§ SIR. CHARLES CAMERONI beg to ask the Lord Advocate, whether he is aware that some thousand children of school age in the district of Kilmalcolm, having been formally refused admission to the public school, have for some week been receiving no education; that this state of matters has arisen from the closing, in consequence of the levying of local rates on the orphan homes of Scotland, of the school in connection with these house in which, without any charge on the rates, the children in question have until recently been educated; and that Mr. Quarrier is willing to resume his work of education if freed from the burden of rates; and, if so, whether he will bring the present deadlock to an end by undertaking to legislate for the exemption of purely charitable institutions from local rates; or, if not, whether he will take steps to compel the school board to provide education for the children in respect of the buildings occupied by whom they exact rates.
§ MR. A. MURRAYThe Department is now in correspondence with the school board on the subject referred to in the question of the honourable Member, and in these circumstances it is undesirable that I should make any statement regarding, it. The matter will receive the careful attention of the Department, but the Government cannot undertake to deal with it by special legislation.