HC Deb 16 May 1893 vol 12 cc1136-51
SIR CHARLES PEARSON (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's University)

rose to move— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her to withhold Her assent from a Minute of the Scotch Education Department, dated the 1st day of May 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 the Motion really resumed the discussion which the House entered upon in the end of February last, and it would be in the recollection of hon. Members that on that occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of Scotland, after the remarks he made, urged that the Debate should then terminate in order that he might consult, by way of circular, certain of the Local Bodies in Scotland. The situation had changed since then only in this respect: These Local Bodies had given in their Reports, and had thus given the right hon. Gentleman the advice he sought, though hardly the advice he expected. It was absolutely necessary in supporting this Motion he should very briefly remind the house of the earlier history of this question in order that they might see why it was that he felt justified in asking the Government to give some explanation of their proceedings and the position in which they had brought this highly important question of Secondary Education in Scotland. Last year an Act was passed assigning a sum of £60,000 for the purpose of promoting Secondary Education in that part of the kingdom, and, after allowing for £3,000, which was taken up for administrative purposes, a balance of £57,000 was left. In the course of the passage of that Act the Scotch Education Department laid on the Table of the House a Minute or Memorandum which indicated in more or less detail, but only by way of a tentative proposal, the mode in which they thought the money should be distributed and administered. That Minute was severely criticised, among others, he thought, by the Secretary for Scotland, but at all events by some hon. Members of the then Opposition; and the result of their criticism was that the Memorandum was withdrawn on the footing that a Departmental Committee should be appointed to examine and inquire into the whole question. That Committee was appointed. It consisted of five gentlemen of special skill in educational matters, including the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council on Education, and in the beginning of August that Committee unanimously reported to the House certain recommendations with reference to the distribution of this money. They sketched out a scheme which, almost, directly after their Report was tabled, was embodied by the Education Department in a Minute dated the 11th or 12th August. In consequence of the change of Government, there had been no opportunity for Parliamentary discussion on this question. The Minute of August last practically embodied the recommendations of the Departmental Commission. After the Secretary for Scotland had been in Office from the month of August until December he followed out one of the recommendations of the Commission by setting on foot the election of certain Local Committees throughout Scotland— one for each county and one for each of the larger boroughs. These Committees were elected under a Minute of December, which was issued by the Department, and this was followed up by a Minute on the 31st January, 1893, which was the subject-matter of the discussion in that House at the end of February. That discussion was of a very brief nature, and was brought to a rather premature close by the offer which was made by the Secretary for Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman said that he intended to take the advice of the Local Committees which had been at that time set on foot. He said he would issue a Circular from the Department to these Committees asking their advice as to the mode of distribution of this money, and he said— When we have the 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. …. 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 or by vote; and I earnestly trust that, having made this explanation and given these pledges, the Debate may not be further prolonged. After that the discussion terminated, the Debate having been a very short one indeed. The Department, on the 1st March, issued a Circular in the terms of that undertaking, asking the advice of the local Consultative Committees which had been created, and they all hoped that the right non. Gentleman, if he was not prepared to abide by the result, would, at all events, take that result into very serious consideration. But he had not sufficient confidence in the Local Bodies to abstain from putting before them in this Circular what he could not help regarding was a tolerably strong temptation to accept the proposal there made, because in that Circular the Secretary for Scotland said he wished it to be understood that the system on which the opinion of the Committee was asked was one under which the Local Committee would construct a scheme guided by its own independent judgment as to the requirements of the locality, and the approval of the Department would not be withheld relative to the distribution of the sum available, based upon giving the best facilities for secondary education in each district. It was a very taking proposal to any Local Body that they should be offered money to be spent according to a scheme constructed in conformity with its own independent judgment and subject only to the approval of the Department. The right hon. Gentleman had received replies from these Local Bodies, and these replies entered very deeply into the consideration of the present position of this question, and in particular into the position of the Secretary for Scotland and those who had advised him in this matter with reference to the scheme which he had now laid on the Table of the House. These replies came from the 39 Local Bodies which had been created in the month of December, and he proposed to call attention to three or four. The issue that was put to these Bodies was practically this— Will you, in the distribution of this money, adhere to the proposals of the late Government in their Minute of August, which was substantially repeated by the present Government in its Minute of January, 1893, or would you prefer to have the distribution of the money yourselves, not according to the theory of the Capitation Grants upon which previous Minutes were based, but according to some proportionate distribution of money over the length and breadth of Scotland, according to districts— either according to the valuation or the population, or according to both combined. Of the 39 replies that were obtained, 24 preferred to adhere to the Minute of January which the right hon. Gentleman himself, after considering the question from the month of August to the month of January, laid on the Table of the House, while 15 were in favour of a proportional allocation among the localities; so that the bodies which the right hon. Gentleman selected were divided as three to two in favour of the right hon. Gentleman's previous Minute and against the proposal which he (Sir C. Pearson) thought was, to a certain extent, forced upon his notice by the hon. Member for North-East Lanarkshire. That was a startling enough result, but it became still more startling when one examined in detail the replies themselves. In the first place, as might have been expected, they had certain of the larger, and also certain of the smaller, counties in favour of the Minute of January. Of the counties which pronounced in favour of that Minute he would mention those of Banff, Elgin, and Nairn, and the great, North-West Counties of Sutherland, Ross, Caithness, Inverness, and Argyll. All these District Committees, representing these very extensive and important counties, pronounced in favour of the Minute of 31st January, which the Government had already tabled. There were also the burghs of Dundee and Govan, and all these wore component parts of the 24 who voted against the new proposal of the Government and in favour of the Minute of January as it stood. He should like to refer the House to two of the replies, because he thought they were exceedingly significant. One was that of a county and the other that of a burgh. There were stronger ones than those he selected, but he selected them because of their importance. The County of Lanark, which was in part represented by the hon. Member for North-East Lanark, who originally raised this question, received a Circular along with the other Local Committees, and the Local Committee of the County of Lanark, having considered the Circular, recommended that the grant should be distributed by the Education Department in accordance with the Minute of January, 1893. What took place upon that they did not exactly know, but one thing was certain, and that was, that the Secretary for Scotland was astonished at that reply, and caused a letter to be written to Lanarkshire asking if it was really true that was their opinion. The letter was no doubt couched in official language, but in effect he believed it stated— Do you mean to tell me that the county in part represented by the hon. Member who raised this question originally is in favour of the Minute which he pronounced against and opposed to the very suggestion he himself made? The reply received from the Lanarkshire County Committee stated that the Committee were unanimous in preferring that the grant should be distributed by the Department under the Minute of 31st January rather than in the manner suggested by the Circular of the 1st March. The other reply was from the Burgh of Dundee. He did not think for one moment that Party politics entered into this question in the least, but at the same time it was interesting to know that Dundee was represented in that House by two supporters of the Government, one of them a distinguished Member of the Government— the Civil Lord of the Admiralty. Yet the Burgh of Dundee pronounced in unmistakable and strong language, not merely condemnatory of the proposed Minute of May, but they also remonstrated in strong terms against the supersession of the Minute of January 1893. Dundee took the view that they could not expect to get the amount they were entitled to if population were the basis of the distribution, and they took the wider ground and stated that if the new scheme were adopted instead of stimulating secondary education it would have the precisely opposite effect, and they earnestly urged that the Minute of the 31st January should be adhered to in preference to the Minute suggested in the Circular. Would the House just for one moment observe the position in which this left the question. After a single speech had been made on the last occasion against the Minute of January, the Secretary for Scotland requested that the Debate should terminate on this ground: He said they had embodied in the Minute of January the recommendations of the Departmental Committee. He admitted it was a strong Committee and admirably composed, and stated that that was the only advice they could get at the time. But since that time, he told them, another set of advisers had been called into existence— to wit, the Local Committees, and before they finally settled the Secondary Education of Scotland it would be well to consult these Local Bodies and be advised by them. He thought the House was entitled to some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman of this astounding change of front which he had so quickly made, in spite of the strong remonstrances that had reached him against any abandonment of the principles of the Minute of January; in spite of the expression of opinion of those whom he chose to advise him; and in spite of the Departmental Committee's unanimous recommendation. The right hon. Gentleman after consulting the Local Bodies, who, he said, were "able and well qualified to speak," threw these Bodies over and tabled this Minute. What were the grounds on which he asked them to assent to this Minute as compared with the Minute of January? It differed toto cœlo from every detail of that Minute. The principle of earning a certain amount for work done was entirely departed from in the present scheme. The mode of distribution proposed to be substituted was according to the population of the various districts; but the replies of the local committees were all against that—against distribution by population—with the exception of two, the Isles of Shetland and the small, but most important, County of Clackmannan. He did not know whether the Secretary for Scotland had yielded to the influence of the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour) in this matter, but if he had done so it had been in opposition to the opinion of such counties as Aberdeen, Linlithgow, and Dumfries. These local committees were originally appointed for the specific purpose of advising the Department as to the requirements of Secondary Education in their respective districts; but it was now proposed, without their going back to the electors, that they should be made permanent committees with very uncertain functions. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman had received a Circular that morning from the School Board of Glasgow on the subject. They were absolutely anxious to know whether they were to receive the money or whether they would have administrative functions, because while these Bodies, which were called into existence as temporary Bodies, were to have the administration of the schemes subject to the approval of the Department, be found nothing in the scheme to give them administrative functions, and they could not appoint a clerk—or even a treasurer—to receive the money. He would also like to ask for special attention to this—how the right hon. Gentleman reconciled the composition of those committees with the existence of the School Boards, especially in the large burghs like Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee? It had been suggested that the Minute should be further delayed. He was not in favour of further delay unless the right hon. Gentleman was unable to give to the House, and especially to hon. Members from Scotland, some satisfactory assurance on the various points he had raised. If such assurance could not be given, he thought delay would be absolutely necessary.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her to withhold Her assent from a Minute of the Scotch Education Department, dated the 1st day of May, 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.'"—(Sir Charles Pearson.)

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

Sir, I will not outer into the history of this question except as far as it is covered by the interval between the Debate that took place 10 weeks ago and the present moment. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, the Minute I laid before the House was founded on the recommendations of a very powerful Departmental Committee; but when it came before Parliament, except myself, not a single Member in the House said a good word for it. Seven hon. Members on that occasion made speeches, every one of which was strongly condemnatory of the scheme as laid down in the Minute, and I stood absolutely alone amongst the defenders of the scheme, and it was swept out of the House by the unanimous condemnation of the Scottish Members who spoke, and, as far as I could judge, of all the Scottish Members who cheered. But this condemned scheme is law at this moment, unless the present Minute is accepted by the House. I promised to lay the Minute before the County Committees to get the opinion of Scotland on the question. Now, I will tell the right hon. Gentleman where I differ from him. He says the idea that each separate county and large burgh should have its own allotment of money, and that it should distribute the money in a way pleasing to itself, has been condemned by the people of Scotland, because 24 Bodies have voted against it, and only 15 in favour of it. But each of these groups of Bodies represent exactly the same population, so that the population of Scotland is exactly divided on the question. I must say that I could not venture again to present to the House a Minute which has been received with universal disapprobation by the independent opinion of the Scotch Members. I suppose, as the opinion of Scotland is equally divided, a sensible administrator must take the course he knows will be pleasing to the House. But there is another reason why this course should be taken. The money has been allotted under the Equivalent Grant, and it represents the money which falls to the lot of Scotland from the Probate and the Excise. It is contributed by the localities in proportion to their valuation. The money belongs to each locality, and to distribute the scheme all over Scotland, without any reference to the amount due to each locality, is in some respects a very good scheme; but it cannot possibly be adopted unless there is something like unanimity among the localities; and when one-half of the population object this solution is impossible. Another consideration is that this scheme for distributing this sum of money over Scotland by Capitation Grant is a very delicate financial operation, and it is very difficult to make both ends meet. The only method by which it can be done is by carrying out a carefully prepared scheme based upon full knowledge of the circumstances of the case by the Central Department. If a general scheme for Scotland is altered in the sense of greater liberality under Parliamentary pressure, a financial breakdown would certainly occur. The right hon. Gentleman asks why take population and not population and valuation. I can reply to him on this point in a single sentence. The real disadvantage of this scheme is that certain rather thinly inhabited, and not very rich, counties which expected under the January Minute to obtain very considerable grants in proportion to their richer neighbours were extremely disappointed, and it is in order to do something for those districts that the Department has taken population rather than population and valuation, and, therefore, that Glasgow and Edinburgh will get something less, and Inverness-shire and Ross-shire something more. Another advantage of this Minute is its finality. If the House rejects this, after its action on the Minute of January, it will be said that the House does not know its own mind. I promised Parliament to consult the Committee, and I have done so. I said that whatever was done would be done in the full light of Parliament, and I now submit the question to the judgment of the House. With regard to a general Capitation Grant, I may say that in my opinion you cannot carry a general capi- tation system unless you have unanimity, and unless you have that and the approbation of Parliament you cannot get it. With regard to that approbation, I would say that I believe this second Minute has fairly the approbation of Parliament and of Scotland, and I ask hon. Members to reflect that this affects very seriously the financial beginnings of the scheme. If the Minute be adopted by the end of 1893 Scotland will have received this and last year's grants in the course of the first twelvemonths, amounting in all to £114,000. You will see the importance of that. I have taken every pains in this matter. I have fulfilled all my pledges to the House, and I have tried to consult the real feeling of the House. That being so, I hope the Minute will be allowed to pass.

MR. THORBURN (Peebles and Selkirk)

said, he had received strong remonstrances from his constituency against the Minute. His own county, and some other counties in the South of Scotland, had protested against the proposal to allocate this money on the basis of population. What, he would ask, was the good of consulting the various Committees in Scotland if their opinion was to be disregarded? He could say, and they need not be surprised at it, that there was a feeling of great indignation at the treatment of opinions of the majorities. He would like to know why these majorities were consulted if it was not intended to carry out their views? The reason why the County Committees objected to the basis of population was that the large centres, like Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and Dundee, would get most of the money. In previous debates there was a general consensus of opinion among Scottish Members in favour of the primary claim of the burgh high schools in any scheme for the development of Secondary Education; but the Minute of the 1st May practically ignored them altogether. Was it fair that a place like Glasgow should get £8,000, or one-seventh of the whole? If they included Govan, Lanarkshire would get one-fourth of the whole. That money went to places which did not require it. The same might be said of Midlothian, including Edinburgh, which would get one-sixteenth, while Perth City would receive a sum of £1,830—a city which had an educational endowment in regard to which a few years ago the administrators had more money than they could use for educational purposes. What he would suggest was, that if the Minute was passed at all, £2,000 at least should be retained to be distributed by the Department to existing higher class schools needing outside aid, the selection of these schools being left to the Department. If that were done, such a school as that at Peebles would have a chance of getting on; if it were not done, nothing would prevent it from being extinguished.

*MR. RENSHAW (Renfrew, W.)

said, he rose to support the Minute of the 1st May, as he believed it would give the people of Scotland the opportunity of deciding in their own localities whether they should adopt any part, or the whole, of the special conditions of the Minute of 31st January. At the same time he had some fear that the present formation of the Committees, representing as they did, in the main, county interests, might in the long run lead to points of difficulty in the administration of the money on questions raised between the burghs and counties, especially where those burghs had secondary schools. With reference to this matter, he found that if the Amendment of his right hon. Friend was carried to a Division he would be precluded from moving the Amendment which he had placed on the Paper. Speaking as Chairman of the County Committee for the County of Renfrew, it was necessary to explain why he was anxious that burgh authorities should be represented on these Committees. He took it that the experience they had had in Scotch counties, in connection with Technical Education, and the difficulties of administering the money from the Residue Grant on account of the interest of the counties and burghs being separated, must have brought to the mind of any one who had followed the administration of the fund the great difficulty there was in carrying the counties and burghs harmoniously together in the administration of the money. As an example he took Renfrewshire. According to the constitution of the Committee, none of the burghs would be represented on the Secondary Education Committee unless by the favour of the Chairmen of the rural School Boards. It was exceedingly desirable that the Minute should secure fair representation for the burghs, and he hoped the Minute would be altered in that direction. Unless that were done he foresaw considerable friction in the working of the matter.

*MR. DONALD CRAWFORD (Lanark, N. E.)

said, there were few Members in the House who could speak with more authority on this question than the hon. Member who had just sat down, as he had taken a great interest in the matter in his own county. He (Mr. Crawford) apprehended that the present constitution of the County Committees would not be absolutely final. There was a great deal to be said for the views put forward by the hon. Member who had just spoken, and for his part he hoped the constitution of these Bodies might be considered as an open question. It might well be that the larger burghs were entitled to a larger share of the School Board representation, and that each small country School Board was not entitled to count for as much as a considerable town. As to the Motion now before the House, the Debate on the subject in February last had established the principle that the money was to be regarded as local money, not to be distributed at the absolute discretion of a Central Authority. He regretted that so many of the County Committees had taken a short-sighted view of their responsibilities, and, merely because they were going to get a little less money, opposed the proposal that they should have the distribution of their own funds. The important matter was to start the thing upon a proper principle—not a principle of centralisation, but of local administration; and if they started upon the right principle money would come in as it was required, for money had never been deficient for education in Scotland. The present Minute did not, perhaps, go so far as some of them desired in the direction of complete local administration, but he thought it went as far as was possible in the circumstances. It was a great improvement upon the last Minute; and he was firmly persuaded that it would meet with the deliberate approval of the people of Scotland.

MR. GRAHAM MURRAY (Buteshire)

said, that the reasons given by the Secretary for Scotland were entirely inadequate for the change in his position. The right hon. Gentleman had gone to the Local Bodies, and never since the days of Balak and Balaam had a response so different from what was expected been received. The sum was not sufficient to give Secondary Education throughout the whole of Scotland; and surely, that being so, the wiser plan would have been to give the money not on the basis of population, but upon the requirements of the different localities. The hon. Member for Renfrewshire (Mr. Renshaw) had dwelt particularly on the differences that would result—as, for instance, he himself in Renfrew getting £4,000, while his (Mr. Murray's) county would get only £260. The central control the present scheme was said to give was a control of the worst kind, as it created a deadlock in every way. He thought his views ought to have the support of the Chancellor of the Duchy (Mr. Bryce), whose speech on the Equivalent Grant Bill had not been forgotten in the House. The Secretary for Scotland could not ignore the fact that the Local Authorities and Bodies were against him; but, notwithstanding that and his declaration of two months ago, he came down and presented this Minute to the House. The right hon. Gentleman's position had not been consistent, and, in these circumstances, he certainly could not support his scheme. He would vote for the Motion.

MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)

said, that the views of the County Committees were mostly given without reasons, but in the ease of Peebles a reason had been given, and he thought he ought to refer to it. The Peebles County Committees objected to the present Minute because, they said, they considered it extremely inadvisable that the maintenance of Secondary Education in the county should be subject to the varying influences of popular opinion acting upon a popularly elected body. he thought this was quite sufficient to condemn the objection to the Minute as far as Peebles was concerned; and, as regarded the rest, it was simply an ignoble scramble for money.

MR. W. WHITELAW (Perth)

said, he must take exception to one remark that had been made on a question of fact. It had been said that Perth was to get a sum of £1,830. Had that been the case he should not have objected to the Minute. As a matter of fact, it was the County and not the City of Perth that was to receive the amount referred to, and that was, of course, quite a different thing. The objects of the Government were very clearly laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland (Sir G. Trevelyan) in February, when he said they desired to improve Secondary schools, to draw large numbers of children to them, and to establish schools in districts where at present there was no Secondary Education. This Minute did not tend to promote the first and main object thus stated, as it would not conduce to the welfare of burgh Secondary schools, which were practically the only existing schools of the kind. The Minute might prove a good one in its operation, but that would depend entirely upon bow certain powers reserved to the Department were to be exercised; and he could not say, after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland, that the Department appeared desirous of exercising them in the way he (Mr. Whitelaw) would have liked to see. Consequently, he was unable to support the Minute; but he certainly would approve of the Minute of the 31st January if the limit of the fee were increased, and some alterations were made in the composition of the County Committees. He had been requested to bring before the Committee a small point of law, and he did so with some hesitation, as he was not a lawyer. The present Minute established the County Committees as permanent Committees, and forced them to manage or, at any rate, to interfere with the management of the higher class public schools in Scotland. He referred especially to those scheduled in the Act of 1872. That Act provided that the scheduled schools should be managed by the School Boards, and the point he wished to bring forward was that the Scotch Education Department was by a Minute going to repeal a clause in an Act of Parliament. The Court of Session in the Port Glasgow School Board election case declared that the Scotch Education Department had no power by a Minute to repeal the clause of an Act of Parliament. This was a point which he hoped would have the consideration of the Government.

VISCOUNT WOLMER (Edinburgh, W.)

said, he had been requested by the School Board of Edinburgh to impress on the Secretary for Scotland the inadequacy of the representation of that Board on the Edinburgh Committee. The Board was the only popularly elected Educational Body in the City, and yet it was given only three representatives out of a total of nine on the Committee. In the case of Govan he believed the Department had given way and increased the representation of the School Board, and all he asked was that the Government should adopt the same course with regard to Edinburgh.

SIR MARK STEWART (Kirkcudbright)

entirely disagreed with the hon. Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter), who considered that Secondary Education could be best dealt with locally. He (Sir M. Stewart) believed it could be far better dealt with from a central position, there being so many jealousies in a locality that it was absolutely impossible to arrive at any fair conclusion unless it wore so dealt with. He should like to see the Minute of the 31st of January amended, and if the right hon. Gentleman would consent to amend it in a specified way which he (Sir M. Stewart) would be glad to point out to him, it would give satisfaction to many places in Scotland.

*MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)

said, the hon. and learned Member for Buteshire (Mr. Murray) had hit the right nail on the head in saying that there was not sufficient money for the purpose of Secondary Education in Scotland, but it would be interesting to know why the hon. and learned Member and his friends when they were in power did not provide enough money.

MR. PARKER SMITH (Lanark, Partick)

hoped that the House generally would assent to the new Minute. It was unfortunate that on the occasion of the last discussion on this subject their voices were raised against the Minute of the 31st January. While he did not approve of the principle involved, he looked upon it as inevitable in this ease. As to the point raised by the hon. Mem- ber for Selkirk, he would remind him that a sum of £2,000 had been reserved from the general distribution in order to meet such eases. He was prepared to accept the scheme, though he did not approve of all its details.

DR. MACGREGOR

said, that as representing one of the largest Scottish counties and one of the poorest populations, he had to announce that his county was opposed to the present Minute, and much preferred the one of the 31st January. It was obvious that to be of any use at all the money ought to be concentrated and applied to three or four schools conveniently situated for the boys. A few bursaries might advantageously be created.

Question put.

The House divided:—Aves 33; Noes 136.—(Division List, No. 90.)

*MR. RENSHAW

asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he would give some assurance that the question raised as to borough representation on County Committees would be attended to by the Government?

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN

I must ask the House to allow this Minute to become law without Amendment. With regard to the question put to me by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, I will cause an inquiry to be made to see what boroughs there are which have inadequate representation on County Committees, and I promise the hon. Member that I will, if necessary, bring in a Supplementary Minute for remedying that matter.