EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.

HC Deb 03 December 1902 vol 115 cc1142-88

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [2nd December], "That the Bill be now read the third time."

Which Amendment was—

"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months.'"—(Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.)

Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

(9.0.) MR. ATHERLEY-JONES

I have no doubt, Sir, very many hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House desire to take part in this debate, and therefore I shall endeavour to bring my remarks to a speedy conclusion. I was observing when the sitting was suspended that the tendency of parties elected for general purposes is in the direction of parsimony, and what precedents there are point to the direction that the County Council as a body is likely to restrain expenditure in regard to secondary education. I remember one or two such cases in the Report of the evidence given before the Royal Commission of Secondary Education. A very able gentleman holding a high official position, in connection with education in Scotland, stated that prior to the Act of 1872—which established in Scotland the School Board system—the municipalities starved the burgh schools, which are of a similar character to those known in this country as schools for higher education, but that as soon as the 1872 Act came into operation in Scotland they at once saw a great revival in secondary education, due entirely to the encouragement given by the School Boards in contradistinction to that hitherto given by Municipal Councils as regarded such education. Again, take the case of Manchester. From 1890 to 1895 not a single penny was granted out of the rates of Manchester for the encouragement or promotion of technical or secondary education, but I do not forget how in recent years, acting under the great impetus given by popular opinion to secondary education, Manchester has shown her appreciation of the necessity of coming into line with public opinion in regard to it. With regard to the special grant known as the whisky grant, which was made for secondary or technical education, there are numerous instances in which the municipalities chose to apply it to purposes outside such education. At Yarmouth, I believe, a large portion of the grant was voted for the construction of a cricket and football ground. All this goes to show that municipal authorities elected for general purposes are not likely to be generous, but rather parsimonious, with regard to secondary education.

We have been challenged to propound an alternative scheme. I do not see that it is obligatory on the Opposition to do that, but your own educational experts in their evidence before the Royal Commission did propound an alternative scheme. What we say is, leave the School Boards in populous districts alone, in sparsely-populated place consolidate the School Boards, and let secondary education be under a separate authority. I believe that such a system as that would have solved the problem with which we have to deal. It would be easy enough to make a union between that separate authority and those who represent elementary education. One word only on the religious aspect of the question. I am a Churchman myself, and am not therefore actuated by anything like a feeling of bitterness towards the Church of England. I quite agree with what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University in this extremely moderate speech—that it is not likely that a majority of the clergymen in the 8,000 parishes where there is only one school will be intolerant in their action. But we have to look at the cases where there is an appreciable minority of Nonconformists. What is contended from this side is that we have no right to have two educational systems, one that is practically secular and the other which is denominational. We want one general system of education throughout the schools of the country. If you give us a secular system of education, if you give us control by our local authority, or by imperial authority, over the education of this country, we are quite willing to allow ministers of all denominations to go into the schools and teach the tenets of their particular Churches or religious bodies. I believe that is a solution of the difficulty which the Liberal Party would accept. It is undoubtedly an absurdity that on the strength of possession of the freehold of the schools, denominationalists are to dictate the particular form of religious instruction, while the State is to find the equipment and maintain the schools. We say that these schools are really national schools, and we decline to admit your right to make them spheres of influence for one particular sect in this country. I cannot help deploring that the Government has not recognised this fact. The Bill does, in a considerable measure, admit the principle of popular control, and we believe that, illusory as it is at present, it will be in our power in good time to make those changes which will transform the schools into secular schools, not with the idea of banishing religion, but with the intention of once for all putting an end to that unjust domination of a sect, whether of a majority or minority, over the schools of the country, a domination which undoubtedly hurts the conscience of the great Nonconformist body with which the Liberal Party is historically associated.

*MR. JAMES HOPE () Sheffield, Brightside

I remember when the controversy about education was raging some four of five years ago, the Prime Minister on more than one occasion declared that if the whole question came up for final settlement, it would be settled on lines which would be wholly agreeable to none of the great parties to the controversy. I think that in this matter the Prime Minister was a true prophet. To offer any criticism on the Bill as it is about to emerge from this House seems a very ungrateful task, when one thinks what the principal author of this Measure has gone through on its account. No one who has not closely followed these debates can realise what this Bill must have meant to the Prime Minister during the earlier part of the session, when opinion had not crystallised on this matter as it now has; the right hon. Gentleman day after day and week after week was exposed to a variety of ingenious attacks from both before and behind. But he fought consistently for the true principles of education and of religious liberty, and I for one am neither unappreciative nor ungrateful. But I must say that the Bil as it emerges is not, and cannot wholly acceptable to many of those who in the past have been most interested in the maintenance and welfare of denominational schools. I firmly believe that this is a good Bill for local government. It sets before those responsible for local government new and greater duties and a new and higher ideal. It is, I believe, a good Bill for the teachers. It gives them a new and better status, and in many cases it will prove of great material as well as civic advantage to them. It is, I believe, a good Bill for the children, because the children in the future will under it get a far better education than they have ever had before. It is a good Bill for education as a whole, because it does really unite all branches of education in one harmonious and equitable system. But it is not altogether a good Bill for the present individual managers of schools.

I am afraid that in this connection I must say a few words upon what is known as the Kenyon-Slaney Clause, and in so doing I should like to guard myself in two respects. In the first instance I have no desire whatever to interfere in any way in any internal differences in the Church of England, and if my hon. friend the Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool should succeed another session in inducing the Prime Minister to bring in a Clergy Discipline Bill I shall take the opportunity for a prolonged indulgence in rural diversions. In the second place I do not wish to argue this question, as it has been largely argued, as a matter between the clergy had laity, which obviously is a matter which must vary enormously as regards different denominations, but I want to express my objection to the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment on the solely broad ground that it is a wrongful thing that members of any one denomination should be given a statutory right to interfere with the religious teaching of another. Let me illustrate what I wish to say. In the first place, let me take my own case. Where I live is a small parish, in which I think I may say, without arrogance, I am the principal resident. There is an Anglican school, conducted on Evangelical, or, at any rate, moderate principles, and I pay a voluntary rate for that school without any conscientious objection. Now in that case, if under this Bill six managers have to be found, I think it extremely likely that I may be appointed as one of the two public managers; in fact, I do not see how they can be able to make up the six without asking me. If that is so, I shall certainly do my best with regard to that school in the matter of secular instruction. But supposing some case of religious difficulty should arise, I think it would be absolutely intolerable from the point of view of those who have founded this school that I should have any say in regard to it. Personally, I should be only too glad to run away. But possibly my colleague, the other elected manager, might not take the same view, and in any case it would be open to either of us to do great mischief to the future of the school, and from the point of view of the foundation managers, the latter would have every right to ask us both to stand aside and have nothing to do with matters with which we are in no sense concerned. Take again the case of a Jewish school in the East End of London. It is a matter of common knowledge that the religious views of those members of the Hebrew faith who come from the East of Europe to this country in such large numbers, differ materially on various points from those who have long been domiciled here, and such matters of difference might easily affect the curriculum of a Jewish school. If that were so, and if this Bill were extended to London, is it tolerable that two Christian ratepayers should serve on the management and have a voice in determining that dispute? I have always looked on this Bill as a logical and equitable measure, because it clearly followed the principle of rendering upto Caesar those things which are Caesar's, but in this particular instance it seems to me that a raid has been made by the public authority on a domain which is not its own, and I trust that even at the eleventh hour the Prime Minister will not mar the organic unity of a great creation by assenting to a principle that is as illogical in theory as it is irritating in practice.

I now come to another matter, perhaps of less theoretical interest, viz., the burden thrown on the managers of voluntary schools. Several hon. Members have sought to minimise that burden, and he referred to the relief afforded by allowances for endowments fees, and rents of teachers' houses. In each of these matters I think the Government provision to be just. In regard to endowments, it is only right that the wishes of deceased benefactors should be respected, and that the provision they have made for the support of religious schools should accrue to those on whom the burden of religious teaching is to fall in the future. As regards the question of fees, these have been in the past practically a voluntary contribution to the schools, and it is only that the cost of the purposes for which they have been used hitherto should be defrayed out of them in the future. As to teachers' houses, they necessarily form part of the teachers' salaries, which the local authorities are to pay in the future. Passing from these considerations, however, I would ask the attention of the House to the schools which have neither endowments nor teachers' salaries, nor have charged fees. In a great number of these cases the future state of the schools will be worse then it is at present. If it is argued that this Bill affords relief to existing managers, I think, on examination, it will be found that in many cases the objects which were paid for openly and freely from the aid grant in the past, such as providing heating apparatus and asphalting playgrounds, will come on the managers in the future, and will constitute a burden on the denomination which in the past they did not feel. But in the case of a great number of these schools, the pressure which was brought to breaking point in 1897, will be continued at the present time, and no relief will be found by the managers, and no benefit will accrue to the denomination. That, I think, is a most serious disadvantage, and, at any rate, it is a most conclusive argument against what has so often been alleged, that this Bill is an endowment for the use of a particular denomination. I think I may answer for one religious body, which has never surrendered any school to rate competition in the past, and will not surrender any school under the operations of this Bill. But with regard to many other classes of schools, I should wish to believe that those who support them will be equal to the strain, but I confess I am not altogether sanguine. Many managers of these schools will, in the future, have to pay rates where before they did not pay them. They will have to maintain the buildings in repair; and their personal authority and personal pride will receive a damaging blow. I hope, however, that they will not be influenced by such considerations; but I am not sanguine of the result. I have seen it stated that many managers of Church of England schools are prepared to close these schools owing to the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment. I would put such managers on the same plane as those who would refuse to pay rates for the purposes of national education. I think for those managers to close their schools, not because they are hurt, but because they may be hurt, would be an unworthy policy; and I confess, if such a policy were adopted by the managers of Church of England Schools, I should be ashamed at the action of my friends.

It has been stated by Members on the other side of the House that there is no general desire in this country for dogmatic teaching. Some hon. Members have gone further, and have said that we ought not to impose dogmatic teaching on young children. I well remember that at the age of 11 years I was taught certain dogmas of a portentous character which have left an indelible mark on my mind ever since. The first of them was that a point is that which has no parts and no magnitude. Another was the whole is greater than its part; and a third was that two straight lines cannot enclose a space. I remember these, and kindred propositions of a like alarming nature; and I was subjected to a series of most tormenting mental exercises—I think they were as many as twenty—before I was allowed to reach the point of proving to demonstration that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third. That fact could have been proved to any child by a practical empirical demonstration; and it might be thought that it would have been better to take a child out into the open air, and to show him that the shortest way from one point to another was in a straight line, without wearying his juvenile brain with a number of mental exercises. I venture to say that if education is to be simplified dogmas of another kind than religious dogmas will have to be wiped off the slate of national education. I will not deny that, at any rate to those who still rejoice in the path of youth, there is something attractive and stimulating in the atmosphere of strife and conflict which attended the debates on the Bill. The countenances of hon. Members opposite were illuminated, and I might almost say etherealised, by the joy of battle. I am not unwilling to take part in a fight when fighting is necessary; but it is pitiable that on this question of education we should have to fight at all. I was greatly struck with the remarks of the hon. Member for Oldham yesterday. I was heartily in agreement with him in many of his propositions; and more especially in what he said as to the profanation of the Sunday by so many of the upper classes; though I confess I draw an inference from that different to the inference drawn by the hon. Member. But I desire most heartily to say that it is a matter of real grief to me that the earnestness and devotion and real religious zeal to be found among many of the opponents of this measure should not be joined to the equally deep religious convictions which we feel on these subjects. There is not too much earnestness in the world at present that we can afford to lose any of it. The danger is not too much zeal but the general atmosphere of indifference around us; and from the bottom of my heart, I wish we could enlist in the same cause of civic growth and religious freedom all that earnestness and sincerity which I fully recognise in many who, on this question, are our strongest opponents. We can only arrive at an eirenicon by a frank recognition of our differences. I welcome especially the remark of the Secretary to the Board of Education yesterday that when these differences are better understood a true working agreement will be more nearly arrived at. In conclusion, I would express my conviction that in this matter peace is only to be had by a recongnition on the part of all parties that they must respect the right of every man to interpret for his own children, and in his own way, what I believe is still a national conviction, that the path of civic duty starts only from the fear of God.

(9.38.) MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

The peroration of the hon. Member sets forth exactly what this Bill is not. That shows the danger of preparing a peroration beforehand. As I understand it, what this Bill does is not to allow a parent to say what religious education his child may have. I am not going to follow the hon. Member into reminiscences of his youthful days: I do not quite see how that would be relevant. As I understood the hon. Member, his argument is that the teaching of dogma is as useful as the teaching of Euclid—

MR. JAMES HOPE

What I said was that in Euclid dogmatic principles were involved quite as much as in religious instruction.

*MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

Then I understand that according to the hon. Member religion and Euclid are on the same dogmatic plane. I will do the hon. Member the justice of assuming that his remarks were relevant to the discussion. He said he learned Euclid at 11 years of age, but he now thinks that his youthful learning was a complete failure, and I am bound to say I am inclined to agree with him, because, so far as I am concerned, he has given me no information to enable me to arrive at a contrary conclusion. For obvious reason I have been a constant listener to this debate during the last two days, and I notice that a great variety of subjects have been touched upon. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University made what I think is technically called by the Attorney General an "amazing" speech. The right hon. Gentleman said that he wished to distinguish fact from fiction; and although he had that laudable object in view, there was hardly ever a speech which confused fact and fiction more successfully than his. He made a quotation from Dr. Clifford. I am not entitled to speak for Dr. Clifford, but I think the right hon. Gentleman, speaking with his authority, ought to have verified that quotation. For my part, I have not the slightest doubt that there is a serious mistake in the version the right hon. Gentleman gave. I think the right hon. Gentleman was confusing fact and fiction to such an extent that he was not entitled to open his speech with the statement that he wished to distinguish between them. This Bill has had a very serious effect on two Leaders in this House. The Irish Leader—we all know what has happened to him. He went home not to return again; but so bitter is this religious controversy, and so powerful is the priesthood in Ireland, that after a letter or two from the bishops, we have the pitiable spectacle of the hon. Member abdicating his position as Leader of an independent Party in Ireland. In Ireland the Leader poses but the priest deposes, and we have the spectacle of the Roman Catholic party in Ireland being now represented by my hon. friend the Member for South Leitrim, who has been constant and faithful amid all the tribulations of the Party to which he belongs. I congratulate him. I do not think the Irish Party have yet elected a Leader—there is plenty of time for the hon. Member. I have no doubt, however, that this Bill will not only serve to unite the Liberal Party, but, curiously enough, to dissever the Irish Party in this House. The real point I wish to submit is this. It seems to me we must accept the principle which was carried on the Second Reading of this Bill, that the denominational system is to be part of the educational system of this country. I am not going to quarrel with that now. Some time ago, in the debates in Committee. I used the word "bargain," and the First Lord of the Treasury strenuously resisted it. I am sure the First Lord of the Treasury will be the first to recognise episcopal authority, and I think I can give him some quotations which will show him that, in the negotiations or dealings in connection with the Bill, the bishops understood that there was a bargain between themselves and the Government. I do not say there was.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

There was not.

*MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

That just shows how bishops can be misled. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, I congratulate him on having been able to mislead the whole Episcopal Bench, from the Archbishop of Canterbury downwards, or upwards. The bishops were all under the impression that there was a bargain, and how astounded and amazed they will now be to learn that, after all, there was nothing like a bargain, and that the right hon. Gentleman, having listened to their views, went his own way unheeding their protests. The Bishop of London. who has taken a very prominent part in this controversy, speaking as lately as November 4th, said that "they offered the State property worth £750,000 a year, while the cost of their own special denominational teaching was only £175,000 a year," and he added, "That is the weak part of the bargain." There was no bargain, of course. There was only a supposed bargain. It was an episcopal delusion. The noble Lord the Member for Greenwich would not, of course, be a party to anything so sordid and commercial as a bargain. It would not appeal to his ecelesiastical mind; but the noble Lord said that it was proper for the State to give a guid pro quo in exchange for the school buildings. The school buildings were the quo, and we know where the "quids" are to come from. The Archbishop himself—I really thought there was some sort of divinity that hedged an archbishop against mistakes of this kind—said he thought that the Bill drove rather a hard bargain with the Church in some respects. I feel sorry for the Archbishop, but I am bound to accept the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury implicitly that there was no bargain. I think the Church was well within its right in thinking that it ought to be consulted before a Bill of this kind was introduced. It is very interesting to look at coincidences, although they may not prove anything. Convocation met some time before the Bill was introduced, and said that they were willing to meet the Government by allowing one third of the managers to be outside the Church. By a marvellous coincidence, in this Bill one third of the managers are outside the Church; but there was no bargaining, of course—no cause and effect. It was simply the view of Convocation and of the right hon. Gentleman, and they agreed upon it; but there was no bargain. Quite frankly, I look upon the position of the First Lord of the Treasury as holding the balance fairly and evenly between the Church and the State in this transaction. He is the arbitrator between the State on the one side and the denominations on the other, who was to settle the terms of partnership between them in carrying on the work of education. The principle which ought to have guided the right hon. Gentleman was to regulate public and private control in the proportion of public and private expenditure. I think that is a fair way of putting the case to the House. The Church gives something, and the State gives something; and it was for the Prime Minister in this supposed bargain to see that the interests of the State were not sacrificed to the interests of the sects or the interests of the priests. The matter we have to determine is a very simple one. We have to ask what does the Church contribute towards the elementary education of this country. It gives the school buildings rent free. There is considerable dispute as to the value of these buildings. In the report of the National Society it is stated that the sum spent on these buildings was fourteen millions odd sterling, say fifteen millions. The right hon. Gentleman in one of his speeches put the value at twentysix millions. I will divide the difference, and put the figure at twenty millions.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman says that the National Society put their buildings at fifteen millions; but when talked of twenty-six millions—I confess I have not closely investigated the matter myself—I was referring to ali the elementary schools in the country.

*MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

I am dealing only with Church of England schools, and I think I am putting it fairly when I say that their capital value is not more than twenty millions, or, at 3 per cent., £600,000 a year. Therefore, the contribution of the Church of England to education per annum amounts to that figure. That is not all. There are the repairs. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University made a most amazing statement on this subject. He said, on the authority of the Bishop of London, that the cost of repairs would amount to 5s. Per head per annum for the 3,000,000 children for whom the Church schools had accommodation. Surely there must be some mistake about that. It is perfectly ridiculous. The Bishop of London said that they offered to the State property worth £750,000, and that the cost of their denominational teaching was £175,000 a year. I think the Bishop meant that the repairs would come to £175,000 a year.

MR. ERNEST GRAY () West Ham, N.

That £175,000 is arrived at by taking the proportion of the time in a week devoted to religious teaching of a purely denominational character.

*MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

That is a very dangerous principle for the Bishop to go on. We will see how far the schools are occupied for religious and how far for educational purposes. Anyway, the figure is somewhere between £150,000 and £175,000. It is now common ground that in the course of the progress of this Bill the clergy have had concessions made to them to enable them to meet this claim upon them. They have had the rents of the teachers' houses, amounting to £70,000 or £80,000 a year; half the endowments, £60,000, and half the fees, £60,000, making in all £200,000 a year, which is at any rate sufficient to meet the cost of repairs. Therefore we again come back to this, that the Church contribution for education is £600,000 a year. There is only one other subject to be considered: What is the State contribution? Last year there was spent in the voluntary schools of the Church of England £4,399,000. If you level up these voluntary schools to the level of the board schools, which I understand is the real object of the Bill—and a very good object it is—that would mean the difference between £3 Os. 2d., the cost per child in board schools, and £2 6s. 8d., the corresponding cost in voluntary schools, or a matter of 13s. 6d. per child. Multiply that 13s. 6d. by the 2,000,000 children educated in Church of England schools, and you have £1,350,000, making in all nearly £6,000,000. Therefore, the Church, on the one hand, gives £600,000, while the State, on the other, gives £6,000,000—that is, they give towards education in the proportion of ten to one. I submit this as a really serious argument against the Bill. How in the world the proportion of two-thirds of the management has been arrived at I do not know, unless it is that it gives a convenient majority by which the Church may have the practical control of the schools.

We have been told that "the Church stepped in," and the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Honiton Division, yesterday compared the state of education in this country with the position of Egypt before the intervention of England. We are not rewarding the Church for the past; we have to look at her present contribution. But what more does she get? She gets relief from subscriptions, and nearly £3,380,000 a year in salaries for positions held in the main by Churchmen and Churchwomen. Is not that a splendid contribution to the Church? Only Churchmen need apply for these posts. The Church gives £600,000 on the one hand, and gets posts worth over £3,000,000 a year for her own adherents. Can anybody be surprised that we say, and say truly, that this Bill is practically an endowment of wealth, influence, and patronage for the Church of England? Can there be any question at all as to this clerical control in the schools? The clergyman, under the schedule, is ex officio chairman of the board of managers; he has a vote not only as a member, but also as chairman. Is not this clerical control? On 24th March the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education said— I desire to insist strenuously that by religious teaching I do not mean clerical control. If you do not mean clerical control, why do you make clerical control a part of the Bill? I do not think the Prime Minister was much intimidated by the Albert Hall meeting; at any rate, he did not change the Bill; but I do think it had a little influence on the mind of the Attorney General. I am not going to say a word against the hon. and learned Member; he has often splendidly vindicated the profession of which I myself am a humble member. Perhaps I ought not to say that that meeting had any influence on his mind, but I think it had a little influence on his industry. As a result of the Albert Hall meeting he applied himself with industry and energy to the consideration of this Kenyon-Slaney Clause to see what it really did mean, and, merely as a coincidence, he discovered there was a great deal more in it than he had ever suspected. Another coincidence was that it happened to accord in the main with the views of the Albert Hall meeting. I do not put it any higher than that. I say that clerical control is of the very essence of this Bill. Although not so intended, there can be no doubt that the Bill does in fact mean clerical control. We are told that in another place steps will be taken to make the Kenyon-Slaney Clause mean what the Attorney General says it does mean. That will be a very important Amendment, for it will certainly require a number of words to make it mean all that the Attorney-General means. The other night the hon. Baronet representing the Irish Party appealed to the House of Lords for all it was worth against this Clause. I think the Irish Party have come to a pretty pass when they have to appeal to the House of Lords.

There is one other point I wish to submit to the Prime Minister. I may be very sanguine, but I believe it to be a new point. As I understand it, the basis of the claim of the Church of England to special and separate treatment is that she gives the schools rentfree. But the Church is not the only donor of school buildings. Clause 19, sub-Section (2), provides for School Board areas where there are already School Boards, and it says that the county authority may impose upon the School Board area a proportion between one-half and three-fourths of the capital cost. Therefore the School Board area gives you one-half or three-fourths of a school, just as the Church gives you a whole school in another place. Halfway between one-half and three-fourths is five-eighths, so that the Government say to the School Board areas. "In future you must give five-eighths of a school to the local authority free of charge." The Church for its whole school gets two-thirds of the management, but the School Board area for its five-eighths gets nothing. What does the five-eighths mean? Every year the repayment of principal in these areas comes to £835,519; interest on capital, £1,045,568, making a total of £1,881,087. Five-eighths of that is £1,200,000, so that really the School Board areas will contribute to education £1,200,000 a year, while the Church gives £600,000. To put it in another way, the outstanding capital due in respect of school buildings is £32,000,000. Five-eighths of that is £20,000,000. Is not this really an almost irresistible argument? Here the Church, with its £600,000, gets four-sixths of the management, while the School Boards areas, giving twice the amount as donors of schools, get nothing, and even on the public authority they get only one-third. Why do you not give them, as donors of schools, something in proportion to that given to the Church?

The Bishop of London the other day said the undenominational system of teaching was a "rotten system." Those are strong words for a Bishop to use; there is not that refinement or that ecclesiastical flavour about them which refined and sensitive people would expect from a Bishop, even when dealing with education. But if it is such a rotten system it is very peculiar that clergymen should have been so anxious to get on the School Boards; I should have thought they would be contaminated by contact with such an unsavoury system. My complaint against the Government is that in rebuilding the educational system of the country they have abolished the better part, and taken the worse as a foundation on which to build. Reference has been made to the way in which the Bill will be met in the country. I think hon. Members opposite are mistaken if they think the matter will be over tonight, or even after the House of Lords have passed the Bill. There are men with conscientious objections. People may laugh about conscientious objections, but the Government have provided for them in regard to vaccination, and surely they could have provided for them in this Bill. I have great sympathy with the people who take a strong view upon this matters, and, as I have said outside the House, there are two stages of resistance to the Measure. Now, we furnish you with arguments; later, the people will argue you with furniture. The point we are discussing whether it is fair and just treatment, and my complaint against the Prime Minister is that he has not held the balance evenly between the Church and the State, that he has given too many favours and advantages to the Church, and too few to the State and to the people, as regards whom he stands in the position of trustee. For my part, I had the pleasure of voting against the first and second readings of the Bill, and tonight I hope for the third time to record my vote in the same Lobby.

*(10.15.) MR. WYLIE (Dumbartonshire)

I desire to say a few words in support of the Third Reading of this Bill, and I think I shall be the more readily excused when it is remembered that no other Scottish Member has spoken on this side of the House. Several have taken part in the debate from the other side, including two or three on the front Bench, but I think that my remarks will represent a larger section of Scottish opinion than those which have come from the other side. Many of us have not gone into the minute and insignificant points raised in the debates, but we really understand its main scope and principles, and to those I shall confine my remarks.

In the first place, the Government are entitled to credit from the Opposition for having entered on this education question with the greatest honesty of purpose and in a non-party spirit. The Bill for the education of children in Scotland, introduced by the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen, would never have become law but for the support of the Government and Members on this side, and exactly the same may be said of the corresponding Bill for England, the good genius in the latter case being the late Vice-President of the Council. The Government has taken up the present matter in the same spirit, and the result is the admirable Measure now before the House. In addition to the intrinsic merits of Measure, we must take into consideration the fact that the Anglican Church comprises about 70 per cent. of the population. ("No, No!") I think I am quite within the mark in making that statement, and that the Bill would be supported by about three-fourths of the people. I know objections have been raised to such statistics in view of the results of recent elections, but those elections are the natural swing of the pendulum, and the pendulum will swing back again.

The constituencies, more especially in Scotland and Ireland, should take into account this preponderating majority in favour of the Education Bill. I believe that if this Measure were to be submitted to the people as a distinct issue it would be supported by at least three-fourths of the people of this country. The Bill has not only the support of the great bulk of the population, but I believe it will facilitate the progress of education in this country. We must take into account the progress made by the children of England in the past in elementary education, which during the last thirty years has been relatively greater than in any other country in Europe. All honour to the educationists who have contributed to this result. In the year 1870 the children of England were very much inferior to the children of Scotland, but now they have been brought up very nearly to the same level. A great deal of the progress which has been made in the past is due to denominational schools in which the majority of the children have been educated. I believe this Bill will greatly accelerate this progress and will very much improve primary education, and in lesser degree higher education. It will increase the resources of voluntary schools and will add to the amount of popular control over them. And last, but not least, it will encourage a systematic religious instruction in those schools. The great majority of the people of England have wisely determined that systematic religious instruction shall form a part of elementary education.

The majority of the people in favour of systematic religious instruction includes not only almost the whole of the Churchmen, but also a very large proportion of Nonconformists. These Nonconformists hold the views which were so well expressed for them by the great Nonconformist divine, Dr. Parker, the late able and eloquent pastor of the City Temple Church, who said that "all religious instruction must be sectarian, not in the narrow sense of bigotry, but in the philosophic sense of definition. This view is held by a very large proportion of the Nonconformist people. During the last thirty years there has been the most determined effort on the part of Churchmen and a large number of Nonconformists to maintain systematic religious instruction in the schools. These efforts have been carried on at a great sacrifice. In the very poor diocese presided over by the Bishop of Rochester over £500 per week is being contributed for this purpose. Since the year 1860 the English Church has contributed £50,000,000 sterling, of which £20,000,000 has been invested in the schools the use of which is now being granted to the nation free of cost. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen asked what evidence is there that the people of England want denominational instruction? What better evidence can you have of this than the liberal payment and the great sacrifices which Churchmen have made for the support of these denominational schools?

This contest has hitherto been waged under very unequal conditions—the denominationalists in many cases having had to pay rates besides supporting their own Schools. Fortunately the majority of the people of England have, by their liberality and determined effort, preserved systematic religious teaching in the schools, and it is well for England that they have done this. Had it been otherwise I believe the moral condition of England, upon which our prosperity in the future must depend, would have been on a much lower level. These efforts are now about to be crowned with permanent and welldeserved success by this Bill which will also confer enormous advantages upon primary education, and to a lesser extent on higher education. In conclusion, let me express the earnest hope that all Nonconformists, many of whom have so stoutly and ably opposed this Bill, and a few of whom outside this House have expressed their intention of doing everything they can to render it inoperative, will consider that the future education of the children England and a very great deal of the future prosperity of the whole of the people of England are bound up in the successful working of this Bill, and will set themselves resolutely to make it a success, as the Scottish people did thirty years ago. There are thousands and tens of thousands of Churchmen, broad-minded, open-handed, and self sacrificing, who have done splendid work for the Church in the past, and who are still willing to work for the Church in the future. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen said that the religious controversy now smouldering under this Bill would leap up into a flame, but I believe that, that, if entered upon in a common sense, not to speak of a Christian spirit, its success, even in its first two or three years, in advancing education will be so great that hon. Members opposite will wonder why they opposed it. I have very great pleasure in supporting the Third Reading of this Bill.

*(10.30.) MR. ASQUITE () Fife, E.

If I ask the indulgence of the House for a very few moments—and I promise to be extremely brief—it is not with the belief or in the hope that, as far as the general principles, as distinguished from the detailed provisions of the Bill, are concerned—and it is with general principles only we have to deal on an occasion like this—it will be possible at this stage of the debate to contribute a new idea, or even a new phrase, to the discussion. If that is to be done, it must be done elsewhere. Possibly, it may be done in another place, where we hear that tomorrow night the ardent spirits who have been waiting so long for this Bill will at last be confronted with what will seem to them, at any rate, to be the fresh and many-sided attractions of a virgin subject. We have spent so many months in almost daily companionship with it that, although our feelings, whether of love or aversion, are, I imagine, unchanged, we should be more than human if we could any longer use the vocabulary of passion; and I shall adopt that subdued and sober tone which is appropriate to a valedictory occasion. If we on this side of the House—and I believe I speak for the whole of the Liberal Party—could honestly think that the effect of passing this Bill into law would be to raise the standard of education, or to get rid of administrative friction and waste, I venture to say that we should not only be ready, but eager and anxious, to shut our eyes to many of its blots, and to swallow much in it that would otherwise be unpalatable.

But that is just what we cannot bring ourselves to believe. It appears to us that for every anomaly which this Bill removes it creates another, and that for the additional assistance—which I myself agree to be much needed—which it gives at the public cost to national education, it exacts from he public in the sacrifice both of principle and practical efficiency an unreasonable and unjustifiable price. I will confine myself to two or, at the outside, three points which appear to me to be of capital importance in order to make good and illustrate the proposition I have laid down. And first of all as regards the new authority, or rather the new family of authorities, which this Bill is going to call into existence. I adhere to the opinion which I expressed at the very earliest stage of our debates, that it is a blunder of the first magnitude to disestablish the great School Boards of this country. We are fully alive to the defects, and they are many, of out existing School Board system. The effect of the cumulative vote is to make the School Board in many places an imperfectly representative institution. Over considerable tracts of the country, from the smallness or from the sparseness of population of the parochial areas, and the consequent poverty of resources, both in men and in money, the School Board is an inefficient educational instrument.

The Cockerton judgment again, by lopping off the whole of the continuation work, and by making it unsafe to give instruction in elementary schools to children over fifteen years of age, has largely mutilated and paralysed some of their best activities. And, finally, with a view to the proper relationship of elementary and higher education, I do not believe there is anybody among the opponents of this Bill on this side who does not agree that it is urgently necessary that you should secure a real simplification and co-ordination—which, I beg the House to observe, is a totally different thing from an artificial unifincation—both of authorities and functions. All those defects might have been remedied, all those necessities, great and urgent as they are, might have been met, without this wholesale and indiscriminate massacre. By a better arrangement and distribution of areas, by leaving the great School Boards intact, by establishing not a mere modus vivendi, but what might easily have been brought into shape, a real concordat between the School Boards on the one side and the municipalities on the other, and above all by having regard to the infinite variety of local conditions as between different parts of the country and not endeavouring to stereotype a cast-iron and uniform system on nation—by following lines like these you would have found yourselves on the road to a national solution of the problem of education.

I can say for all of us that we have no enmity whatsoever to the educational ambitions, and we have no desire to narrow the educational province, of these great municipal councils. But by casting on them in name and ostensibly the whole burden of elementary education you are thrusting upon their shoulders functions, for which they have shown no desire whatsoever, and which your own scheme shows you distrust their competence to discharge.

Otherwise we should never have heard of this hybrid committee, which from the very necessities of the case—at any rate, in a large majority of instances—will be, as between itself and the County Council in all matters of elementary education, practically autonomous. What will be the result? I am looking at the matter, I beg the House to observe, entirely and exclusively from an educational point of view. In the first instance, you will have put an end to the existence of the best, the most fruitful, and the most beneficent educational agencies that at present exist in this country; and you will leave the members of those agencies, the old School Boards, men and women who have equipped themselves, in many cases by years of training and devoted and strenuous activity, and have thereby acquired special aptitude which you will find in no other class of local administrators, for educational work—you will leave them to the precarious chance of being nominated or co-opted on this hybrid committee, or appointed to the subordinate rank of managers.

What are you going to put in the place of the agency which you propose to destroy? Even at this the eleventh hour I must once more summarise the extraordinary arrangement which the Government propose in the name of unification and popular control. You will have in the first place nominally in front, where the School Board used to be, the County Council or the Town Council—a body which, as my hon. friend the member for Carnarvon showed in his brilliant speech—has its hands already full with its more appropriate work, and which, if it is to do its duty to its constituents in regard to its primary functions as a municipal authority, will only be able to give a very slight and perfunctory attention to the work of education. Everybody agrees that the County Councils and the Town Councils cannot do the work of the School Boards. Next you have got a committee, an imperfectly representative body, and a body upon which you have been careful to provide for the representation of the non-provided school—a committee which in a county of any considerable area, inhabited by a large population and with difficulties of communication between its different parts, will be absolutely unable to exercise effective superintendence and control over the fortunes and management of individual schools. Lastly, you have got, as regards the non-provided schools, a board of management which in no true sense of the term is representative at all, with the power of appointing and dismissing teachers, with no responsibility to the ratepayers of the parish or the county, in daily contact with the actual work of the school, and, according to all past experience, certain to become in time practically supreme. In other words, you put in place of the School Boards a system which has neither administrative unity, educational efficiency, not popular responsibility.

Now I pass to my next point, and I am still looking at the matter entirely from an educational point of view. If we are to have a really efficient system of elementary education in this country, there are two fundamental conditions. The first is that the administrative authority should be, as I have shown your authority is not going to be, at once competent, representative, and responsible, and in the next place those who do the actual work of instruction—the teaching profession—must be the best equipped and placed in a position to make the most of their abilities and career which it is possible for Parliament to secure. These two things—a good administrative body on the one hand, and, on the other, a teaching profession for which there is an open career—that is to say, a profession in which capacity and character can make their way and obtain their reward—these are the pivots on which will hinge the entire future education of the children. I have shown how you have done with one—the administrative body. Let us see how you are dealing with the teachers. I am not speaking of them as a trades union or a class, but of the grievances of the teaching profession looked at from the point of view of the public. In the first place, you have in the denominational schools teachers of inferior status, of inadequate numbers, and with insufficient pay, and, in the next place, you have what is a still more formidable obstacle to the efficiency of the profession—the practical exclusion from a vast number, indeed, I may say the majority, of the rural schools, if not from the profession, at any rate from all except its lowest ranks, of the whole of the Nonconformist children. How has the Government dealt with this matter? I agree that the Government have done a great deal to improve the status and remuneration of the denominational teachers. But just in proportion as they have placed teachers in these denominational schools upon the same level, in point of remuneration and professional prospects, with the teachers in what used to be called the board schools, just to that extent have they multiplied and intensified the grievances of the Nonconformist child who desires to become a teacher. It is no exaggeration to say that from the very time at which this Bill passes into law, the teaching profession becomes as much and as truly a branch of the Civil Service as any one of those branches for which we vote estimates every year. And when you have converted the teaching profession into a branch of the Civil Service, how are you going to defend, in view of the sense of justice, equity, and equality which has always characterised out policy and legislation with regard to our public service, the complete exclusion from the higher prizes of that profession in the denominational schools of a vast number of the most talented of those who belong to that profession? I say that is not only unjust to the teachers, not only in total violation of all out best traditions and practice, but looking at it from the point of view of the children, and the point of view of the efficient education to be given, you are deliberately impoverishing the resources of the country.

I pass now to the last stage of my argument. I have shown, I think the two great blots, from the educational point of view, of this proposed settlement. They are both due to the same thing—to the interests or the supposed interests of the denominational system. There are many ways—there are right ways and there are wrong ways—of dealing with the denominational system, but of all the ways you could possibly have selected, in my humble judgment this is the very worst. When I speak of the denominational system I am supposing you are going deliberately to retain the power of giving denominational instruction in State-aided schools. I am not going to discuss the abstract question of the best system of education. As my hon. friend pointed out earlier in the evening, there are two systems actually at work at this moment within the British Empire, both of which can be tested by results—namely, the Scotch system, under which it rests with the School Board to give or to withhold denominational instruction as it pleases, and the Colonial system under which facilities are given at the wish of the parents for denominational instruction. Both these systems have on the whole worked well, but neither could stand for a day without the principle of popular control. That is the principle to which you have deliberately given the go-by in this novel experiment, which I venture to predict with the utmost confidence is, in the long run, doomed to failure. I say, with as much certainty as one can hazard in a prediction of the future in a matter of this kind, to the Government and to hon. Gentlemen opposite who have supported this Bill that in my judgment this Bill will prove the severest blow which the denominational system in this country has ever received, because it associates with the maintenance of that system, in the minds of large numbers if not of the majority of the people of this country, the denial of the fundamental conditions of justice and equity.

We have already travelled a long way from the principles of the Act of 1870. It is quite true that what Mr. Forster contemplated was to allow to co-exist side by side the so-called voluntary schools, and the schools managed by School Boards; but what was the fundamental basis of that arrangement? Why! that which was to be the criteria, the differentia, of the voluntary schools was that they were to put down on the table an equivalent to the contributions given by the State. Step by step the equivalent contribution has been eaten away, and when this Bill is passed into law it will have completely disappeared in the limbo of the past. The present Archbishop of Canterbury has said many wise things on the subject of education, but never did he say a wiser or more statesman like thing than when, a few years ago, he warned his fellow Churchmen and the supporters of denominational schools in this country that if they wanted to keep the control of their schools they must pay for them, and that if once they ceased their efforts and sacrifices the management must be transferred to the hands of the public, who would be responsible for the cost and the manner in which the money is expended.

How do we stand under this Bill? We all know how it works out. Practically it comes to this—that the cost of the fabric and of repairs will be the only contribution made by the voluntary school managers, and we all know that the burden of repairs will be more than compensated for by the various pickings which, in the course of the Committee stage of this Bill, have been secured by the denominational managers. How will that strike the public? Because in the long run the stability of this system will depend on the way in which it conforms to the judgment of the people. They will see the slender remains of the old contributions, and they will see, on the other hand, the predominance in the management of those to whom it is to be entrusted. They will contrast the proportions and choice contribution and control, and this will give rise to a constantly growing sense of injustice. As my hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon has pointed out, it will introduce a new, a disturbing, and a most baneful factor into the whole of municipal life, and, what is worse, it will divert the stream of educational zeal into the shallow and muddy channels of ecclesiastical and sectarian controversy.

There is one other aspect of the future of the denominational system which I should like to commend to the earnest attention of hon. Gentlemen who are going to vote for this Bill. I refer to the Clause which now goes by the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Shropshire. Before I state what I think will be the clear effect of that Clause, may I point out that its history and the situation in which we are now placed constitutes one of the most curious performances in the legislative annals even of this House. We have been asked by the Government to pass this Bill tonight. We may never see it again, and I devoutly hope myself that we never shall see it again. At any rate, we are asked to part with it tonight, though it contains provisions as to the importance of which we are all agreed, but as to the meaning of which we are all at sixes and sevens. Is there a single man in this House from the Prime Minister downwards who has at this moment an assured conviction as to what is the meaning of this Clause or as to what interpretation will be put upon it if it reaches the gates of a court of law? Parliament has often by inadvertence put obscure and ambiguous provisions on the Statute-Book, but this is the first time that we have been invited by the Government of the day deliberately to pass into law an enactment which admittedly is not an intelligible guide to those who have to administer the law, but is a series of complicated conundrums for interpretation by the courts. The Attorney General told us tonight that the Government contemplates amending this Clause, and I am not surprised at this somewhat belated announcement. The process is to be carried out in another place. So long as this Bill is here we are responsible for it. The Prime Minister the other night made himself and the House merry on this subject at the expense of a humble, and, I hope, meritorious, although imperfectly appreciated, profession, which some of us are driven by the necessities of life to earn or attempt to earn out daily bread. The Attorney General, although I am afraid the Attorney General is in this matter a somewhat suspected witness, vindicated the disinterestedness of the profession of which he is the distinguished head in language which I am sure went to the heart of every lawyer in this House. But unfortunately in this matter I am afraid we must look to the language of the Prime Minister; and he disposed of the diversity of opinion that had been expressed in reference to the Kenyon-Slaney Clause with the easy observation that he had commonly found that political lawyers expressed the opinions which happened to correspond with those of the party to which they belonged. [An HON. MEMBER: "How very shocking."] It is very shocking; but political lawyers are, I think it is worth remembering, not the only class in this House whose expressed views have a tendency to coincide with party exigencies. I have observed of late years when an hon. Gentleman opposite sitting behind the Treasury Bench has indulged himself in the perilous luxury of uttering views not altogether in harmony with those for the moment in fashion on that Bench, no one has been more swift to mark the iniquity or to chastise the offender than the Prime Minister himself. For this purpose, if I may do so argumentatively—I should be sorry to do it in any other way—I will make the Prime Minister a present of all the lawyers on both sides of the House. Let us suppose—if the Prime Minister's imagination is equal to the task—let us suppose them swept out of Parliamentary existence. Let us suppose that you are repeating the experiment made by out ancestors in days gone by of summoning a House of Commons, a Parliamentum indoctum, from which are excluded all lawyers, and of which Lord Coke—like the Attorney General, not altogether an impartial witness—said that the whole of its legislation was no worth two pence. Yet even in that purged and idealised Parliament, which I am sure, would commend itself to the taste of the Prime Minister, the question would still arise. What is the meaning of the Kenyon-Slaney Clause? I am afraid that is a digression, but I will venture to say to the House this—and that is why I make an appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are supporters of this denominational system—whatever else the Kenyon-Slaney Clause may do or not do, it clearly does two things. In the first place, it affects in the most vital and trenchant manner the provisions of the trust deeds of every denominational school in this country. I agree that it is not the only Clause in the Bill that does so, but it is the most striking of them, and for my part I hold it—and I hope hon. Gentlemen understand the full intent of the vote they are going to give—as an assertion of the title of Parliament to treat those schools as State schools, and upon that footing to abrogate or remould any provisions of the trust in the interests of the public. That, at any rate, is one effect of the Kenyon-Slaney Clause. There is one other thing it does. It gets rid finally of the notion—even if it is going to be amended in the sense in which the Attorney General has interpreted it—that the parish priest is the supreme or only authorised religious teacher in the school of the parish, for if there is anything clear about the construction and the operation of that Clause it is this—that it is in the power of a lay board of managers to lock the clergyman out of the school, and to prevent him from giving any religious teaching in it at all. [Cries of "Oh."] It is one of the points on which lawyers disagree. I am only giving the construction of the Clause which the Attorney General himself gave.

What is the sum of the whole matter? This Bill, which is intended to keep alive the denominational system and to place it on a more sure foundation, may probably turn out to have the exactly opposite effect. You may say in that case, Why do you vote against it? My answer is a very simple one. I am not going to support a measure which I think educationally unsound and politically unjust, because the very evils which it brings about may become so intolerable to the nation that they will work their own cure. No, Sir; I oppose this Bill on a totally different ground. It is because this is a Bill which unsettles a great deal, while it settles nothing; a Bill which destroys much that is good as well as some things that are evil; a Bill which flies in the face of the principles of popular government; a Bill which is leavened throughout, as we believe, with the spirit of inequality and injustice—in the interests of education, which I agree is the first, the greatest, and the most capital of all the interests of the nation—in the interests of education, we claim that it is unworthy of the acceptance of the House of Commons.

(11.8.) MR. A. J. BALFOUR

It is with almost pathetic interest that I make my last speech upon a Bill on which I fear I have wearied this Houes—[Cries of "No, no"]—in Committee and for eight months of hard fighting in all its stages. The House itself has almost become weary of this endless discussion, and though the right hon. Gentleman has had the satisfaction of addressing a full and interested audience—even he, who I think has not listened to the whole of this debate on the Third Reading—even he must be aware that during the long hours of yesterday and most of the hours of today speeches of great interest and great eloquence have been addressed to audiences very sparse and entirely composed of rival orators. But, Sir, our long labours have come to an end, or have nearly come to an end, and I suppose it is my duty, I will not say to sum up an eight months debate, but, at all events, to utter a few valedictory words on the Bill which has so long occupied our time, and which is, for good or evil, I hope and believe entirely for good, but for good or for evil—without prejudging that point—to have so great an effect upon the education of this country. No, Sir, it is not denied by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, it has not been denied, so far as I know, by any speaker at any stage of this debate, that an Education Bill was a primary necessity. There have been speakers—I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen was one of them—who seemed to think that all the necessities of the case would have been met had we brought in a Secondary Education Bill, which, I admit would, as compared with the present Bill, have been relatively an uncontentious measure. But I am perfectly certain that no real educational reformer in this House or out of this House would think that the education of this country could by any possibility be brought into a condition which would be creditable to the nation, or which would have enabled us to compare our educational condition with that of our great friends and rivals on the Continent and in America, unless the Education Bill to be dealt with was one which gave a combined treatment, not merely of primary, but of secondary education also. I do not stop to argue the point, because really it is unarguable. If your object is to co-ordinate education, if your object is to give what my learned friends described tonight as an educational system which will enable a boy of talent or of genius to rise from stage to stage of education until he can make the best of his abilities for himself and his country, why then it is perfectly clear that to deal with secondary education as distinct from primary education, was to ignore the very elements of the problem with which you had to deal. Then, we had to deal with the whole country; and I can assure hon. Gentlemen that we did not enter into this great controversy without anxious and even painful forecasts of the difficulty which any Ministry bold enough to deal with this great problem must necessarily have regard to. We had presented to us, in the first place, a vast body of vested interests. We had great educational interests; we had great religious interests; we had great local government interests—School Boards, Town Councils, all the great machinery of local government. They were all touched, they were all affected. Each in turn was prepared to find in this Bill some great danger to a cherished desire or a cherished policy. And certainly, Sir, nobody who has had the advantage for seven months of a free and uninterrupted correspondence by post with the clergy of all denominations is likely to minimise the difficulties with which any educational reformer in this country has to deal.

Well, then, Sir, if it be admitted, as I think it must be admitted, that a great reform had to be undertaken, what is the objection that is raised to the particular plan which has been proposed by the Government? For we must recollect that all these things are comparative. We may not possibly have devised the best scheme in existence; but I have listened to these debates month after month and I have failed to find, to put it crudely, what rival plan was in the market which could for one moment be compared with the scheme which we have introduced. Recollect that everybody admits that the existing scheme or system of education is rotten. Everybody admits that it is incoherent and antiquated, bad and ineffective—that it is open to every species of criticism to which antiquated machinery is open.

Well, what are the alternatives? I have listened, as I have just said, in vain to learn from any quarter what the other alternatives are. But do not let me be misunderstood in this matter. I understood the hon. Member for Oldham, who spoke yesterday, went the length of saying that it was unconstitutional to ask the Opposition for an alternative plan. I do not think that it violates any recognised principle of the constitution to ask the Opposition whether they have got a plan dealing with a notorious difficulty; but I quite agree with those who say on the other side that it is not their business to find an educational plan. But then, it is unfair to criticise our plan as it has been criticised unless they can show that our plan is worse than the existing system or that it is not a great improvement on their plan—if they have anything whatever to show. If they have a beautiful scheme, harmonious in all its parts, coherent, logical, which will commend itself to my noble friend below the Gangway and to Dr. Clifford and the country—if they have a plan which settles the religious difficulty and harmonises the whole of English society with regard to it—if they have this one coherent, unexceptional plan for dealing with education in all its branches, then let us hear of it. But I have heard no adumbration of any such scheme whatever. One hon. Gentleman said that you are murdering the School Boards; that you are committing an educational atrocity in destroying bodies which have done such admirable work. We hear, indeed, I think from the Member for West Monmouth, of a scheme of universal School Boards. Very good. But are you going to propose, if you were in office, a scheme of universal School Boards all over the whole country for counties and for boroughs? And if you proposed it, would you carry it? The idea of trying to have a system of national education covering primary and secondary education covering pall over the country districts in really grotesque. Recollect that we have been listening to Gentlemen opposite for eight months, firing their tirades for what they are worth, and we have not had a chance of retaliating. If we had—I will not say eight months, but eight weeks—I should like to have had the chance of criticising any scheme sketched out from the other side and one which would give us a great reform of our education system. And that is only on purely educational lines, leaving out the religious-side altogether. There is the side, as we all know, of the real difficulty. If there was no religious resistance, no question of religion in the country, I believe the present Bill would have been passed without a division on the Second Reading and carried through the Committee in a week. There is the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, who through these debates has played, in my judgment, a most distinguished part, though I confess I wish he had left unsaid, even from his own point of view, a great many things which he sometimes said. If he had omitted a certain class of observations I think he would have greatly gained in authority inside and outside the House. I believe that in the opinion of both sides of the House and of the country that the hon. Gentleman has shown himself to be an eminent Parliamentarian. What does he suggest? What does he say about this Bill? He says that the scheme is the worst scheme you can imagine. There are two schemes, he says, both of which he would have greatly preferred to that before the House. One is the "facility" scheme, supported by the hon. Member for Tonbridge and the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, and the other is the Scotch scheme, and either of these schemes, he said, is incomparably better than the plan of this Bill in dealing with the religious difficulty. But, after all, the hon. Gentleman and the House must know perfectly well that either of these plans, whatever their abstract merits may be, are really not practical. About the Scotch plan—or, to put it in language more intelligible to an English audience, about the abolition of the Cowper-Temple Clause plan—

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

And the universal School Boards plan.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

To that plan you have, I venture to say, two great objections. With all its merits—and I am the last to deny that it works extremely well in my country—it has two immense objections to its adoption in this country. In the first place, you could never carry it. The hon. Member for Carnarvon seems to think that he and his friends are in favour of it. I challenge any one to look through all the controversial speeches and pamphlets issued against this Bill during the great campaign carried on during the Autumn months by the militant Nonconformist bodies, and to find a single sentence or hint that those great Nonconformist bodies would have accepted the abolition of the Cowper-Temple Clause. I make that challenge with absolute confidence. You will not find it. That is one objection. The other is an objection which the hon. Member for Carnarvon would be the first to admit, because he dwelt upon it himself. The hon. Member said that one objection to this Bill was that it would introduce into every Borough and County Council religious difficulties and controversies about denominational formulae. I hope that the Bill will not have that effect. It has been carefully and deliberately framed to avoid that disastrous result. But with the present division of religious opinion in England, what would be the result of adopting the Scotch system here? We should have plunged into the very evils which the hon. Member describes; and in every Town and County Council we should have had the question raised whether you were to support denominational teaching out of the rates; and, if so, what denominational teaching. The idea that religious peace and harmony is thus to be reached in England, as England is now divided into this infinite variety of sects, many of them quarrelling, as I think, over very secondary matters—but still quarrelling—the idea that religious peace is to be so arrived at is quite illusory.

I hope the House will see what I am coming to. If this Bill is bad, it is bad in comparison with the existing system, or else in comparison with some other system proposed. No other system is proposed, and I am therefore reduced to asking, and asking alone, whether this Bill is bad as compared with the system which it replaces. Is this, or is it not, as compared with the system under which we live, a great reform? I do not ask whether it is a great reform as compared with some plan which the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen has in the recesses of his conscience. I do not ask whether it is a great plan as compared with a scheme half suggested by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, because those schemes have not been developed developed and cannot be compared. I ask one question only, and on the answer ought to depend the vote of every man who votes tonight. Is this scheme of the Government a great educational reform compared with the existing system which it is destined to replace? At the present moment our elementary education is carried on by isolated schools unconnected with each other, unconnected with the locality in which they exist; unorganised into any coherent whole to serve the interests of the population. That is, at any rate, changed. All schools are now put under a co-ordinating authority, and, so far, a great reform is established. Secondly, the great majority of these schools, or a large number of them—I do not wish to put it too high—are ill-equipped for want of funds. Is this Bill or is it not a great reform in that? Nobody can deny, and nobody does deny, that it is a great reform. In the third place, under our existing system a large number of these elementary schools are imperfectly staffed, and the staffs which have to work them are imperfectly and inadequately paid. Is that denied? It is not denied, nor can it be denied that that evil is remedied by the present Bill. In the fourth place, there is at the present time a competition, in many cases a ruinous competition, between two kinds of schools, under wholly different management, yet carrying out the same great objects, and educating the same classes. That competition is put an end to by this Bill. Can it be denied by any educational reformer that that also is an enormous educational improvement? In the fifth place, there is under our existing system a most imperfect machinery for educating the teachers of the rising generation. Many of them get no proper training at all. Those who do get a proper training are very commonly persons belonging to one denomination which has had the public spirit or the power to obtain training for them. Is that an admirable system? Is it a system which we ought to permit or which any other civilised country in the world would permit? But if you carry the rejection of the Third Reading, you will permit it, and permit it indefinitely. Is it not a great thing to have provided, at all events, the machinery by which this great defect can be remedied? In the sixth place, as has been admitted on every side of the House, there is no provision at all under our existing system for secondary education properly considered. There is provision no doubt for technical education, but for secondary education in its full sense our educational machinery at the present time is wholly and utterly inadequate. Is that not a great defect, and is that not remedied? It is, if the public authorities do their duty, absolutely remedied, and that, again, I claim as a reason why the House should accept the Third Reading of this Bill. These are great educational interests. But there is then the co-ordination of education, the combination of primary, secondary, and higher education in one general scheme; and there is, last of all, a matter on which I confess I think the present Government have received but very scant gratitude from those who in this House profess to represent the Nonconformists of this country—I mean what is known as the pupil teacher grievance and the general teacher grievance. I remember well enough, many years ago, when I was newer to these educational problems than I am now, the Member for Carnarvon drawing my attention in this House to the pupil teacher grievance. We have remedied that absolutely. [HON. MEMBERS: No, no.] The pupil teacher grievance is absolutely remedied. There is no child of a Nonconformist now who -desires to enter the teaching profession who will be precluded, because he or she is a Nonconformist, from obtaining the requisite training of a pupil teacher. That grievance having been entirely swept away, we are now told that that is a matter which nobody need thank us for, because, after all, when you train these Nonconformist pupils they will not find a place anywhere. Yes, but that was not the Nonconformist teacher grievance, The Nonconformist teacher grievance was the one which I have described and the one which we have swept away. But even this secondary grievance which has now been discovered and added to the old pupil teacher grievance—even that has been largely mitigated, because the teacherships other than the head teacherships in denominational schools are now thrown open, if the management are prepared to use the powers given to them by the Bill, to Nonconformists. Of course I do not want in the least to exaggerate. I have no doubt whatever that the great majority of teachers in denominational schools will remain denominational—I do not in the least wish to pretend or suggest to the House that any other result will ensue—but it does make a difference, and there will be a large number of schools in which another policy will be pursued.

I do not say that I have completed the list of changes in our educational system, which are great and admitted changes for the better, produced by this Bill, but I think every candid man will find it impossible in his heart and conscience to deny that, in every one of the great examples I have mentioned, we have made a revolution, and a revolution for the better. If this revolution were not carried out, if the Amendment of the Leader of the Opposition were to find a majority in the Lobbies, what would be the result? Every one of these great reforms would be postponed, and, as I venture to think, indefinitely postponed. It is perfectly easy for hon. Gentlemen opposite, criticising our Bill, to say, "Oh, how much better it would be if you could do this, that, or the other thing." If they came into power tomorrow, if we had that General Election from which they hope so much, next week, and if the most sanguine estimate of the most sanguine of hon. Gentlemen opposite were carried into effect, is there a single serious politician on that side who thinks that the Government that would then be formed could come down to this House and go to the country with great scheme of educational reform with any hope of carrying it? Why, it is nonsense, and everybody knows it is nonsense. I remember reading a document, called the "British Weekly" Catechism, which was directed against this Bill, in which the hope, the avowed expectation, was that if this Bill could be defeated then the educational system of the country would go no until by the mere difficulty of getting subscriptions, by the slow starvation of the voluntary schools. We might gradually, year after year, see the board schools increase, the voluntary schools diminish, until there was what they were pleased to term a national system of education entirely founded on the board school system. And I believe that is absolutely the only policy that would be open to the hon. Gentlemen opposite, not because I believe them to be insincere in their desire for educational reform, but simply because the difficulties of this task, and Heaven knows every one who has tried to deal with it must be prepared to admit them, are so great that it would be absolutely out of their power to carry out any of the schemes which they so airily suggest in the irresponsibility of opposition.

Let the House and the country realise that we have this night to choose whether we accept a great educational reform, which in the opinion of some may have defects or demerits, which in the opinion of some may give too much to this sect or to that, and which may not deal with all the speculative questions which some would desire to see treated according to some theoretical plan of perfection; and that it is the only practical scheme that has been placed before the country for putting our educational system upon a national basis. I admit that it has many opponents, I admit that is looked at with suspicion by large classes in the country, I admit that the militant Nonconformists have denounced it with extreme, and I would almost have said with unscrupulous, violence. [HON. MEMBERS "Oh."] I am not talking of anybody in this House on previous occasions what I think of the manner in which the opposition to this Bill has been here conducted, which I think does on the whole great credit to this House—I am talking of speeches and pamphlets in the country. It has been assailed, as I say, by extreme persons who think that some cherished ecclesiastical view is interfered with by the provisions of the Bill; and the ratepayers, have looked at it with suspicion, because they have been afraid that additional burdens may be thrown upon them, as they will be thrown upon them by this Bill, but much less by this Bill than by any scheme which I have heard suggested by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I quite acknowledge that if all the great interests and all the great classes that I have enumerated are going to combine to defeat this educational Measure they may do much to impair its utility; but I hope and think better of my countrymen. I ask no man to change his opinion upon this Bill; I ask no man to give up what he regards as a conscientious conviction; my demand is simply this—living as we do in a free and constitutionally governed country— that they should attempt to make the best of a measure passed by the Legislature of this country, and that if that measure fails, and in so far as it fails, they should devote their attention to amending it. I do not ask them to approve it, I do not ask them to approve it, I do not ask them to say that if they had been in power they would not have found some much better plan for dealing with the infinitely difficult problem; but I do ask them, I do make this demand on the patriotism and public spirit of every class, clerical and non clerical, in this country, that when this Bill becomes law they shall do their best to work it while it is unamended, and if it requires amendment, that they shall use constitutional means to amend it in conformity with the declared will of the people. I have hopes that when it is brought into operation, when it is actually in working order, it will be found that on religious interest receives any unfair advantage [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no"]; that at all events is my hope, that no religious interest is unfairly benefited or unfairly depressed. I have hopes that, with due regard to every existing right and privilege, and with due regard to all the theories of local government, which are gradually developing in this country to the great advantage of public life, this Measure will be found not merely one which is consistent with our whole theory of local government, not merely one which will strengthen and dignify the great assemblics which we hand over to the management of our local affairs, but it will be, in addition, the greatest reform of all kinds of education which this country has, for thirty years, seen adopted; and that, if it requires change, as everything requires change in the progress of time it will not be because we have been the slaves of an ecclesiastical clique or the advocates of any narrow scheme of national education, but because as time goes on, and as national needs change and advance, so alterations are required in every scheme, however well devised, however honestly intended, which this House and this Legislature may pass. In that hope, I earnestly trust that every friend of education in this House tonight will give his vote in favour of this Bill, reserving, of course, every freedom as regards the future; but, as regards the present, recognising that this scheme, and this scheme alone, holds the field, and that if this scheme is rejected we are bogged for years to come in the present utterly indefensible system of primary, secondary, and technical education, under which we have so long laboured and groaned.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes, 286; Noes, 134. (Division List No. 605.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Dickinson, Robert Edmond	Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel	Dickson, Charles Scott	Higginbottom, S. W
Allhusen, AngustasH'nry Eden	Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.	Hoare, Sir Samuel
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Digby, John K. D. Wingtield	Hobhouse, Rt. HnH(Somerset, E)
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Dimsdale, Rt. Hon Sir JosephC.	Hope, J. F.(Sheffield, Brightside)
Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.	Disraeli Coningsby R'dph	Horner, Frederick William
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Dixon-Hartland, SirFredDixon	Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry
Austin, Sir John	Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John F.	Howard, John(kent, Fav'rsh'm)
Bailey, James (Walworth)	Doughty, George	Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Hozier, Hon. James HenryCecil
Baird, John George Alexander	Doxford, Sir William Theodore	Hudson, George Bickersteth
Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r)	Duke, Henry Edward	Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)
Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)	Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin	Jameson, Major J. Eustace
Balfour, RtHnGerald W. (Leeds)	Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir WilliamHa't	Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Egerton, Hon. A de Tatton	Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.
Bartley, Sir George C. T.	Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas	Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin	Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Johnstone, Heywood
Beckett, Ernest William	Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)	Kemp, George
Beresford, Lord Chas. William	Fardell, Sir T. George	Kennaway, Rt. Hon. SirJohnH.
Bignold, Arthur	Fellowes, Hon. Allwyn Edward	Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T.(Denbigh)
Bigwood, James	Fergusson, Rt. Hn. SirJ.(Manc'r)	Kenyon Slaney, Col. W.(Salop)
Blundell, Colonel Henry	Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst	Kesrick. William
Bond, Edward	Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.	Kimber, Henry
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-	Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne	King, Sir Henry Seymour
Bousfield, William Robert	Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas	Knowles, Lees
Bowles, Capt. H. F.(Middlesex)	Fisher, William Hayes	Lambton. Hon. Frederick Wm.
Brassey, Albert	Fison, Frederick William	Law, Andrew Bonar(Glasgow)
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John	Flannery, Sir Fortescue	Lawrence. Sir Joseph(Monm'th)
Brookfield, Colonel Montagu	Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Lawrence. Wm. F. (Liverpool)
Brotherton, Edward Allen	Flower, Ernest	Lawson, John Grant
Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsh.)	Forster, Henry William	Lee, ArtharH.((Han's, Fareham)
Brymer, William Ernest	Foster, PhilipS.(Warwich, S. W)	Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage
Bull, William James	Galloway, William Johnson	Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie
Bullard, Sir Harry	Gardner, Ernest	Loveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Garfit, William	Llewellya, Evan Henry
Butcher, John George	Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H(City ofLond.)	Lockie, John
Carew, James Laurence	Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)	Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.
Carlile, William Walter	Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick	Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Gordon, Hn. J. E.(Elgio&Nairn)	Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham)
Cautley, Henry Strother	Gordon, MajEvans-(T'rH'ml'ts)	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S)
Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)	Gore, HnG. R. COrmsby-(Salop)	Lonsdale, John Brownlee
Cavendish, V. C. W(Derbyshire)	Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Line.)	Lowe, Francis William
Cayzer, Sir Charles William	Goschen, Hon. George Joachim	Loyd, Archie Kirkman
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Gonlaing, Edward Alfred	Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsm'th)
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	Graham, Henry Robert	Lvttelton, Hon. Alfred
Chamberlain, RtHnJ. A.(Worc.)	Gray, Ernest (West Ham)	Macdona, John Cumming
Chapman, Edward	Green, WalfordD(Wednesbury)	Maalver, David (Liverpool)
Charrington, Spencer	Greene, Sir EW(B'rysEdm'nds)	Maconochie, A. W.
Clare, Octavius Leigh	Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury)	M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)	M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)
Coddington, Sir William	Grenfell, William Henry	Majendie, James A. H.
Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Gretton, John	Manners, Lord Cecil
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Greville, Hon. Ronald	Maple, Sir John Blundell
Colomb, SirJohnCharlesReady	Groves, James Grimble	Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.
Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole	Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill	Milvain, Thomas
Compton, Lord Alwyne	Guthrie, Walter Murray	Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants.)
Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas	Hain, Edward	Moon, Edward Robert Pacy
Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge	Hall, Edward Marshall	More, Robt. Jasper(Shropshire)
Cranborne, Viscount	Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.	Morgan, DavidJ(Walth'mstow)
Cripps, Charles Alfred	Hamilton, Rt Hn. LordG(Mid'x)	Morrell, George Herbert
Crossley, Sir Savile	Hanbury, Rt. Hon. RobertWm.	Mount, William Arthur
Cubitt, Hon. Henry	Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashf'rd)	Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.
Cust Henry John C.	Hare, Thomas Leigh	Murray, RtHnA. Graham(Bute)
Dalkeith, Earl of	Harris, Frederick Leverton	Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)
Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.	Murray, Col. Wyndham(Bath)
Davenport, William Bromley-	Hay, Hon. Claude George	Myers, William Henry
Denny, Colonel	Heaton, John Henniker	Newdegate, Francis A. N.
Dewar, SirT. R.(TowerHamlets)	Henderson, Sir Alexander	Nicholson, William Graham
Nicol, Donald Ninian	Royds, Clement Molyneux	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlingt'n)	Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-	Tully, Jasper
Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley	Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander	Valentia, Viscount
Pemberton, John S. G.	Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)	Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
Percy, Earl	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert	Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. H.
Pierpoint, Robert	Saunderson Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J.	Wanklyn, James Leslic
Platt-Higgins, Frederick	Seely, Maj. J. E. B(lsle of Wight)	Warde, Colonel C. E.
Plummer, Walter R.	Seton-Karr, Sir Henry	Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E(Taunton)
Powell, Sir Francis Sharp	Sharpe, William Edward T.	Welby, Sir CharlesG. E.(Notts.)
Pretyman, Ernest George	Simeon, Sir Barrington	Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd
Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward	Sinclair, Louis (Ramford)	Whiteley, H(Ashton-und. Lyne)
Purvis, Robert	Skewes-Cox, Thomas	Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Pym, C. Guy	Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)	Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Quilter, Sir Cuthbert	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Rankin, sir James	Spear, John Ward	Willox, Sir John Archibald
Rasch, Major Frederic Carne	Stanley, Hon Arthur(Ormskirk)	Wilson, A. Stanley(York, E. R.)
Ratcliff, R. F.	Stanley, EdwardJas.(Somerset)	Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)
Reid, James (Greenock)	Stanley, Lord (Lancs)	Wors'ey-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Remnant, James Farquharsen	Stone, Sir Benjamin	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine	St[...]utt, Hon. Charles Hedley	Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Renwick, George	St[...]rt, Hon. Humphry Napier	Wylie, Alexander
Richards, Henry Charles	Sullivan, Donal	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Ridley, Hon. M. W.(Stalybridge)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)	Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.
Ridley, S. Forde(Bethnal Green)	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G(Oxf'd Univ.)	Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)	Thernton, Percy M.
Rolleston, Sir John F. L.	Tollemache, Henry James	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander AclandHood and Mr. Anstruther.
Ropner, Colonel Robert	Tomlinson, Sir. Wm. Edw. M.
Round, Rt. Hon. James	Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward
NOES
Allan, Sir William (Gateshead)	Goddard, Daniel Ford	Nussey, Thomas Willans
Allen, CharlesP.(Gloue.,Stroud)	Grant, Corrie	Partingtos, Oswald
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Griffith, Ellis J.	Paulton, James Mellor
Asquith, Rt. Hon HerbertHenry	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Pearson, Sir Weetman D.
Atherley-Jones, L.	Hardie, J. Keir(Merthyr Tydvil)	Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)
Barlow, John Emmott	Harmsworth, R. Leicester	Perks, Robert William
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-	Philipps, John Wynford
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)	Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.	Pirie, Duncan V.
Bolton, Thomas Dolling	Helme, Norval Watson	Price, Robert John
Brigg, John	Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.	Priestley, Arthur
Broadhurst, Henry	Holland, Sir William Henry	Rea, Russell
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson	Horniman, Frederick John	Rigg, Richard
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James	Humpherys-Owen, Arthur C.	Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)
Burns, John	Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)
Burt, Thomas	Jacoby, James Alfred	Robertson, Edmund (Dundec)
Buxton, Sydney Charles	Joicey, Sir James	Robson, William Snowdon
Caldwell, James	Jones David Brynmor(Sw'nsea)	Roc, Sir Thomas
Cameron, Robert	Kearley, Hudson E.	Runciman, Walter
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.	Kitson, Sir James	Russell, T. W.
Causton, Richard Knight	Labonchere, Henry	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Cawley, Frederick	Lambert, George	Shackleton, David James
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Langley, Batty	Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)
Craig, Robert Hunter	Layland-Barratt, Francis	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Cremer, William Randal	Leese, SirJosephF.(Accrington)	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)
Crombie, John William	Leigh, Sir Joseph	Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Dalziel, James Henry	Levy, Maarice	Soares, Ernest J.
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)	Lewis, John Herbert	Spencer, Rt. HnC. R(Northants)
Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)	Lloyd-George, David	Stevenson, Francis S.
Dewar, John A. (Invernes[...]sh.)	Logan, John William	Strachey, Sir Edward
Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles	Lough, Thomas	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Thomas, Abel(Carmarthen, E.)
Duncan, J. Hastings	M'Kenna, Reginald	Thomas, Sir A.(Glamorgan, E.)
Dunn, Sir William	Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William	Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr)
Edwards, Frank	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings)
Emmott, Alfred	Morley, Charles (Breconshire)	ThomasJ. A(Glamorgan, Gower)
Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone)	Morley, Rt. Hon. John(Montrose)	Thomson F. W. (York, W. R.)
Fenwick, Charles	Moss, Samuel	Tomkinson, James
Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)	Moulton, John Fletcher	Toalmin, George
Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Newnes, Sir George	Wallace, Robert
Fuller, J. M. F.	Norman, Henry	Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Furness, Sir Christopher	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)	Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)	Woodhouse, SirJT.(Huddersf'd)
Wason, John Catheart(Orkney)	Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)
Weir, James Galloway	Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid.)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. William M'Arthur.
White, Luke (York, E. R.)	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)
Whiteley, George(York, W. R.)	Wood, James

(11.59.) Main Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes, 246; Noes, 123. (Division List No. 606.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph	Jameson, Major J. Eustace
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel	Dixon-Hartland, SirFredDixon	Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse
Anson, Sir William Reybell	Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.	Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Doughty, George	Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton
Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Johnstone, Heywood
Atkinson. Rt. Hon. John	Doxford, Sir William Theodore	Kemp, George
Austin, Sir John	Duke, Henry Edward	Kenna way, Rt. Hon. SirJohnH.
Bailey, James (Walworth)	Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin	Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Dyke, Rt Hon. SirWilliamHart	Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop)
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J.(Manch'r)	Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Keswick, William
Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)	Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)	Kimber, Henry
Balfour, Rt. Hn. GeraldW(Leeds)	Fardell, Sir T. George	Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward	Lawrence, Sir Joseph(Monm'th)
Bartley, Sir George C. T.	Fergusson, Rt HnSir J.(Manc'r)	Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin	Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst	Lawson, John Grant
Beckett, Ernest William	Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.	Lee, ArthurH.(Hants, Fareham)
Bignold, Arthur	Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne	Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage
Bigwood, James	Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas	Leigh-Beanett, Henry Currie
Bond, Edward	Fisher, William Hayes	Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.
Boscawen, Arthur Griflith-	Fison, Frederick William	Lockie, John
Brassey. Albert	Flannery, Sir Fortescue	Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.
Brodrick. Rt. Hon. St. John	Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine
Brotherton, Edward Allen	Forster, Henry William	Long, Col. CharlesW.(Evesham)
Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsh.)	Foster, PhilipS.(Warwick, S. W)	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S.)
Brymer, William Ernest	Galloway, William Johnson	Lonsdale, John Brownlee
Bullard, Sir Harry	Gardner, Ernest	Lowe. Francis William
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Gibbs, HnA. G. H.(CityofLond.)	Loyd, Archie Kirkman
Butcher, John George	Godson, SirAugustus Frederick	Lucas. ReginaldJ. (Portsmouth)
Carew, James Laurence	Gordon, MajEvans-(TrH'ml'ts)	Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Falw. H.	Gore, H. G. R. C Ormsby-(Salop)	Macdona, John Cumming
Cautley, Henry Strother	Goschen, Hon. GeorgeJoachim	Maclver, David (Liverpool)
Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)	Goulding, Edward Alfred	M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)
Cavendish, V. C. W.(Derbyshire)	Graham, Henry Robert	Majendie, James A. H.
Cayzer, Sir Charles William	Gray, Ernest (West Ham)	Manners, Lord Cecil
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Green, Walford D(Wednesbury)	Maple, Sir John Blundell
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	Greene, SirEW(B'ryS. Edm'nds)	Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.
Chamberlain, RtHnJ. A(Worc.)	Grenfell, William Henry	Milvain, Thomas
Chapman, Edward	Gretton, John	Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants)
Charrigton, Spencer	Greville, Hon. Ronald	Moon, Edward Robert Pacy
Clare, Octavins Leigh	Groves, James Grimble	More, Rebt. Jasper(Shrop-hire)
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill	Morgan, DavidJ(Walth'mstow)
Coddington, Sir William	Guthrie, Walter Murray	Morrell, George Herbert
Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Hain, Edward	Mount, William Arthur
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Hall, Edward Marshall	Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.
Colomb, SirJohnCharlesReady	H[...]dsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.	Murray, RtHnA. Graham(Bute)
Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole	Hamilton, Rt. Hn. LordG(Mid'x)	Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)
Compton, Lord Alwyne	Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.	Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)
Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas	Hare, Thomas Leigh	Myers, William Henry
Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge	Harris, Frederick Leverton	Newdegate, Francis A. N.
Cranbarne, Viscount	Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.	Nicholson, William Graham
Crossley, Sir Savile	Hay, Hon. Claade George	Nicol, Donald Ninian
Cubitt, Hon. Henry	Henderson, Sir Alexander	Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlingt'n)
Cust. Henry John C.	Hermon-Hodge. Sir Robert T.	Pemberton, John S. G.
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hugginbottom, S. W.	Percy, Earl
Davenport, W. Bromley-	Hoare, Sir Samuel	Pierpoint, Robert
Denny, Colonel	Hobhouse, Rt Hn H(Somers't, E)	Platt-Higgins, Frederick
Dewar, Sir T. R(Tower Hamlets)	Hope, J. F.(Sheffield, Brightside)	Plummer, Walter R.
Dickinson, Robert Edmond	Horner, Frederick William	Powel, Sir Francis Sharp
Dickson, Charles Scott	Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry	Pretyman, Ernest George
Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.	Howard, John(Kent, Faversh'm)	Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward
Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-	Hozier, Hon. JamesHenryCecil	Purvis, Robert
Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. SirJosephC.	Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)	Pym, C. Guy
Quilter, Sir Cuthbert	Sharpe, William Edward T.	Wanklyn, James Leslie
Rankin, Sir James	Simeon, Sir Barrington	Warde, Colonel C. E.
Rasch, Major Frederic Carne	Sinclair, Louis (Romford)	Welby, Lt.-Col. AGE.(Taunton)
Ratcliff, R. F.	Skewes-Cox, Thomas	Welby. SirCharlesG. E.(Notts.)
Reid, James (Greenock)	Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)	Whiteley, H(Ashton and. Lyne)
Remnant, James Farquharson	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)	Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine	Spear, John Ward	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Renwick, George	Stanley, Hon Arthur (Ormskirk)	Willox, Sir John Archibald
Richards, Henry Charles	Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)
Ridley, Hon. M. W (Stalybridge)	Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley	Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Ridley, S. Ferde(Bethnal Green)	Sturtt, Hon. Humphry Napier	Wortlley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Ritchie, Rt Hn. Chas. Thomson	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)	Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)	Talbot, Rt. HonJG(Oxf'dUniv.)	Wylie, Alexander
Rolleston. Sir John F. L.	Thornton, Percy M.	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert	Tollemache, Henry James	Wyndham-Qain, Major W. H.
Round, Rt. Hon. James	Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.	Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Royds, Clement Molyneux	Turnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward
Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander	Tully, Jasper	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander AclandHood and Mr. Austruther.
Sasson, Sir Edward Albert	Valentia, Viscount
Seely, Mal. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight)	Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
Seton-Karr, Sir Henry	Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H
NOES.
Alian, Sir William (Gateshead)	Hardie, J. Keir(MerthyrTydvil)	Rea, Russell
Allen, CharlesP (Gloue.,Stroud)	Harmsworth, R. Leicester	Rigg, Richard
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-	Roberts, John Bryn (Eilion)
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry	Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)
Atherley-Jones, L.	Helme, Norval Watson	Robson, William Snowdon
Barlow, John Emmott	Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.	Roe, Sir Thomas
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Holland, Sir William Henry	Runciman, Walter
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)	Horniman, Frederick John	Russell, T. W.
Bolton, Thomas Dolling	Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Brigg, John	Jacoby, James Alfred	Shackleton, David James
Broadhurst, Henry	Kitson, Sir James	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson	Labouchere, Henry	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James	Lambert, George	Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Burns, John	Langley, Batty	Soares, Ernest J.
Burt, Thomas	Layland-Barratt, Francis	Speneer, Rt. Hn. C. R(Northants)
Buxton, Sydney Charles	Leese, Sir JosepaF. (Accrington)	Stevenson, Francis S.
Caldwell, James	Leigh, Sir Joseph	Strachey, Sir Edward
Cameron, Robert	Levy, Maurice	Taylor, Theodore C (Radcliffe)
Camphell-Bannerman, Sir H.	Lewis, John Herbert	Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr)
Causton, Richard Knight	Legan, John William	Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings)
Cawley, Frederick	Lough, Thomas	Thomas, JA(Glam'rg[...]n, Gower
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)
Craig, Robert Hunter	M. Kenna, Reginald	Tomkinson, James
Cremer, William Randal	Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William	Toulmin, George
Crombie, John William	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)Wallace, Robert
Dalziel, James Henry	Morley, Charles (Breconshire)	Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)	Morley, Rt. Hn. John(Montrose)	Wa[...]ner, Thomas Cour[...]enay T.
Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)	Moss, Samuel	Wason, Eugene(Clackmannan)
Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)	Moulton, John Fletcher	Wason, John Catheart (Orkney)
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)	Newnes, Sir George	Weir, James Galloway
Duncan, J. Hastings	Norman, Henry	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Dunn, Sir William	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)
Edwards, Frank	Nussey, Thomas Willians	Whiteley, J. H. (Halifax)
Emmott. Alfred	Partington, Oswald	Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)
Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidst'ne)	Paulton, James Mellor	Wilson, Fred. W. (Norflok, Mid.)
Fenwicks, Charles	Pearson, Sir Weetman D.	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)
Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)	Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)	Wood, James
Fuller, J. M. F.	Perks, Robert William	Woodhouse, Sir JT(Hudd'rsf'ld)
Goddard, Daniel Ford	Philipps, John Wynford
Grant, Corrie	Pirie, Duncan V.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. HerbertGladstone and Mr. William M'Arthur.
Griffith, Ellis J.	Price, Robert John
Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Priestley, Arthur

Bill read the third time, and passed.

Mr. SPEAKER, in pursuance of the Order of the House of the 16th October last, adjourned the house without Question put.

Adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.