§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, in view of his suggestion* that the school boards should arrange with the local municipal authorities for the continuance of their evening school work, rate expenditures upon which have now been declared illegal, whether his attention has been called to the fact that, of the two funds at the disposal of these local authorities, the first, the whisky money, is practically all absorbed for purposes of technical instruction, and the second, the penny rate leviable under the Technical Instruction Acts, is also wholly or partially absorbed in a number of cases for the same purpose; and, seeing that under the Technical Instruction Acts the municipal councils are debarred from aiding the instruction of pupils, adult and otherwise, in the obligatory and standard subjects of the Whitehall Code out of the rate fund at their disposal, whether he can suggest any other course for relieving school boards of their present disability.
§ SIR J. GORSTThe question and answer referred to by the hon. Member related to the City of Leeds, which, like the County Council of London, has as yet expended no part of the rate under the Technical Instruction Acts. The question and answer referred to related to instruction for commercial and industrial pursuits, and not to reading, writing,
* See page 909.1071 and arithmetic, though I must not be understood to accept the construction which the hon. Member puts upon the Technical Instruction Acts.
§ DR. MACNAMARAMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is of opinion that money raised under the Technical Instruction Acts can be used in the maintenance of the instruction in the obligatory and standard subjects of the Whitehall Code?
§ SIR J. GORSTNo; it is no part of my duty or that of the Board of Education to interpret Acts of Parliament.