable from their situation in life to maintain him at the University; and his parents were to have lived in the parish for at least eight years. This being the terms of the deed of bequest, and the Act of 1882 declaring that where a founder provided for the education of poor children within a particular area effect should be given to the provision, how did the scheme of the Commissioners deal with the matter? They had done well in keeping the bursary at the yearly value of £30, and he did not object to its extension to technical education, though that was not exactly the founder's intention. Then the Commissioners went on to say the bursary should, first of all, be awarded after competitive examination, and this at once excluded a very large class of those whom the founder had in view. The Commissioners said there should be competitive examination among those who had been pupils in public or State-aided schools 12 months before the date of examination. There was no question of nativity or eight years' parental residence, and no condition in respect to a particular area, which was provided for in the Act and required by the founder's will. Any person from a neighbouring parish might come in and compete for the bursary, if only he could arrange so as to be called a pupil attending a public school within the parish for 12 months. There were in the neighbourhood good educational institutions, the town of Dunfermline was only 894 eight or nine miles off, where there was a good high school, and a youth educated there, qualifying himself simultaneously by what might pass for a 12 months' attendance at Culross, might carry off the bursary without fulfilling any of the conditions laid down by the founder. Did not this one instance prove his case sufficiently to justify the House in asking the Commissioners, who evidently had acted upon insufficient information, to take back and revise their scheme, making it conform to the Act and accord with the wishes of the founder? This was merely an initial instance. He would not deal so unreasonably with the House as to proceed with the case through all its length, breadth, and thickness; but he could show how similar errors had been committed in reference to the Bill's and Law's bursaries intended by the founders to be awarded in a similar manner, and which the Commissioners had dealt with in their similar manner, neglecting the geographical area intended to be benefited, and laying the advantages open to the whole world. Intended by the founders for the poor, these bursaries were of no use whatever to the poor. What was the use of offering a poor man, say, a £5 or £10 bursary for his son, in respect to higher education or technical education outside the place in which he resided? It was all very well for those resident in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, or a large town, where means for higher education were at hand; but what was the use of offering a poor man a small bursary, when he could not afford to send away his son to take advantage of it? The practical outcome of the arrangement would simply be that if the people in the parish would have a chance of the benefit, it would only be a chance with the people of other parishes, and probably it would be a help to the minister of the parish and others similarly situated. There happened to be two ministers in the parish he was referring to, for what reason he had never been able to discern, though he had been brought under the spiritual ministrations of both. The practical effect would be that the minister, or the doctor, the successful shopkeeper, or perhaps the postmaster, would be able to avail himself of these opportunities, and be able to send his son to a University town, or a place where he could get the benefit of technical education. 895 That would be a national benefit; no doubt the increase of the means of education necessarily benefited the nation, come in what shape it might; but then, he argued, that was not the intention of the founder of these donations; that was not according to the requirements of the Act of Parliament under which the Commissioners were appointed. He hoped the House would bear with him for two minutes more whilst he turned to another point out of the many upon which he could make remarks. [Cries of "Agreed!"] He did not take it upon him to protest against the impatience of the House in this matter; but he was bound to say that local charities and local endowments suffered in the House of Commons, and more particularly when they happened to be Scotch. He was perfectly well aware that, with regard to Scotch Business, Scotch Members were in the position of being despised by English Members. They had, however, long reconciled themselves to that fact. Among the numerous points that he might have adduced in connection with this scheme he would only particularize one more. If the Lord Advocate replied to him on other points, he should be able to meet him with the same brevity and conciseness as he had endeavoured to achieve in opening the case. With respect to the buildings, the land, and the endowments, that related to the consolidation and amalgamation of the different trusts, the Commissioners took power to impose certain duties upon the school board of the parish. One of these duties was that of selling one of the buildings. In order to secure a sufficient accommodation for the schooling of the parish, it was provided that the other school buildings should be enlarged so as to accommodate all the children in the parish. He regarded that as an imprudent arrangement, and as one which might have been avoided if the parish had been sufficiently consulted. It was a hard thing for the school board of a poor parish that, as a condition of accepting this settlement, it should be required to enlarge a particular building so as to accommodate all the children of the parish. It would be a hard thing even if the settlement were the best in the world. The parish was not an uncommonly small one. All the expense of making the enlargement would be 896 thrown upon it, and it would, at the same time, be under the duty of providing school accommodation for children in the parish who were beyond the statutory limit. He thought the Lord Advocate would bear him out in saying that under the Scotch Education Act the statutory limit was three miles, and that compulsory education could not be enforced beyond that limit. In this parish it so happened that there were a very large number of children who were more than four miles from the place where the school board, under this arrangement, would be compelled to provide school accommodation for all the children of the parish. They would still be under the obligation, however, of erecting another school beyond the three miles radius to accommodate the surplus. In conclusion, he had only to say that he was quite conscious of the difficulties under which a Member lay in trying to do justice to a matter of that kind in the House of Commons. This was, however, not his fault, but the fault of the constitution of the House in not providing for devolution. Gentlemen opposite looked with impatience at most things that concerned the interests of the people, and more particularly of the poor. [Ministerial cries of "Oh!"] No amount of interjection of the letter "O" would drive him out of that belief; but he thought the matter would be mended by-and-bye. It was the fault of the House itself that it should be called upon to listen to what were called "petty parochial details." He had not done justice to one-third part of what he ought to have dealt with in reference to this case. Having, however, put before the House one or two salient instances of absolute contradiction to the letter of the Act on the part of the Commissioners, he asked the House to send the scheme back to the Commissioners in order that they might reconsider it.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to withhold Her consent from the Scheme for the management of the Endowments in the burgh of Culross, county of Perth, known as the Geddes Trust, Bill's and Law's Mortifications, and Valleyfield Endowment, approved by the Scottish Education Department, now lying upon the Table of the House."—(Mr. Wallace.)
§ MR. J. A. CAMPBELL (Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities)said, he wished, 897 in a few sentences, to reply to the remarks of the hon. Member. The hon. Gentleman had given the House a sample of his objections, and he (Mr. J. A. Campbell) would merely deal with those samples. The hon. Gentleman had complained that the scheme empowered the Governing Body to suppress one of the two schools, and to make the remaining school sufficient for the educational requirements of the whole parish. The hon. Gentleman had, however, omitted to mention that this was the recommendation of the School Board of the parish. The School Board distinctly stated, in the evidence given by them before the Commissioners, that one school was quite enough for the parish. The attendance at the two schools amounted altogether to only 146 children, of whom 96 went to one school and 50 to the other.
§ MR. WALLACEMight I interrupt the hon. Gentleman? I never made any objection to that at all.
§ MR. J. A. CAMPBELLThe hon. Member objected to the whole children of the parish being included in the accommodation that the School Board were instructed to provide.
§ MR. WALLACEFor one place.
§ MR. J. A. CAMPBELLsaid, the outlying population to which the hon. Gentleman had referred consisted of two groups of cottages, which could scarcely require a school for themselves. The hon. Member had spoken of the bursaries, and had observed that a bursary of from £5 to £10 would not enable a poor man to send his child to a higher school. The hon. Member had, however, confounded two entirely different things. The bursaries intended to enable poor men to send their children to a higher school were not those of from £5 to £10, but those of from £10 to £15. Those of from £5 to £10 were school bursaries, meant to enable parents in humble circumstances to keep their children at school a little longer than they would otherwise be able to do. The hon. Gentleman had also objected to the scheme so far as it affected the Geddes bursary. This bursary was of the value of£26, and was restricted to the University of Edinburgh, besides being restricted under the four different heads which the hon. Member had mentioned. But what were the facts? It was stated in evidence before the Com- 898 missioners that for some time there had been no proper applicant for the bursary. Culross had a population of 1,100, but the bursary was at present not held by anyone, and therefore the Commissioners had increased its value and made the conditions under which it could be obtained a little wider. Instead of continuing to confine it to the University of Edinburgh, they had made it tenable at any Scottish University, or at any technical school or College, or other place of technical or commercial education approved of by the Governors. Were the Governors people who would be likely to neglect the interests of Culross? Why, they were Culross men. They consisted of three members appointed by the School Board, two by the Town Council, and two by proprietors connected with Culross and having a special interest in some of the endowments. Unless hon. Members believed that the new Governing Body would be altogether destitute of common sense, they could not imagine that they would neglect the interests of the poor of Culross.
MR. A. L. BROWN&c.) (Hawick,said, he understood that Scotch Members had been making themselves unpopular by speaking at so late an hour upon schemes of this kind. It must, however, be remembered that it was only at a late hour that they had an opportunity of criticizing these schemes and asking the judgment of the House upon them. He would merely call attention to some of the provisions of the original scheme. The money was left long ago to 12 boys and eight girls "of parents who are unable to afford education to their children;" £20 was to go as a bursary to one child of Culross parents, and so on. What he complained of in reference to all the schemes of the Commissioners was, that they took money from the poor and gave it to the rich. He did not object to devoting the money to the purpose of technical or secondary education as long as those who benefited were the poor; but he did object to the handing over to the well-to-do of money which was intended for the use of the poor. It would not be very difficult to answer the hon. Member opposite (Mr. J. A. Campbell) on the different points he had referred to. The hon. Gentleman had quite misunderstood the arguments used by his hon. Friend (Mr. Wallace), but at that 899 late hour he (Mr. A. L. Brown) did not think he would be justified in doing anything but support the arguments of his hon. Friend.
§ DR. CLARK (Caithness)said, he thought it would be better for the Scotch Members to take a general discussion upon all the schemes of this character on the question of continuing the Commission. It was useless for them to protest time after time against the proposals of the Commissioners, because they were always outvoted by Members from other countries, who knew nothing about the subject. The best course to adopt would be to try and oust the Commissioners when the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill came before the House. The Commissioners were kept in that position for the purpose of stealing from the poor and needy and giving to the rich and greedy. [Cries of "Oh!"] At all events, they were doing that, their object being to make middle-class education cheap. The question ought to be fought out on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN&c.) (Stirling,said, he hoped the House would not be withdrawn by the ambitious proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) from the consideration of the Culross scheme. It was his privilege to represent the burgh of Culross in that House, and he could corroborate what his hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Wallace) had said, to the effect that the proposals of the Commissioners could not have been very well understood in the locality or notified to the inhabitants. He himself never heard a word about it till last Saturday night. From what he had learnt since then he had come to the conclusion that there was a considerable amount of misgiving and fear among the inhabitants of the parish lest they should be injured by the proposal. He had seen a Petition on the subject which was signed by one or two of the leading inhabitants of Culross, and by others who were genuinely interested in the matter. The fear entertained was, in the main, that under the proposal strangers might come in and get the benefits which were intended for the people of the locality, and also that, as his hon. Friend had just said, what was meant for the poor might go to the rich. He felt perfectly 900 satisfied that that was not the intention of the Commissioners. His hon. Relative (Mr. J. A. Campbell) on the other side of the House had explained the views and intention of the Commissioners, and he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) must say that, knowing something of the place, he was not altogether surprised that the large bursary had remained for some time dormant. For his own part, he should be content if he were led to believe, by what was stated as to the mind and intentions of the Commissioners, that, at all events, the benefits of the bursaries would be confined to those who were bonâ fide residents of the locality, or connected with the locality, and if some protection were afforded against the danger of an almost fraudulent attendance, or a nominal attendance, at school, giving the benefits of the bursary to a class of children on whom undoubtedly the original founders did not intend to confer any benefit whatever.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD) (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities)said, he thought that if the scheme were examined, it would be found that the bursary to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite specially alluded, was one which could not be given except to a child who had attended the school for 12 months before the examination. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman, who knew Culross, could suppose that children would be sent to live there in order to have the opportunity of competing for the bursary. It would hardly pay to send a middleclass child as a lodger to a Culross family for the purpose, because the expenses thereby incurred would be practically as great as the amount of the bursary itself. It was very remarkable that, notwithstanding all the inquiries which had taken place in that House in reference to the schemes of the Commissioners, and the hundreds of schemes which had been passed by them, and were now in operation, in no single instance had it been possible to show that any such results had followed as were suggested by hon. Members opposite. In this particular case, it was a remarkable circumstance that the bursary had been standing open for years because no child had been found who was able to fulfil the conditions laid down by the founders. This rather seemed to indicate that the 901 natural result of the condition of the inhabitants was that they would not seek after the bursary at all, and that it was absolutely necessary to widen the basis on which it had been constituted. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Wallace) fell into an error when he suggested that the bursaries of from £5 to £10, which were not given with the object of assisting children to obtain higher education in some place other than Culross, would go to the minister's son, the postmaster's daughter, and so on. It was expressly declared in the scheme that these bursaries were only to be given under the rules fixed by the Scotch Education Department in the case of children entitled to total exemption from the obligation of attending school, and whose parents or guardians were in such circumstances as to need assistance in carrying on the education of the children.
§ MR. WALLACEsaid, he had made a mistake on that point. He had intended to refer to the other set of bursaries.
§ MR. J. H. A. MACDONALDsaid, that in the burgh of Culross, which had a population of 1,100, there were not so very many people who were not able to pay the school fees, and the governors were directed to expend not more than £20 yearly in paying the fees of and providing books and stationery for children who had passed the Third Standard of the Scotch Code, and whose parents or guardians were in such circumstances as to require aid of that kind, but, in the opinion of the Governors, ought not to be required to apply to the parochial board. The scheme was undoubtedly well known to the School Board of Culross. There could be no question about that, because the views of the board were placed before the Scotch Education Department, and the scheme was modified in accordance with those views. It was upon an application of the School Board, urging that the scheme should be disposed of without delay, that the Education Department approved of it, and that it was now lying on the Table of the House. It had been said that the wrong newspapers were selected in which to insert advertisements. Well, Culross was in a very isolated part of Perthshire. It was many miles away from Perthshire itself, and had no newspaper of its own. The Commissioners, there- 902 fore, selected the two nearest newspapers they could find. It might be true that there was only one person in Culross who read either of those highly intellectual journals. The Commissioners could hardly know that, and they could only do the best in their power. But let it be remembered that, whatever was the fact as regarded the advertisements, ample time was allowed to elapse; that the School Board was fully informed of and fully considered the scheme; that they stated their objections to it; and that those objections were given effect to. The School Board was not now complaining of the scheme. The plan was based upon the principle of making good use of funds which at present were partially unavailable, and to some extent were being squandered in consequence of the fact that there were two schools where one was amply sufficient. The scheme aimed at putting an end to that state of things, giving effect to the bursaries as they were before, and extending them as bursaries for poor children. If one of the schools was sold, the Governors were bound to give their pecuniary aid towards any enlargement of the other school that might be necessary for the purpose of making it adequate for the accommodation of the whole parish. That was the state of things, and he thought that, when calmly and fairly considered, the objections which had been raised with such a force of argument by hon. Gentlemen opposite would crumble away. It was very difficult to devise any scheme of the kind without giving rise to some objections; but he thought that the case of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Wallace) was probably the weakest which had been brought forward upon the subject of Scotch endowments.
§ Mr. WALLACEsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate, in the speech he had just delivered, had shown his want of acquaintance with the scheme. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had said that under the scheme the Governors were bound to apply certain money towards the payment of school fees for poor children. The scheme, however, merely said that the Governors should have it in their power to do so. They might or might not do it, and they were very likely not to. Then the right hon. 903 and learned Gentleman had said that the School Board did not object to the scheme. As a matter of fact, the Chairman of the board was the first signatory to a Petition against the scheme. In the original deed it was provided that £43 per annum should be spent upon the education of poor children, whereas the scheme provided that the Governors should spend a sum not exceeding £20 yearly. £20 was not a proper substitute for £43; and, as £20 was a mere maximum, it would be competent to the Governors to spend only half-a-crown a-year, if they liked, upon that object. His own opinion was that, through want of information, a very great wrong was being done in Culross. Of course, it was a small matter to Gentlemen of very large views; but his opinion was that justice was never done unless it was done with minuteness.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 56; Noes 95: Majority 39.—(Div. List, No. 248.)