HC Deb 27 February 1893 vol 9 cc530-46
MR. DONALD CRAWFORD (Lanark, N.E.)

moved— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her to withhold Her assent to a Minute of the Scotch Education Department, dated the 31stdayof January 1893, providing for the Distribution of the Sum available for Secondary Education under Section 2 (1) (b) of 'The Education and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1892.' He said that the origin of the Minute, which was a very important one, was the assignment by Parliament of the sum of £60,000 for the purposes of secondary education in Scotland. It was well-known, at all events, to the Scotch Members, that secondary education had been for some time in a languishing condition. While the elementary schools had received almost unlimited assistance from the bounty of Parliament, their very prosperity had rather tended to cast a shade upon secondary education, because so high a premium had been placed by the liberality of the grants upon the cultivation of the three R's and the other more elementary subjects. The old parish schoolmaster of Scotland had passed away, and the burgh schools, stinted in means, had been gradually decaying and perishing, while even the Universities had somewhat encroached in another direction on the secondary education of Scotland. Consequently, the Scotch Members had been exceedingly glad to assign a portion of the equivalent grant to the purpose of secondary education. But the Minute, in his opinion, proceeded upon entirely mistaken lines; and if it were not withdrawn, or very greatly altered, it would produce a very evil prospect for secondary education in Scotland. He would proceed at once to point out what he considered the radical vice of this proposal. It seemed to him to violate the principle of Local Government. If there was one subject more than another which? could be safely and properly entrusted to Local Bodies is was that of education. A very important contribution was made to Local Government by the Conservative Party in the last Parliament, and he appealed to them, as well as to the Members of his own Party, to give effect to the principle of Local Government on the present occasion. The extremely centralised system under which elementary education was now administered was of very recent growth, and was limited by the local institutions of School Boards. The time was well within living memory when grants by the Privy Council were a very small experiment in the way of education in Scotland. He did not say an insignificant experiment, because it was significant of a great expansion. It was only by what he might call an accident that, the Privy Council grants having been gradually enlarged, the Privy Council obtained the power of the purse. Although School Boards had since been established all over Scotland, the Privy Council, having the power of the purse in their hands, had been able, through the Scotch Education Department, to exercise a very powerful—he might almost say a despotic —influence upon education. In Wales the system of Local Government had been fully adopted, the intermediate education funds being administered by County Committees. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland (Sir G. Trevelyan) to put to himself the question whether, supposing a proposal were made for the re-organisation of the secondary education of England, he believed for a moment that a bureaucratic and centralised system of administration would be tolerated in this country? If such a thing were proposed, he hoped the language of his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Acland) would be Parliamentary, as it always was, but he was sure it would be emphatic. When the majority of the Scottish Members sat on the Opposition side of the House, they fought very hard for the recognition of the principle of Local Government; but the question turned upon one point in a long Bill, and it was not surprising that they did not meet with complete success. They did, how-ever, meet with some measure of success. The proposal, then laid on the Table, was withdrawn, and a strong Committee was appointed. It consisted of five gentlemen, all of whom had some special acquaintance with the subject of education. It did not report on the subject of the administration of the grant, and he very much regretted the fact; and their reason for not reporting was that that subject would involve wider consideration and possibly further legislation. The Committee, as the House would remember, was appointed to consider the proper mode of distributing the money, with especial reference to the system of Welsh secondary education; and by refraining from making proposals for its administration, they, in effect, prejudged the matter to a large extent in the wrong direction. By Act of Parliament the distribution of the money was to be settled by a Minute of the Education Department, to be approved by Parliament; and as the Committee made no suggestion as to the ultimate form of distribution, they left the framers of the Minutes entirely uncontrolled. Still, the control of Parliament remained, and he hoped the House that night would bring the scheme into entire harmony with proper principles. The Committee reported in favour of two things: One, the establishment of local Committees of Inquiry, and the other dealt with the detailed application of the money. With the first proposals he found no fault. But as to the details, he would at once say he thought they were open to two main objections: the first was the proposed reduction of the fee in the secondary schools to an average of £3 a year, in return for which a grant of £3 per annum was to be given. To those who were familiar with Codes and capitation grants, and who were strongly imbued with the traditions of the Education Department, that might not seem a startling proposal, but to many of his friends in that House and out of it the demand that the fees in secondary schools should be reduced to £3 was most fantastic. The circumstances of these schools varied infinitely; these which charged the higher fees were often the most in need of assistance; and while he sympathised with the main object of the Minute, the giving of due encouragement to the poor, and those who could not afford higher education to enter the secondary schools, he felt that the result might be to degrade and pauperise some of the burgh schools, which would be a most unfortunate thing. That, no doubt, was not the intention of the Minute, but it was a possible result, and in some cases there was very serious risk of it. The schools varied materially in the amount of fee charged. Some had considerable endowments and were able to charge a lower fee; in others the lowness of the fee was due to the fact that the quality of the education imparted was lower. A number of schools would suffer severely if this Minute were enforced. The High School at Edinburgh had nowadays to stand a very severe competition from the hospital schools, some of which had almost unlimited endowments. These hospital schools were able to charge a lower fee than the Edinburgh High School and in that way had attracted to themselves a large number of pupils. The High School fee probably doubled that at the hospital schools, yet under this Minute the fees at both were to be brought down to £3; and while the hospital school would gain by the change, the High School would suffer considerable financial loss. There was no equity in that. It was a case of "unto those that hath shall be given." Further, he contended that the system of capitation grants was not applicable to the organisation of secondary education. It savoured too much of the cast-iron and bureaucratic system, and he would be sorry if the shadow of the late Lord Sherbrooke were to stalk up and blight the Scotch educational standard. If Codes and capitation grants were introduced into the Scotch system of higher education they would bitterly regret it. The right principle to be introduced was clearly that of Local Government, and the circumstances were such that the adoption of that principle would be particularly fruitful and was particularly desirable. There were special reasons why County and Burgh Bodies should have the administration of this money. The sum available was £57,000. Not very long ago a sum of £48,000 was placed at the disposal of the Local Authorities, which they were at liberty to apply to technical education. They had so applied it to a considerable extent, but their efforts had been much hampered by the fact that they had no existing machinery for using it, and no means of adding to the money available for the purpose. Here was an opportunity to give them greater liberty of action, because technical education need no longer be divorced from secondary education as at present; the two grants could be added together. This would be specially advantageous in some parts of the country where the secondary education most required partook largely of the character of technical education, and it would be well, therefore, for the money to be administered by the same people. That was not all. A further sum of £100,000 was placed at the disposal of the authorities by the same Act, with liberty to apply it to any object of public utility. It was complained that in many cases the present grant of £60,000 for secondary education, if it were distributed rateably, like the rest of the Equivalent Grant, would not go far enough, and that was the reason assigned for distributing it in the manner prescribed in the Minute. But if they wanted to increase the amount why not secure its increase by handing it over to Local Bodies which have funds they can augment it with? It might be suggested that some districts were so poor that nothing would be practicable in the shape of secondary education out of the grant. Well, his reply was that those districts should wait till more money was available, in preference to existing schools being ruined by a false application of the money in the meantime. It was said that this pro- posal was a temporary one. It certainly was intended by the Committee that it should not be of a permanent character, for they said— We also desire to state our opinion that it must be a matter of experience whether the system of capitation grants proves to be the most suitable way of assisting secondary education. But there was nothing in the Minute to indicate that; in the meantime, the schools would get the grant, their financial systems would be totally subverted, and how would it be possible to restore them to their former condition? These were the grounds, stated far too briefly owing to the lateness of the hour, on which he felt compelled to appeal to the House to disapprove the Minute. He was sure that the Secretary for Scotland would not refuse to admit that the principle of Local Government which he had invoked was the right principle, that Parliament had acknowledged its importance, and that it was a principle especially cherished by the Liberal Party. If he was inclined to meet them in any degree, it must be by action, and not merely by reassuring words, because if once they adopted so purely and highly centralised a system, they would find it very difficult to alter it hereafter. He could not help remembering the exceptional history of the Minute; it was framed at a period of transition when one Parliament and one Government were giving way to a new Parliament and a fresh Ministry, and, therefore, the matter could not have had the attention which it deserved. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman would not desire to be relieved of any share of the responsibility, but it was to be hoped that further consideration had induced him to modify his views. This was not a subject on which they might expect a wave of popular opinion; it was one on which the country expected a lead from those who were qualified to give it, and one on which there was room for a constructive policy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in the direction which he had endeavoured to point out.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her to withhold Her Assent to a Minute of the Scotch Education Department dated the 31st day of January 1893, providing for the Distribution of the Sum available for Secondary Education under Section 2 (1) (b) of 'The Education and Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1892.'"— (Mr. Donald Crawford.')

THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,) Glasgow, Bridgeton

I think at this time of the night the House would prefer that I should at once state the conclusions at which the Government have arrived on this matter. The Act of last Session allotted a sum of £60,000 (less £3,000 for administrative purposes) for secondary education in Scotland. The proposal to allot the money was debated at great length, the Debate being in proportion to the interest felt in the subject rather than to the actual amount granted. Hon. Members on all sides were agreed that there were three objects in view: to improve existing secondary schools, to draw large numbers of children to those schools, and to establish such schools in country districts where there was no secondary education. The difficulty was that the money was limited, there being only £57,000, and there was no machinery to work with. In consequence of that, a Committee was appointed, and it reported last August. Some of the Members of the Committee, at any rate, enjoyed the confidence of all parties in Scotland. There was Lord Elgin, Sir John Cuthbertson, the hon. Member for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities, the present Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education in England, and Mr. Craik of the Scotch Education Department. These gentlemen made a series of recommendations, which I need not now read, and they attached to their Report the following paragraph:— We wish to point out that in this Report we do not enter into any question of administration which would involve wider consideration, and in all probability further legislation. We also desire to state our opinion that it must be a matter of experience whether a system of capitation grants proves to be the most suitable way of assisting secondary education in the future. While recommending the use of this method as the rule for the time being under the special circumstances of the case, we reserve our judgment as to the future application of this form of distribution as part of a permanent system. At the beginning of the present Session their recommendations were minutely embodied in the Minute laid upon the table. One most important part of that Minute was the establishment of Advising Local Authorities. School Boards and County Councils were equally represented on these Committees, it being felt that as the money was the ratepayers' money, and as the question was an educational one, they ought to equally share the representation. The Committee have been received with great satisfaction by all Scotchmen; Scotland has taken great interest in the matter. Great energy was shown, and communities eagerly joined in electing the Committees. I know that some of the communities have not had a fair share of the money, and I think that Govan has been badly treated. It was a stretch of power on the part of the Scotch Department to call these Committees together before Parliament had sanctioned them; but the Government took the risk, and I hope the House will condone its action. But do not postpone for another two months the sanction of popular representative machinery all over Scotland. When the present Minute is passed I will inquire into the case of Govan. I should be very glad to meet its claims, for I think they are admissible; and if there are any other communities of Scotland with a like title to consideration, they also shall have my careful attention. But there are serious objections to this Minute, which come from other quarters. Some hon. Members object to the details of the distribution as made by the Central Authority, and others object to the Central Authority distributing the fund at all. What is asked is that a very much larger sum than the £200 laid down in the Minute should be given to secondary schools, and that the fee should not be limited to £3, but that schools which charge a very much higher fee should be allowed to share. I must ask hon. Gentlemen to consider what this means. Dr. Marshall, a Director of the Edinburgh High School, has been quoted. He recommended that the grant should be given to schools where fees of £8 were charged; that no grant should be given where a fee of £3 was charged. That is to say, that none of this money should go to the poorer schools or to poorer children. Dr. Marshall admitted in his evidence that there was room for 100 free pupils in the Edinburgh High School. He admitted that, under the Minute, the school would receive £600 for these children; but he objected to receive free pupils, because he said that, in a town like Edinburgh, 100 free pupils introduced would probably have reduced the scholars by a similar number, because an idea would have got abroad that the school was getting more and more socially ineligible. Now, is that a use that we ought to put this small and precious sum to? The schools of Edinburgh, if we yielded to these representations, would get £500, and about £600, I suppose, in relief of fees; but the Edinburgh High School now gets £900 from the Common Fund and £900 from the rate, which is £6 for every child. If we were to give a further relief to the extent of £1,100 a year among them, and if the same was done in every school throughout Scotland, what would remain of the £57,000 for the outlying rural schools? Parliament allotted £57,000 to secondary education. I have read every word of these Debates, and, probably hon. Members remember what were the hopes of Parliament. The hopes of Parliament were that 10,000 fresh children should be attracted to the secondary schools, and that 5,000 children over the length and breadth of the land should have access to higher education of which they are at present destitute. And do not let hon. Members think that the advocates of those children are dumb at this moment. I hold in my hand a telegram from the Educational Institute of Scotland stating that they— that is to say, the elementary teachers of Scotland—are strongly opposed to any alteration of the Higher Education Minute, which would reduce the grant intended for the upper departments of ordinary schools. Now, if you consume the whole of this grant as under the requisition you would do, there would be nothing left whatever for these 15,000 children, who at present have not the opportunity of secondary education, and for whose benefit this £57,000 was especially given. And, in my opinion, we should lose a very great opportunity of giving all these 15,000 children—of a very different class from the children of rich parents—an education which would not be unworthy of the old Scotch education adapted to modern needs and illuminated by modern light. Now, I have been arguing strongly against an alteration of the capitation grant as it at present exists in the Minutes, and I ask hon. Members to follow me very closely here. I come to another objection, that of those who object to a capitation grant at all—those who object to the distribution of the fund by Central Authority by means of a capitation grant extending over Scotland as a whole. I conceive what these hon. Members would prefer would be that this money should be allotted on the principle which we all know so well, I suppose—combination between valuation and population of each separate district, 80 that each separate district should have its share, and should dispose of it by local management. I have very great sympathy with this proposal, and I am not going to argue against this proposal— a proposal, as I say, with which I have the very strongest sympathy. What I must say is this: that if you are to have a capitation grant extending only to Scotland, this capitation grant cannot, in my opinion, be seriously modified, and the result of relaxing this capitation grant would be that the fund would undoubtedly become bankrupt. This is the scheme which has been laid before the County Committees and on the basis of which they are asked to name the schools among which the money should be distributed. Now, in adopting this scheme, we take en bloc all the recommendations of the Committee, because the Committee, so admirably composed as it was, was the only adviser which we then had. But we have now other advisers to consult; we have now the County Committees and the Burgh Committees; and I am bound to say that I have been very much impressed by the argument of the hon. Member, and I have also been much impressed by the most excellent resolution which is proposed from the first of these County Committees as reported — namely, the Committee of the County of Aberdeen— in which they say that, in order to secure an equable grant for secondary education in Scotland, and the maintenance of the due relations between the different parts of the country, and in particular between urban and rural areas, it should be distributed and made available in a similar manner to the residue grant on a basis of the rateable value, and under the direction of the Scotch Education Department. This Committee resolved to memorialise the Secretary for Scotland in favour of apportioning the grant in this way. I think that, before we finally settle the secondary education of Scotland, it would be well to know what those who are able and qualified to speak for Scotland think. I purpose, and that at once and without delay, to send a circular to all the County Committees and the Burgh Committees, requesting them at the earliest possible opportunity to consider and report on a system under which each county should have its share of the grant allotted to it; under which a scheme of secondary education shall be drawn out with a free hand by the County or Burgh Committee, and submitted to the central department for approval; and I would indicate that that approval would not be withheld on one condition—that is to say, if the scheme should be based on the policy of giving secondary education to the greatest possible number of children, that is compatible with thorough educational efficiency. Such a circular would, I conceive, be in strict obedience to that paragraph of the Committee's Report to which I made reference early in my speech—the paragraph in which they report that they reserve their judgment. The School Boards and the Local Committees will themselves have the two systems to consider side by side from the point of view of what is best for their own locality, and what is best for Scotland as a whole. When we have their replies, I will communicate the general result to Parliament, and, if necessary, I will lay a Supplementary Minute on the Table. Whatever is done shall be done with the full knowledge of Parliament. Parliament shall be consulted; Parliament shall have an opportunity of pronouncing, and I trust that what will finally be arranged will be done with the concurrence of Parliament. But this Minute, constituting as it does the very Committees which I propose to consult— this Minute which, if it is suspended at this time, will suspend the whole operation of this system throughout Scotland, I ask the House at the eleventh hour not to disallow. I am dealing quite frankly with the House. The final system of secondary education in Scotland shall not be arranged without the House having an opportunity of passing a judgment on it by debate and by vote; and I earnestly trust that, having made this explanation and given these pledges, the Debate may not be further prolonged.

MR. J. P. SMITH (Lanark, Partick)

said, he was exceedingly glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman his adherence to the Minute, and that the Minute would at present go on, because he thought that anything else would throw them into very great confusion in the meantime. He was also glad of the assurance given in regard to the important Parish of Govan; but he must say, with regard to the general lines the right hon. Gentleman had laid down, that he disagreed entirely with what he had said. His hon. Friend the Member for East Lanarkshire called upon him to go in for a constructive policy; but it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman's words contained a distinctly destructive policy as to the best schools in Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman's idea of secondary education seemed to be simply quantity and not quality. What they wanted was to keep up, and not to injure, the old historic schools of Scotland, while, at the same time, doing what they could towards giving chances of secondary education to others in different parts of Scotland. What they regarded as the true principle of democratic equality in regard to secondary education was that every capable boy should have a chance of getting the best education, and not that education should he shoved into the mouths of the greatest number of children. They believed that this system under the present Minute would do very great harm to the best schools which already existed in Scotland. He spoke of the burgh schools, in which the fees were considerably larger than the others. The right hon. Gentleman spoke as if he imagined that the amount of those fees varied according to the social eligibility of the schools; it did nothing of the kind. The fees varied as to the poverty of the schools; but well-endowed schools had no need to charge high fees. The poorly-endowed schools could not possibly reduce their fees to the level of £3 while they kept up their present standard of education, and it was those schools which, in a great many parts of Scotland, were doing very excellent work that would suffer under the scheme of the Minute. Nobody desired that anything like the whole of the money granted should go to these schools. The right hon. Gentleman drew an admirable picture from Dr. Marshall's evidence of what happened. In regard to the High School in Edinburgh, he objected to free pupils; but Dr. Marshall certainly did not agree with many other schools in that respect. In the High School in Glasgow there were 53 pupils sitting on the benches along with the other scholars, receiving education free. Nobody was any the wiser, and the old system worked well. Another thing which was stated in regard to Dr. Marshall's evidence was that he actually suggested there should be a minimum, as well as a maximum, fee as a condition of receiving the grant. He did not know whether he knew that that was the actual condition prevailing in the country that was held up for their admiration, and on which the secondary schools worked in Wales. It seemed to him that any attempt to force down the fees must necessarily have the effect of imposing a standard which parents would take to be the right one. Schools would not be able in any way to get higher fees, and the result would be that they would be obliged to give a very much inferior article if they lowered their fees. It was absurd to suppose that a large share of the grant would be used up for the purposes of these schools. Their number was comparatively small. He had put down an Amendment which stood on the Paper making one or two suggestions, one suggestion being that the maximum grant to be given to these schools should be raised from £200, as proposed in the Minute, to £500, as was advocated by many people. The estimate which the Committee made of the charge given by this lump grant was that it would be given to 20 burgh schools at a general average of £150, making only £3,000 out of the £57,000 given. Supposing they doubled that, supposing they made it from £200 to £500, and took an average of £300, that would only make £6,000, and a very small amount of money given that way would just make the difference to these schools. Of course, there were a great many schools that this scheme fitted completely; the schools, for example, in his own constituency were very well fitted indeed. They were the fee-paying schools, which at present were receiving money under the Parliamentary grant, but were struggling with the 9d. limit which had been imposed on them in the last few years by a pure accident. He grudged very much—comfortable though it would make them—that the charge of these schools should be transferred from the broad back of the general Parliamentary grant and put upon this charge of £60,000, but those were the schools which most benefited by the scheme as it stood. The policy followed in Wales was the contrary policy of cutting down; there the fees had been encouraged. This point which he had raised was the main point upon which he regarded this Minute, and the one upon which he would press the right hon. Gentleman to re-consider the subject.

MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries, &c.)

said that, if the House complied with the request of the right hon. Gentleman, to defer pressing for the withdrawal of this Minute, some other Minute could be brought forward so that they would still have control over this Minute, and be able to again, if necessary, press for its withdrawal.

SIR G. TREVELYAN

said that certainly nothing would be done to settle the system of secondary education in Scotland without a Minute of some sort, which the House could decide upon.

MR. R. T. REID

asked the House to permit him to point out what the effect of the Minute would be upon one school in his own constituency, in regard to which the feeling was absolutely unanimous. The position was this: that if this Minute was applied, and if they assumed that the maximum grant be given, and if they marshalled all the children in such a way that they might each of them receive the highest capitation grant, they would get £13 per annum more than they received at the present time. On the other side, in order to comply with the requirements of the Department, the school would have to expend at the minimum £450 extra, and at the maximum £820 extra, and it did not end there. In addition to spending an annual outlay of between £2,000 and £3,000 in order to comply with the requirements, and, further than that in order to make the anomaly complete, this school, which was the secondary school not only for the Burgh of Dumfries, but also for the County of Dumfries and the Stewardry of Kirkcudbright, would have to incur this capital outlay not at the expense of these two counties, but at the expense of the Burgh of Dumfries. How could they stand that without protest? His right hon. Friend would be the very last man to sanction an injustice of that kind. If this annual sum was spent by the school that he had mentioned they would not even then be entitled to the sums of money which his right hon. Friend's Minute promised, because the Minute said the funds were to be paid only so far as available. It was quite absurd to suppose that they could assent to anything of the kind. Nobody desired that outlying country schools should be in any way starved or ill-used. His right hon. Friend had given no practical encouragement whatever to the complete and temperate argument of his hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire in favour of having local control. The system proposed was not a good system, and the proper method was to, as in Wales, allot to the localities their sum of money and allow them to spend it.

SIR G. TREVELYAN

said that not a penny of the sum should he paid until another Minute had been issued.

MR. R. T. REID

said that, so far as he was concerned, if the money was not paid in the meantime, and the Minute was laid on the Table, he would be content. The right hon. Gentleman had not, however, given any practical promise that he would adopt the scheme of his hon. Friend.

SIR M. J. STEWART (Kirkcudbright)

said, he wished to supplement the remarks of his hon. Friend who had just sat down in regard to this very important matter. It was practically life and death to secondary education in his particular part of Scotland. They were really interested in attaining better education. The endowments of their high schools were very small, and the obligations were very great. Almost every school differed, because their endowments differed, and they would be utterly ruined if something was not done to raise this very low fee of £3. He urged the right hon. Gentleman to take every school into consideration in order that he might perfect the scheme. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for his answer, and trusted he would make every effort to bring this scheme more in unison with the actual requirements of the day.

MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)

thought it would be a pity if the right hon. Gentleman were to leave the House without a clear expression of opinion from the Scotch Members on two points. The whole mischief which had been complained of arose from the fact that some gentleman sitting in Whitehall was undertaking to manage the whole educational affairs in Scotland. That was a thing they should not submit to. They should have no interference from Whitehall from anybody, and it was absolutely necessary that the Local Authorities should have complete control over this work. Again, he could not imagine any principle more absurd and bad than this principle of capitation based upon a reduction of fees. They did not want a reduction of fees. Those who could pay the fees ought to pay them; and if provision were made for the poor children, it should be made by bursaries to the poor children, and not by a reduction of fees to those who could afford them.

SIR CHARLES DALRYMPLE (Ipswich)

wished to know whether the Minute was withdrawn or not? The County and Burgh Committees were making inquiries, and he thought it would have been decent to have waited for their Report before discarding the Minute. He thought it would be important that these Committees should continue in existence to be the local advisers of the Department in future. He trusted he was right in supposing that the Minute had not been withdrawn.

SIR G. TREVELYAN

The Minute is not withdrawn.

SIR JAMES FERGUSSON

Is that paragraph in line A in the Minute to stand and to be a hard and fast line?

SIR G. TREVELYAN

What I said was that not one penny of public money should be granted till another Minute had been laid before Parliament.

MR. HALDANE

said, as he understood the matter, his right hon. Friend did not withdraw this Minute. He understood, however, that not a penny of the public money dealt with by this Minute should be expended under it, but that a new Minute should be framed in the Scotch Office and laid before the House, a sufficient opportunity being given for discussing it. On that understanding it seemed to him that his right hon. Friend had made a reasonable concession to Scotch opinion on the subject, and one with which they might all be satisfied.

MR. DONALD CRAWFORD

thought the right hon. Gentleman had met the Motion in a very candid manner, and the concession, if he rightly understood it, was very nearly all they could expect. He therefore very gladly accepted the concession, and asked for leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.