PUBLIC EDUCATION.

HC Deb 19 April 1898 vol 56 cc479-527

MR. D. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon)

, in rising to call attention to the subject of public education, and to move— That, in the opinion of this House, it is essential to a just and efficient system of National Education that there should be within reach of every child in England and Wales a public elementary school under local representative management, and that there should also be provided increased facilities for the training of teachers in colleges free from sectarian control"— said: Mr. Speaker, in moving the Resolution which stands in my name on the Paper I shall come as quickly as possible to the facts of the case. I regret that the Government have not seen their way to grant a whole evening for the discussion of a question of such interest, especially at the present moment; but, fortunately, the facts of the case are substantially admitted. I shall, therefore, only state them briefly. First of all, we have 8,000 parishes in England and Wales, where the schools are managed exclusively by one sect. The aggregate population of these parishes amounts to 9,000,000. But that is not the whole case so far as area is concerned, because in several School Board districts you have a Church majority, with the result that they exercise their predominance upon the boards for the purpose of confining as much as possible the area of free and undenominational schools. This is the settled policy of the Church Party, and therefore I need not give instances. Instructions are frequently given to Churchmen to return as many Church candidates as possible to the School Boards, with a view to limit the number of Board schools, and to give a prior right to the Church Association to establish schools rather than to School Boards. The result, so far as half the population of this country is concerned, is that the only schools within reasonable access of the children are under the exclusive control of one sect, so far as management and the appointment of teachers are concerned. The case would not be such a grievous one if that sect were, like the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, practically the one large Christian denomination in the country, all other denominations, so far as numbers are concerned, being absolutely insignificant. But that is not the case. I find that the leading Nonconformist denominations have 1,900,000 communicants. The Church of England has only 1,778,351. The scholars and teachers in the Sunday schools of the Nonconformists number 3,375,791, and in the Sunday schools of the Church of England, according to their own books, 2,418,412. It will be seen that the Nonconformists have nearly a million more scholars than the Church of England, and yet more than half the day schools of the country are controlled by the sect which is in the minority, the whole of the teachers being drawn from that sect. In several of these 8,000 parishes the majority of the children attending the schools are children of Nonconformists. I find that in a private and confidential report, published by the National Society, Prebendary Richards, who represents the National Society in Bangor, states that 60 per cent. of the children attending schools in that diocese are the children of Dissenters. I think it will be fair to state, from the figures of the National Society, that 75 per cent. of the children attending the Church schools in Wales are the children of Dissenters. Well, now, what is the grievance? The first grievance is this, that in those schools the only religious instruction which is given to the children is instruction which is given in accordance with the principles of a faith in which they do not believe. The alternative is presented to them of either no religious instruction at all, or religious instruction according to the faith of the Church of England. The second grievance is that, although in a large number of those parishes the majority of the children are the children of Nonconformist parents, not a single child of a Dissenter can enter the teaching profession in those districts except on condition that they abandoned their faith. When the House takes into account the fact that the teaching profession is the only profession to which the State assists a poor child to climb, I think they will agree with me that the present state of things is a scandal and a gross injustice to a very large proportion of the population. That the Nonconformists of this country should receive worse treatment at the hands of the State than is meted out to Parsees and Mahometans in the State schools of India, is, to my mind, a gross scandal. I find that in the schools of the Church of England the aggregate salaries of teachers amount to £2,869,349 a year. These Church schools receive £3,300,000 from the State in the way of grants. That means that, practically, the whole of the salaries of the teachers of the Church schools are paid by the State, with a good surplus besides. This enormous State patronage is dispensed by one sect amongst the children of that sect only. Now we come to the training colleges, and the state of things in regard to those colleges is equally bad, if not worse. There are 44 training colleges. Of these, 33 are denominational—30 Church of England and three Roman Catholic. There is no Conscience Clause in operation in these 33 training colleges. Every pupil who enters those colleges must be an Anglican or a Roman Catholic. The total income of these colleges is £138,923, and of that sum only £8,000 are received in voluntary contributions. They are, therefore, practically maintained out of State funds, to which men of all sects and creeds contribute. What makes matters still worse is that the education given in the denominational schools is inferior to that given in schools where perfect religious and civil equality prevails. I do not think it is necessary to prove this. The grants are less, and, therefore, it must necessarily be so. In the first place, they have not got the same funds as the other schools have. They never will receive the same generous measure of support as schools in which everybody is treated on a basis of perfect equality. The sense of fair play in the average Britisher is too strong to allow of that. And what is the result? You have got overworked and underpaid teachers. I do not think it will be necessary to quote anything in support of this, but I will read a statement from a report issued by one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools for the Metropolis. The Inspector says— It is painful to compare the lot of a Voluntary pupil teacher with that of a Board pupil teacher. The Board pupil teacher has reasonable time for study, and is taught by an efficient staff of teachers. The Voluntary pupil teacher is required to do much more work in school, and has to attend at a district centre two or three times a week, and must complete so much written home work on the other evenings for his centre that the time for systematic, thoughtful study is practically nil. Many Voluntary pupil teachers fail to do even fairly well at the examination. That must necessarily be the case. Voluntary schools can never demand the same funds as Board schools. It is as much as they can do, by means of bazaars and all sorts of extraneous devices, to keep their schools together. So long as you only draw your teachers from one sect, the result must be to limit the area of your selection, and you are bound to get a poorer staff. The more you widen the area of selection, the more do you increase your chances of getting better teachers. This is especially the case in districts where the majority of the children belong to> Nonconformist parents. I have stated what are, roughly, the facts of the case, and I will now come to the remedies. The remedies I suggest in reference to the training colleges are, first, that their number should be increased, as the accommodation they afford is not half sufficient for the number of teachers, and that they should be free and undenominational. My second suggestion is that you should have the same Conscience Clause in the present denominational colleges as you have in the denominational schools, not that I think it will be worth very much, but it will be better than nothing. Not merely in regard to training colleges, but also in regard to schools, a Conscience Clause, which puts the alternative to the child that he must either have religious instruction in accordance with the principles of the Church of England or no religious instruction at all, is practically worthless. You ought to frame your Conscience Clause so as to put the alternative to the child of having such religious instruction as his parents would recommend, and allow him to withdraw from, that part of the religious instruction which may be offensive to his parents. The third suggestion I would make with regard to training colleges is that in the day training colleges the amount of £70, which is now granted to day training colleges which are absolutely undenominational, should be increased, so as to put them on the same footing as the residential colleges which are denominational. Lord Salisbury, in his reply to the Wesleyan deputation, admitted the grievance, which, he said in effect, was an intolerable one, and suggested that where there was a substantial number of Nonconformists, they should build another school for their accommodation. Speaking for myself, I think this is the worse thing you could do in the rural districts, where the schools are too small as it is. Statistics show that the smaller the school is, the less efficient it is. What I suggest is this, that where it is only possible, consistently with the exigencies of efficient education, to support one school, that school ought to be under popular control. Something may be said about the grievances of denominationalists. I submit they have no real substantial grievance in a case of that kind, as they could readjust the time table so as to give their children such dogmatic teaching as they want at hours which will not interfere with the teaching of the other children. If Churchmen were in the majority they would control the schools still. If they were in the minority, why should they control the schools? Even admitting that there is an injustice, which is the greater injustice—that you should compel the children of a minority in a district to remain after school-time in order to receive dogmatic religious teaching, or that you should force upon the children of a majority doctrines of which their parents disapprove, and exclude the children of a majority from the opportunity of entering the teaching profession? The greater injustice is the second, and it ought to be remedied. A good deal is said about the inalienable right of a parent to call upon the State to teach his children his particular theories or ideas about religion. I challenge that inalienable right altogether, and for this reason—there is no leading dogma which divides one church from another in this country which is accepted by the majority of the people of this country; there is no leading dogma which divides one church from another which is not repudiated by the majority of the people of the country. I submit, therefore, that no parent has a right to call upon the State to teach his particular theories about either religion, science, politics, history, or anything else, so long as those theories are not accepted by the majority of the people of the country. It is not a question of the right of a parent to call upon the State to teach his own doctrine to his own children. It is a question in these rural districts of the right of a parent to call upon the State, not to teach his own doctrines to his own children, but to teach them to his neighbour's children, and at his neighbour's expense. I object to that altogether. If there is an inextinguishable right vested in a Churchman or a Catholic to call upon the State to teach his theories of religion at the expense of the State, is there not the same right vested in the Nonconformist parent? The Nonconformist parent says— Teach my child the Scriptures and the principles of morality in such a way as shall not be offensive to my neighbour. The Anglican parent says— Teach my child the doctrine of my creed, whether it is offensive to my neighbour or not. I submit that, if it is impossible to maintain two systems in these rural districts, the undenominationalist has the prior right to consideration. Of the two claims made upon the State one is formulated in a manner which shall enable the whole population to participate in its benefits, the other being formulated in a manner which shall confine its privileges exclusively to one sect and to one creed. I say that the first claim is entitled to the prior consideration at the hands of the State. The School Board says that every ratepayer, whatever his creed, has a voice in the management of the schools, and that every child, whatever denomination he belongs to, has an equal right to every privilege which the Board can confer. With regard to the Voluntary schools, the privileges are monopolised by one sect, and the control is also monopolised by one sect. The difference is as great between the two systems as between the British and the Russian policy in China—or what used to be the British policy until we took Wei-hai-Wei. The one is the policy of open ports, and the other is the policy of closed markets. The question is whether the Church of England in these rural districts is entitled to say that, because it has expended money upon building these schools and maintaining them, the prior right of consideration is vested in them? I submit, Mr. Speaker, that if there is a right vested in Nonconformists to have their children taught in a way which is not offensive to the consciences of their parents, no amount of money expended by any other sect can deprive them of that right. Every parent is entitled to ask at the hands of a civilised community that his children shall receive an education which will fit him for a useful career, and no man—no syndicate of men—can buy up the rights of citizenship of their neighbours. Who are these voluntary subscriptions paid by as a rule? They are paid by the landowner, and by the gentlemen who have invested capital in a district, and it is to their interest—it is their duty—to spend money upon education in that particular district. It is to their interest to do so, because they improve what is practically their wealth-producing machinery. They reduce crime, and, consequently, increase the security of their property. Moreover, the State has recognised, at any rate since 1870, the duty which attaches to property of maintaining the burden of education in England and Wales, and throughout the whole of the country. Unfortunately, these voluntary subscriptions are too often utilised in order to enable the local capitalist to evade the full performance of his duties in these districts. I do not know whether I have given the House the case of the quarry districts, but it is a very striking one. In the Penrhyn quarry district the Church schools are substantially maintained by the owner of those quarries. He contributes £400 a year to these schools, but they are Church schools, and the children who attend them are the children of his own tenantry and his own quarrymen, the majority of whom are Nonconformists. The whole teaching is absolutely inconsistent with the doctrine of the majority of the tenants and quarrymen of Lord Penrhyn. Moreover, the children of these Nonconformist quarrymen are excluded from entering the teaching profession in these schools. In the adjoining quarry district there are no Voluntary schools, and a School Board rate of 1s. 9d. in the £ is charged. The schools are infinitely better, as has been proved by results. They have an excellent system of schools there, and everybody gets fair play. The child of the Churchman is taught side by side with the child of the Nonconformist, and they get equal advantages. But what would happen in the Penrhyn district if Lord Penrhyn had to pay a rate of 1s. 9d. in the £ to maintain these schools? Why, instead of contributing £400 a year, he would have to pay £2,100 a year. He gives an inferior education—an incomparably inferior education—and excludes the children of the majority of his quarrymen from benefits which they are entitled to claim. In too many cases these voluntary subscriptions are utilised to enable gentlemen in Lord Penrhyn's position to evade the full performance of their duty, to discharge it partly, and to attach to the part performance of their duty terms and conditions which the State would not permit them to attach to the full performance of those duties. If the education given in the Voluntary schools were superior, I could understand their supporters saying they had a prior claim for consideration in these rural districts. But it is not. Indeed, so far as secular education is concerned, it is admittedly inferior. [An HON. MEMBER: No.] An hon. Member says "No." Well, I am looking at the results all round, and judging from those results. I do not think there is any doubt upon the subject. The grants earned by Voluntary schools are very much less, and I think it must necessarily be so, because these Voluntary schools cannot possibly maintain the same standard of efficiency, for financial reasons, which is maintained by the Board schools; consequently, the education is bound to be inferior. It is said, it is true, that the secular education is somewhat inferior, but the moral instruction is better. I very much doubt, judging from the results, whether that is so. Take the cases of Birmingham, which is a Board school district, and Liverpool, which is a city of rampant denominationalism in schools, and everything else. Looking at the criminal statistics, which give a test of the amount of self-restraint inculcated and disciplined in a district, what do we find? The criminal statistics in Liverpool are three times as high as those of Birmingham. Again, London is far more of a Board school district than Liverpool, and, although there is the same class of population to deal with, the criminal statistics in Liverpool are three times as high as those in London in proportion to the population, and the same results will be shown to be applicable all over the country. I observed, in the evidence given before the Royal Commission, that in Huddersfield there are 7,000 children attending Board schools and 4,000 attending Voluntary schools, and yet 27 of the children convicted of crime came from Voluntary schools, and only five from the Board schools. There were seven children convicted of criminal offences some time ago, and the Church papers said this was the result of the godless education given in Board schools. It was found, however, on investigation, that these children came from Voluntary schools. And, really, I am not at all surprised. I do not think anybody can be who reads the remarkable speeches delivered last week at the teachers' annual conference at Cheltenham, especially the speech delivered by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Ham, who denounced Voluntary schools as supplying an inefficient education, and condemned the buildings as "dismal, dingy dens, in which he would not kennel his dogs." That is not the way to teach morality to children. The nature of a child is like that of a plant, and one gleam of sunshine produces a healthier growth than a ton of theology. I will give the House an example of the sort of catechism which is taught in the Church schools at Cardiff, in order to produce a moral, intelligent, and high-minded race of citizens— Question: Who alone is the true ruler of Christ's Church in this diocese? Answer: The Bishop of Llandaff. Question: How are we to know when men are true or real pastors? Answer: They must be priests or deacons ordained by the Bishop or chief pastor. Question: Are Dissenting ministers ordained? Answer: No. Question: Would it then be right to join any of their congregations? Answer: No; it would be very foolish and wrong. This is the religious instruction which is to develop a fine race of citizens in this country. We are spending £3,300,000 a year to maintain it, and all the children of Nonconformists are excluded from their rights of citizenship in order to teach this sort of rubbish. It is not surprising that Nonconformists have objected to such a system. The wonder to me is that their churches, which number five millions of the population of this country, have tolerated it so long. I shall be surprised if they tolerate it much longer. To drive the children into "dismal and dingy dens" in order that they should be taught how much more important a person the Bishop of the diocese is than Mr. Jones, the Methodist minister, is not religious or moral instruction, and it is not the sort of thing we are voting millions of money each year to maintain in this country. The country is pretty sick of this sort of doctrine, and the scandal of it is that it is getting worse and worse year by year. The educational efficiency of the country is being lowered at a moment when our commercial supremacy has been undermined and imperilled by nations who are better educated than we are, and educated in a way which does not outrage the consciences of the majority of the population. Whilst priests are wrangling as to who shall be greatest in the kingdom of Heaven, the children are suffering. I think it is the business of this House to intervene in order to protect the children, and it is for that reason that I move the Resolution which stands in my name.

MR. A. E. HUTTON (Yorks., W.R., Morley)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to briefly second the Motion which has been proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon. I am quite sure, after the very able and effective speech which the hon. Member has delivered, that very few indeed will regard the grievance, which has been raised by this Resolution, as an empty one. I think the time is fast coming when these grievances cannot be lightly regarded or passed over. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman, who is leaving the House at this moment, when he was conducting his Voluntary Schools Bill last year, acknowledged the grievances of the Nonconformists in the thousands of villages in this country, where the Church of England school is the only school; but at the same time that he acknowledged those grievances he was conducting a Bill through this House to make the present state of things permanent, so that the grievances could not be removed. Having acknowledged the grievances and passed his Bill, he went down to Norwich and delivered a speech in which he defended his action. He told Nonconformists that, if they were not satisfied with what he had done, there would be worse to follow. I think it ill became him to threaten Nonconformists in that fashion. Supposing we were to take him at his word that worse was to follow, and accept the present condition of things, I ask the House, would the noble Lord the Member for Rochester, who is in his place tonight, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, be equally agreeable to accept the present condition of things as satisfactory? On the contrary, we have frequently been told by the noble Lord and his friends that they are not yet satisfied, that the whole of their demands have not been granted, and that they will go on making these demands on the Government until they are completely satisfied. I therefore do not think we should be secure long if we were to accept the advice of the Leader of the House, and be content with the present state of things. May I remind the House that when the Education Act of 1870 was passed education was not compulsory? Where a Church school was the only school in a village or town, the law did not compel the children of Nonconformists to attend that particular school. It was not until some years later that the added grievance was placed upon the shoulders of Nonconformists, and their children were forced by the law to attend the schools of the Church of England. I have not forgotten the protest then made by the present First Lord of the Admiralty, who put this example to the Conservative Party: Supposing the only school in a village were a Unitarian school, would you be content if the law compelled you to send your children to that school? I am quite sure hon. Members opposite would not be content with that. Now that the Government has removed what had been called an intolerable strain, I think we have a right to demand that they shall proceed to remove what has long been felt to be an intolerable injustice. I should like to deal with that part of the Resolution which refers to training colleges. The history of training colleges, is somewhat extraordinary. The effort made by the Government of the day in the thirties—and which was frustrated by the bishops in the House of Lords—to establish an unsectarian normal college was the first attempt to set up an unsectarian teachers' training college. Singular it is that from that day to this no Government has been successful in an attempt to establish such colleges, and, in addition to that, the failure of the Government and the success of the bishops at that time was the cause of the introduction of the theological controversy into the education question, which it has disturbed to the present day. The present colleges, which, though they are voluntary in their inception, are almost entirely maintained out of State funds, are unsatisfactory to myself and to my hon. Friends around me. We have two complaints to make: in the first place there are not enough of them, and in the second place they are all denominational in character. With regard to the inadequate provision provided by the training colleges, may I point out that the whole accommodation in residential training colleges in this country only provides for 3,400, and that this year there were 3,840 who were desirous of securing entrance into the colleges, although there were only 2,200 vacancies, so that there were more than 1,600 teachers in this country, having successfully passed the Government tests in the Government examination, who were unable to find places provided for them by the Government in these training colleges. Now, Sir, the Education Department appointed a Departmental Committee to inquire into the pupil teachers system, and that, of course, very materially affected the existence of the training colleges. This Departmental Committee reported that, in the course of their inquiry, the question of the sufficiency of the existing accommodation of the training colleges was raised, and was answered emphatically in the negative. It may be argued that, of course, the managers of these colleges ran those successful candidates, but this Departmental Committee goes on to say that of those who, having passed the examination, failed to get into the colleges, the larger number drifted into the teaching profession through the side door of the certificated examination for acting teachers; and the Committee proceeded to condemn that in strong terms. Again, they say— We are strongly of opinion that every facility should be given by the Education Department for the extension of training college accommodation. The right hon Gentleman is familiar with this matter, and I am under no obligation to emphasise it, except to show that the Departmental Committee has reported in the strongest terms that the present provision is inadequate. In addition to that, of course, the needs of the present are not what the ultimate needs will be. The demand for teachers is a growing demand, and we cannot be content with the position as it is at the present time. Now, the day training colleges are treated in some respects very shabbily by the Government; they are undenominational in character, while those colleges which are denominational in character are treated in a far more handsome manner. I think as far as accommodation and provision is concerned, I have proved my case. As regards the denominational character of the residential schools, I have only one or two words to say. Sir, of the students that at the present time are resident in these training colleges, 65 per cent. are members of the Church of England; and yet the Church of England is only educating 42 per cent. of the children at the primary schools of this country and Wales. The undenominational schools educate 50 per cent. of the children; they only have 22 per cent. of the teachers in course of training at the colleges. In addition to that, we know that, although the management of these training schools is left entirely—or almost entirely—in the hands of irresponsible managers, the expense is provided by the State to the extent of 69 per cent.—nearly three-quarters in some cases. That constitutes a very real grievance, because pupil teachers, in the first instance, in thousands of places in this country, find it most difficult to secure appointments in the schools. When we have made that statement in the country, or in the House, we have been laughed at by hon. Members opposite, but proof has come to our aid in the form of a Government Blue Book. And this same Departmental Committee states that the grievances of Nonconformists, in regard both to the lack of facilities for obtaining posts as pupil teachers and subsequent entrance into the training colleges, are very serious— and we believe that the State is losing a large number of competent pupil teachers in this way, but we are unable, under present circumstances, to suggest any remedy. Very well; if the Departmental Committee is unable to suggest any remedy for the case, I say that as long as the Government permits this state of things to continue we may call upon them to provide a remedy for the grievance which has been brought to their notice by the Departmental Committee the right hon. Gentleman himself appointed. Now, Sir, the extraordinary thing is that these training colleges, existing to provide teachers for our children all up and down the country, are under irresponsible management, and yet the money comes from the State. I say these colleges are not as free as the old Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; and I think that at least we may demand that what has been done with regard to ancient endowments, such as those of Oxford and Cambridge, might be done with regard to colleges being maintained by annual payments coming from the public exchequer. And, Sir, it does not require an Act of Parliament to achieve this. In the code the right hon. Gentleman says that he will not pay the grant unless he is satisfied with the management, and I am sure he has every reason to be dissatisfied with the management, because his inspectors have reported again and again, and year after year, about the notoriously unsatisfactory state of the colleges and their management. One inspector said last year— As regards the constitution of the governing body, I cannot help expressing my conviction that there should be on every Committee some representative of the Education Department, and that in the appointment of the teaching staff there should be a right of Departmental veto. That is in the Report of one of the Government inspectors. Here are two suggestions made by his own inspector which would do a great deal to mitigate the existing state of things: that there should be on the managing bodies a representative of the Education Department, and that the teaching staff should be subject to a Departmental veto. It requires no Act of Parliament to do that, or to insert the Conscience Clause, which my hon. Friend demanded. I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this Motion before the House. I think, if hon. Members opposite think this is a light matter, they will be very much mistaken indeed, and I indulge the hope even yet that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to indicate to us that there is some hope that the Government will deal with some of these matters, at any rate. The right hon. Gentleman has told us there are some phases of education Debates in which he does not shine. He has an opportunity to-night to shine very gloriously in the matter of education; and if he will tell us plainly what is in his mind—as plainly as he told the deputation, which went to him the other day, to which he read a very strong lecture with regard to the duties of the territorial aristocracy in this country—I say, if he will speak as plainly to-night on the question raised by my hon. Friend, I am sure he will meet with every sympathy on this side of the House. I second the Resolution.

THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. E. GORST,) Cambridge University

No one can hold the office that I do without being peculiarly painfully conscious of the shortcomings of our national educational system, and of the urgent necessity that there is for some improvement. It is therefore with impatience, and with some degree of indignation, that one turns from questions of real importance to discuss a fictitious plank in the creation of a platform, which affords quite needless obstruction to legislation. There is, as I have often said in this House, no religious difficulty in the schools. The difficulty is a difficulty created in Parliament, and is formidable only because it obstructs necessary legislation. Now the Act of 1870 made a compromise. I understand a compromise to be an arrangement in which each party submits to some amount of injustice, and I have always observed that as soon as a compromise is patched up each party thereto struggles for redress of his own grievances, while getting the other party's neck more firmly under the yoke. Under the compromise of 1870 it is supposed that the Nonconformists got rather the best of it in Board schools, because they there have a religion taught at the public expense which is exactly what they teach in their own schools. I suppose that the Church people got rather the best of it in the village parochial schools. Now, I admit, as Lord Salisbury has admitted, that the grievance about pupil teachers, brought forward by the hon. Member for Carnarvon, is, theoretically at all events, a real grievance. I doubt whether, in practice, the grievance, the injustice, is half as bad as either the mover or seconder of the Motion has supposed. In the first place, many of these so-called Church schools are managed by a Committee upon which Nonconformists are represented, and I doubt whether there are many managers of Church schools who would reject any Nonconformist boy or girl who was applicable for a position of pupil teacher because the parents thought fit to take him or her to chapel instead of to church. Hon. Members may laugh, but I doubt very much whether they would object to any great extent. I think that what might occur, what probably does happen, is that sometimes parents send the child to church, and the grievance is in reality not a grievance of the parent, but a grievance of the Nonconformist minister. I should be very much more ready to sympathise with the grievance of the hon. Member, and I should take a good deal more pains to try to find some remedy for it, if the lot of the country pupil teacher was really that happy one which he has described. Now, what is the position of the country pupil teacher? Of course, in what I am going to say I am going to speak generally. There are exceptions; there are exceptions where a zealous and attentive teacher can bring on a boy or girl so well that they take a very high place in the pupil teachers' examination; but the general condition of a pupil teacher is to be a great deal more of a school drudge than a pupil. They have to go to school earlier, often walking long distances; they have to remain behind when the other children go home; they get their instruction partly before school, partly during the play hour, when the other children are in the playground, partly during the dinner hour, when the other children are eating their dinners, and partly after school, when instruction has closed. It is teaching given by a tired teacher to a tired pupil. They have none of the advantages which the pupil teachers in great towns have: no science classes within reach; no pupil teachers' centres where they can receive higher instruction; and in far too great a number of cases the pupil teacher in the country has no chance of ever rising in the profession. They sink into school drudges. They cannot compete in the scholarship examinations with their more fortunate brethren and sisters in the towns. They cannot get into any of the training colleges, denominational or undenominational, and they cannot, consequently, rise in the profession. Well, then, I am sorry to say that there is very little hope of mending this state of things, which the House at large will admit is not a way in which the teachers of the country ought to be prepared. I say there is little hope of mending it, because, as was mentioned by the seconder of the Motion, a Committee was appointed of experts to consider how the position of these pupil teachers could be improved, and before the Committee had even taken their scheme into consideration, or pronounced any opinion upon it, it was denounced from all sides, even from such bodies as the National Society. It has been denounced as a scheme which if carried out would retard the supply of cheap child labour, by which the schools are so often rendered less valuable; and I am afraid that under this dire necessity of having cheap teachers in the schools, in the first place the welfare of these poor little school drudges themselves, and in the next place the national interest in getting better trained and better taught teachers for the rural districts, will have to go. Well, now, what is the remedy which the hon. Member suggests for this state of things? It is practically to replace the village Church school by the village Board school; and in the opinion of the Committee of the Council, from an educational point of view, this would be a retrograde step. I have never concealed from the House my opinion that, as a rule, Board schools in the towns and great urban districts—with some very significant exceptions, because there are very ill-managed Board schools in some of the towns—are eminently successful. They have far better buildings than Voluntary schools. They have a far better staff; not that there are not in the Voluntary schools individual teachers quite equal to any of the Board school teachers, but they have more of them. If you compare the staffs of the general Board schools and those of the Voluntary schools you find at the former far more adult teachers and far fewer child teachers. Besides that, they have more teachers to the number of children. Many of them have the advantage in apparatus, and they produce, as might be supposed, very much better results. If you look at the county scholarship examination, for instance, in any district, London or elsewhere, you will find a far larger percentage are obtained by children in large towns like London, Liverpool, Manchester, than are obtained by children of Voluntary schools; and I am not at all certain, if it came to be a real test, that you would not find that the facts and history of the Christian faith are better taught to the children in the Board schools. I am firmly of opinion that unless some plan is invented by which the ratepayers in the towns and urban districts are empowered, if they choose, to support Voluntary schools out of the rates, a very large number of the latter must disappear, except in the case of those religious bodies which have a sufficiently strong zeal for teaching dogma in the day school. Now, in the rural districts the case is absolutely reversed. The country clergyman is a far better and more competent school manager than parsimonious farmers or ignorant village tradesmen, and the exception to the general inferiority of the village school is generally to be found in those cases in which a clever and energetic clergyman himself manages a board and carries on the school. But, as the hon. Member for Nottinghamshire knows, in this case it is very difficult to leave the catechism, or a suspicion of the catechism, out of the schools. Therefore the real remedy contained in this resolution, the remedy of universal village School Boards to replace Voluntary schools, is one to which the Committee of the Council have the strongest objection on educational grounds. Now let me come to the question of training colleges. This was considered more than ten years ago by the commission presided over by Lord Cross, and the Report of that Commission—of the majority of that Commission—was that the existing training colleges should be allowed to remain as they then were, but that any further colleges should be undenominational, or should have a Conscience Clause. Under that Report the minority raised no objection at all; it was practically the Report of the whole Commission, because although there was a minority Report, the minority did not dissent to that part of the Report of the majority. They also recommended, on the advice of the then Secretary for Education, that the experiment of day training colleges should be tried. Well, new, that is the policy in regard to raining colleges which has ever since been acted upon, not only by Governments composed of the present Party, but by all Government, and in the days of the late Government my predecessor, whose absence from this Debate we, all of us greatly regret, was not able to carry out any of those reforms which this Resolution demands. The experiment of day training colleges has been tried, and tried with very eminent success, and so far from their being treated, as was rather intimated, I think, by the hon. Member for Yorkshire, with less favour than residential training colleges, they are both treated alike. In both cases the rule of the Department is that one-fourth of the expenditure must come from sources other than the Education Department grant. Unfortunately, in the case of the university colleges that have established day training colleges they have not a very large sum at their disposal, and they find that to get this one-fourth is at times very difficult. I will just read a list of the places which have now day training colleges, and I think the House will see it is extensive:—Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle, the University College at Liverpool, Owen's College at Manchester, the Yorkshire College at Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham, King's College in London, Bristol, and Sheffield; then there are three in the Principality of Wales—at Banger, Aberystwith, and Cardiff. All are, I hardly need say. Doing extremely well. All these colleges are undenominational, and there is no difficulty, at any rate in attendance, by Nonconformists exactly the same as by Churchmen. [Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: About the grant?] As I have explained, the grant for these colleges is on the same scale as the grant for the residential training colleges.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

Surely not. I believe that £100 is given in respect to each student in residential colleges, and I think £70 in respect to day colleges.

*SIR JOHN GORST

The real difficulty of the day training colleges is that they cannot find the one-fourth expenditure which they have to provide. I should be very glad if they had larger grants. I should be glad to have a larger grant. We want more training colleges, and if we want more training colleges those which are now existing ought to be allowed to remain as they are. They are doing extremely well. About 30 to 40 years ago there was established a training College known as Kneller Hall, which was a Government training college, and although it had for its principal no less distinguished a person than the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was so disastrous a failure that nobody ever thought of opening another. If you want more training colleges I would suggest that the proper way would be through some local educational authority. Some of the local educational authorities—for instance, the County Councils—can, so far as I know, open colleges without legislation. More training should be provided, and that is a thing to which the Committee of Council agreed most cordially. I do not think the question need bear the religious acrimony which was addressed to the House. The desire was to extend the great training college system, to see fresh training colleges and more teachers provided for the work of elementary education. Now, I will tell the House what is my really strongest objection to this Motion. It is acknowledged that this Parliament cannot pass a comprehensive scheme in the development of education. It is, therefore, necessary that the fragmentary efforts of Parliament should not only be in accordance with some settled policy, but should be taken in the order of their urgency. In the minds of all persons responsible for the education of the people there is no doubt whatever as to what is really the most urgent. It is a rule which could be carried out without any disturbance of the compromise of 1870, and it is really supported by the managers of Voluntary schools and Board schools alike. The idea is to get more children into the existing schools, to get them there in a condition fit to receive instruction, and to keep them there until a later age. After 25 years of the operation of the Act of 1870 there are nearly 750,000 children whose names ought to be on the books of some elementary school which do not appear there at all—almost one-eighth of the whole child population. With your School Boards and your attendance officers, and all your Government machinery, of those who are on the books nearly one-eighth are continually absent. Many of the buildings in which the children are collected are insanitary. Many of the children—the percentage unknown—come to the school starved in certain seasons of the year in different places; they are in a condition not only unfit to receive instruction, but in a condition in which it is absolute cruelty to attempt to instruct them. There are also a large number of children—percentage again unknown—who are worked like little slaves for wages for long hours before they go to school and after they go home from school, and in their case it is, therefore, quite impossible that any adequate elementary instruction can be given. And, lastly, as a mockery of your Elementary Education Act of 1876, which declares that it is the duty of every parent to send his child to school to receive elementary instruction from the age of five till the age of 14, there are exemptions, partly in the Acts of Parliament and partly in the bye-laws passed in the school districts, which make this primitive enactment of no effect; so that a large proportion of your scholars—and those the brightest and the most promising—leave school so early as to forget everything that they have learned, and if in after life these children are seized with a desire to go to continuation schools or technical schools, they have to re-learn, at the public expense, elementary knowledge already once acquired at the public expense and afterwards forgotten. Well, now, till these matters which I have shortly put before the House are reformed you cannot compete in technical or commercial education with your Continental rivals. Your higher schools will languish for lack of a sufficient supply of scholars properly grounded in the elements, and your labour and your money will be, to a great extent, thrown away.

SIR W. HARCOURT

The right hon. Gentleman did himself a great injustice when he said he did not shine in educational Debates. There is to me always a charm in the right hon. Gentleman's speeches on the subject of education. There is the charm of surprise; you never know what he will say first or what he will say last. It is a delightful salad in which the vinegar and the oil are well mixed, and gives flavour to all he says. There were some observations at the commencement of his speech which did not receive universal assent. He said that there was no religious difficulty, and he proceeded to illustrate that observation by what he called the compromise of 1870, in which each party was called upon to undergo a reciprocal injustice. Whence arose that reciprocal injustice? It arose entirely out of the religious difficulty. Why was injustice done to the Denominationalists on the one part and to the Nonconformists on the other? It was in consequence of the religious difficulty, and he set one injustice against the other, as if that produced a perfect system of equity. It reminds me of the observation of the great advocate Erskine, who said he had won many verdicts which he ought to have lost, and he had lost many verdicts he ought to have won; but that, on the whole, justice was done. Justice was, no doubt, done to Mr. Erskine, but whether it was done to both classes of litigants is a matter very doubtful. I think we may well condone the earlier remarks of the right hon. Gentleman for the observations he made later. He made a statement, which I think everybody who has studied this subject will recognise the truth of, that the whole system of national education in this country is at present hopelessly neglected. He made an observation, which it does not lie in my mouth to deny, that the present Parliament is incapable of establishing a complete system of education. It may remain, perhaps, for another Parliament to undertake that task, which, on the part of his colleagues, he disavows. I can quite understand that the First Lord admits that statement of the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Council on Education, a distinction we have long ago learned to appreciate. Why is it that our elementary education, in fact that our system of education, is from top to bottom inefficient? It is a very serious thing if that is the case. I think most of us have become more alive to the seriousness of that statement since we have had our attention called to the commercial competition which we have had to face. We have begun to ask ourselves why is it that we, who have been accustomed to regard ourselves as the monopolists of the trade of the world, find other nations treading so closely on our heels? The right hon. Gentleman said, what we all know to be the truth, that we are extremely deficient in the education of our people. Why is that the case? He has spoken of the superiority of the education in the Board schools in the large towns. That is unquestionably the case; everybody knows it is the case; everybody knows it is the case. He has admitted the extreme inefficiency of the education. He has given reason for it in a great part of the country, and that part of the country is that part where Voluntary schools mainly obtain. The Voluntary schools are maintained, as he admits, in a condition of constant impecuniosity. We have a system, consequently, of shreds and patches which arose out of that compromise of which he has spoken, and I think it might not untruly be described as an eleemosynary system of makeshift education. We have a demand for keeping down the standard of these Board schools. For what object? In order that Voluntary schools might not be distanced in the race. Do you ever expect on principles of that kind to establish a sound system of national education which will enable you to compete with other countries whose national education is founded on very different principles, and who are always seeking year after year to obtain higher education and a more complete system by which that higher education can be given? Can anybody who has paid attention to the great and constantly-renewed efforts of Germany in this direction view without astonishment and alarm the elementary education of this country, founded as it is on a system which should prevent competition in excellence, in order to maintain a system of schools which are unquestionably deficient? The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of these wretched pupil teachers, whom he calls young teachers, as drudges. Can you expect to give education through the instrumentality which he has described? He has told us that these schools, spread all over the country, have an insufficient number of teachers. I speak with the respect I feel for the great body of teachers in this country, but everybody knows that these teachers are, to a great degree, underpaid. The first thing we want are teachers who are better paid and better educated. I read with the greatest interest the discussions which took place at the Conference of Teachers last week. They were most instructive discussions, and they reinforced the opinions expressed by the right hon. Gentleman that the education of this country is fundamentally deficient. I hope we shall hear something from those hon. Gentlemen who are competent to speak to us. I do not intend to occupy the House at any great length, for I know we have a short time at our disposal; but I was struck with the illustration of my hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon in reference to the schools in Wales, of which he has spoken. What are we asked to do in reference to these Voluntary schools? We are asked to support them for two reasons; first of all on Denominational grounds. Well, Sir. Denominationalism can never make a sound foundation of a good system of national education. I am prepared to take my stand on that. It is making an appeal to the cupidity of the country to say, "If you do away with the inferior schools it will be very expensive, and we must have these cheap schools." I won't add another remark to that. "We must have these cheap schools, because they cost so little." Education in this country costs a great deal, considering its quality. We are paying now something like £10,000,000 a year. I believe there is no nation in Europe that gets so little for its money as we do for that £10,000,000 which is expended. But, Sir, we cannot afford to have cheap schools in this country, for cheap schools mean inferior schools. The hon. Member for Carnarvon gave an illustration of a landowner who subscribed £400 a year for a school, and if he had paid in proportion to his property the rates would have been £2,100. Those are the arguments constantly put forward to reconcile the people of this country to have inefficient schools and inefficient education. Well, the Vice President of the Council has told us that this Parliament cannot undertake a comprehensive scheme of national education. I think this is an abdication of its duties on the part of the House of Commons in whichever Parliament it is. I ventured to say the other night that we were not overburdened this Session with legislative projects, and, if we cannot undertake the task of a comprehensive scheme of education, we might, at all events, do some- thing to advance the education of this country. Is my right hon. Friend going to do these things he has indicated to-night? I am perfectly conscious that the right hon. Gentleman is a reforming educationist at heart, and if we can only strike off his arms those fetters which restrain, his true inclinations, we might get something for the advantage of the education of this country. I cannot understand the position of the right hon. Gentleman, who is convinced that it is of the highest interest to this country that the education should not be as inefficient as he describes it. He should insist, at all events, on something being done. In these Voluntary schools there are too few masters, and why should we not have additional training colleges? I do not think that at all these training colleges you have an embryo archbishop at the head. It is not necessary, however; there are other resources of civilisation for the improvement of education in this country. Why are these things not to be begun? Here we are with a system of education in this country that all are attacking year after year. Why? I do not blame the authors of the Voluntary schools. On the contrary, they come in to supply a defect, because Parliament does not undertake the duty of establishing national education. We find ourselves in the position of an old building, which is inconvenient, which is not appropriate for the purposes to which it ought to be applied, and instead of setting to work to erect a building appropriate for the needs of the times we patch up the old edifice, which, after all, proves inefficient and ineffective for its purpose. That is the position in which we stand, and I am extremely sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not put in a position to carry his convictions more completely into effect. I do hope that the declarations he has made to-night as to the fundamental deficiency of national education may sink into the heart, not only of the House of Commons, but into the heart of the people of this country, that they will give that impetus and that support to the Government of the day, to whichever Party it belongs, and set to work on a task which I believe to be of the most supreme importance to the future of the people of this country.

*MR. ERNEST GRAY (West Ham, N.)

I have always regretted that we have not the Bill of 1896, but though that Bill did not find its place on the Statute Book, I am convinced it did a great deal of good. It not only succeeded in educating the country, but it largely educated the House of Commons itself. Indeed, I have been particularly amused to hear both the mover and the seconder of this Resolution advocating some of the very clauses of the Bill of 1896 to which they then most strenuously objected. I believe many of us will live to see the day when the principles of the Bill of 1896 will find their place on the Statute Book of the country to the country's benefit. I am anxious, however, to take the very earliest opportunity of correcting a misquotation which the mover of the Resolution, no doubt unintentionally, fell into, with regard to some of the remarks I had occasion to make on the question of education a few days ago. He quoted me as being in favour of popular elective control of all individual Voluntary schools. So I understood him to say. [Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: No; I said nothing of the kind.] That is how I understood his quotation. The position I took up, and from which I do not depart, is that all the schools of the country should be under control, that we should have some sort of central control in each county, such as the Bill of 1896 sought to establish. In my speech at Cheltenham I was not referring to the local management of Voluntary schools. I agree that there is much to be lamented with regard to the condition of some of our Voluntary Schools. But I disagree with him entirely in the view that there is nothing to be lamented in the condition of some of the Board schools. I think he committed a fundamental error in treating this question as a question between Church and Nonconformity. The whole difference between the speech of the Vice President and the speech of the mover of this Resolution was that while the one treated it from the standpoint of national education the other viewed it from the standpoint of sectarian differences. It is true that my right hon. Friend, whenever he addresses the House, does give surprises right and left, for the simple reason that he does not treat if from the standpoint of the average political partisan. He takes a high ground, and considers it as affecting the welfare of the child and the good of the school. One knows what to expect from the point of view of the political partisan in dealing with the educational question; generally it is the question of the grievances of Nonconformists on the one side or of the grievances of the High Church Party on the other. It is true that many of the Voluntary schools are sadly deficient. The staff is inadequate, the buildings are not in a satisfactory condition, and the management is in many cases inadequate. And what is the cause of it all? Not the fact that they are Church schools, not the fact that certain religious teaching is given in them—the source of their inefficiency is undoubtedly the inadequate supply of public funds. It is not fair for those who have secured for their own favourite schools support from the rates and taxes that they should treat the Voluntary schools as being inferior, when they have been interested in withholding that money. I could never understand why, in this matter of financial support, the Church of England, or the Wesleyan, or the Roman Catholic school, should be on a less satisfactory footing than the ordinary Board school. What really is the difference between the two? I am perfectly prepared to admit that the religious teaching which is given in some of the Board schools of the country is better than the religious teaching which is given in some if the Voluntary schools. Why? Because the Board schools have succeeded in getting a more efficient staff, better trained teachers, adult teachers, for the pupil teacher system does not so largely hamper the Board schools as it does the Voluntary schools. They have a better staff of teachers, many of whom have been trained in Church of England training colleges. Men and women who have taken charge of many of the Board schools are imbued to the full with the Christian spirit, which is necessary in every school, in my opinion, for the welfare of the child, and religious teaching of a very satisfactory and very excellent character indeed is given in many of the Board schools of the country. If anyone doubts it will they turn to the Report which was presented to the House of Lords in 1894, and turn over the various syllabuses contained in the Report of religious instruction given in the Board schools of the country? It is worth noticing that on the vary first page of the Report there is a note to this effect—that in compiling the Report there is not room in the ordinary pages to include the religious syllabuses of some of the Board schools of the country; it was of such an extensive character that special pages had to be added to the Report to incorporate it. You have also the testimony, in many instances, of diocesan inspectors who have been employed by School Boards to inspect the religious teaching in some of the Board schools, and they have been loud in their praise of the religious teaching which is given there. But as a general rule the Voluntary schools are doing much more. They are adding to the secular instruction a religious teaching required and welcomed by the great majority of the parents. It is not, in my opinion, a true representation of the case to imagine that such an absurd catechism as that read by the hon. Member for Carnarvon prevails in one in a hundred Voluntary schools in this country. It is possible, no doubt, that there are fanatical members of the Church of England just as there are fanatical Nonconformist ministers, and a few fanatics one side or the other will do an enormous amount of mischief to the cause with which they are connected. But to pretend for a single instant that it is typical of the religious teaching which is going on in Church schools is to betray an absolute and complete ignorance of the religious teaching given in the schools. I venture to say that if a careful inquiry were conducted into the religious teaching in Voluntary schools the unprejudiced inquirer would come to the conclusion that managers and teachers alike in the great majority of our Church of England, Nonconformist, and, I think, in many of our Catholic schools, are endeavouring to inculcate those principles of Christianity on which the whole of us can agree, and they are leaving for more mature years of life those points of difference between the various, sects. My own belief is that in the ordinary Voluntary school the children themselves hardly realise the difference between church and chapel, and I am very glad to say that, as a rule, they are not taught to appreciate that difference. It is left—and wisely left—until they have left school. The religious difficulty, as my right hon. Friend said, has been manufactured for Party purposes. Well, let those who deny that statement produce a dozen, bonâ-fide, parents, who, of their own free will, complained that there had not been given in the schools the religious teaching which they desired. I know something of school teaching, and have known something of it for a good many years, and I know that the Nonconformist parent who raises an objection to the teaching given in an ordinary Church of England Voluntary school is quite an exception; and if the child is withdrawn from the lessons in the Church catechism the child is allowed the whole of the other religious teaching given in the school, and very little complaint indeed is made by the parents. The greatest religious difficulty in the schools is to keep the child away from the religious lessons which are in progress in the schools. The natural curiosity of the child over and over again tempts it into the class where the religious teaching is being given. But Nonconformist parents throughout the whole length, and breadth of the country trouble but little, unless the father and mother be stirred up by the Nonconformist minister to take action, and even then there may be a little spasmodic effort on the part of the parent to interfere, but it dies away in a few weeks, and nothing more is heard of it. But although that may be the case, yet I am prepared to say that if there be any difficulty in this matter of religious instruction, to my mind it is not the Nonconformist who has cause for complaint, it is the Church of England parent; because, although the Nonconformist sends his child in the rural district to a Church of England school, he can secure for him, practically, pretty well what he wants in the school, or if he objects to one particular lesson, he can withdraw the child from it. He is not called upon to contribute, out of the local rates to support the Church school; he can button up his breeches pocket as closely as he likes, and see that school where his own child has been educated starved to death and not move a hand to save it. But the Churchman, who believes that distinctive religious teaching is the basis of all education, has not only often to send his child to a Board school where he cannot get it, but he has to contribute out of the local rates to the support of that school. If there be a difficulty at all, that difficulty is as great to the Church of England and the Catholic parent as it is to the Nonconformist. But, Mr. Speaker, what has the hon. Member suggested as a substitute? That we should put in every district a school under popular control. What does he propose to do? To build another school in the 6,000 parishes of England and Wales where only one school exists? If so, he is undertaking a heavy task, and incurring totally unnecessary expense. Or is it suggested that the whole of the Church of England and Nonconformist schools shall be taken from their present management and placed under a locally-elected body from the village community. For my part, I would sooner see a benevolent clergyman the manager of a village school than have a typical small School Board of a few members. In fact, much as I deprecate the restricted management of any school. I am prepared to say this: that the best form of government which I know is a benevolent autocracy. Unfortunately the autocracy often outlives the benevolence. There are instances where restricted management is productive of the greatest evils, and I believe that, for the benefit not merely of a school, but for the benefit of each religious community of the country, those who are now charged with the management of the schools would be well advised to seek the co-operation of all sections of the community in the management of the schools. Some of the most efficient Church schools of the country are those where the Church of England clergyman has been broad-minded and liberal-minded enough to invite the co-operation of Nonconformists, and of those who, unhappily, have very little religious faith at all, to assist in the working of that school. What has been the result as a rule? That any little friction which had previously existed has immediately disappeared. Close contact with the work of the school removes from the minds of those people any false ideas they had previously entertained, just as I believe it would remove from the minds of many Members of this House some of the grotesque views they have of religious teaching if they would undertake to go into a public elementary school and carry it on for seven days. I quite agree that you want a wider form of management in every one of our public schools. I know it is difficult to obtain it. In many of the village communities it is difficult to find half a dozen men with the leisure and intelligence necessary to properly carry on the management of a school. I myself hope that the day is not far distant when the local management of every school will not be as onerous a responsibility as it is at the present time, but when we shall have established in every county throughout England and Wales one governing body for both primary and secondary education, that one governing body having control of both Voluntary and Boards schools alike; an authority the outline of which will be like that in the Bill of 1896; an authority which will carry the detailed work of the Education Department into the county, and relieve the Education Department of much of its present detailed work, leaving that Department free to develop wider schemes for the benefit of national education. Well, now, Mr. Speaker, with regard to training colleges, there is no doubt a real grievance. It is unfortunate that some of our brightest students are not able to enter training colleges. I do not know whether any Member of this House understands what takes place. Pupil teachers, at the close of their fourth year, have Queen's scholarship examinations. Before a pupil sits for the examination he has to apply for permission, to enter a training college. Say, for example, he applies to enter Cheltenham. There are 40 vacancies, and those 40 places may be filled up by the first 100 candidates. This man, who is farther down in the list, is too late to apply to any of the other training colleges, while it is possible that another man lower on the list may secure an opportunity of getting into a training college from which a more promising and successful student is excluded, and this clever student may drift into the teaching profession as an untrained and, very largely, an unqualified teacher. I quite agree that the number of our training colleges must be increased. I quite agree that it is desirable that many of them should be of a non-sectarian character. I admit that there is a certain amount of grievance felt by some candidates, who cannot find places in the Church of England or Nonconformist colleges. I know what the result of the present system sometimes is; it is a most lamentable one. The hypocrites can get into the training colleges. The really straightforward, honest Christian is often excluded. A man or woman who is prepared to sacrifice all religious principles, and to declare himself or herself of a faith which he or she is not, can get in anywhere, and I would say to those who have a hand in the appointment of teachers the same thing applies to all religious tests. Ask your teacher whether he is a member of this flock or of that when an appointment is hanging in the scales. It is a huge temptation to him, and you cannot be surprised if some of them forswear their allegiance, in order to secure work. This difficulty, of course, would be obviated if there were greater opportunities for securing the college training of the pupil teacher. But, Mr. Speaker, while we move in the direction of increasing the number of our training colleges, I think we ought to move with no uncertain step in another direction—I think we ought to impose more rigid restrictions upon the employment of altogether unqualified persons for the office of teacher. Nobody knows the amount of harm that is being done at the present time by the employment of nearly 13,000 persons whose sole qualification in that they are 18 years of age and have been vaccinated. Mr. Speaker, are we ever likely to produce pupils who have learned to love school work, who have learned to look forward to the continuation of school work, so long as they are trained under these conditions? If you want to do the best educational work of all—namely, inculcate a love of learning—you must have properly trained teachers throughout the whole of your educational establishments. Is it not a disgrace to this nation that we who boast of cur riches, that we who are prepared to come down here night after night and vote any number of millions that may be demanded for the support of either the Army or the Navy, should grudge the few hundreds of thousands required annually to do that which would preserve peace more effectually than any Army or Navy—namely, secure a better educated people? I have no doubt that we turn out, year after year, from our public elementary schools any number of boys and girls who hate the very name of education and everything connected with it, owing to the very unsatisfactory conditions under which they pass their school life. Put your buildings into a state of complete repair, secure a better staff, do not try to cut down the schools to the very lowest level of starvation, but let all our efforts be directed to lifting them up. I have had to use strong words with regard to certain Voluntary schools in London, and I have not one word to detract from that statement—I could considerably add to it. I do not know why schools of that character exist. I am sure that members of the Church of England and hon. Gentlemen who sit on this side of the House, are not doing well to cover a patch, over the sore and let it rest there until the whole body rots. It is wiser, when there is a cancerous growth in any great body like our Voluntary school system to relentlessly cut it out and try and save the patient ere he is taken away by death. I submit that there is not a single clergyman who maintains that everything is well with our schools, but they are not the best friends of Education who say that the Church of England schools should be abolished and other schools substituted. The truth is with neither side. The truth is that there are defects in both systems, and until we have realised the extent of those deficiencies the amount of leeway that separates them from perfection will not be made up. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has quoted two or three times recently the Report presented to the Lord President of the Council by one or two Members of this House and others. I would commend to his notice another Report more startling than that, a Report presented by the Technical Committee of the Manchester Corporation. That Committee went abroad believing that Manchester could hold its own in certain branches of trade before the whole world, but they come buck disabused of that idea, and convinced that the trade which was once their own has been captured by foreigners. In Stratford, the district which I have the honour of representing, the aniline dyes were first exploited, and we held control of the trade. But what is the position now? Germany has three-fourths of the trade of the world in that commodity and when the London chemist wants to get some of the finer shades of these dyes he has to send to German houses to get them. The superior excellence of the German manufacturer, particularly in the dye and chemical industries is largely due to the superior equipment of the German, artisan and this, in turn, is due to the better training the children get in the public elementary schools. Not in Germany or in France do you get a million children absent every half-day. If a child is absent four days in a month, there is notice to the parent, and the parent is liable in a heavy fine. In those countries they do not tolerate the absence of children from school, as it is tolerated here: French and German teachers are simply at a loss to understand how the condition of things which prevails here can be tolerated. What is necessary is that the children should be required to attend school regularly, and that they should be kept till a later sure than they are now. What will my Lancashire Friends say to that. I recognise the difficulties of the situation, but I fully believe that if my Lancashire friends keep quiet for a year or two, they will find that the position will be materially altered. The Lancashire operatives will soon realise that the employment of children is prejudicial to adult labour to an extent considerably outweighing the disadvantages which may be felt in individual cases from the necessity of keeping children at school to the ape of 14. Let us have efficient teachers and an efficient system, and let us leave for ever these quarrels between Church and Nonconformist educational politics. Our system of national education should be founded, not on the claims or interests of sects, but on the interests and necessities of our children.

*MR. J. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts,) Mansfield

Mr. Speaker, I always listen to the hon. Member who has just sat down with special interest, because I feel that he has a very difficult part to play. He is a genuine educationalist—that I freely grant; but he is also a steady supporter of inefficient and sometimes mischievous Government educational Measures, and he appears to compensate himself for the suffering he must sometimes endure in voting for Measures to which he objects by lecturing us all round, because we also join in condemnation of those same Measures. To-night he has told us that the hon. Member for Carnarvon has introduced a Resolution simply dealing with the question from the Nonconformist point of view. I think he did great injustice to the hon. Member, for much of the speech of the hon. Member was devoted to matters in which those who differ from him on ecclesiastical questions might agree; and, further, I could justify some of the statements of the hon. Member for Carvarnon by quoting the hon. Member for West Ham. The hon. Member has repudiated certain statements of the mover of this Resolution, but he has not repudiated—indeed, I understood him to say that he adhered to the statement that he made at Cheltenham a few days ago, that in London a number of bankrupt Voluntary schools are maintained which ought to have been transferred to the London School Board. He said— Certain of the Church dignitaries, mistaking their functions and duties, had determined to retain the schools as Voluntary schools, utterly regardless of the pernicious effects to the children; not having been able to carry on the schools in an efficient manner or in healthy buildings. Well, the Government has lately put them in possession of a further sum of money, and yet the hon. Member said at Cheltenham that part of that money went to pay Church debts, and not to increase the pay of the teachers.

*MR. GRAY

I am not responsible for any statement of that sort. I did not say that a portion of the money had gone towards the payment of Church debts. What I did say was that I am aware that, in some instances, part of the Aid Grant has been paid to Nonconformist schools, who have straightway decreased their rates payable to the trustees of Nonconformist chapels.

*MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS

The hon. Member has made a double complaint within the last few days. One complaint is that the teachers in the Church of England schools are underpaid, as well as teachers in other schools, and he also complained that the teachers have not been represented as they ought to have been in the new local associations which have been formed for the distribution of the Government grant. Now, I venture to tell the hon. Member that he, and those who make the same statement, are mistaken in supposing that the extension and the efficiency of education is simply a question of money. This is one of those matters in which it may be emphatically said that money does not answer all things. One of the things which is needed to promote the efficiency of our educational system is not merely national money, but national interest, and you never will get the people of this country to take the interest they ought to take in the educational machinery of the country unless you give them the control and the right of management to which they are entitled. Some years ago the Schools Inquiry Commission presented a Report, which contained a passage, that is most applicable at the present time. They said— The real force whereby the work is to be done must come from the people. And every arrangement which fosters the interest of the people in the schools, which teaches the people to look on the schools as their own, which encourages them to take a share in the management, will do at least as much service as the wisest advice and the most skilful administration. And, I will add, any amount of public money, which you may place at the disposal of the management. There is another sentence from a public document which I should like to place before the House. One of the inspectors of schools, Mr. Alderson, some years ago made a Report in which there was this suggestive sentence— The Board school has the advantage of being entirely detached from the machinery of the parish. It can be conducted with a more single eye to learning. It is impossible not to notice, as an almost new experience, how sensitively the School Board vibrates, so to say, to the touch of official criticism. There, in a single sentence, I think this inspector has put his finger on one of the evils of the existing system, and has pointed the way to a satisfactory remedy. Sir, I venture to think that the Debate we have had to-night cannot be regarded by anyone as being unpractical and merely academic. The facts submitted to the House by the mover of the Resolution, and by the hon. Member for West Ham, have been of the deepest interest and importance. I must confess that I have listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council with deep disappointment. He wound up his speech with the declaration that this Parliament, cannot be expected to pass a comprehensive Measure of national education. So that not only is the educational policy of the Government, exhausted, but the educational zeal and efficiency of this House is supposed to be exhausted also. The right hon. Gentleman's speech was not even like Pandora's box, for there was no hope lying at the bottom. I wish the right hon. Gentle-of the sentiments which he enunciates else-of the sentiments which he enunciates elsewhere with regard to national education; and I wish that, not content with merely uttering those sentiments, he would, in his official position, give them practical effect, I join in the hope expressed by the right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire, that the facts placed before the House in the course of this Debate to-night will sink into the minds and hearts of the people of this country; so that, if this Parliament is incapable of passing a comprehensive Measure of national education, we may witness the existence of another Parliament, and another Government, which will apply itself to the by no means hopeless task of creating a truly national system of education.

*MR. J. H. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)

I shall not detain the House with any long speech, but I do think that there are one or two points which have escaped attention in the course of the discussion to-night. I agree with a great deal that has been said by hon. Members opposite as well as by the hon. Gentlemen on this side as to the absence of any real religious difficulty. But I would remind the House that in recent years, at any rate, the introduction of the so-called religious difficulty has been due, in the main, to Clause 27 of the Bill of 1896. There is no religious difficulty in the schools, so far as the scholars are concerned, because of the tact of the teachers. If the parson is pragmatical, the teacher in the country school is tactful, and no real difficulty arises. I have investigated myself a number of cases in which it has been alleged that in a, denominational school the children of Nonconformist parents have been coerced or proselytised, and I have found that the Conscience Clause is a sufficient protection for the children in the schools. But when you come to the pupil teachers there is no Conscience Clause, and a very serious religious difficulty undoubtedly arises. I stand here to-night as the son of a Nonconformist, and I can relate my own personal experience. I was compelled to leave my own native town and go to a city in the north in order to become a teacher in a public elementary school. When the pupil teacher ceases to be a pupil teacher and goes to a training college, what is the test that is applied? I venture to say that the test applied is a disgrace and a blot upon our education system. Years ago you abolished the Test Acts, and only four year a Government grant proposed to be given to a college in London, was refused because a theological test was imposed on the tutors. But in our training colleges to-day, not only every tutor, but every student must subscribe to the religious tenets of the sect to which the college belongs. If he wishes to go to a Roman Catholic training college he must subscribe to all the tenets of that faith. It he wishes to go to a Church training college he is asked: "Are you confirmed? Have you been baptised? Are you a communicant? Do you subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles?" and so on. If he wishes to go to a Wesleyan training college, he is asked: "Are you converted? Are you a member of Society?" and so on. Now, I say it is a disgrace to the time in which we live that that should be possible, and particularly so while these institutions are maintained as to three-fourths of the cost from public sources. I wish, to show the House briefly how these tests are not only unjust in themselves, but how tiny go to prevent the best teachers from getting proper training. Take the case of a Nonconformist teacher going to a training college like the one called the Borough Road. Suppose he is No. 400 on the list of applicants. The competition to enter the college is so great that the first 200 applicants exhaust all the places, and this voting man, being No. 400 on the list, cannot obtain admission to the college, although he may be even better fitted to be a teacher than inferior students who in fact obtain admission at Diocesan Colleges. The result of this system is that the best students are excluded from the training colleges, because they are Dissenters, while inferior students are readily admitted because they happen to be members of the faith to which the majority of the colleges belong. It will be seen by the House that that is a most unfair stale of things. I am aware that a Royal Commission, ten years ago, recommended that there should be no interference whatever with training colleges. But that Commission, which was appointed by a Conservative Government, and which did not include a majority of people who would think in the same way as the mover and seconder of this Resolution, distinctly recommended that no future training colleges should be recognised which admitted students without the safeguard of a Conscience Clause, or were not strictly undenominational. I hope the Government will bear that, recommendation in mind in considering any proposals for new training colleges, and that all training colleges to be established hereafter may be cither undenominational or may have the protection of a Conscience Clause. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that a Conscience Clause might very well be introduced into the existing training colleges. What does the Conscience Clause say? It does not say that the institution or school may not teach the tenets held by any particular theological body, but it says that every student or scholar may contract himself out. If you give such a Conscience Clause as that you would protect the faith of many of the students, and you would not interfere in the slightest degree with the distinctive character of these institutions. Sir, I hope I have said nothing which will tend to irritate feeling upon this matter, because I cordially recognise the fairness which has characterised most of the speeches we have heard. On each side of the House there has been a disposition to meet, as far as possible, the views held by Members on the opposite side. If we can only secure that there should be on the Governing Committee of every Voluntary school at least one representative of the public, I think it would be a sufficient safeguard to enable many of us to Vote large additional sums of money to the Voluntary schools. No doubt these schools require more money, and if they cannot get that money from the rates, of course it must come from the taxes. I am certain that unless we shortly come to some arrangement whereby more funds can be provided for these schools this country will rue it at a not very distant date. Holding that view, I cordially support the Resolution.

MR. T. R. LEUTY (Leeds, E.)

The case put forward for this Resolution is the case of a religious grievance—the grievance of those Nonconformist parents who, under our system of compulsory education, have to send their children to schools, and have no schools to send them to except Church of England schools. Now, if there is one thing proved by the history of the last 20 years it is that the large majority of the people of this country do require some kind of Bible-instruction for their children; and I believe that in many cases parents accept Church of England instruction for their children because that is the only alternative to their taking advantage of the Conscience Clause. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President of the Council has told us in so many words that there is no religious difficulty in schools. In spite of that denial, I say that there is a religious difficulty and a real grievance in the fact that you compel parents to send their children to school while you do not provide anything but Church of England schools to send them to. The right hon. Gentleman asked us if we proposed to close the Church of England schools. This Resolution says nothing about closing Church of England schools or Roman Catholic schools. What we object to is the granting of public money when the only result is to place under the control of Church schools the education of children of parents who do not want that kind of education, and who would prefer education under a Board school system. That is the grievance set out in this Resolution, and I venture to say that if that is denied on the other side of the House, this House has not heard the last of it, but it will be heard of repeatedly until the grievance is removed. It seems to me an abominable thing that not only should the children of Nonconformist parents be driven into one school, which is a Church school, but that when we come here we should be told that the grievance does not exist except on the Political platform. To show how far that it is from the truth, I may tell the House that, living hi a great town, I have myself suffered from the step taken to force the children of Nonconformists into Church schools; I have had to send my own children two miles away, when they were too young to go that distance, simply because I could not obtain for them the education I desired at a school nearer to their home. This Resolution declares that the freedom of training colleges from sectarian control is essential not only to a just system, but to an efficient system of national education. I think it has been proved by this discussion, and by other discussions that have taken place here in the last few years, that efficiency in education has been sacrificed by the steps taken to manipulate the educational system of this country and put it under the finger and thumb of the Church of England clergy. If the Nonconformist feeling were sacrificed, and we were getting a better education, there might be, perhaps, some excuse to be made; but when it has been proved, its ii has been to-night, by the speeches, not only on this side, but on the other side of the House, that this grievance is imposed upon us at the price of inflicting an inferior education on the children our claim for redress becomes a double one; and I venture to say that we shall go on claiming that redress until we get it. I support most emphatically the claim stated by this Resolution, and whether it is any use supporting it or not, I shall vote for it if my hon. Friend goes to a Division.

MR. VESEY KNOX (Londonderry)

I feel unable to support this Resolution. The Resolution demands— That there should be within reach of every child in England and Wales a public elementary school under local representative management. I cannot say that there is anything in those words themselves with which I quarrel, but what they mean is that there should be, in every parish throughout this country, a Board school to which all would have to contribute in the form of rates, whether or not they were satisfied with the religious teaching given in that school. Therefore, although the words of the Resolution may sound specious, in practice it means that Catholics and Anglicans are to be compelled in every parish, as they now are, unfortunately, in many, to contribute to the support of schools which they cannot conscientiously use for the education of their own children. That I consider to be persecution. It is perfectly true that there is a grievance in the fact that there are small and scattered bodies who are not rich enough to support schools of their own, and that consequently members of those bodies have to send their children to schools in which the only religious education is Church education. A proposal was made two years ago by which those Nonconformists would have had the advantage of Nonconformist education in those schools if they desired it. That proposal was, secreted by the same people who now propose this Resolution. What they want is that they should not merely have the opportunity of teaching their own form of religion to their own children, but of enforcing their own form of religion upon other people's children. Of course, they say that it is not their own form or religion they say it is a sort of religion which is everybody's religion. I will put that to one simple test. There are in this country Voluntary schools, British schools, which are to all intents and purchases Nonconformist schools. The religious teaching, therefore, which is given in those schools is that which Nonconformists would desire to give, if they had their full way, to their own children, because it is absolutely beyond reproach. Now, the teaching given in those schools is exactly the same as that given in Board schools. Therefore, I say, tried by that test the Board school education is Nonconformist religious education. It is the same, at any rate, as the education which the Nonconformist Voluntary schools give to their children at their own expense. They want to be able to set up British, schools in every parish, and to levy the cost of those schools upon Anglicans and Catholics to whom that religious education is of no advantage according to their religious belief. That seems to me to be an unreasonable demand. It is said that in these parishes there is a grievance, and I admit that a grievance must sometimes exist. My hon. Friend beside me has said that, in his opinion, the grievance would be met if we had on, every Governing Committee a representative of the parents, who, are really the people concerned. If that would meet the grievance, I confess I see no reason why that demand should not be conceded. The heads of the Catholic Church some years ago, when this was a matter of controversy, expressed their willingness to allow a representative of the public on their Governing Committees; but when my hon. Friend made that very reasonable proposal he was met with cries of "No, no," from gentlemen sitting above the Gangway on this side of the House. That is not what is meant by this Resolution. This Resolution means a, Board school in every parish, nothing more or less. Let us knew what we are voting for. We are not voting for any vague form of popular control of the management of Voluntary schools; the question is, whether we are to have in even parish throughout this country a Board school where the only form of education which is not permitted is that dogmatic form of religious education, based on catechisms, which, in the opinion, as I believe, of the majority of the people of this country is that which ought to be given to the young. There may be some question as to whether I am right in saying a majority of the people of this country; but, supposing they are a minority, supposing even that they are a small minority, nevertheless I say it is a cruel thing to suggest that they should be compelled in every parish, as they are to-day, unfortunately, in the towns, to support a form of religious education which they cannot themselves use. This, in fact, is a proposal to balance the state of things which exists in the case of the church on Sundays by setting up an everyday church. It means that, in parishes where sufficient funds are given from old endowments to support a certain religion sufficient funds ought to be given out of the rates, directly paid to support what is to all intents and purposes another religion. That is a proposal which I cannot support. I believe that, while there is a grievance, and one which ought to be met—a grievance which the Government proposed to meet two years ago, but they found no support for their proposals on this side of the House—while there is a grievance which ought to be met, this proposal, which is now before the House, instead of meeting that grievance, would set up a still greater grievance, and for that reason I cannot support it. Sir, the second part of the Resolution refers to the training colleges. My hon. Friend has spoken with, feeling, in which I am sure he had the sympathy of the House, on that part of the question. So far as I understand it—I am, not sure that I am, absolutely correct—there is nothing to prevent Nonconformists from setting up any number of training colleges, if they would only do what the much poorer body of Catholics have done—put their hands into their pockets to support them. They do not believe, I understand, in sectarian colleges, they believe in unsectarian colleges. Well, their pockets are just as available for the purposes of sectarian colleges as for the purposes of unsectarian colleges. The remedy is the same, if they want to have any number of sectarian colleges. Compared with the Catholics they are rich. The Catholics represent in the main the Irishmen of Great Britain, who are the poorest of the people. They have managed to set up training colleges which are professedly sectarian. Among the people who support the unsectarian principle are a vast body of well-to-do men. If they believe as much in their theories as the Catholics believe in theirs, why should not they set up training colleges at their own cost? There is no legal obstacle in their way. So far as I understand, the object desired by the hon. Member beside me is that while the Catholics and the Anglicans bear at least one-fourth of the cost of setting up training colleges, those who believe in unsectarian education should be able to set up training colleges, towards which they should contribute themselves no part of the cost, but that they should look to the body of taxpayers or ratepayers of the country to bear the whole cost. That, I submit, is not justifiable. It is true that at

present there are too few training colleges such as they desire; but that is a grievance for which I venture to say the remedy is not to be sought in any Resolution that may be passed by this House, but in voluntary effort.

Motion made and Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 101; Noes 183.

AYES.
Allan, Wm. (Gateshead)	Goddard, Daniel Ford	Philipps, John Wynford
Allison, Robert Andrew	Grey, Sir Ed. (Berwick)	Price, Robert John
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H.	Griffith, Ellis J.	Priestley, Briggs (Yorks.)
Bainbridge, Emerson	Haldane, Richard Burdon	Provand, Andrew Dryburgh
Barlow, John Emmott	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm.	Rickett, J. Compton
Bayley, T. (Derbyshire)	Harwood, George	Roberts, J. H. (Denbighs.)
Billson, Alfred	Hayne, Rt. Hon. C. Scale-	Robson, William Snowdon
Birrell, Augustine	Hazell, Walter	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Bolton, Thomas Dolling	Hedderwick, T. C. H.	Schwann, Charles E.
Brigg, John	Holden, Sir Angus	Shaw, G. E. (Stafford)
Broadhurst, Henry	Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.	Smith, Samuel (Flint)
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Hutton, A. E. (Morley)	Spicer, Albert
Burns, John	Johnson-Ferguson, Jabez Ed.	Stevenson, Francis S.
Burt, Thomas	Jones, D. B. (Swansea)	Strachey, Edward
Caldwell, James	Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)	Stuart, J. (Shoreditch)
Cameron, R. (Durham)	Kitson, Sir James	Thomas, A. (Carmarthen, E.)
Causton, Richard Knight	Lambert, George	Thomas, A. (Glamorgan, E.)
Cawley, Frederick	Leng, Sir John	Wallace, Robert (Perth)
Clark, Dr. G. B. (Caithness.)	Leuty, Thomas Richmond	Walton, J. (Barnsley)
Clough, Walter Owen	Lewis, John Herbert	Wedderburn, Sir William
Colville, John	Lloyd-George, David	Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Cozens-Hardy, Herbert Hardy	Logan, John William	Williams, J. C. (Notts.)
Dalziel, James Henry	M'Ewan, William	Wills, Sir William Henry
Davies, M. V. (Cardigan)	McLaren, Charles Benjamin	Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk)
Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Chas.	M'Leod, John	Wilson, H. J. (York, W. R.)
Duckworth, James	Maddison, Fred.	Wilson, J. (Durham, Mid)
Dunn, Sir William	Maden, John Henry	Wilson, John (Govan)
Ellis, John Ed. (Notts.)	Mendl, Sigismund Ferdinand	Woodall, William
Evans, S. T. (Glamorgan)	Morgan, J. L. (Carmarthen)	Woodhouse, Sir J. T. (Hudrsf'ld)
Fenwick, Charles	Morley, C. (Breconshire)	Woods, Samuel
Ferguson, R. C. M. (Leith)	Morley, Rt. Hn. J. (Montrose)	Yoxall, James Henry
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond	Moss, Samuel
Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.)	Owen, Thomas	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—
Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Wol'tn)	Paulton, James Mellor	Mr. Thomas Ellis and Mr.
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. H. J.	Perks, Robert William	M'Arthur.
NOES.
Aird, John	Bill, Charles	Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse
Arnold, Alfred	Blundell, Colonel Henry	Colomb, Sir J. C. Ready
Arrol, Sir William	Bond, Edward	Compton, Lord Alwyne
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Boscawen, Arthur Griffith	Cook, F. L. (Lambeth)
Bagot, Capt. J. FitzRoy	Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John	Cornwallis, Fiennes S. W.
Bailey, James (Walworth)	Brookfield, A. Montagu	Cripps, Chas. Alfred
Balcarres, Lord	Brymer, Wm. Ernest	Cross, H. S. (Bolton)
Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r)	Burdett-Coutts, W.	Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)
Balfour, Rt. Hon. G. W. (Leeds)	Butcher, John George	Curzon, Viscount (Bucks)
Barry, F. T. (Windsor)	Carson, Rt. Hon. Edward	Dalbiac, Col. Philip Hugh.
Barton, Dunbar Plunket	Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)	Dalrymple, Sir Charles
Bathurst, Hon. A. Benjamin	Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.)	Digby, John K. D. W.
Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Brist'l)	Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r)	Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph
Begg, Ferdinand Faithfull	Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry	Doogan, P. C.
Bemrose, Sir Henry Howe	Charrington, Spencer	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-
Bethell, Commander	Clare, Octavius Leigh	Drucker, A.
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.	Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.	Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Hart
Bigwood, James	Coghill, Douglas Harry	Fardell, Sir T. George
Fellowes, Hon. A. Edward	Knowles, Lees	Rankin, James
Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r)	Knox, Edmund F. Vesey	Renshaw, Charles Bine
Finlay, Sir R. Bannatyne	Lawrence, Sir E. (Cornwall)	Rentoul, James Alexander
Fisher, William Hayes	Lawson, John G. (Yorks.)	Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir M. W.
Flannery, Fortescue	Lecky, Rt. Hon. W. E. H.	Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. T.
Flower, Ernest	Lees, Sir E. (Birkenhead)	Royds, Clement Molyneux
Folkestone, Viscount	Leighton, Stanley	Russell, Gen. F. S. (Cheltenham)
Forster, Henry William	Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.	Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)
Foster, Col. (Lancaster)	Loder, Gerald W. Erskine	Samuel, H. S. (Limehouse)
Foster, H. S. (Suffolk)	Long, Col. C. W. (Evesham)	Savory, Sir Joseph
Galloway, William Johnson	Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Liverp'l)	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Garfit, William	Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller	Sharpe, William Edward T.
Gibbs, Hon. V. (St. Albans)	Lorne, Marquess of	Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbysh.)
Godson, Augustus Frederick	Lowe, Francis William	Simeon, Sir Barrington
Goldsworthy, Major-General	Lowles, John	Skewes-Cox, Thomas
Gordon, Hon. John Edward	Loyd, Archie Kirkman	Smith, A. H. (Christchurch)
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.	Macaleese, Daniel	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Goschen, Rt. Hn. G. J. (St. G'rg's)	Macartney, W. G. Ellison	Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)
Goschen, George J. (Sussex)	Maclure, Sir John William	Stanley, H. M. (Lambeth)
Goulding, Edward Alfred	M'Arthur, C. (Liverpool)	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir J. M.
Gray, Ernest (West Ham)	M'Killop, James	Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Greville, Captain	Martin, Richard Biddulph	Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier
Gunter, Colonel	Maxwell, Rt. Hon. Sir H. E.	Sullivan, D. (Westmeath)
Halsey, Thomas Frederick	Molloy, Bernard Charles	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord G.	Monckton, Edward Philip	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Uny)
Hanson, Sir Reginald	Monk, Charles James	Thornton, Percy M.
Hare, Thomas Leigh	Moon, Edward Robert Pacy	Tritton, Charles Ernest
Heath, James	More, Robert Jasper	Verney, Hon. Richard G.
Hermon-Hodge, R. Trotter	Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)	Wanklyn, James Leslie
Hickman, Sir Alfred	Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute)	Warkworth, Lord
Hill, Rt. Hon. Lord A. (Down)	Murray, C. J. (Coventry)	Webster, Sir R. E. (I. of W.)
Hill, Sir E. S. (Bristol)	Newdigate, Francis Alex.	Welby, Lieut.-Col. A. C. E.
Hoare, E. B. (Hampstead)	Nicol, Donald Ninian	Whiteley, George (Stockport)
Houston, R. P.	Northcote, Hon. Sir H. S.	Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Hubbard, Hon. Evelyn	O'Neill, Hon. Robert T.	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset)
Hutton, J. (Yorks, N. R.)	Parkes, Ebenezer	Williams, Joseph P. (Birm.)
Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. L.	Penrose-FitzGerald, Sir R.	Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)
Jameson, Major J. Eustace	Phillpotts, Capt. Arthur	Wyndham, George
Jebb, Richard Claverhouse	Pierpoint, Robert	Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Johnstone, J. H. (Sussex)	Platt-Higgins, Frederick	Young, Commdr. (Berks, E.)
Jolliffe, Hon. H. George	Plunkett, Rt. Hon. H. C.	Younger, William
Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir J. H.	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—
Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William	Priestley, Sir W. O. (Edin.)	Sir William Walrond and
Kimber, Henry	Purvis, Robert	Mr. Anstruther.

Question put, and agreed to.