Commons Sitting of 5 May 1902

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—
  Abertillery Urban District Council Bill [Lords].
  Ashton-under-Lyne and Dukinfield Corporations (Alma Bridge, etc.) Bill [Lords].
  Lancashire County (Lunatic Asylums) Bill [Lords].
  Longwood Gas Bill [Lords].
  Newcastle and Gateshead Water Bill [Lords].
  Swindon United Gas Bill [Lords].
  West Hampshire Water Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.:—
  Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Order Bill.
  Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (Gas) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time tomorrow.

  BELFAST CORPORATION BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  CATERHAM AND DISTRICT GAS BILL [LORDS].
  Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (STEAM VESSELS) BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  RATHMINES AND RATHGAR URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL (BY ORDER).
  Read the third time, and passed.
  HALIFAX CORPORATION BILL.
  As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
  KINGSCOURT, KEADY, AND ARMAGH RAILWAY BILL.
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY BILL.
  As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
NORWICH CORPORATION (ELECTRICITY, ETC.) BILL.
  SCARBOROUGH TRAMWAYS BILL.
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
CHIGWELL, LOUGTHON, AND WOODFORD GAS BILL [LORDS.]
  METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL.

    RHONDDA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL TRAMWAYS BILL [LORDS].
    RUSTHALL MANOR BILL [LORDS].
    SWANSEA CORPORATION WATER BILL [LORDS].
    Read a second time, and committed.

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP J).
Mr. FISON Mr. FISON reported from the Committee on Group J of Private Bills, That the parties promoting the North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill had stated that the evidence of William F. Ellis, of No. 4, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, chemist, was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that his attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said William F. Ellis do attend the said Committee tomorrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Ordered, That William F. Ellis do attend the Committee on Group J of Private Bills tomorrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

COLWYN BAY AND COLWYN URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
Reported, with Amendments: Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.*

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to Shepton Mallet Gas Bill, without Amendment.
Amendment to London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Bill [Lords].
Amendments to Wrexham Water Bill [Lords], Darley Dale Water Bill [Lords]. without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Urban District Council of Buxton to construct additional waterworks, and to make further and better provision for the good government and health of the district; and for other purposes." [Buxton Urban District Council Bill (Lords).]

BUXTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [LORDS].
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
PETITIONS.
  CLUBS REGISTRATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Edinburgh, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Elland; Brighouse; and Tottenham; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions for alteration: From Liver-sedge and Atherton; to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.
  Petition from Birstall, for alteration of law; to lie upon the Table.
  FINANCE BILL.
  Petition from Elland, against; to lie upon the Table.
  GROCERS' LICENCES (SCOTLAND).
  Petition from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LAND TRANSFER ACT, 1897.
  Petition from Wandsworth, for inquiry into the compulsory system of registration: to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Ilkeston and South Farnborough; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE (EXTENSION TO WOMEN) BILL.
  Petition from Rossendale, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC HOUSES (HOURS OF CLOSING) (SCOTLAND) ACT (1887) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Petition from Dundee, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Sheffield (five); Haverton Hill; Leeds (three); Morecambe; Woodside; Southend; Skillington; and King Stanley; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SINKING FUNDS.
  Account presented of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, showing the amount received and applied in the year ended 31st March, 1902, in respect to the Old and New Sinking Funds [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 172.]
  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Copy presented of correspondence relating to proposed additions of territory to Natal [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  ROYAL OBSERVATORY (EDINBURGH).
  Copy presented of Twelfth Annual Report of the Astronomer Royal for Scotland [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  MILITARY LANDS PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
  Reported, with an Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered tomorrow.

  PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS (CONDITIONAL LICENCE).
  Copy presented of Licence granted to Mary Anne Curtis, a convict under detention in Aylesbury Prison, permitting her to be at large on condition that she enter the Reading Refuge and Laundry Home and there remain for a period not less than one year [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  ULTIMUS HÆRES (SCOTLAND) (ACCOUNT AND LIST OF ESTATES).
  Return presented relative thereto [ordered 2nd May; Mr. Austen Chamberlain]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 163.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Compulsory Registration of Title.
  MR. BUTCHER: To ask Mi-Attorney General whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the experimental period of three years has now elapsed since the making of the first Order in Council with reference to compulsory registration of title to land under the Land Transfer Act, 1897; whether he is aware that the Chief Assistant Registrar of the Land Registry has stated that the intention of the Act was that the experiment of making registration compulsory should have a trial of at least three years in the county first selected, and that after the expiration of three years from the making of the first Order an Order in Council might be made making registration compulsory in any other county, but only on the invitation of the County Council of the county to be affected; and, in order to furnish full information as to the working of the system of compulsory registration in the County of London, so as to enable County Councils to decide whether they should exercise their power of recommending the adoption of compulsory registration in any county, whether His Majesty's Government will take steps to appoint a Parliamentary or other independent Committee to inquire into and report on the working of the system of compulsory registration in London.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): Three years have elapsed since the provisions of the Land Transfer Act with regard to compulsory registration of title came into operation. I am not aware what statements have been made by the Chief Assistant Registrar of the Land Registry, but the Act itself provides that no Orders after the first should be made for three years, and gives the initiative to the County Councils. There is no intention of appointing a Committee to inquire into the working of compulsory registration in London, as it does not appear to His Majesty's Government that there is any sufficient case for the appointment of such a Committee.

  Imperial Yeomanry—Bounty to Shoeing Smiths.
  SIR ELLIOT LEES: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the bounty of £10 granted to shoeing smiths enlisting in the Imperial Yeomanry for South African service after 13th February of this year, who have passed the required test at the military workshops at Aldershot, will also be extended to those enlisted without the offer of any such bounty between 1st January and 31st January, when recruiting ceased, who have passed a similar test, in order to avoid placing any premium upon delay in enlistment.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): This matter has already been carefully considered. The grant of the bounty cannot be made retrospective.

  (2.15.) QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    South Africa—Extension of Natal Boundary.
    MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Vryheid and Utrecht districts and a portion of the Wakkerstroom district of the Transvaal are to be transferred to the Colony of Natal; and whether, before any partition of the Transvaal territory or any incorporation of it in any Colony is permitted to be carried out, the decision of this House will be taken upon the matter.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right. The districts to which he refers are to be transferred as he suggests in his Question; but we do not propose to ask the House of Commons to come to any formal decision on the subject.

    Sales of Boer Farms.
    MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will grant the Return moved for as to the sales and proceeds of sales of farms under Lord Milner's Proclamation, No. 18.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I will ask Lord Milner to furnish the materials for the Return as far as possible. It is clearly impossible to give a Return of the names of all Boers who did not surrender before 15th September, 1901.
    MR. CHANNING: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the total number in answer to a Question?
    MR. J. CHAMBRLAIN: No, Sir.

    Army Medical Officers.
    CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the advisability of granting to officers who had retired from the Army Medical Department and other branches of the service and were not liable to recall, but accepted service in the late national emergency, similar conditions with reference to pension and rank as are granted to reserve officers who have been reemployed.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): Medical officers, not liable to recall, who volunteered to take the places normally occupied by medical officers of the regular Army obtain similar conditions to reserve officers.

    New Infantry Drill Book.
    MR. COLSTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state when the new infantry drill book will be published.
    LORD STANLEY: It is hoped that the delivery of this work will commence before the end of next week.

    Lord Charles Beresford and the Admiralty.
    MR. NORMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the grounds upon which the Admiralty informed the House, on 24th June and 9th July, 1901, † that a letter from the noble Lord the Member for Woolwich, † Sec (4) Debates, xcv., 1200; xcvi., 1349.
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    published in a London newspaper, was a private communication not intended for publication: whether, before making this statement, the Admiralty had made inquiries of the writer, the recipient, or the publisher of the letter; and whether he can now add anything to the replies he made upon the above-mentioned occasions.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): On the 9th July last I made the statement referred to with regard to the letter in question because I had received a written assurance from the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed that he was responsible for its publication. From this statement the Admiralty felt justified in assuming that the writer was not responsible. I have nothing further to add to the reply that I made on the dates referred to.
    LORD CHARLES BERESFORD: If I may, by the indulgence of the House, be allowed to say so, I think this Question requires a little bit more explanation, because it affects my own character as a Member of this House, and because it is due to the service which I have the honour to represent to place the facts rather more fairly before the House. The fact of the matter is that I did write a letter. I ought not to have written this letter-under the regulations; there is no doubt in the world I ought not to have written it, therefore I was responsible to the constituted authorities. The constituted authorities never wrote to me to ask me if I had written that letter; if they had I should have told the truth, and I should have very respectfully submitted to any reprimand or punishment they thought I ought to have. When I came home the other day there were some insinuations that another gentleman was responsible for this letter, that he had published a private letter which I had written. I was then on half-pay, and I immediately took steps to show that I alone was responsible for the letter. If I had written to the authorities before, and while I was on full pay, I think I should have done something very insubordinate. I committed an error against the regulations; it was said I

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    should have written home and told the authorities I had written the letter, and that I was responsible. I conceived I ought not to do anything of the sort unless the authorities asked me. There was nothing in my letter which was not of public notoriety. With regard to the strength of the fleet, there was nothing in the letter that I gained in any way through my official position. May I beg leave to say that crimes are of different characters? If a man breaks his leave by one hour it is a very different crime from that of a man who hits his officer with a cutlass. I hope the matter will now cease; the whole question is in the hands of the constituted authorities, and I am prepared to receive with respectful submission any punishment they may choose to award me for not having complied with the printed regulations.

    Gunnery Officers and Engineering Duties.
    MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will lay upon the Table the Reports of the Captains of H.M.S. "Excellent" and "Vernon," also that of the Chief Inspector of Machinery at Portsmouth Dockyard, with reference to the transference of engineering duties to the gunnery and torpedo officers.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: It is contrary to the usual practice to lay upon the Table confidential Departmental Reports, and it is not proposed to depart from the practice in the present case.
    MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: May I ask if these Reports were not condemnatory of the action of the Admiralty in appointing gunnery lieutenants as engineers?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman has declined to make public these Reports.

    Education Question in Malta.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether be can state the exact terms of the Government Minute laid before the Executive Council of Malta, on 30th April, intimating that if the Education Vote were postponed or reduced such action would be considered
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    equivalent to a rejection; and whether he can cite any precedent for this interference with the Executive Council of a British Colony.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The Minute referred to by the hon. Member was as follows—
    "Chief Secretary,—I consider that the Education Votes have been fully discussed and that there is nothing new on the main question that can be usefully repeated. The course taken by you of accepting a Vote on Account at the sitting of the 26th of March, though approved of under the very exceptional circumstances of that occasion would not now be justifiable, therefore any further postponement or any temporising expedient tending to evade a decision on the Vote for the financial year will be taken as a rejection of the Vote."
    The circumstances in this case are very exceptional, and I know of no precedent which would be of any guidance.

    Red Sea Lights.
    SIR JAMES FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the four additional lighthouses contemplated at the southern end of the Red Sea are in course of erection: and, if so, by what power; when it is expected that they will be completed: whether their expenses will be defrayed by the £30,000 ceded for this purpose by Egypt from her light dues; and, whether anything has been settled as to the erection of a lighthouse at the eastern end of the Gulf of Aden.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CRANBORNE,): The four lights in question are in course of erection by the Ottoman Government, and His Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople has been informed that the work will be actively pushed on till the hot weather sets in, by which time it is hoped that all except the Moka light will be nearly complete. The money raised in Egypt will not be used to defray the expenditure incurred. The question as to the erection of a lighthouse at the eastern end of the Gulf of Aden is still under consideration.

    Italy and Tripoli.
    MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations with

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    regard to the eventual occupation by Italy of Tripoli have taken place between His Majesty's Government and the Italian Government; and whether His Majesty's Government has given conditional assent to its occupation by the Italian Government.
    LORD CRANBORNE: The answer is in the negative.

    Tientsin.
    MR. LEAMY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any definite agreement has been entered into by the Powers for handing over the control of the city of Tientsin to the Chinese authorities; and if so, whether any date has been fixed for the purpose.
    LORD CRANBORNE: No agreement has yet been arrived at.

    Agrarian Crime in England, Scotland and Wales.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state, from the judicial statistics for England, Scotland, and Wales, the number of persons in those countries accused last year of the specific offences set forth in the Return (Cd. 1069) for Ireland.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): No, Sir.
    MR. MACVEAGH: May I ask why particulars which are available for Ireland are not available for England?
    MR. RITCHIE: Because I take it that the kind of crime referred to is of such rare occurrence that special record is not made of it.

    Sea Fisheries Inquiry.
    MR. LAYLAND-BARRATT): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can furnish any information as to the progress made by the Departmental Committee (the promised appointment of which he announced on 21st June, 1901) with the inquiry into the question of scientific
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    research as applied to problems affecting the fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland; and if he can state when he hopes to be in a position to publish the Committee's Report.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): The Committee has not yet completed its sittings, and I am unable to say at what date it will present its Report.

    Cattle Importation Restrictions.
    CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether, in view of the present and prospective short supplies of beef, and the desirability of augmenting the food supply of the country, he will consider the advisability of allowing South American cattle to be landed in this country under the same conditions as those from the United States, and also of removing the existing restrictions on Canadian store cattle.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY,): In the case of Canadian store cattle the answer is in the negative. As regards Argentine cattle, I am bound by Statute to consider not only the existence or absence of disease in the exporting country, but also how far the laws regulating the importation of cattle into that country, and the administration of such laws, secure it against the introduction of disease from outside. With regard to the latter points we have made representations to the Argentine Government and are awaiting their reply.

    Milk-Blended Butter.
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that by a recent decision of the High Court, butter may be sold to the public which has been adulterated with a large percentage of moisture without infringement of the Margarine Act; and whether he will introduce a Bill to put a stop to the sale of an article which is prejudicial in the interests of the dairy industry of Great Britain and of the retailers and consumers throughout the country.
    MR. HANBURY: I am aware of the prejudice done to the makers of genuine butter both in this country and the Colonies by the sale as milk blended butter of an article artificially loaded with 25 per cent. of water. The recent introduction of an authorised standard of butter will, it is to be hoped, if standards in such cases are to be of any real value, have the effect of preventing such an article being so sold, but should that not prove to be the case, further steps ought, I think, to be taken without delay to remedy the injustice done to both British and Colonial farmers.
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that owing to the decision of the Court, milk blended butter can be sold quite easily if only a notice is stuck up in the shop?
    MR. HANBURY: No. That was not the decision. The Court decided it was not margarine.
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: I am referring to an earlier decision.

    British Postal Arrangements at Peking and Jerusalem.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that there are no British post offices in Peking or in Jerusalem, but that there are French, German, Japanese, and Austrian post offices in these places; and whether, in the interests of British commerce, and to uphold British influence, he will without delay take steps to supply the wants indicated.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): The Postmaster General is aware that there is no British post office in Peking or in Jerusalem, and that post offices have been established at those places by the Governments of certain foreign countries. No steps in the direction indicated in the Question are contemplated.

    Hong Kong and Penny Postage.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether
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    he is aware that the Postmaster General of Hong Kong announced on or before the 12th February last that penny postage from Shanghai, Wei-Hai-Wei, and other parts of China to the United Kingdom would come into operation on the 15th February, and that accordingly letters were so stamped and sent to this country, and will he state at what date the notification of this change was received in this country; and, seeing that a correspondent in this country called the Postmaster General's attention to the reduced postage from China on the 22nd March, will he explain why no reply was sent until the 14th April (in Letter 49 C); and, having regard to the fact that on the 14th April the correspondent was informed that the postage from this country was 2½d. to China, will he state what was the cause of the delay in reciprocal action, on the part of this country, for over two months.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Hong Kong post office appears to have announced locally at an early date in February last its intention to institute penny letter postage from British post offices in China to the United Kingdom on the 15th of that month, and to have carried this intention into effect; but it was not until nearly a month later that the announcement reached the Postmaster General. Through a misapprehension on the part of the Hong Kong Government this step had been taken without coming to an agreement with the Postmaster General and without the knowledge of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. What course should be taken in these irregular conditions was a question for the consideration of the Government. As soon as it was decided to make the penny rate reciprocal, no time was lost by the Postmaster General in giving effect to the decision. The hon. Member will see that the delay arose from the neglect of the Colonial Government to observe the fundamental principle governing such cases that no steps should be taken for establishing penny postage to the United Kingdom until a reciprocal arrangement has been concerted. The reply of the 14th of April to the correspondent referred to by the hon. Member was an interim statement, sent pending the decision of the Government as to the change of postage. The correspondent

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    was told of the facts as they existed; but was duly informed that any modification of them would be notified to the public without delay.

    Civil Servants and the Coronation Procession.
    MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if official stands will be erected for civil servants to witness the Coronation procession; and in the event of their being erected will he also state whether tickets will be issued by ballot, and, if charged for, the basis on which such charge will be made.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,): No stands are being erected for servants of the Crown at the public cost, but I have given permission for the erection of stands upon certain sites under my control, under the supervision of the officers of my Department. Following the precedent of 1897, the tickets are being allotted by the Office of Works to the various Departments on the principle that all of them shall have a fair distribusion of privileges for viewing the Coronation processions; the appropriation of the tickets to the members of the Establishments is left to the Departments themselves. The price charged per seat is a very moderate one and is fixed to cover the cost of erection and of making good damage to the sites. Any balance will be paid as in 1897 to charities connected with the Army, Navy, and Civil Services.

    Richmond Park.
    MR. PARKER: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether the Votes for £633, Salaries and Wages, and £457, Police and Park Keepers, under Class 1, Vote 2, Civil Service Estimates, include any remuneration for men employed in the preservation of game for sporting purposes; and, if game is preserved, how many times is it shot.
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: The gamekeepers are not paid out of the Votes of Parliament, with the exception that the park superintendent has duties of supervision over the keepers as over the park generally, but he has nothing to do with the actual rearing of the game.
    MR. PARKER: To whom has application to be made for permission to drill in the park, and over what area is drilling permitted?
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: All applications are made to the Ranger direct, and considered and settled by him. H.R.H. gives permission to certain local corps to drill in this park, over an area, I should say, of some 400 or 500 acres. But as the matter is not dealt with by my Department, I cannot without notice give the exact acreage. I will, however, ascertain for my hon. friend.

    Compulsory Registration of Land Titles.
    MR. BUTCHER: To ask Mr. Attorney General whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the experimental period of three years has now elapsed since the making of the first Order in Council with reference to compulsory registration of title to land under The Land Transfer Act, 1897; whether he is aware that the chief assistant registrar of the Land Registry has stated that the intention of the Act was that the experiment of making registration compulsory should have a trial of at least three years in the county first selected, and that after the expiration of three years from the making of the first order, an Order in Council might be made, making registration compulsory in any other county, but only on the invitation of the County Council of the county to be affected; and, in order to furnish full information as to the working of the system of compulsory registration in the county of London, so as to enable County Councils to decide whether they should exercise their power of recommending the adoption of compulsory registration in any county, whether His Majesty's Government will take steps to appoint a Parliamentary or other independent Committee to inquire into and report on the working of the system of compulsory registration in London.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. FINLAY,): Three years have elapsed since the provisions of the Land Transfer Act, with regard to compulsory registration of title, came into operation. I am not aware what

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    statements have been made by the chief assistant registrar of the Land Registry, but the Act itself provides that no orders after the first should be made for three years, and gives the initiative to the County Councils. There is no intention of appointing a Committee to inquire into the working of compulsory registration in London, as it does not appear to His Majesty's Government that there is any sufficient case for the appointment of such a Committee.

    Educational Statistics—Schools and Children.
    SIR JOHN AIRD: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Conncil on Education if he can state the number of board schools in the country, the number of voluntary schools, and also the number of scholars attending the board and voluntary schools respectively.
    THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST,): The number of schools on the annual Grant List on 31st August, 1901, was, Board schools, 5,857. voluntary schools, 14,294. The number of scholars on the registers of those schools was, 2,721,173 in board schools, and 3,041,673 in voluntary schools.
    MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: Are these the numbers on the books, or in average attendance?
    Sir JOHN GORST: In average attendance.

    Denomination Training Colleges.
    MR. MORRELL: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, under the Education Bill, Part II, Clause 4(1) (2), it is contemplated that a denominational training college, willing to open its classes to day students if subsidised by the local education authority, shall have first to adopt a rule similar to the conscience clause required in public elementary schools before it is eligible to receive such subsidy.
    SIR JOHN GORST: Such a rule would have to be adopted only in regard to non-residential students.

    Natatory Instruction in London Board Schools.
    MR. GRENFELL: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to the fact that the School Board for London has submitted a syllabus of instruction in swimming and life-saving to the Board of Education for approval, that this syllabus included practical instruction in the water in both subjects, and that the Board have replied that they will only recognise practice on land; and whether, in view of the fact that many British lives are lost at home and abroad owing to ignorance of swimming and life-saving, the Board of Education will reconsider their decision to exclude practical instruction in swimming and life-saving from the list of recognised subjects for grant.
    SIR JOHN GORST: The matter referred to in the Question has been fully considered, but the Board of Education have no present intention of altering the regulations for elementary schools recently laid before Parliament.

    Education Rates.
    MR. BARTLEY: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether in the Education Bill the 1d. rate which a non-county borough or urban district can raise is intended to be in addition to the rate of 2d. which may be levied by the County Council.
    SIR JOHN GORST: The answer is in the affirmative.

    Education Committees.
    MR. BARTLEY: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if, in the Education Bill, the Council of any non-county borough or urban district decides to adopt Part III of the Bill, what power will the said Council have in appointing members of the Education Committee of its district.
    SIR JOHN GORST: They will have the same power as County Borough Councils.

    Dublin Police at Punchestown Races.
    MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state how many members of the Dublin metropolitan police force were employed at Punchestown races on Tuesday 22nd, and Wednesday, 23rd April, and at Leopardstown races on Friday 25th, and Saturday, 26th April; what remuneration they received; whether this remuneration is in addition to the ordinary remuneration paid by the ratepayers of the city of Dublin; and, if so, whether he will cause inquiry to be made as to the feasibility of recommending that this duty in future shall be performed by the Royal Irish Constabulary, and also of recommending the reduction of the strength of the Dublin police force by the number of men employed on this particular class of duty at various periods during the year.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,)—(for Mr. WYNDHAM): Sixty-six men were employed at Punchestown, and twenty-nine at Leopardstown. They received no remuneration in addition to their ordinary pay, but their travelling expenses and cost of subsistence were defrayed by the Race Committee. It is not proposed to substitute the constabulary for the Dublin metropolitan police on this duty, for the obvious reason that the vast majority of the crowd, including the criminal element, which attend such meetings, come from Dublin. No inconvenience is caused to the city by the temporary absence from it of the small force employed on these occasions. The reply to the concluding inquiry is in the negative.

    Irish Local Government.
    SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will say when he proposes to introduce the Bill for the amendment of certain details of the Local Government (Ireland) Act.
    MR. ATKINSON: I would ask the hon. Baronet to adjourn this Question until Monday next in order that I may have an opportunity of consulting my right hon. friend on the subject.

    Portarlington Police.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Portarlington, with over 2,000 inhabitants, contains two police barracks with a force consisting of three sergeants and twelve constables;; and will he state the number of town-lands allotted to each barrack, and the total cost of policing Portarlington district, including rent, fuel and light, allowances, extras, and pay.
    MR. ATKINSON: The duties of the police at Portarlington are not confined to that place, but extend over two sub-districts comprising thirty-four townlands which are patrolled day and night. Two sergeants and nine constables are stationed at Portarlington at a total annual cost of £900, no portion of which is recovered from local rates.

    Rooskey (Mayo) Band and the Police.
    MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Rooskey, County Mayo, band, whilst performing on Christmas day, as is their annual custom, were attacked by sergeants Clancy and Lynch, who endeavoured to destroy the instruments, which afterwards had to be carried to Mylough, in Sligo County, for safety; will he say by whose authority the sergeants named thus acted, and when these bandsmen can regain possession of their instruments without further interference.
    MR. ATKINSON: The only statement in this Question which is founded on fact is that the band went out on Christmas Day. The allegation that the police endeavoured to destroy the instruments is absolutely without foundation. The police know nothing as to the whereabouts of the instruments.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: And will the right hon. Gentleman say whence he derived this information?
    MR. ATKINSON: From the police.

    Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Ireland.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the education of the deaf and dumb in Ireland is left entirely to private institutions, and if he will consider the advisability of allocating a grant from the Vote for primary education in aid of these private efforts.
    MR. ATKINSON: The money placed on the Estimates for primary education in Ireland is hypothecated to specific objects, and no portion of that money could be expended for the purpose suggested. The question of providing State aid towards the education of the deaf, dumb and other afflicted children is one that deserves, and is receiving the sympathetic consideration of the Government. The Government hope to be able to introduce legislation dealing with the matter, but cannot give any more definite undertaking at present.

    Protection of Irish Fisheries.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many Government steam vessels are looking after the protection of the fisheries on the Irish sea coast; how many captures have been made of steam trawlers or other vessels fishing within the limits from the 31st of March, 1901, to the corresponding date in this year; what number of prosecutions there were, and how many convictions were obtained; and can he give the names of the vessel or vessels who made the captures.
    MR. ATKINSON: There are two steam vessels employed by Government on this duty. Eight trawlers were captured during the year ended 31st March last, and eight prosecutions were undertaken resulting in seven convictions. In one case the capture was made by a coast guard officer; in the other seven they were made by the Cruiser "Helga."

    Rainsford v. Browns.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the public importance of the issues raised
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    in the case of Rainsford v. Browns, he will inquire from the Chief Baron whether he can furnish a correct copy of his charge to the jury, and of his notes of the evidence, and the pleadings in the case.
    MR. ATKINSON: There is no precedent, so far as I am aware, for action such as the hon. Member suggests, and no useful public purpose would be served by adopting it. Reports of considered judgments of a Court of Law have been laid on the Table of the House, but not charges to jurors, or judge's notes of the evidence given in Nisi Prius actions.
    MR. DILLON: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware of the fact that the House has frequently had laid before it the charges of Irish judges to grand juries. Why will he not consent to lay this most important charge. I shall repeat this Question.

    Crimes Act Prosecutions.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state who is responsible for directing prosecutions under the Crimes Act, and on what ground Messrs. McCormack and Rafferty were prosecuted at Frenchpark last week in respect of a meeting held in December last, three months before the district was proclaimed; and, whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the chief evidence against them were the speeches of other men who are now in prison; and will he say who directed the Crown Prosecutor to refuse a fortnight's adjournment; and for what reason a fortnight's adjournment was refused to men who had been summoned four months after the alleged offence had been committed.
    MR. ATKINSON: The Executive Government, advised by the law officers, is responsible for prosecutions instituted under the Crimes Act. The ground for prosecuting the persons named in the Question was that they had taken an active part in an unlawful assembly. The evidence against them was that which went to prove that the assembly was unlawful, including, of course, the speeches made at it. An application for adjournment was made to suit the personal convenience of the solicitor for the accused. It was resisted by the

    629
    counsel representing the Crown on the ground that the parties had had ample time to prepare their defence, and the application was refused by the presiding magistrates.
    MR. DILLON: The Crown Prosecutor said he had orders from headquarters to oppose the adjournment, who directed him?
    MR. ATKINSON: The Executive.

    Irish Privy Council and Crimes Act Proclamation.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether all the members of the Irish Privy Council received invitations to attend the meeting of that body in Dublin Castle on 16th April, at which a proclamation was issued under the power conferred on the Lord Lieutenant under the fifth section of The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, to proclaim districts for the purposes of that Act, by, and with the advice of the Irish Privy Council; how many of the fifty-two members of the Irish Privy Council attended this Council meeting; and did the Lord Lieutenant issue this proclamation by and with the advice of the four Members of the Privy Council, who alone were the signatories of that proclamation; and will he state by what practice are the meetings of the Irish Privy Council regulated, and on what principle are summonses to attend meetings of that body issued to some of its members and withheld from others.
    MR. ATKINSON: All the members of the Privy Council were not summoned. Pour members attended, and at a meeting presided over by His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, signed the proclamation. The practice usual in such cases was followed. The Lord Lieutenant, as representative of the Sovereign, directs the issue of the summonses, and I must refer the hon. Member to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, delivered in this House on the 15th June, 1887 (in reply to a speech of the hon. Member, who then raised the points again raised in this Question), for a full exposition of the functions discharged by members of the Privy Council in matters of this character.

    Irish Teachers' Salaries.
    MR. THOMAS ODONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether when teachers, who are now in the First, Second, or Third Class, have arrived at the maximum salary for First, Second, or Third Grades respectively, in accordance with Rule 37 (Sections b, c, and d), there is any provision made in the present rules of the Commissioners for the further promotion of these teachers if found worthy of it; and, if so, by what rule or rules.
    MR. ATKINSON: When a teacher has reached the maximum income for First Division of First Grade, he can receive no further promotion as teacher. Promotion from the lower to the higher grades will be made by the Commissioners in accordance with the terms of Rule 18, subject to the conditions laid down in Rules 19, 20, 21, and 22. Vacancies will be filled periodically, in accordance with the prescribed conditions, vide Rules 2 and 3.

    Nenagh Labourers' Cottage Scheme.
    MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that at the Local Government Inquiry held at Nenagh, North Tipperary, on the 15th April, with regard to the Guardians' proposed scheme for additional labourers' cottages in Nenagh Union, the application of four labourers, namely, J. Duff, J. Creamer, J. Starr, and J. McCarthy, from the districts of Portroe and Castletown, were refused on the ground that they were working at the slate quarries; and, seeing that the evidence of the district councillors for the divisions showed that these men were bonâ fide labourers, inasmuch as they worked for the neighbouring farmers during the harvest season, being obliged to work in the quarries during other slack times, and that they were at present living in hovels, whether he will take steps to have these men and their families provided with proper houses and the plots of land under the Act.
    MR. ATKINSON: The Inspector's Report on this Inquiry, which extended over several days, has not yet been received.

    Irish Salt Butter Industry.
    MR. JOYCE: beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether in the opinion of the legal advisers of the Crown Irish salt butter containing over 16 per cent. of moisture can legally be sold in England, provided the amount of moisture is declared to the purchaser.
    MR. HANBURY: I am unable to say what is the view of the legal advisers of the Crown. In fixing the standard I gave no effect to the point referred to in the Question, and I cannot suppose Parliament intended to set up conditions which could be so easily avoided as the hon. Member suggests.

    Burren (Clare) Postmastership.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the office of postmaster in Burren, County Clare, is still vacant; and can he explain the cause of the delay in filling up the post.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The sub office is not yet vacant. The sub-postmistress's resignation will take effect from the 24th instant.

    Transatlantic Shipping Combination.
    MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the wider questions raised by the shipping combination, His Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of withdrawing the Motion for the appointment of a Select Committee on steamship subsidies, with the view to the appointment of a Select Committee to consider all the more important questions affecting the mercantile marine of the United Kingdom, with a reference wide enough to include these questions as well as the question of subsidies.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think it would be far better to allow this Committee to go on with its investigation, and not at the present moment enlarge the scope of its inquiry. I do not think anything would be gained by that. The Government are investigating what is going on now, as I told the House
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    the other night; and I should strongly advise the hon. Gentleman to do what he can to enable this Committee to set to work and finish its inquiry before we endeavour to enlarge its scope.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATON: When will the Committee be appointed?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am very anxious for the appointment of the Committee, but some hon. Gentlemen, who object to the Committee as being too large or the reference to it being too limited, are doing their best, as far as I can see, to prevent that.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out out any prospect of being able to give the House exact information as to this shipping combination?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is going beyond the Question on the Paper.

    Church Discipline.
    MR. BRAND: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the continuance in the Established Church of England and Wales of disorders which the Archbishops and Bishops have failed to restrain, and of the pledge given in the Government Amendment of 10th May, 1899, that ecclesiastical legislation should be undertaken if there was not a speedy restoration of conformity on the part of the clergy to the law of Church and Realm, he is, upon reconsideration, prepared to afford to the Bill to make further provision for enforcing discipline in case of offences committed by clergymen all such facilities and support as may be necessary to pass it into law during the present session.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must not be taken as accepting the version of the fact given by the hon. Gentleman. In any case, he will readily recognise that it is perfectly impossible for the Government to find time for what cannot be otherwise than a highly controversial private Bill.

    Administration of Church Funds.
    MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury

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    whether, in view of the poverty of a section of the clergy, he is prepared, upon reconsideration, to assent either to an Address to His Majesty praying for the appointment of a Royal Commission, or to a Motion for the appointment of a Select Committee of this House, to inquire into and report upon the present administration of the funds of the Established Church of England and Wales, and the necessary measure of re-adjustment of episcopal and other ecclesiastical incomes, and methods of seeming such re-adjustment.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not at all deny the importance of the Question of the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot give any other answer than the one I have already given to a similar Question from him a few weeks ago. †

    Bishopric of Southwark Bill.
    COLONEL STOPFORD-SACKVILLE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that a Bill constituting a Bishopric of Southwark has twice passed the House of Lords with the approval of His Majesty's Government, he is now prepared to afford to the Bill such facilities and support as may be necessary to pass it into law during the present year.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My hon. and gallant friend will recognise that it is somewhat premature in the present position of the session to make any statement with regard to privileges for private Members' Hills, however uncontroversial they may be.

    Increase of Public Expenditure.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the Notice of Motion standing on the Order Book for a Select Committee to consider and report whether the present method of controlling and allocating expenditure in and between the various public Departments is the best that can be devised; and what countenance the Government will give to such Motion.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: In answer to my hon. friend, I have to say that I
    * See (4) Debates, cv., 53.
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    have been considering the statistics of the growth of expenditure since 1894–1895; and I have come to the conclusion, as I think my hon. friend would come to the conclusion if he looked at the figures, that the growth of expenditure depends, not upon what I may call extravagance, but on policy. It is not because there is any laxity in the supervision of expenditure, but because it has seemed to the House of Commons and to the Government that certain kinds of expenditure should be undertaken. For instance, my hon. friend will find that by far the largest items of growth are the Army and the Navy. If I remember rightly, the next largest growth is the Education Department, and there is also a large growth in the Post Office Department, directly due, of course, to the pressure put by the House of Commons, and by the results of the various Commissions investigating the remuneration of Post Office employees.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: There has also been a large growth of profit in the Post Office.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There is besides that, no doubt, a large growth, or at all events a considerable growth, not large in comparison with the items I have just mentioned, in connection with colonial and foreign policy; but this again is directly due to policy which could not be decided by a Committee. I do not think, under these circumstances, that any good would result from the appointment of a Committee to consider the interchange of expenditure between different Departments. That is a responsibility which can only rest, as it seems to me, with the Treasury, and on which it would be impossible for the Government of the day to accept the advice of any Committee, however constituted. For these reasons, though I sympathise with the object my hon. friend has in view, I do not think any good would be gained by acceding to his request.
    MR. ALFRED DAVIES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that since 1894 the ordinary expenses of Government have increased by about £25,000,000 per annum?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Gentleman wants to ask me about figures, perhaps he will give me notice. The growth is very large, no doubt. I think perhaps it is as large as that.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: Will my right hon. friend endeavour to secure to the House the opportunity of discussing the general question of expenditure, on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, before any Amendment dealing with any special tax comes on?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir. I really do not see precisely what is to be gained by such a discussion. We are all agreed that the growth of expenditure is very serious. There is no difference of opinion as to that on either side of the House. How can you discuss on the Finance Bill whether less ought to be spent on the Navy or on the Army, or on the Pacific cable or the Uganda railway? Those are questions which cannot with advantage, it seems to me, be discussed upon such an occasion as the Second Reading of the Finance Bill; and, if we are merely to deal in generalities as to the danger of the growth of expenditure, I am afraid our discussions can be only vague and somewhat barren.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: Do I understand my right hon. friend to infer that nothing whatever can be done in this matter?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If my hon. friend asks me if I think the expenditure can be diminished, I do not see my way to doing it unless you are prepared to reverse the policy which you have deliberately accepted as regards the great spending Departments.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this expenditure has increased by leaps and bounds since the automatic closuring of debate in Supply?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir.

    Physical Training in Elementary Schools.
    MR. PRIESTLEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if His Majesty's Government will consider
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    the appointment of a Royal Commission for England and Wales, similar to the one recently appointed for Scotland, to inquire into the question of the physical training of children in all public elementary schools.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not yet had any opportunity of consulting the authorities of the English Education Department, but, as at present advised, it seems to me it would be wise, in the first place, to await the results of the Commission now inquiring into this very subject in Scotland—an inquiry which, if not absolutely conclusive as regards England, must certainly throw a great deal of light on the English question—and, in the second place, to await the results of the discussion on the Education Bill now before the House.

Business of the House.
MR. DILLON: I wish to ask the First Lord a question as to the making up of the Notice Paper under the new Rules. It will be generally agreed that it would be greatly to the convenience of hon. Members if the intentions of the Government with regard to the afternoon and evening sittings were always set forth on the Notice Paper. Looking at the Paper today it will be seen the first Order for the evening sitting is the Patent Law Amendment Bill. Cannot the Paper be so drawn as to show the business the Government intend to take? This is important in view of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the other night that these broken sittings would occasionally enable the Government to bring on business of secondary importance.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will consider whether the hon. Gentleman's suggestion can be carried out. I entirely agree that it is for the convenience of hon. Members that they should know as clearly as possible what will be taken at the evening sitting, but of course it will be impossible for the Government to bind themselves, because what happens at the evening sitting may depend in many cases on what happens at the morning sitting. But I understand that the hon. Gentleman is prepared to accept a notice indicating that there is some doubt

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about the matter, and I will see whether something of the nature suggested can not be adopted.
MR. DILLON: The Orders of the Day at the evening sitting are preceded now on the Order Paper by the heading "Subject to alterations consequent on the afternoon sitting." Cannot the right hon. Gentleman retain that heading?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, some such plan might be adopted. I will consider the matter.
MR. JAMES LOWTHER: There is the chance of private Bill business having to be taken at the evening sitting.
MR. BRYCE: May I ask whether, when an alteration is going to be made in the business for the evening, it will be incumbent on the Government to state it at the rising of the House at half-past seven.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, with the permission of Mr. Speaker, that certainly will be done.
MR. BARTLEY: I beg to ask whether the Second Reading stage of the Education Bill will end at the conclusion of the afternoon or of the evening sitting on Thursday.
Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: That, of course, is a question I am unable to answer. I think it will probably be found that by half-past seven on Thursday there has been sufficient time for discussion.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: What about the first two Orders on the Paper today (Procedure Rules)?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Under an Order passed by the House some time ago, whenever the Rules are put down they must stand first on the Paper. I intend today to postpone them will the 14th of this month.

NEW BILLS.
  FALSE CHARACTERS BILL.
  "For the better prevention of giving False Characters to Servants and of offences connected therewith," presented by Mr. Herbert Robertson, under Standing Order 31; supported by Mr. Bousfield; to be read a second time on Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 186.]
  YARDLEY CHARITY BILL.
  "To confirm a scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the management of the charity or foundation called the Yardley Charity Estates, in the parish of Yardley, in the county of Worcester," presented by Mr. Austen Chamberlain, under Standing Order 31; supported by Mr. Griffith Boscawen, Mr. J. W. Wilson, Colonel Long, and Mr. Norman, to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 187.]
  SOLICITORS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Solicitors in Scotland," presented by Mr. Ure, under Standing Order 31; supported by Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Crombie; to be read a second time upon Monday, 2nd June, and to be printed. [Bill 188.]

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. BRYCE: I rise to discharge an unwelcome task. For many years past all the friends of education have recognised the great need there was of improving the elementary instruction in our schools, and of providing the secondary instruction which is now so largely wanted. On this side, I can say with confidence, there has been, and there is, a universal and hearty wish to re-organise the schools, and to spend more money upon them, if we are sure that that money will be usefully spent. The object is one on which there exists so much agreement that, if the Government had omitted from this measure one element

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of political, or rather of ecclesiastical, controversy, I believe it might have been attained. But the Bill before us not only introduces that controversial element, but contains so many provisions which are objectionable on other grounds, that I cannot regard it as even an instalment of reform. If the faults of the Bill were confined to one or two points, it might be possible for us to reserve our opposition for the Committee stage, or we might, instead of moving the rejection of the Bill, have moved an Amendment to the Second Reading which would have confined attention and debate to those few points, omitting others as of less consequence. But the faults of the Bill are numerous, they lie in the essence of the Bill, and we have little hope that they are faults which the Government will consent to remove. When we look to the previous Bills which the Government have produced since 1895, I confess this seems to be by far the most re-actionary of them; and when we watch the whole course of their educational policy, as it has been seen in their modifications of the Code, and in their constant efforts to secure preferential benefits for voluntary schools, I can only come to the conclusion that the very features in this Bill which we deem the worst are the features to which the Government attach most importance. Therefore, I can entertain very little hope that the Government will be disposed to alter them.
That being so there is no course open to us except to oppose the Bill as a whole. In doing so I shall for myself endeavour to avoid anything that can introduce elements of irritation, and I shall dwell more largely on the educational than on the ecclesiastical defects of the measure. I must ask the indulgence of the House in respect of the extreme dryness and technicality of this subject, for our legislation has made education, although it is one of the most important, one of the most unattractive subjects which can engage the attention of Parliament. It is possible that I may sometimes mistake the meaning of the Bill, because it is in many places obscure, and in some others even self-contradictory. It was introduced by the First Lord of the
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Treasury with three recommendations; it was recommended as constituting one authority for all kinds of education, as securing educational improvement, and as effecting a final settlement of a highly controversial question. I propose to examine it in those three aspects.
There is in the expression "one authority" something that is attractive prima facie; a single authority for all kinds of education naturally appears to be a right method. If we were beginning to create a system de novo, we should certainly create a single authority; we have one, and are glad to have one, in Scotland. But this phrase, "one authority," has become a sort of catchword, and it is used in a very different sense by different sets of persons. It has been commonly used, certainly on this side of the House, to describe what is called an ad hoc authority; and, like so many catchwords, it saves people the trouble of thinking and of examining in each case what it actually covers. I want to make a few remarks on this phrase, "one authority." In the first place, you may buy your one authority, as you are going to buy it here, by the extinction of bodies which have been at work for thirty years, and which, by universal agreement and the admission of Ministers themselves, have done admirable work for the education of the country. With the extinction of the School Boards there goes the extinction of the right of women to sit as elected representatives. The School Boards have been the most active and potent force that we have-had in our education since 1870. They are accused of having trespassed on the field of secondary education; but why did they do so? It was because there was a void which no one else appeared to fill. They did it with the approval of successive Education Ministers, and they have done it to the enormous benefit of the masses of the people.
I have a second observation to make on the single authority. You may overload your single authority. School Board work in our large boroughs is work which is fully sufficient to employ all the spare time of the unpaid citizen who gives himself to it. So also is the work of the Borough Councils, and, as anybody knows, it is found already to be so heavy that

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it is difficult to induce the leading men in many of our towns to undertake the post, important as it is, of a town councillor. Now, what you propose by this Bill is to throw work which is sufficient for two bodies entirely on one body. You propose to ask one man, as a member of a Borough Council, to undertake the work which two men, a member of the Borough Council and a member of the School Board, have not found themselves hitherto more than able to discharge. I personally have no prejudice or predilection whatever either for Borough Councils or School Boards. I put this to the House simply as a matter of the practical result of overloading the authority so that it will not be able to overtake its functions.
Thirdly, elementary education and secondary education raise different problems and require different areas. A large borough or any borough is a very good area for elementary education, and a county is a very good area for secondary education; but a small borough is an area unfit for secondary education. The number of young people is not sufficient to enable secondary education to be adequately organised; and similarly the county council is a bad authority for elementary education, because the schools are too numerous, too scattered, and too distant from the central country seat. What you want for elementary education is an area more nearly resembling that of a rural district. Therefore, this "one authority" for elementary education is an unsatisfactory authority as regards the rural areas; and I cannot look upon this as an adequate proposal, since it breaks down in one of the most critical cases and one in which the need of doing something to improve education in the rural areas is great.
Lastly, the only real and practical evil which now arises from the absence of a single authority for public education is that which arises on what I may call the borderland of public elementary and secondary schools. It arises in regard to the higher grade, the evening and continuation schools, the organised science schools, and all that class of instruction known as technical education. In those schools there is no doubt a need for co-relation
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of that which is under the elementary and that which is under the secondary authorities. But there was a perfectly simple plan proposed for effecting that co-relation without the revolutionary scheme which is now brought before us by the Government. That plan was proposed in the Report of the Secondary Education Commission seven years ago—a unanimous Report, which was signed by persons so different in their political and educational views as my right hon. friend opposite, the Member for Cambridge University, the Member for East Somerset, and my hon. friends on this side, the Members for Wansbeck and Nottingham. That would have met all the needs of the case, and would not have required the enormous changes which we are now asked to accept.
As I have mentioned the Secondary Education Commission, may I undertake one word of personal explanation? I adhere myself, and I am sure my hon. friends on this side adhere for themselves, to every recommendation contained in the Report of that Commission. But I entirely deny that that Report can in any way be brought to support the Bill of the Government. That Report was addressed solely and entirely to secondary education. Elementary education was not within the reference to the Commission, and whenever they approached this subject of elementary education they declined to express an opinion upon it. Therefore, there is nothing whatever in that Report which is entitled to be quoted in support of any of the proposals which are made in this Bill, so far as they relate to elementary education. For the reasons that I have endeavoured to give to the House, I think that any such benefits as the constitution by this Bill of a single authority purports to give are outweighed, and more than outweighed, by the corresponding disadvantages of the scheme.
Now let me come to close quarters with the provisions of the Bill. Does it give us that single authority which is claimed as its conspicuous merit? I am going to take three cases. The first is that of a county. There, there is one authority—the administrative county. The area is one suitable for secondary education,

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but unsuitable for elementary education. My second case is the case of a large borough. That, again, is an area which is suitable both for elementary and secondary education. Therefore. I think the arrangement is satisfactory. But what is the third case? It is that of the small boroughs which have a population exceeding 10,000, and the urban districts which have a population exceeding 20,000. Why this difference should be drawn is one of the inscrutable mysteries of the Bill. In these small boroughs and urban districts the local council is the authority for elementary education, but it is not the authority for secondary education. The authority for secondary education is the County Council with its Committee. And I ought to say that these small boroughs and urban districts represent to the best of my recollection a population exceeding 5,000,000—no small part of the whole population of this country. Therefore, in all these small boroughs and urban districts you are so far from having this single authority that you put elementary education under one authority sitting on the spot, and secondary education under another which sits far away in the town where the County Council meets. That is a very serious practical evil, because recent decisions have removed the higher grade schools, evening schools, continuation schools, and all education given to children above the age of fifteen, from the sphere of elementary to the sphere of secondary education.
Just see what that involves. The education which is transferred to the secondary sphere has, to a large extent, been given in the same school premises, on the same school subjects, and by the same teachers as those who teach in the elementary day schools. But now it is to be put under a different authority; and whereas the premises, and the teachers, and the subjects are all matters which are for many purposes—indeed for all day school purposes—under the elementary authority on the spot, these will for other purposes have to be transferred to the secondary authority at a distance; and the confusion, the want of co-ordination, and the want of co-relation will be at least as bad as they have ever been before. Let me illustrate
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this by three cases. First, I take the case of the County of Essex. In that county the Bill creates two authorities for secondary education—the County Council with its Education Committee, and the County Borough Council of West Ham. There are eleven areas for elementary Education—the County of Essex, the borough of West Ham, and nine small boroughs and urban districts—Barking, Chelmsford, Colchester, East Ham, Harwich, Ilford, Leyton, Southend, and Walthamstow. In every one of these nine areas you will have elementary education under one authority, the local authority, and you will have secondary education, which is now to include much that has hitherto been elementary, under the authority of the County Council at a distance. Secondly, I take the case of the parish of Whalley in Lancashire, one of those great ancient parishes which we still find in Lancashire and Yorkshire. In that parish there is to be one authority for secondary education—viz., the Lancashire County Council. There are to be nine authorities for elementary education, viz., the councils of urban districts and the smaller boroughs. Secondary education will be in the hands of the County Council, and elementary education in the hands of these eight borough and district councils which lie within the parish, and in these eight towns you will have the schools under different authorities, not necessarily managed with any relation to one another. Lastly, I take the West Riding of Yorkshire. That has got besides its county boroughs fifteen non-county boroughs and urban districts with a population of 431,000—nearly one-third of the whole population of the administrative county of West Riding. These fifteen non-county boroughs and urban districts will each have the control of its elementary education, but the County Council will have the control of secondary education, and all the higher grade, evening and continuation schools in these boroughs and urban districts will be under a different authority from the elementary schools carried on in the same premises as the elementary education, and by the same teachers. What, then, becomes of the single authority and the system of co-relation when you look at

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these facts? Let me add that you are creating a different rate for elementary and for secondary education. You cannot call in the one in aid of the other. You may, under Section 13, have independent committees in different parts of the county quite separate from one another, but with concurrent powers of jurisdiction; and you have made in the Bill no provision whatever for the representation of the elementary authorities upon the secondary education committees.
When I consider all these points on which the Bill fails to give unity of administration, I do not think it too much to say that it utterly fails to perform the promise which the right hon. Gentleman stated to us in introducing the measure. The Government said that their aim was to simplify the system of education, to define the function of the authorities, and to remove occasions of friction between them. But what is their scheme of authority? We have four authorities from the top to the bottom. At the top the Board of Education at Whitehall loses some of its control, but how much the Government either will not or cannot tell us. It does lose some of its control; the right hon. Gentleman told us that when he, introduced the Bill, but we have endeavoured in vain to elicit how much. It is perfectly clear, however, that Whitehall will be far less effective for using its influence for the improvement of schools, that it will no longer be able as in time past to work up inferior schools, because it will no longer be in the same direct contact with the local managers. Below Whitehall, we come to the County Councils and the Borough Councils. They have got no powers except those of raising rates and borrowing money. They will not know anything directly about the condition of the schools. They will not know why the money they are asked to spend is being spent, nor, except from the Education Committee's Report, upon what purposes and from what motives it is to be spent. They will not know whether the money they have voted to the Committee is money which is doing good, because they, as councils, will not be in any contact with the schools. Then we have the Education Committees. They are, we are told, to be supreme in everything except finance.
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Sir, they will have all the information, they will have powers of framing policy, but without the power of the purse they will be unable to carry out their schemes of policy. They may propose expenditure, but it will not rest with them to vote that expenditure, and if the County Council does not see the necessity for the expenditure which they propose, or if the County Council has other objects in view, some local improvement perhaps, about which it knows more and for which it cares more, and on which, therefore, it wants to spend money, the County Council may refuse the schemes which the Education Committee lays before it, and when the County Council refuses, of course the Education Committee is paralysed. Of what use is it to deal with schools and frame schemes of policy, if you cannot count upon getting the money to carry them out? The scheme of separating the County Council and the Education Committees is a scheme for divorcing financial responsibility from administrative responsibility. The Committee will have the knowledge without the power. The Council will have the power without the knowledge.
At the bottom of the series we come to the local managers. Now the local managers are one of the darkest and most intricate parts of this whole scheme of machinery, because the local managers consist of two different sets of persons. There are the managers of the schools which have hitherto been board schools. The Bill does not tell us—I hope the Government in the course of this debate will tell us—what the position of these managers of the schools heretofore board schools is to be. Are they to be mere local agents, obeying in everything the orders received from the Education Committee, or are they to have a quasi independent position? There are two sections in the Bill which deal with this matter. Section 7 favours one construction, Section 8 favours the other. About the voluntary managers there is very little doubt. The voluntary managers will be virtually independent of the Education Committee. They are not appointed by the Education Committee, and they cannot be removed by the Education Committee. They are, we are told, to "carry out the directions of the Education Committee as regards secular

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education." But how can they be compelled to carry out these directions? At present, when a board of managers disobeys the instruction which it receives from Whitehall, its grant is stopped. The school suffers, the managers find themselves helpless, and of course they must comply with the demands that Whitehall makes. But in future if they disobey the directions given by the Education Committee, it is the Education Committee that will suffer, because the Education Committee, or rather the County Council, will lose their grant. The grant which a school earns, henceforth, according to the Bill, to be paid to the County Council, will, where the school is inefficient or disobedient, no longer be paid to the County Council, and the County Council will be a sufferer for the default of the local managers. If the local managers persist in disobedience, the only course which the County Council and the Education Committee have, will be to undertake to provide a school themselves—that is to say, to charge the cost of building and maintaining a school upon the rates. They will have to penalise the County Council for the default of the local managers. In those circumstances is it not perfectly clear that the local managers occupy a position of great, I might almost say of impregnable strength? They will prevail, because; the County Council cannot be expected to penalise the ratepayers.
And see how little power the Education Committee has. The local managers may dismiss a good master, perhaps upon purely personal grounds, perhaps upon grounds which would be considered quite insufficient by the Education Committee, but the Education Committee cannot interfere. They may refuse to dismiss an incompetent master, and again the Education Committee cannot interfere. They may sanction religious instruction in a school which may be opposed, I will not say to the wishes of the Nonconformists, but to the wishes of all the Church of England parents in the parish, as is sometimes the case; the Education Committee will be unable to interfere. As long as there are thirty pupils in average attendance at a school, the County Council must continue to suppport the school, even if they think it needless and wish to unite it with some other school in the neighbourhood. How can the right hon. Gentleman say that the Education Committee is the single master of the
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whole educational machinery in the district, when these things are possible? No, Sir, the Committee is not master of the situation. Its hands are tied. It must suffer several weak schools to go on where reason would suggest that one strong school should be substituted. This is not simplification, this is not concentration of powers. The limits of these several authorities are left by the Bill entirely undefined. No one has got a free hand, even for the work which is specifically committed to him. This is a scheme replete with confusion, a scheme fertile in jarring claims and intermediate controversies.
Before I pass from this, I am afraid, tedious theme of authorities, there are two incidental points on which a word must be said. One is with regard to what is called the optional clause. I mean, of course, the clause under which County and Borough Councils have power to adopt the Act to the extinction of School Boards. That clause has been very much censured. Of course, the objections to it are quite obvious. No one will deny that. But what is the alternative? The alternative is to throw upon these bodies a vast mass of entirely new and extremely difficult powers—a mass of work for which they are unprepared, and which some of them are entirely unwilling to accept. I know of some cases already in which they have declared their unwillingness. Three important County Councils have done so—the County Councils of Durham, Northampton, and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The deliverance of the West Biding County Council last year on the subject, and that of its Technical Instruction Committee this year is one of the clearest and strongest statements we have had of the case against this Bill. I must not detain the House now by reading it. I refer to the County Council of last year; but I think the resolution of last year is very good evidence of what the opinion was. The Council has not yet met, but the House may take it from me that the Technical Instruction Committee have declared themselves in opposition to the Bill and I will read their Resolution when we get into Committee. It is clear that some County Councils are opposed to the Bill, but I have not yet been able to ascertain about the Borough Councils. The County Councils I have referred to are

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opposed to it because they say that, whilst they feel themselves qualified for secondary education, they do not feel themselves qualified for elementary education, and I cannot believe that the Government will drop this clause, although some of their supporters have urged them to do so, when I remember the words used by the right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill. He said—
"We think it will be most undesirable to drive or to force local authorities without full consideration, and possibly against their will, into accepting our plans."
The right hon. Gentleman also said—
"How much better to attain that result through their free and untrammelled action than to force it upon them prematurely."
Although I feel it is not possible to do much good, when I look upon the evils that would be created by the sudden transfer of work to people not prepared for it at short notice, I earnestly hope the House will not consent to omit the optional clause, but that, if this transfer is ultimately to be made, it shall be made after long notice and after due preparation. My other remarks relate to the peculiar case of London. London is not included in this Bill. I do not think that it is from goodwill either to the School Board or to the County Council. The sentiments of the Government towards the County Council were recently sufficiently declared in that Water Bill, which has been so ruthlessly reformed by the Joint Committee. But I do not think that the London friends of education need console themselves over the fact that they are omitted from the Bill. They are spared, but they are spared only for the moment. The only boon that the Government proposes to give to the School Board for London is the boon which the Cyclops gave the too-confiding Ulysses—

—I will eat Outis last after his companions. And so the School Board for London will be the last to perish when all the other School Boards have disappeared.
Now I turn from the question of authorities to the question of the educational improvements which the Government say we are to expect from the Bill. First of all there is secondary education. Now secondary education is the greatest and most urgent of all our educational wants. The
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Bill does little if anything for secondary education. It does not direct any inquiry or any scheme to be made for the reorganisation of secondary education. It does not impose any duty on the new authorities to provide secondary education, however great the local need may be. It is purely permissive. It does not contain any suggestion for dealing with endowments or for the reorganisation of secondary schools; it does not set apart the grant under the Act of 1890 so that it shall be in future applicable solely to secondary and technical education. It gives a rating power up to 2d., with the possibility of increase with the consent of the Local Government Board. Now in 1895 the rate of 2d. would probably have been sufficient in the meantime to provide for secondary education, but the circumstances have completely changed since 1895. They have changed especially in this, that a great deal of education which was then deemed to be elementary, and provided for out of elementary sources, is now declared to be secondary, and must be provided for out of the secondary rate. That applies to the higher grade schools, the continuation schools, and the evening schools, and to all education given to children over the age of fifteen. All that is now secondary, and will have to be paid for out of this 2d. rate, and I think that in many cases it will entirely absorb the 2d. rate, and will leave little or nothing for other kinds of secondary education. There is another point to consider. What will happen when the Borough Councils are to be asked to impose a rate for secondary education? They will have a very heavy burden laid upon them for elementary education, and it is extremely improbable, with the fear of the ratepayers before their eyes, and the large cost of elementary education, they will venture to impose an additional rate for secondary education.
I see very little prospect for secondary education in this Bill. Secondary education ought to have had a Bill to itself, and it ought to have had a start of three or four years before primary education is thrown upon the same authority, if ever it is to be thrown upon it. As things stand now, the

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probability is, that secondary education will go to the wall. Will elementary education fare any better? There is nothing which is more needed than better provision for the training of the teachers. I believe that three-fourths of the teachers of the elementary schools have received no regular course of training. There is nothing in this Bill to provide for better training for the teachers; nothing about training colleges; about pupil teachers, although it is admitted that the present pupil teacher system wants reform. We have had many edifying discourses from the Vice-President of the Council on this subject, but there is nothing in the Bill to unlock the door which sectarianism has, in so many of the schools of the country, closed against the Nonconformists desiring to become teachers. The Act of 1870 placed a stringent obligation on every locality to provide elementary education; that obligation is relaxed by this Bill, and the means of enforcing it are made far weaker than they were before.
The rural schools, as we have been told, are largely inefficient, and it may be thought that the Bill, by giving a claim upon the rates, provides the means of levelling them up; that is to say, to the board school standard. Now what will the cost of this levelling up process be? It is very difficult to form a positive estimate, but I have found in a journal called the Local Government Chronicle a pretty fair estimate of the figures. The Load Government Chronicle estimates the extra charge on the rates in the counties, assuming that the subscriptions remain as they were in 1900—at £1,068,000. But if the subscriptions disappear or the remains of them are absorbed by the charge for repairs, trifling as that charge is, and I do not think it will be more than one twenty-fifth or one-thirtieth of the annual cost of maintaining a school, the Local Government Chronicle estimates that the total increase of rates will be £1,061,000. Add to this the additional charge in boroughs, and the sum total amounts high above two million pounds. So that hon. Members will see there must be a very heavy increase, because in the first place there will be the gaping void
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which the cessation of voluntary sub scriptions will cause; the voluntary subscriptions being, according to the right hon. Gentleman, about £830,000 a year. In the future there will be also the difference between the average charge upon the rates of the board school child, which is estimated at 19s. 4d., and the average subscription paid in respect of each child in the voluntary schools, which is estimated at 7s. That difference will represent the sum which will have to be made up for every child in the voluntary schools. Therefore it is plain that if there is to be any improvement, there must be a large rise in the rates. That rise will be from 4d. to 6d. in the counties of England. In Worcestershire it will be 4d.; in the West Riding it will be 5½d.; in Northumberland 5d., as the Duke of Northumberland estimates in a letter to The Times today; and by the Dorsetshire farmers it is estimated that for the County of Dorset it will be 6d. I have been able to get no satisfactory information about the boroughs, but I am told that in Liverpool, where there is an unusually large number of voluntary schools, the rise in the rate is estimated at 6d.
Now what will happen if there comes this rise, or if this rise swims into view before the alarmed eyes of the County Councils? Many Councils will recoil from it. The farmers of Dorsetshire are already terrified at the prospect. We have had several interesting letters from Peers, all of them supporters of the Government, pointing out the fact that the rates must rise, and that the subscriptions will disappear. The Duke of Northumberland, as I understand, goes so far as to say that people will not subscribe a sum even sufficient to provide for the repairs of the schools. Therefore, if we have to level up in some schools in some counties we shall have to level down in others. The County Councils will have no great enjoyment in spending money for purposes which they have not themselves determined, but which they will know only from the reports of their statutory Educational Committees. The problem that will be placed before the counties of England will be this—heavy rates and some possible improvements, light rates and

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stagnation. Some counties and some boroughs may choose one alternative, and some the other; but, unfortunately, those counties in which improvement is most needed are those where they are likely to care least for improvement. The schools have been inferior in certain districts, because the people of those districts have been backward; and because the people of those districts have been backward they will lot rate themselves for their schools. The importance of the central authority at Whitehall will be reduced, and sixty-one petty educational authorities all over the country will have no such strong hand over the schools as the central authority had. They will not have the accumulated store of experience which the experts of Whitehall possess.
The last of the points the right hon. Gentleman dwelt upon in introducing this Bill was the part it would have in making a final settlement. Now, I have tried to show the House that, so far as our administrative educational system goes, this Bill effects no final settlement, for it leaves very many questions unsettled. But what I think the First Lord of the Treasury really meant was that it would put an end to the political and ecclesiastical controversies; that it will so rivet the denominational schools on the educational system of the country, that it will never be possible in the future to detach them. This is the one thing which this Bill is meant to achieve. It is not an Education Bill. It is a Voluntary Schools Relief Bill. It is designed to make the denominational schools not only the schools of today, but even more the schools of tomorrow, because the Bill is full of provisions, dexterously and ingeniously devised which I must not attempt here, for want of time, to examine, but which, of course, will have to be carefully examined in Committee—it is full of provisions to enable the denominational schools to supplant and to oust the undenominational schools in the future; to provide, in fact, that where new schools have to be created these schools shall, as far as possible, be schools of a sectarian type.
Some one, I think, has called this settlement a compromise. Now, how can there be a compromise where on the
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part of denominational schools it is all getting and no giving? The Bill is a giving, up to self-elected bodies, deliberating in secret, of the management for the future of the majority of the schools of the country, and requiring the public to pay for those schools. The charge will be with the ratepayers, and the control will be with irresponsible private managers. What justification can be alleged for such a one-sided settlement as that? The justification which we have heard is this—that English parents prefer denominational schools. I really wonder that anybody ventures to make that assertion in this House. Why, Sir, do not we all know perfectly well that the one argument which has invariably been used to draw subscriptions from reluctant parishioners and to avert the creation of School Boards is "unless you subscribe, there will be a School Board and a school rate, so that the voluntary school will be a good deal cheaper for you as ratepayers. "I was delighted to see that in the two letters which appeared today, and to which I have already referred—the letter of the Duke of Northumberland and the letter of Lord Heneage—that was avowed in the frankest and most candid way. Of course, everybody knows it. This settlement is not a compromise; it is an absolute and unconditional surrender to clerical claims. I am very far from wishing to make any reflection whatever on the clergy. I know from personal experience that the clergy of the Church of England take, as a rule, a great deal of interest in education. They have done much excellent work for the schools, and I believe that in many cases they have done that work entirely irrespective of any denominational motives. Sometimes a clergyman is the only person in a parish who has cared for education at all. But let us note the position which a large section of the clergy take up quite conscientiously upon this question—a section which is increasing, and which seems to me at present to have the exclusive ear of the Government. It is a two-fold position. The first part of it is that the Church of England, because it is the Established Church, is primarily responsible for, and primarily entitled to control, the education of the country. And the other part of it is this—that the giving in elementary schools of definite, distinctive, dogmatic

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instruction is essential to the spiritual and moral welfare of the children who are in those schools. Those are the two doctrines and positions which are held by that section of the clergy, and also, I am afraid, by influential members of the Government. One of them is absolutely opposed to all the principles on which a free country can be governed, and in which the free countries of Europe and North America are governed. Education is the business not of the Church, but of the State. The State is responsible for it, the State is entitled to control it. And the other proposition—about definite dogmatic instruction—is absolutely opposed to experience and to common sense, because experience shows us that there is no difference whatever in after life between children who come from undenominational and those who come from denominational schools.
How can it be said that Church of England parents are so anxious for distinctive dogmatic instruction, when we all of us know that the board schools, and other undenominational schools, are full of Church of England children, where there are other schools equally accessible? I know, myself, in a northern town, a large school with about 900 children. It is an undenominational school—not a hoard school, but a voluntary school—and so far as I know, it gives very little, if any, religious instruction. More than one-third of the children in that school are Church of England children, although the town is full of Church of England schools, easy of access in every part. Every one can parallel from his own experience cases of that kind. I agree with what was said the other day by the President of the National Union of Elementary Teachers, when he stated that he did not believe English parents cared one atom about dogma. This view, however, is not the view of an eminent ecclesiastic who has lately been favouring us with his opinions. The Dean of St. Paul's says——[Laughter.] Do hon. Members think that the Dean of St. Paul's is not to be listened to? The Dean of St. Paul's not only fills a great place, but he was chosen by the Government to be the successor of one of the brightest ornaments of English theology and letters, the late Dean Church. He has been for many years the treasurer of, and a most
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active spirit in, the National Society He is well entitled to be heard. The Dean of St. Paul's said—
"I think School Boards have been a great misfortune all over the country; they have lowered the tone of morality, and have increased the amount of crime. I regard the paying of School Board rates as helping the promotion of vice, rather than the increase of virtue."
SIR FRANCES POWELL: It must not be supposed that the Dean represents the National Society. Being a member of the Council, I am quite aware that the opinions of the Dean are repudiated by every member of that body. [Opposition cries of "When? "] Whenever the Dean says it, we repudiate it.
MR. BRYCE: It is evident that the repudiation of his colleagues does not have much effect on the mind of the Dean. But I am aware that there are many who do not agree with the Dean. One of the most sensible and judicious of the dignitaries of the Church of England. Archdeacon Sandford, in Convocation the other day, expressed his dissent from the words of the Dean. But Convocation as a whole did not do so. And, for the matter of that, I know that many of the Bishops—who are usually much more cautious, much more judicious, and, I think, much more liberal-minded than a good many of their colleagues in the less exalted ranks of the clergy—would not commit themselves to expressions like those used by the Dean of St. Paul's. I know that two of the ablest and wisest among the Prelates—the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester—have repeatedly expressed their high commendation of the religious teaching which is given in the board schools; particularly, at any rate, in the board schools of London. But, all the same, it is perfectly true that the ideas which are somewhat crudely expressed by the Dean of St. Paul's are largely held by the clergy of the Church of England—[Ministerial cries of "No!" and Opposition cries of "A section."]—an important and increasing section. When we find those sentiments expressed, we are obliged to look with some little care and scrutiny upon the Bill in commendation of which they are spoken. I do not see the Home Secretary here. If he had been, I should

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have asked him whether in future, in presenting to the House the Tables of criminal statistics, he would endeavour to introduce a column showing whether the criminals had been educated in a board school or a voluntary school. If the statistics turn out to be what the Dean of St. Paul's expects, I can assure him that we shall be willing converts to his views.
Now, the right hon. Gentleman described this Bill as being "a radical, a final, a complete cure of educational evils."
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (MR. A. J. BALFOUR,): When did I say that?
MR. BRYCE: I think those were the words you used—"A radical and final cure."
MR. A. J. BALFOURwas understood to say: That is not my style.
MR. BRYCE: That may not be the right hon. Gentleman's style, but it does not seem to go in boldness much beyond some of the other commendations which he gave to the Bill. Sir, it is nothing of the kind. It will aggravate educational evils. This Parliament, elected under the excitement of a war sentiment, may possibly pass it, but the sober judgment of the country will not acquiesce in this Bill. The sober judgment of the country has, indeed, already condemned this Bill. ["Oh!" I say that for this reason: that when I look to see what are the opinions expressed in different parts of the country upon this Bill, I find that, with scarcely an exception, the only bodies that have blessed the Bill are ecclesiastical organisations connected with the Established Church. How can a system be final which excludes Nonconformists as teachers from more than half the schools of the country? How can a system get rid of "barren controversy"—I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit that he used those words—which multiplies fourfold the occasions upon which sectarian controversy can arise? Hitherto we have had no such controversy in the elections of County and Borough Councils; henceforth we shall have it. It will be renewed in those Councils when they come
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to appoint their Education Committees. It will be renewed in those Education Committees when they come to appoint their local managers. It will be renewed in the localities whenever the localities have to consider the question of creating extra schools to meet denominational or undenominational demands. How could any system be final which perpetuates two sets of elementary schools, with no power to discontinue schools however superfluous they may be, with no power of co-ordination, with different sets of managers, the one capable of being displaced, the other for ever irremovable because intrenched behind a rampart of sectarian privilege? How can it be final when it contemplates a multiplication of small schools, one of the greatest evils we have had to deal with for many years past. All this complication, all this waste, all these opportunities for further controversy, are created merely in order that the Church Catechism may be taught in one of two sets of schools. ["Oh, oh!"] What else does it come to but this? The difference between denominational schools and Cowper-Temple schools is that in one the Anglican formulary can legally be taught and in the other it cannot, and all this elaborate machinery, all these complicated devices, are introduced to accomplish this small end—to teach the Catechism in one set of schools, since the Act of 1870 forbids it in the other. Would it not have been infinitely simpler to fall back on the other solution, and to make an arrangement by which out of school hours—say, on one day in the week—the Church Catechism might be taught to those children whose parents desired they should learn it? This would be a far less cumbrous way of meeting a wish attributed, though in my belief erroneously attributed, to a portion of the English Protestant laity.
And now, having sought to show practically how far this Bill is from redemption of the promises with which it was introduced, I come to a brief statement of the greatest of all objections to the Bill. It embodies the complete denial of popular control; it ignores all rights of the people. It abolishes them where they exist in the election of School Boards, and makes no provision for

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them in other parts of the machinery; for I entirely deny that the elections to the County Councils, elections held for other purposes, and giving representatives no power but over the voting of money for purposes fixed by others is a recognition of popular control. This is ignored in the County and Borough Councils because they have nothing to do with the control and management of education. The Education Committee which is to be the controlling body stands apart from the people, is never subject to popular election, is not amenable to the vote of the people, never explains its policy to the people, can never submit its policy to the people or justify it by its speeches, and can never have that stimulus and strength which contact with popular opinion gives to an elective authority. In each parish, schools will be under the management of managers nominated by a distant Committee, to whom alone they will be responsible, and who, if the school is a voluntary one, will be responsible to nobody, or who owe allegiance, not to the people, parents, or ratepayers, or any authority, but their own religious body. It is true that a number not exceeding a third may be added to the local management; but what value will that addition have while the body of local management consists, as it will often, indeed usually, consist, of vicar, his curate, and his churchwardens, not to mention the fact that the County Education Committee in many, if not most, cases will have no direct knowledge of the locality, and will apply to the locality for nominations, and to whom more naturally than to the clergyman or the squire? Even the one motive which local managers have hitherto had to conciliate local opinion and to keep in touch with public opinion will be weakened or withdrawn, because there will be less need for subscriptions.
This has been regarded as merely a religious grievance; it is that, but it is more than that. I do not say it is not a religious grievance; but the parent who pays his rates will see on the demand note a demand for 4d. or 5d. in the pound for an education rate, and he will feel that this rate goes to support a school in his own parish in the management of
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which he has no voice, and to which, if he sends his children, he is obliged either to withdraw them from all religious instruction whatever, or else to submit them to a religious instruction of which he disapproves. That is a tangible grievance; but not the whole of it. If there were no religious grievance in the matter at all, it would be a violation of the time-honoured incontestable principle of British government that rate aid should be followed by local control; that local taxation involves local representation. I do not know of any other case where we have departed from that principle. I do not know where else we impose taxation on a man and give him no effective voice in determining how those taxes shall be spent. But I would like to put it to the House that over and above the question of civil rights, there is another reason why it is a terrible error to attempt to get rid, as this Bill gets rid, of the element of popular election. There is nothing more valuable to education than the interest and sympathy of the people. School Boards have evoked in large towns this sympathy and interest. Urban School Boards have done so much good work, as it is candidly acknowledged by Ministers they have done, because they have had popular sympathy and interest behind them. No such feeling has generally existed in rural districts, and rural districts have suffered from the want of it, and this Bill perpetuates those very evils of educational languor, slackness and indifference, which are evident in rural districts.
Our rural schools have not been, and under this Bill will not be, the schools of the people as they are in Switzerland and the United States. Instead of their being schools of the people and centres of local intellectual life in which the whole people can join, they will be the property of a few private persons not responsible to the people at all. I would like to quote a few words—they have been used already, though not in this House in these discussions; they are true in themselves, and they come from an authority so high as the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1868, of which, among other distinguished men, the present Archbishop of Canterbury and the late Bishop of Winchester were members:—
"No skill in organisation, no careful adaptation of the means in hand to the best ends, can do so much for education as the

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earnest co-operation of the people. The American schools appear to have no great excellence of method. But the schools are in the hands of the people, and from this fact they derive a force that seems to make up for many deficiencies. It is impossible to doubt that, in England inferior management, if lacked up by hearty sympathy from the masses of the people, would succeed better than much greater skill without such support."
These words are absolutely true, and, although I have been obliged in some part of my argument to differ from hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to express opinions with which they will not agree, I hope they will support me in pleading for local popular representation as a means of enlisting popular sympathy and support. This ought to be matter of common agreement, and it the Government have unfortunately been compelled, by what they thought a political exigency, to neglect so vital a principle, the House ought to require them to cure at least this defect in their Bill.
The Government have had a great opportunity. They might have organised and developed secondary education: they might have given us better areas for elementary education; they might have co-ordinated all schools into wholesome and harmonious working; they might have given a stimulus to local interest and sympathy: they might have provided for the better training of teachers. But in their Bill they have done none of these things. Their scheme is a confused patchwork, a mass of cumbrous, complicated machinery, throughout which there is no well-ordered system, no real motive power, it cannot be a final scheme, and those who care for education must try, if they cannot secure its amendment, to endeavour to arouse the nation to insist on something better. We are daily told that the strain of commercial competition is becoming more severe throughout the world, and that we need far more efficient training for our youth in order to enable England to hold her ground against the solid, laborious German and the keen-witted, eager American. That is true; but I venture to put the case upon higher ground. What greater interest can a country have than that the teaching throughout all her schools from the top to the bottom should be such as to open a career for talent, enabling talent to rise,
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and in rising to benefit the whole community, and to turn to the utmost account those intellectual resources with which our people, not less than any other people, are naturally gifted? What nobler aim can there be than that we should impart to our boys and girls as they pass into the world those worthier intellectual and artistic tastes and capacities for pleasure which make so large a part of the happiness of life, which are an antidote to its temptations, and alleviate its hardships and its sorrows? It is on these great interests that the strength and welfare of an Imperial people depend. It is these great interests that make education a matter of supreme concern. And it is because this measure, framed in a narrow spirit, neglects those interests and holds out no hope or promise of making the schools of England fit to render what England asks and needs, that I move the rejection of this Bill.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Bryce.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question. "
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL FOR EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST,: I desire to associate myself with the determination with which the right hon. Gentleman began his speech to treat this subject in a spirit of candour and common sense—a determination which, I am bound to say, throughout the greater part of his speech was faithfully carried out. I should also like to associate myself with the intention he expressed of not allowing himself to be drawn into the sectarian controversy, and I hope I shall be more successful in avoiding that precipice than the right hon. Gentleman was at one point of his speech. The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by a direct attack upon the very principle of the Bill. He threw doubt upon the desirability of or the necessity for, the establishment of an education authority which should have control over education of every kind. I had thought that that, and perhaps that only, would have

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been common ground in this contest. I know that a great number of the adherents and supporters of the right hon. Gentleman hold the opinion that there ought to be such an authority, though they differ, no doubt, from the Government as to the constitution of that authority. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has thrown doubt upon the necessity which has given rise to the Government Bill, I must express my very strong opinion, an opinion based on seven years administrative experience in the Education Office, that the present state of things is absolutely intolerable; that, although philosophers in their study may be able to distinguish between primary and secondary education, it is impossible for administrators, either in London or the provinces, to carry out any such distinction; and that, wherever you have in the same place two public authorities, the one charged with the control and administration of secondary education, and the other charged with the control and administration of primary education, in most cases there must be confusion and overlapping. There are some few places, of which perhaps the city of Manchester is the most conspicuous, where the authorities, by a sort of concordat among themselves, have avoided the greater part of this evil. But there are other boroughs of great importance in which the evil is most conspicuous. The result of this overlapping where two schools are established side by side where one would do, each under a local authority and each endeavouring, practically, to give the same kind of instruction, is admittedly a very great evil. The waste of public money is really the smallest part of that evil. If it only resulted in a waste of public money, one might be able to bear it; but the effect of it is to deteriorate the character of the schools and the education given in them. In the first place, the elementary authority which invades the province of secondary education has to carry on its schools with all kinds of restrictions in order to do its best to appear to keep itself within the law, and then the fact of there being a competition between those two authorities for pupils causes the education to be rather that which is most popular and which will attract the greatest number of scholars
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into the schools than that which is best for the interests of the district and the country. And then, inasmuch as managing and controlling secondary schools appears to be a very much more agreeable occupation than that of managing and controlling elementary education, there is the danger of the elementary education being neglected, and of the real schools of the people being cast on one side in order to provide higher education for a small minority.
But, besides the evils of competition and overlapping, a single authority is wanted, because in every place there ought to be a distinct plan of schools and of education suitable for the particular wants of the district. The Board of Education are of opinion that a plan and arrangement of schools which may suit the town of Bradford will not necessarily suit the county of Wiltshire, and the local people themselves are the only people who can take into consideration the circumstances and wants of their own, neighbourhood, and devise a general plan of education, with proper schools and the proper kinds of classes, to enable their district to be properly supplied with the education they want. There is another reason I can give for having only one authority, and that is that all higher education, if it is to be effective, must be based upon a sound system of elementary schools. It is wasteful to establish technical institutions and technical schools unless you have children in the elementary schools properly prepared to receive higher instruction. Therefore the body which provides and manages higher schools ought to have a voice in the kind of instruction and organisation in the lower schools. It is the commonest complaint of the managers of all technical institutions at the present day that the boys and girls come to them so ill-prepared in the common elements of education that they are not equipped to profit by the instruction they receive. You put a boy to learn engineering who has not mastered the common rules of arithmetic; and they have constantly in these schools to establish elementary classes in order either to teach what the boy or girl

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has never yet learned, or to teach over again that which they have previously learned in the elementary school at the public expense and have forgotten.
Then there is the subject to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and on which he laid so much stress—the provision for teachers. The provision for the training and education of the teacher is undoubtedly a work of secondary education, and if the authority which is to train and educate the teacher has no control over the elementary schools, how can they possibly provide the kind of teacher which those elementary schools most require? in every other country in the world that I know of, and even in Scotland, they have one authority for all purposes. It is only in England and Wales and in Ireland that this double authority prevails.
MR. BRYCE: In Scotland we have one authority ad hoc.
SIR JOHN GORST: I say they have one authority. I cannot state the whole thing in a moment. At any rate, they have one authority in Scotland, whether it is ad hoc or not, and it is only in England and Wales that we have the extraordinary phenomenon of two public bodies, one looking after some schools and the other looking after the rest.
MR. DILLON: We have two authorities in Ireland, both bad.
SIR JOHN GORST: I am not sufficiently acquainted with the state of things in Ireland to venture to differ from the hon. Member. It is only in this country that this prevails, and unless some very strong reason can be shown for such a phenomenon, I think we should be wise to copy the rest of mankind and have one authority for all our schools. The right hon. Gentleman said, and said, I am bound to say, with perfect justice, that the Bill does not absolutely carry out this intention. I should have thought that that was a subject we might have relegated to discussion in Committee; but, as the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned it, I may perhaps say that I know of no example of English legislation in which something
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illogical and contrary to the general principle of that legislation has not crept in. But in this particular case the large non-county borough or urban district is only potentially a separate authority; and, if good sense prevails, as I hope it may prevail in a good number of them, I anticipate that there will be an agreement made in every case between the county and the borough which has independent elementary powers, so that the secondary education carried on by the county and the elementary education independently carried on by the borough authorities will be made to dovetail into each other, and confusion will not arise. I admit frankly that it is a departure from the principle of the Bill; but it is a departure which previous legislation has rendered it almost impossible at the present moment to mitigate, and we can only hope that this departure from the principle on which the Bill depends will not be attended by any evil consequences. If it is once conceded that there must be a single authority for all kinds of schools, the Government could only choose between two alternatives. It must either take the County Council or it must take a modified and altered School Board. I admit that this is a subject on which a good deal is to be said on both sides. It is a proper subject for the House of Commons to discuss, and the decision of the House upon the Second Reading of this Bill ought to decide—I hope I may say decide once and for all—which of these two authorities ought to be taken.
Now, will the House allow me just to remind them of the way in which this matter presents itself to the Board of Education? I will not go into past history. I will not go into the question of whether certain Acts of Parliament ought or ought not to have been adopted. Just let me ask the House to consider the state of things as it is. You have got, on the one side, the County and County Borough Councils. They cover the whole country. They have legislative authority for their proceedings in secondary education. I say secondary education. In the Act of Parliament it is "technical education," but, practically, technical education is so wide that it may be, for the practical purposes of debate, considered to be equivalent to

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secondary education. They have funds. Their funds may not be adequate, but they are considerable, and they are not yet entirely exhausted. And they have schools. In the twelve years in which these county authorities have been exercising educational powers they have established 391 new secondary schools, and they have extended and modified and adapted 282 more schools, making a total of schools which they have provided for the country of 673. That is exclusive of the Welsh schools under the Intermediate Education Act. They have besides this established an enormous number—thousands—of evening schools in the counties: and that has been done not only by the advanced county boroughs like Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, but it has been done even by the agricultural counties. The county of Cambridgeshire, in which I live, has established a county school for boys and girls in the town of Cambridge which is frequented by the sons and daughters of the farmers throughout the county; and they boast, and I believe boast with truth, that there is a technical evening school now within reach of every boy and every girl living in the, county of Cambridgeshire. Well, then this body which possesses these powers, and which has so exercised these powers, is the most popularly elected body in the whole country. It is elected by the people, by a more extended suffrage than that of the electors of Members of this House. So that to adapt this popularly elected local body to the purposes of an educaional authority is a very easy matter, and requires very little legislation.
The Government has been upbraided with having so few clauses in its Bill to constitute this authority. Let me look at the other side. On the other side you have the School Board. I do not wish to say anything disrespectful of the School Boards. Of the School Boards in the large towns I have repeatedly in this House expressed my strong approval and my strong admiration of the work they have done. I cannot be so complimentary to the School Boards in the country districts; they have, perhaps, on the whole, represented the very worst kind of local authority that could be devised, and have
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in many cases very greatly neglected the duties which Parliament put upon them. [Opposition cries of "No," and Ministerial cheers.] But the School Boards do not cover the whole country like the County Councils; they are partial only, and they do not yet educate half the children in the country. I do not say that they do not cover more than half the area of the country. I have never said that, but what I have said is that they do not educate yet half the children of the country. Then, their statutory authority is now in name confined entirely to elementary education, and they can only teach children under fifteen. There may be some dispute about fifteen, but I think the right hon. Gentleman opposite and the Attorney General are at one that by definition a child can only safely be assumed to be a person under fifteen. They can only teach children under fifteen, and the advanced work which they have been doing in recent years, their higher grade schools, their evening schools, and their pupil teacher centres, are now pronounced to be illegal and ultra vires. The districts of the School Boards are wholly unsuitable areas for secondary education purposes; that, I think, is admitted by everybody. The School Board is not so popularly elected as the County Council; it is elected by a cumulative vote, and not only is it not elected by so popular a vote as the County Council but only about half the voters go to the poll to vote for School Boards that go to the poll to vote for the County Councils. It is a body which is in name popular, but in fact is elected by a very small number of ratepayers.
Now, to make the School Board into an educational authority would require a great deal of very complicated legislation. You would have, first of all, to make School Boards universal. You would have, secondly, to give School Boards authority over secondary education, and for the purpose of doing that you would have to take secondary education out of the hands of the County Councils, who have exercised it so well and who are now carrying on the work so admirably. You would have to alter all the districts, because you could not turn your School Boards in the present School Board districts into

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authorities; and most likely you would have to reform, at all events you would be strongly pressed to do so, the method of election. Besides this great change, besides having the easy path of the County Councils and the difficult path of the School Boards, the Government, from the very first day they came into office, have been convinced that the County Council and not the School Board is the proper authority. [Hon. Members on the Opposition Benches: Oh!] You talk as if we had suddenly discovered some new policy. Why, this was the policy of the Bill of 1896, it has been the policy of every Bill which the Government has introduced from then down to the present time which has dealt with this question, and it is the policy on which the whole administration of the Board of Education has been carried on, and for which it has been criticised in this House. The Government think that the ad hoc authority is an anachronism; they think that to propose to advert to an ad hoc authority is reactionary. Formerly whenever a local authority was created it was an ad hoc authority, I mean during the last century; but the ad hoc authority has been given up by every supporter of local self-government, and the only ad hoc authorities which survive to the present day are the School Boards and the Board of Guardians. The reason for this is that opinions on local self-government have made great progress; it is recognised that local self-government is absolutely impossible unless you have local control of the finances; and the only way you can have effective local self-government in this or any other country is for the local electors to choose some body which shall have control of the whole local finance and be responsible for all the expenditure of the ratepayers' money. If you have several bodies independent of each other exercising independent rating powers, how is it conceivable or possible there can be efficient control of local finance, and therefore how can there be proper, efficient local self-government? In America they do not tall into this mistake. References have been made by many people—I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman in his speech did not confirm them—as if in America there was an elective School Board which levied independent rates, as
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in England. There are an enormous number of different systems in America, but I fail to find such a system as that.
MR. BRYCE: There are some.
SIR JOHN GORST: Are there? I know two cases. In the city of Boston there is an elective School Board, but then the City Council of Boston provides the funds; the School Board can only operate with those funds provided by the City Council. And in the great city of Minneapolis there is an elective School Board which does levy rates, but only raises rates up to the amount allowed by the State law. Although the right hon. Gentleman says there is I fail to find any ease in America where a body is elected by the people with unlimited power of rating those people for school purposes. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the election of the School Board at all is rather the exception than the rule in the various cities and States of America.
MR. MATHER: I have an authoritative statement from the Commissoner of Education at Washington, who telegraphed to me two days ago saying that in the majority of the States and cities in America the School Boards are elected by the people, and that the cities settle and supply the amount of money to be spent every year, which is limited by the City Charters.
SIR JOHN GORST: That is precisely the point. I am not talking about whether a Board is elected or not elected, but whether it has or has not the control over the rates, which I say is inconsistent with local self-government. What the hon. Member opposite has just quoted confirms what I have said. But if you want to introduce the American system here you would have to have all the elections on the same day. And in America a great many people are elected who are not elected here, a great many of the ordinary administrators are elected, and even the judges in a great many instances. We do not elect them here. As they have all their elections on the same day in America, the elector who goes to the poll can vote at once for all the various people he wants to elect, and they do not expect people, as is the case here, to go to the polls to

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vote one day for the County Council, the next day for the Board of Guardians, and the third day for the School Board. The repugnance of the people to the system we have tried to force on them is shown by the fact that they stay away from the polls and will not take the trouble to vote. Well, the principle of the Government Bill, as I hope I have shown to the House—I am not now speaking of details with which a great deal of the right hon. Gentleman's speech dealt—is to entrust the education of every county and every county borough to the body which represents the ratepayers of that county and county borough most fully and most exactly.
The right hon. Gentleman spent a great part of his speech in saying that the functions of the Board of Education were applicable to this Bill. The functions of the Board of Education over education will remain after this Bill is passed exactly that which they have been before, except that they will be able to exercise them more easily and, I hope, more effectively. The interference of the Board of Education in the education of the country is in respect of its power to distribute to schools those large and liberal grants which this House makes from time to time to education, both elementary and secondary, and they distribute those grants to schools which are, in their opinion, efficient, and they ascertain the efficiency of those schools by inspection and regulation, and in such way as they think necessary to carry out the intentions of Parliament. I admit that a great deal more depends now on the inspection of schools than has ever depended before. I hope that the inspection of schools will be very greatly improved and reformed. In fact, my noble friend the Lord President of the Council has already taken steps to secure a more efficient class of inspectors, to secure better organisation of inspectors, and therefore to secure more clear information at the Board of Education as to the exact condition of the schools. I do not think there is any danger of any of these schools being inefficient and of there being any levelling down. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is bound to have that conventional suspicion of those who occupy the position of heads of the Board of Education at the present
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moment, but we shall not be there always. The time will come when he and some of his colleagues will occupy these positions, and if we have so far neglected our duty as to level down the education of the country, they will have a very happy time in levelling it up again. Then, this Bill enlists popular sympathy in education. The right hon. Gentleman said it did not. I ask the candid consideration of the House whether it does not. In the first place, it invites the people of the place to form their own plan of education. In such places as the city of Manchester the plan of education will be a Manchester plan. They will decide what kind of schools are wanted and in what places they are to be situated. Then the schools will be the schools of the locality. They will be the schools which the people have created and which they watch over. They will feel—if I may use language which the right hon. Gentleman has put into my mouth in an article which he wrote on this subject the other day—they will feel that it is their interest, as parents and citizens, to make their schools worthy of an advancing country.
Now, what are the objections which the right hon. Gentleman has offered to this measure? I should like to treat them fully, seriatim. First of all, the right hon. Gentleman says the Bill does nothing for secondary education. Well, that is a form of speech. First, it creates an authority, or it gives to the authority already existing for technical education full powers for secondary education. Secondly, it provides that authority with funds. The right hon. Gentleman says the funds are not adequate; but if they are not adequate, surely that is not a question for the Second Reading of the Bill: it is a question for which at least we might wait until we get into Committee. I should like to remind the House and the right hon. Gentleman that in the question of adequacy of funds for secondary education you cannot proceed upon the same principles as in the allocation of funds for primary education. The Parliament of this country has determined that primary education shall be universal and free. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to provide the funds which are required to allow every child to receive primary education. But it is not so with secondary education. To a very large extent,

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secondary education can be made self-supporting, and in many cases it is not so much money as organisation that is required. The actual funds required may be small, but the organisation is most important. It is not the business and it is not the interest of the country to give everybody secondary education, not even everybody who asks for it. It is only the interest of the country to see that everybody who is fit to receive secondary education, and in the secondary education of whom the State has an interest, so that it will get out of it, by the improvement of the child's faculties, a return for the money expended—it is only in these cases that it is the duty of the State to give any secondary education at all; and that duty is best provided by picking out from the elementary schools the most promising boys and girls and inducing their parents to forego the wages, which in many cases are so important to the family, by giving suitable scholarships and so getting the very best cream of the children in the elementary schools carried on to the secondary schools, where they will receive such instruction as will make them really better citizens, and really pay the State in the long run for the money expended. Lastly, even if the County Councils have not enough under the Bill, which increases the amount for the duties cast upon them, they have enough, at all events, to begin with. It has taken them a long while to expend wisely the whole of the local taxation money. In most counties they have only just come to an end of it; so, even if they have not enough in the end, they have enough to start with it this Bill is passed, it will, at all events, make a beginning of secondary education, and when the authorities of counties and county boroughs see what sum of money is really required, I have no doubt the representations made by them to this House will be received with very favourable consideration.
The next thing the right hon. Gentleman objects to is that the Hill does not tie down this new secondary authority with a number of minute regulations. In legislation of this kind, the more you leave it vague and at large, and the less you tie your local authorities down, the better opportunity they have for doing really good educational work. You
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have two precedents before you—the Technical Instruction Act on the one side, and the Elementary Education Act on the other. In the Technical Instruction Act the counties were left absolutely free. That Act had just the same vice which this Act is alleged to have. It did not tie them down by minute regulations, and look at the excellent work they have done under it. We are far more likely to have an efficient system of education in this country if we leave the great cities and counties to work it out for themselves than if we attempt to put into an Act of Parliament what exactly they are to do, or leave to the Board of Education the duty of advising them, controlling them, and directing them in the way the right hon. Gentleman seems to desire. I have a respect for the Board of Education. I think the officials of that Board are a body of very highly-trained and educated gentlemen who are very fit to give good advice, but I confess that I think the people of Bradford, some of the leading gentlemen on the Town Council of Bradford, sitting round a table in Bradford, will be able to devise a better system and scheme of education for Bradford than those experts in Whitehall.
Then the right hon. Gentleman says we do not improve the quality of secondary education in the Bill. Good heavens! How can you improve the quality of education by Act of Parliament? The quality of education is to be improved in two ways only. The first is by the gradual growth of general knowledge and general experience in education, and the other is by having a sound system of inspection by which the best methods in one district can be conveyed to another and by which all can profit by the experiments which are made in different places. You want an experienced and able body of inspectors, and you must make those inspectors independent, so that they will not be afraid to speak the truth and find fault when fault ought to be found, and instead of confining themselves to general laudatory notices of schools, endeavour, when they see a good system in one place, to introduce it into another. The right hon. Gentleman said we do not deal with the provision of teachers. Why, the provision of teachers

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will be one of the very first duties which the new educational authorities will have to consider. You cannot make teachers by Act of Parliament, and when you have passed your Bill, whatever Bill you pass, whether you pass any Bill at all, you do not increase the number of teachers thereby. You have only got a certain number of teachers in the country, and you have, at the present moment, to make the best you can of them. The stimulus to the local authority to supply teachers will have to be given not by any Bill, but by a grant out of the Public Exchequer. A very small grant is already given for the provision of teachers, and I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is very desirable, whenever it is possible, that that grant should be increased and improved. What you want is to have established by the new local authorities exhibitions and scholarships which can be held by young teachers at secondary schools and the Universities, by which they will have a good education of their own, and will only practice in schools that teach them to teach, not for the purpose of forming any part of the general part of the general staff of the schools. At present I claim that it is the best plan to leave it to the local authorities themselves to initiate schemes, and only to aid and assist those schemes, and not to endeavour to bind them down to a particular method of providing teachers by a clause in the Bill. I share the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the pupil teacher system is a very bad system, which cannot possibly provide us with a proper service of young teachers, and that one of the most urgent reforms required and one of the subjects to which the new secondary authorities should most early direct their attention, would be the establishment of a scheme for dealing with the better provision of elementary school teachers. The right hon. Gentleman said this Bill did nothing for the improvement of elementary schools.
MR. BRYCE: No; I said I was very uncertain whether it would do anything for the improvement of elementary schools.
SIR JOHN GORST: What are the causes of the present unsatisfactory position of
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our elementary schools? In country districts it is want of money; in town districts it is, I think, the neglect of the local educational authority, such as the School Board, to properly supervise its schools, and I think that in their desire to invade the field of secondary education they have been guilty of a considerable amount of neglect of elementary education. I do not share the view which the right hon. Gentleman has expressed that the schools in our great towns are in an entirely satisfactory position. In the first place, they are a great deal too large. I should like to read to the House an extract from a private letter that I received the other day from a person exceptionally well qualified to speak upon the subject. I will only say that it is in a very large and populous neighbourhood—
"The schools here are appalling. First, because of their size. There are often, as far as my experience goes, usually between 500 and 700 in a department. This means that they are great, inhuman places, and it is impossible to have any feeling for them. It is impossible, so far as I can see, even to know these great schools. No inspector can get round some of their single departments in a day, and the head teachers do not know them.
"There is frequently no real vital connection between the work of one school and another, for there can be no effective supervision, and little chance for the teachers to know each other's work."
What is the effect of these enormous schools? The effect is that the teaching becomes perfectly mechanical, that hardly anything is done to bring out the individual powers of any boy or girl. They learn by rote and mechanically. They cannot find out things for themselves. They have no idea of applying their knowledge, and the consequence is that from those schools we turn out, not intelligent boys and girls who are fitted to go into the technical and higher schools, and to profit by the instruction there given, but children who have been taught tricks like a sort of performing animal, who will go through a certain set of performances, but possesses no active intelligence and no means of making further progress for itself. That is the universal testimony of those who carry on higher schools, whether they are evening schools, technical schools, or whatever they may be. Go and mix with the teachers of these schools as I have done, and you will find

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that the one complaint is that the children are turned out of them perfectly mechanical things with no power to think for themselves. The right hon. Gentleman forgets that in 1870 Parliament deliberately created a dual system—the board schools and voluntary schools. As regards the voluntary schools, it is perfectly impossible to contemplate their early disappearance. There are upwards of 3,000,000 children in those schools, which number no fewer than 14,329. Are you going to allow those 3,000,000 children to be imperfectly educated for lack of money for an indefinite period until these schools disappear? Therefore, there does not seem very much prospect of their disappearance. The numbers have more than doubled since 1870, and those whose policy it is to wait for the disappearance of those schools will have to wait at least for a generation before the instruction in them can be supplanted. And it is a great mistake to say that the Bill allows the management to fall back on the rates for their maintenance. It does nothing of the kind. Not the managers, but the local authority, becomes responsible for all the secular instruction in those schools. The local authority become-; responsible to Parliament and the Board of Education for all the secular instruction in them. The right hon. Gentleman said that the education of the schools might be levelled down; but, if so it will be owing to gross neglect of duty on the part of the Board of Education; because, inasmuch as these schools derive a large part of their funds from grants made by Parliament, it is for the Board of Education to exercise its power to keep up the level of education in the schools. If that power is not exercised Parliament is the proper body to apply the remedy by passing censure on the administrators of education for the time being.
I will not follow the right hon. Gentleman into the religious controversy. I am afraid that religious animosity cannot be put an end to by any Act of Parliament. I believe that nothing but the spreading of the spirit of common sense and Christian charity can ever put an end to religious animosity. All I can say is that I think it is less likely to be excited in a town council than in a School Board.
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But I should like to say what I have said before, and what I think is only due to the managers of those religious schools I do not think I can repeat it too often—and that is, that the religious difficulty exists, not in the schools themselves, but on the platform and in Parliament. I had an illustration of it last week, and, as the House rather likes personal anecdotes, I will tell it to the House, as it is a most striking illustration of the absence of all religious difficulties in the schools. I went last week to see a nunnery—a nunnery of teaching sisters. There is established in this nunnery a school of science. The mistress of science was a lady in a nun's dress. The chemistry laboratory had been established and was kept up at the expense of the ratepayers of London. I say the expense of the ratepayers of London because, although the money supplied by the Technical Instruction Committee comes out of the local taxation money, it is money which might be applied, and part is applied, in relief of rates. When I asked the reverend mother about the children in those schools, she told me she had at that moment no less than six Protestant girls boarding in the nunnery, and that of those Protestant girls many had had their mothers, and some their grandmothers, educated in the same convent. I could not but think how much those girls profited by the instruction and care bestowed upon them by those good women, and how little their Protestantism appeared to have suffered in consequence. That is only one illustration. I could give dozens of instances of the same kind, showing that in schools themselves there is never any religious difficulty and never any absence of toleration and care. I have never been able to get a case to the contrary substantiated, though there might be an extreme case. There are eccentric people in every part of the world, and there may be some who do use the school for the purpose of proselytising; but the statement that dissenting parents were prevented from sending their children into the teaching profession is absolutely unfounded. About two or three years ago in this House I challenged anybody to bring me a single case. I think about three cases were brought before me, and upon investigation every one of them disappeared just in the same way as upon investigation alleged appearances of ghosts disappear.

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Then the right hon. Gentleman said popular interest in education would be lost under the provisions of this Bill. That is a conventional statement which people always do make when they talk about School Boards and popular election, but everybody knows, and nobody better than the right hon. Gentleman himself, that it is very far indeed from the truth. In the first place, the electorate is quite incompetent to choose those who are experts in education. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that when there is an election educational fitness is the very last thing which is thought of, and the candidate is elected because he belongs to a particular party, and not for his educational knowledge. These elections are used by the party organisations as a sort of rehearsal in bringing electors to the poll, and except for that very few would go at all and the result is that the number who go to the poll is infinitesimally small.
In conclusion, may I just object to the picture which the right hon. Gentleman drew of the way in which this scheme will work? He drew a, picture of disaster at every corner. In the first place, the Board of education will not be altered at all. They will go on just as heretofore, and exercise all the powers and influence they tow exercise. The local authority, the County Council, will decide upon all the questions of finance. It will decide particular questions of policy, and it will leave the actual execution of its will to the Statutory Committee, upon which it commands a majority. Why should the right hon. Gentleman think this arrangement will break down; it has not broken down under the Technical instruction Acts. Under the Technical Instruction Acts, I think in every county in England and Wales except two, a Technical Instruction Committee has been appointed. The Technical instruction Committee has acted without a hitch; without any friction or difficulty whatever with the County Councils, and why the right hon. Gentleman presumes that in this particular case there will be all the friction and difficulty which he seems to anticipate between the County Council and the Committee I really fail to understand. There are two kinds
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of schools. In the old board schools the County Council appoints the managers. It is true that under the Bill it is left entirely to their discretion. I hope they will take representative people—the chairman of the Parish Council or some members of the District Councils, or one of the members residing in the district, or some one, at all events, of public character where they can get them. It is left to their discretion, and wisely left to it. In the case of the voluntary schools two managers will be appointed by the religious body to which the school belongs and one by the County Council. I fail to see how you can preserve the religious character of the school unless you do that: but to say that these three managers can manage the school as they please as far as secular instruction is concerned is an entire misapprehension and mistake. They will have to obey the orders of the County Council in reference to secular instruction and the general secular management of the school exactly in the same way as the managers of the board schools.
Then the right hon. Gentleman wondered what would happen in a quarrel between this body of managers and the County Council; he thought that everything would come to an end. The County Council and the Board of Education have absolute power over the managers by the withdrawal of the grant. The Board of Education now can prevent the managers of any school doing anything outrageous or unreasonable by a threat to withdraw the grant, lint now, if the grant is withdrawn and the school closed in consequence, there is no means of replacing that school. One very often bears with a great deal in a local school because one knows that if it were closed it would be merely jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, as you would have the rural local School Board, which would be very much worse than the existing school as it is managed. But when you have a body like the County Council to deal with, there is no difficulty in making the managers of the school obey the County Council as far as they are bound to do so. Personally, I should like a little more independence if I could have it. I am not enamoured of Government interference in the details of every school. I cannot help remembering that many of the great

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improvements in elementary education have been made by voluntary schools. For example, the manual training now obligatory in every school was originally established by a voluntary school, and that school suffered a year's diminut on of the grant for its temerity. I hope the County Councils will not exercise too rigid a supervision, and that they will give an opportunity for individuality and experiment in their schools, and will not try to make them all of one uniform pattern. I think I have shown there is no reason to anticipate that the plan proposed by the Government in the Bill will be inoperative. I feel every confidence, notwithstanding the prophecies of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that this Bill, if adopted by the House and passed into law, will make further progress in our national education possible, and will inure to the general advantage and general prosperity of the people of the country.
SIR CHARLES DILKEThe right hon. Gentleman has said that he hopes this Bill will make a beginning of secondary education, but many of us tear that in some districts of the country it will make an end of primary education. Secondary education is a matter of which I have less knowledge than the generality of Members of this House, and the subject was so admirably dealt with by my right hon. friend who opened this debate that it is not necessary that I should attempt to enter upon it. What I want to ask the House to consider is the, absolutely destructive nature of the Bill as it affects primary education in the rural districts. With regard to higher education, it must strike all of us that if the Rural Councils—which, according to the right hon. Gentleman, are not very great friends of education—are to lake up successfully and improve higher education, it will be at the expense of primary, If primary education is forced upon them by this Bill, by the withdrawal of the voluntary clause, it will certainly be secondary education which will suffer. My hon. friend the Member for Essex and those who are afraid of the extension of rates in the counties will see to that. With the farmers, and even with
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the landowners, it is not the Vice-President of the Council, nor the First Lord of the Treasury, who is the demigod; it is the man who says that the rates will be reduced. The men of whom they stand in terror are the men who will increase the rates, and under this Bill in the rural districts, the control of both primary and secondary education being thrown upon the County Councils, who will be under the fear of the farmers and the increase of the rates, I am convinced that any improvement of the one will be at the expense of the other, and that the result of the Bill will be to cause primary education to decline still further so far as it is under the County Council.
The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing the Bill, spoke of our position as compared with that of other countries, and he used these words—
"From the example of America. …. or any other country which devotes itself to educational problems, I am forced to the conclusion that ours is the most antiquated and the most ineffectual method."
Now, my constituents and many people whom I know in the rural districts are convinced that under this Bill we are going off the lines of educational progress in other countries, and that we are going to make our education even more antiquated and out of date than it has been hitherto. I am afraid I should shock the House if I were to tell them what my constituents think of this Bill. My Conservative opponents, as well as my supporters, have joined in the expression of the wish that I should obstruct the Bill even to the extent of being sent to the Clock Tower for my obstruction. Though I do not share in their wish as to the course to be adopted, I share to the full the horror with which they view the effect of this Bill on primary education in rural districts, and it is from that point of view I desire to consider the right hon. Gentleman's words on the introduction of the Bill. He complained of—
"A vast expenditure in this country which has yet left this country behind all its continental and American rivals in the matter of education."
First, as regards America. We have sometimes said that, under God, the power of this country is in the Fleet. In the united States they constantly use a

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similar expression in regard to their public school system. The foundation of all the prosperity of their country is traced by Americans to its public school system. In every State in the United States—though they differ as to ad hoc authorities—there is a public school system, contrary to that towards which we are turning in this Bill. To Americans it is inconceivable that State money should be given to the support of denominational schools. In the whole history of the United States there has been but one instance in which money was so applied. In that case it was only an isolated gift, not an annual grant; but such a tremendous outcry was raised against the breach of their principle that it led to the insertion in the constitution of every State of words making such a thing impossible in future.
This Bill is entirely off the lines of all modern educational systems, and, taking those of most interest to ourselves, off the lines adopted in the various States of the United States and in the advanced colonies—Victoria, South Australia, Now South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, and New Zealand. I have said that there is a difference with regard to ad hoc authorities, but in the matter of a common public school system there is no difference. The only exception among the chief English-speaking countries is in one province of the Dominion, where a State grant to Roman Catholic schools was a portion of the promises made at Confederation. The States differ, however, as to the local authority. Some cases, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, have the ordinary local authority, but in no case is it a local authority so distant from the people, and therefore so little representative of the local ratepayers, as the English authority which this Bill proposes to set up. In the United States, outside boroughs, where there is not an ad hoc authority, the authority is generally one answering to the Parish or District Council. Therefore, when the Leader of the House appealed to foreign example, he appealed to an authority which is entirely against him. He named the United States, but he neglected our own colonies, which, to use his own words, "have devoted themselves to educational problems." He has himself shown us, I think, that his Bill will take us off the lines of any system such as we can find
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in our colonies, which have done such great things in advance of us in education, and which we might well imitate. I fully admit that a national system in the sense of the system which exists in the United States or in Australia is past praying for. I admit what the right hon. Gentleman said as to having recognised the system of voluntary schools, but that is no reason why you should destroy what does exist, and destroy those excellent vestiges, of a public system, which is public or national, and which is educationally good, and in the rural districts the best we have. The Leader of the House also complained of our present system as being costly and wasteful. The Bill will only increase the "vast expenditure" of which he complained, because it will add to ail the present expenditure the maintenance of voluntary schools, of Church schools to be built in board school districts where they are not asked for by the population, which is satisfied with the excellent system which exists.
The Bill will undoubtedly increase the cost, but the great question before us is whether it will add to the efficiency of the schools, as the right hon. Gentleman seems to think, in board school districts. The right hon. Gentleman has just said that the present authority in Board School districts is not fitted for its task, and is not at all suited for the work. Those are grave words to use about the existing system. I know that it is now the fashion to abuse the small School Boards in rural districts, but I doubt whether that is justified to the extent to which it has been done. At all events, I shall try to show that this Bill will not cure these evils, and that there is no security given under this Bill to those rural districts. The rural county has got its work to learn. It has taken years to train the rural School Board members now administering the work of the great rural School Boards, many of whom have sat since 1870. They are men who, entirely apart from those sectarian considerations to which the right hon. Gentleman unfortunately alluded, have given their lives to education, have become thorough masters of the subject, and thoroughly competent members of the School Board. They

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are the best men you have at present in the rural parts of the country as your security for education, and yet the right hon. Gentleman attacks them in this unmerciful way, and tells them that they are not competent for their task.
In the Western counties, the County Education Committee is likely to resemble the Diocesan Boards which have jobbed grants to voluntary schools. Some of these rural counties are not keenly interested in education as compared with the existing School Boards in their districts. The Gloucestershire County Council only give a moiety to technical education of the money which Parliament has allowed them so to devote, and take the rest in relief of rates. Herefordshire takes more than half for the rates. I doubt whether these rural counties are likely to improve education in the abolished School Board districts, while they will destroy the accumulated educational experience of the men and women of whom these School Boards are composed. I expect more cost and less efficiency.
There are some who agree with the Government that the Bill is conceived in the interest of education. I, on the contrary, agree with those who think that it is, with one omission, the Bill of Convocation, conceived by the Archbishops, and, having an ecclesiastical, not an educational origin, calculated to promote clerical ascendancy. I ask, however, the practical question—What will be its effect upon the rural School Board districts? Take real cases, not imaginary. Take a rural parish in a rural county, with a feeble Church school, which, failing to get subscriptions from the landowners, becomes a School Board school. The incumbent becomes the Chairman, with the other four members of the "pentagonal" all Churchmen. It is a Board which consists entirely of Churchmen, and it is a district in which there are no Nonconformists. There can be no doubt that under the Bill the county will allow it to become a Church school again. The local education authority of the county will undoubtedly obtain a two-thirds majority and the consent of the Board of Education to re-transfer the school to voluntary managers. Will education gain by that change? I think not.
SIR JOHN GORST: That would not be possible.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: I have read the Bill most carefully, and I am certain, at any rate, that this course is legally possible, and I think it would be followed. The present slight vestige of public control will he got rid of. The letter of the Colonial Secretary says we are introducing some element of popular control. In such a case we are diminishing the popular control which at present exists. The county control, such as it will be, will be less than the existing parochial control. In a second district it may he very different. It is also rural: we may have a great rural Board existing for 25,000 people, and thoroughly efficient. Why should it be destroyed and wiped out by this Bill? In my opinion it will be destroyed by the rural county, and hostile managers introduced, as against the experienced Board. This Board works well, and with popular approval, and why should it be transferred to a new authority with no knowledge whatever of the system? It appears to me that any change such as is likely to be made will be for the worse. Why should we run the risk of this? Why touch it? Why substitute for a real popular control by the directly-elected representatives of 25,000 people, the parents of the children, illusory public control of a county majority?
This second district, no doubt, contains a few struggling voluntary schools; struggling because no one in the district wants them. These will be assisted by the county to introduce a costly competition. With the bribe of the 5s. grant to voluntary schools, all future new schools will be voluntary schools, contrary to the wish of the inhabitants. The district will remain saddled with the enormous debt and the enormous rate which the sudden filling of the deficiency after 1870 occasioned. The ratepayers will not receive the large assistance which they at present receive from the grant to necessitous School Board districts. No one will receive it. It will remain in the Exchequer. West Ham will get it because it is a county borough and necessitous, but no whole rural county will be necessitous within the terms of the Act and the grant will remain in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's pocket. There will, there-

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fore, be an increase of the rate, and a loss of the locally directed educational efficiency of which the district is proud. In April, 1897, the Leader of the House defended this grant to necessitous School Board districts in these words—
"This House ought to come to the relief of the necessity of those parts of the system which are really in urgent need. … The poor School Board districts … much need aid."
The Duke of Devonshire, defending the Bill in another place, spoke of "the acknowledged grievance" and added—
"This Bill alleviates the most pressing and the most obvious grievances and inequalities.'
The whole of that is swept away by the Bill, except in the case of West Ham and places in the same condition. The money is all lost to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Not a farthing of it will reach those districts in relief of rates.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think I stated in answer to a Question that that was a matter which would have to be dealt with. †
SIR CHARLES DILKE: That means that the Government will have to propose an Amendment, I suppose, by which that money will go to the county in respect of the necessitous districts. It will not go directly to the districts.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Why not?
SIR CHARLES DILKE: If it goes to the district my objection will be largely removed, but that is entirely inconsistent with the scheme of the Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: No!] I am glad to hear that one hon. Member appears to think that it is consistent with the scheme of the Bill. But that is not the Bill as it is drawn, and as it now stands for Second Reading at the present time. This is a matter that will interest my right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire. The necessitous grant grew out of debate on the Amendment moved on 7th July, 1870, by the right hon. Gentleman, that half the deficiency in the school rate should be directly contributed by a State grant. This will also interest my hon. and gallant friend the Member for Essex because it concerns the rates. On this proposal Mr. Forster promised "to
† See preceding Volume, page 286.
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give exceptional aid to districts where exceptional poverty prevailed." I voted with my right hon. friend. It was a curious division; the Education League and Sir S. Northcote and the farmers, Mr. Pell, and Mr. Clare Sowell Reade, combined forces and only polled twenty-two. If the House really finds a way out of its difficulty by rushing at and plundering the Chancellor of the Exchequer without altering the whole machinery of the Bill so far as local control is concerned, it will only have increased the expenditure and the trouble of our system of education without having found the truly national system of which I speak. The grant of 1897 was a mere necessary extension of Mr. Forster's clause.
There is another matter that I should like to put before the House. In the rural School Board districts there are large classes of workmen deeply interested in education. It is the interest of their children which is at stake. In the case of such admirably efficient rural School Board districts as the last which I have described, the miners of all parts of England and Wales are largely interested. At the present moment they are represented in positions of real power by their labour members on such Boards. Let me take up the amazing statement made by the Vice-President of the Council that infinitely more electors take part in the County Council elections than the School Board elections. I absolutely deny that so far as the southwest districts are concerned. There the County Council elections are uncontested, but the people there take the deepest interest in education, and they return to the School Boards those who represent their views with regard to the education they want for their children. There is not the slightest security that, as regards many of the counties, they will be so represented in the future. In the County of Durham, of course, they will. They have the County Council in their own hands. But who can pretend that this will be so even in Derbyshire, let alone Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and many other rural districts which contain coal mines? The same argument is applicable to many rural districts where the population consists largely of miners and persons, engaged in small manufactures, who take

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the deepest interest in education. The position of manager of one school in the district which you offer as an alternative for the control of education over a great district in which they are interested will be a mockery to them, and yon will lose the services of those men who have done so much to bring the district into touch with the educational system of the country. It may be said that the County Committee will place those men on the managing bodies of the schools. We have just heard from the Vice President of the Council what the functions of those managers will be. The County Committee will be a body like the Joint Standing Committee, which has control of the police—a body out of touch with the people of the district. It is to have absolute control of primary education, and the school managers, who have the confidence of their fellows, will not be able to bring to the educational work of their districts the same amount of useful work which they are at present able to bestow in connection with the School Boards.
The great defence of this Bill has been that education ought to be in the hands of the rating authority. In his introductory speech the Leader of the House throughout spoke of the wisdom of handing over control to the rating authority. The County Council is not "the" rating authority. It is "a "rating authority. But the sanitary authority is more of the rating authority than is the County Council. The County Council is not, as the Leader of the House called it, the rating authority of the district." In some cases, the destruction to which I have alluded—destruction of efficiency—could be avoided by handing over the control to a very large Parish Council, or in others to a District Council, with the result that pretty much the same persons as now would control education. It would be less dangerous than the handing it over to the distant county authority. But the difficulty cannot thus be wholly avoided. Some of the best districts are united districts, where the School Board runs over not only different parishes but different rural districts. One of the most extraordinary assumptions in this connection of the Leader of the House was that the School Board spends without control, and that the
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county is the rating authority which will spend with control. The exact opposite is the case. The county is virtually out of reach and uncontrollable, as compared with the School Board, which is elected in the district for the district which pays, and the triennial election for which is a real contest, while the overwhelming majority of the county elections are uncontested, distinguished magistrates and landowners being elected as a matter of course, even in districts with which they are not in political or religious sympathy. When the County Councils were brought into existence the process which should have been resorted to was inverted. There was a Bill once prepared which I knew well, though it never saw the light, in which the Parish and District Council proposals of 1893 were united with the county proposals carried in the 1886 Parliament. The carrying of the county proposals first and by themselves threw upon the county much which had better have been thrown upon the parish or the district. The result as applied to this Bill is that the county is not sufficiently in touch with the smaller districts, and when the Leader of the House declares that the authority "responsible for the heavy cost to the ratepayers should be the rating authority of the district," and boasts of the managing committees "that they will not have to go through this elaborate electoral process," he means that control will be taken out of the hands of the real rating authority of the district, and the rates placed at the disposal of little meddling bodies of amateurs. The Leader of the House seemed to think that it is almost an advantage that you should not have what he calls this elaborate electoral process. He claimed it as credit for the Bill that it would put an end to School Board elections. There is no means of bringing home responsibility in these matters except by local elaborate electoral process. It is brought home at the present time by the School Board system, but it is not brought home in the same way where the elections are largely controlled in the way I have described. Popular control means that the voice of the locality should be heard. Under this Bill the

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voice of the locality will only be heard in protest after every act that has been done in the district against its wish.
My hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell made a speech at Reading the other day. I am glad to hear that, as he was too briefly reported, he did not say that there is "nothing antidemocratic" in the new authority—
"It was the proposal of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster themselves in their Bill of 1870 as submitted to the House of Commons."
DR. MAGNAMARA: I said that there was nothing antidemocratic in going to the Rural Council.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: I am not combating what the hon. Member said. I am trying to explain and make clear the views entertained and expressed by him. And then he went on to say that—
"The idea of creating an education authority was the result of an Amendment in Committee; and, curiously enough, though that idea was warmly championed by Radicals of today, it was hotly opposed in 1870 by such men as Mr. George Dixon, Mr. Mundella, and Mr. W. E. Forster."
The Amendment which I moved in 1870 was for direct election by the ratepayers. It was supported by the Radicals of that day as well as of this day; by the Member for West Monmouthshire, by the noble Lord the Member for the Calne Division, and by every member of the Education League in the House except the President, Mr. Dixon. When the Government, after beating me by 150 to 115, gave way and accepted my Amendment, Mr. Dixon again divided against it, and ail the Radicals except Dr. Playfair, who was like my hon. friend the Member for Haddington, an educational expert more than a friend of popular control, again voted with us. The Radicals of 1870 did not support the Education Bill as introduced. We asked then, as we ask now, for a real popular control, instead of an illusory popular control. The Radicals fought a tremendous fight against the Bill, and the result of that fight was the defeat of the Liberal Government in 1874. After the renewal of the struggle, over Lord Sandon's Bill of 1876, the compromise of 1870 was distinctly accepted, and our complaint is that since 1895 it has
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gradually been broken down in the interest of a non-national system.
As regards the future, I confess that unless the Bill is greatly altered, I have little hope of the improvement of education in the rural districts. The Bill will destroy what exists of efficiency there. I know that there are men in the County Councils who, if the matter were left to them, would have a very high standard both of primary and secondary education, but they will be in the hands of the farmers, who will try to keep down and cut down the rates, and I am more than doubtful whether they will give us the efficiency in rural education which they are taking from us now. The change of system is not one which is introduced for the poor at the wish of the poor, because it is the poor who send their children to these schools. This is a measure introduced by the rich for what they wish for the poor. This is not a national demand. I am convinced that the national demand is for a public system—such as we have in our own colonies. If we resist this Bill here, it is not in the name of sectarianism, as the Vice-President of the Council seeks to make out. So far as the rural districts are concerned—of the feeling of which I have made myself a master more than that of the town districts—we resist it on the ground of educational efficiency. That, we believe, is at stake in the present Bill, and we ask you not to destroy that which is good at the present time, and hand us over, in the majority of the counties, to what we conceive to be a retrograde educational course.
SIR RICHARD JEBB: In a Second Reading debate it is not unnatural that the opponents of a large measure should insist a good deal upon details or else indulge in generalities, which often enter the region of prophecy. I think I perceived both tendencies tonight, more especially in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen, to whom the House always listens with the attention due to his distinguished ability and achievements. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of His Majesty's Government as a Cyclops, meaning by that, presumably, that whatever may be

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the position of the Opposition, the Government saw with a single eye. At any rate, we are all agreed that on the Second Reading of a Bill of this kind, it is very important to keep the main aspects of the Bill in view.
What are those main objects? It aims at setting up one local authority for both elementary and secondary education in a manner which will co-ordinate the one with the other. It is true that the elementary part of the Bill is permissive, but in view of the almost universal opinion disclosed in the country during the past month, I suppose it is not too rash to think that before the Bill is passed that part of it will be made compulsory. Then the local authority can supply, or aid in supplying, higher or secondary education in its area. It can also secure the efficiency of all elementary schools—whether denominational or undenominational. As to religious instruction, it is the intention of the Bill that facilities should be given, so that, so far as possible, every parent who desires religious teaching for his children should get the kind of religious teaching he prefers. Now. I would ask leave to consider very briefly some of the objections which have been stated to the Bill. The first is that which concerns the nature and constitution of the local authority. The Vice President of the Council has dealt very fully with the reasons why we should have only one local authority for all kinds of education, and that that should be the County and the Borough Council rather than the School Board. But exception has been taken to the principle of unity in local educational control. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen has argued that the areas for secondary education are too large for elementary education. A county containing a population of half a million might be a suitable area for secondary education, and a town of 10,000 for elementary, but not vice versa. But those who raise that objection have overlooked Clause 12, sub-section 3, under which any Council may
"for all or any purposes of the Act provide for the constitution of a separate Education Committee for any area within a county."
That Committee may be given elementary powers only. The words "for all or any purposes" secure that.
Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear!
SIR RICHARD JEBB: It is also said that the problems of elementary and secondary education are different. Of course that is a very wide subject; but under Clause 12, sub-section 2, provision is made for the presence on the Education Committees of persons experienced in education, and acquainted with various kinds of schools within the area. Special knowledge of secondary education, and special knowledge of elementary education, may both he represented on the same Committee. Then, the objection, has been made that since the new local authorities, the County and Borough Councils, are to act, except for financial purposes, through Education Committees, they will thereby lose touch with the people. The educational policy of the Committees, it is argued, will not be subject to review by the whole body of ratepayers. Now, in the first place, one might ask how far docs the general body of the ratepayers possess effective power of reviewing the policy of a School Board which is elected by a cumulative vote, and very often on issues mainly sectarian and economic, or anything rather than purely educational? It is surely clear that a judgment on educational policy is a matter that demands some knowledge, and that the general body of the ratepayers may not be the best judges. On the other hand, it is equally clear that the ratepayers have the undoubted right to control the expenditure of their own money. Now, that right is secured to them under the Bill, which reserves to them the power of the purse and the power of making schemes, through the Councils—bodies elected on a more democratic basis than the School Board, and therefore more representative. It is surely trifling with words to argue that the ratepayers lose local control over education because the County and Borough Councils act for all but financial purposes through Education Committees which are responsible to these Councils, and which an; chosen for that special purpose. I should have thought that that would have been a recommendation to those who attach value to the ad hoc principle. The County and Borough Councils raise money for education from the rates, and entrust

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the spending of it to the Education Committees. The House of Commons votes money for education from the taxes, and allocates it through the Board of Education. Will it be argued that the taxpayers have no control over that educational expenditure because it does not appoint the Board of Education? Again, the House votes money for the Army and the Navy, but will it be said that the taxpayer has no control over that expenditure because he is not directly consulted in regard to the details of naval and military administration?
Then it is said that women, who have been such invaluable members of the School Boards, will be excluded from the new Education Committees. Why on earth should they be excluded? On the contrary, there is every reason to hope that they will find a place on these Committees. For my part, I hold very strongly that women should have a place on all Education Committees; and I hope that, if there is any doubt as to the word "persons" in clause 12 including women, when we come to Committee that point will be made clear. It is somewhat illogical on the part of the opponents of the Bill to object to the laying of fresh duties on the County and Borough Councils, which, they say, have already too much to do; and, at the same time, to object to these Councils delegating part of their work to Committees.
Again, it is said that the Bill will do nothing for secondary education; that part of the Bill is merely permissive; there is no compulsion. I have seen it argued that the Bill in this respect may be unfavourably compared with the Welsh Intermediate Act of 1889, which lays definite duties on the local authorities, and provides that Treasury grants shall be made to assist local effort. The comparison is irrelevant. There is no similarity between the position in England at the present moment and that in Wales before 1889. The funds in Wales available for secondary education were few and small, and a secondary education system had practically to be created from the beginning. In England the endowments for secondary education are numerous and large; and secondary education, though very far indeed from being properly organised, is, at any rate, more highly developed and more widely
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diffused than it was in Wales before 1889. In my judgment the Government have been wise in leaving to the new local authorities a perfectly free hand as to the manner in which they will provide for the encouragement of secondary education. I agreed with the Vice-President of the Council when he said that if you tried to lay down hard and fast rules it would be impossible to make them applicable to all places; and then you would have to define what was meant by secondary education. But how is it likely that the Bill will actually work for the purposes of secondary and higher education? The Vice President has told us how active, zealous, and efficient the County and Borough Councils have been in this field since funds were placed at their disposal. They have done a great deal for technical education, and also for secondary education in the larger sense. Is it likely that this zeal and activity shall suddenly cease at the moment when Parliament invites them to continue, to enlarge and to systematise the work which they have so effectively begun and prosecuted? That is an extravagant supposition; and there is a flaw in the reasoning of those who make it. The same pessimists who prophesy that the County and Borough Councils will fold their hands and do nothing more for secondary or higher education tell us that the paramount need of the country is the improvement of secondary and higher education. They tell us, and truly, that the general feeling of the country was never so keenly alive to a necessity of organising our secondary education as it is at the present moment. But the general feeling of the country is that of the ratepayers. The ratepayers elect the Councils. How can it reasonably be assumed that the Councils will not continue to exert themselves for the improvement of secondary education? That argument implies that, although everybody desires the improvement of secondary education, yet no one will use the means when they are placed at his disposal. I venture to think that under this Bill the County and Borough Councils will continue to do good work, and I hope better work, for secondary education.
Now as to the elementary schools, on which I shall be very brief.

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It has been objected that the Bill gives no pledge for efficiency in elementary education, and that, as regards our rural schools in particular, which are the weakest part of our system, no general improvement can be anticipated. That prophecy ignores, as the Vice-President has said, the power vested in the central authority. Means will be placed by this Bill at the disposal of the local authorities, and the central authority can therefore insist that the work shall be done. I cannot understand why it should be suggested that the central stimulus hitherto provided from Whitehall is likely to be weakened. The powers to be given to the local authorities are not deducted from the powers of the central authority. The central authority retains its powers unimpaired, and could not abnegate them even if it wished to do so. Further, the Councils are responsible to the ratepayers. Let us consider what that implies. Suppose that in one part of a Council's area the elementary schools are satisfactory, and in another part are not satisfactory. Is it not practically certain that the ratepayers in the district where schools are not satisfactory will insist on these schools being made as good as the schools of their neighbours? If it be said that approximate equality of treatment would mean practically levelling down, the answer is twofold: first, that the ratepayers in a district where the schools are satisfactory will not suffer the efficiency of their schools to be reduced to some lower standard in the same administrative area; and secondly, that the central authority—the Board of Education—will not tolerate any such general lowering of efficiency. It is their first duty to see that nothing of the kind occurs.
Now I come to a topic which has been rather avoided tonight, but which I do not mean to avoid: that is, the objection that no rate aid should be given to a denominational school. In touching on this topic I am most anxious to say no word which could possibly offend the feelings or convictions of hon. Gentlemen who differ from us on this question. My one desire is to state the case, as it appears to me, frankly and fairly; and I feel sure that
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I shall not ask in vain for consideration in the same fair and friendly spirit. We must first recognise the broad facts of the situation. Whatever we may think of denominational schools, they exist, and they will remain. As we have been reminded, there are now about 14,000 of them, as against 8,000 in 1870, and they educate more than half the children of the country who are under elementary instruction. But many of them are inefficient, although great efforts have been made in the way of subscription; and the problem is how to make and keep them efficient. Now the religious instruction given in the board schools is satisfactory to great numbers of people. No one wishes to say that it is not good of its own kind. I certainly do not mean to say so. But it is also true that there are other large numbers of people whom it does not satisfy. Here I wish to point out a fallacy which, as it seems to me, underlies much of the reasoning on this subject. That fallacy consists in arguing as if the reason why denominationalists are not satisfied with the religious instruction in board schools is simply that it does not go far enough. The case is sometimes put in effect thus: all people who are not atheists agree up to a certain point; up to another point there is agreement among all Christians; very well; let all Christians, at any rate, go together as far as they can; if beyond that point they desire, instruction in doctrine wholly or partly distinctive of a particular church, then they must provide it for themselves. The answer which is given by many members of the Church of England and by others also is this; that the reason why religious instruction in board schools is not satisfactory to them is not simply because it does not go far enough. We hold, rightly or wrongly, that religious instruction is not likely to be effectual unless it is definite, and what is called distinctive; it must contain some element of that which was excluded by the Cowper-Temple Clause. The view of those who are satisfied with religious teaching given in board schools is, in our opinion, essentially distinct from ours. It is a difference in kind; not merely a question of more or less. In this sense,

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therefore, the view which is satisfied by the religious instruction given in Board schools is practically, though not in name, a denominational view.
How stand the facts? For thirty-two years the religious instruction, as well as the secular instruction, in board schools has been defrayed from the rates. Those rates have been paid by Church of England people, Roman Catholics and others, who from conscientious reasons cannot make use of the board schools, and have maintained voluntary schools of their own. The secular system was tried, as we were reminded the other day, in Birmingham nearly thirty years ago. The second Birmingham School Board, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Colonies was Chairman, tried the experiment of purely secular schools, and it was the Nonconformists who would not tolerate them. May not denominationalists fairly say now, "For thirty-two years we have been paying unconditionally for the kind of religious instruction that suits you; why should you protest, if we ask, under reasonable conditions, for some aid towards the system of religious instruction that suits us?" And what are the conditions? The capital value of the voluntary school buildings represents about £26,000,000, and if those voluntary schools perished and had to be replaced, that would cost many millions more. These buildings are placed by the managers at the disposal of the local authority. The managers are also to be responsible for their upkeep and repair, and for modifying or enlarging them, as may be required by the local authority. Critics of the Bill have ignored the capital value of the buildings altogether, and have made light of the condition as to the upkeep, etc., saying that it represents only from one-tenth to one-eighth of the total cost of maintenance. I do not know by what process of arithmetic or imagination it has been found possible to fix a fraction which would be approximately constant in all cases. But will we assume, for the purposes of argument, that one-tenth or one-eighth is correct. That fraction represents more than the proportion of the expenditure from the rates that will go for religious instruction in
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the schools. As the managers also provide the buildings, the bargain cannot be considered a bad one for the ratepayers. Now as to the managers. The local authorities have power to appoint one-third of the managers. It may be asked, why not more than that—why only one third if you mean to give us local control? The answer is, that if these schools are to remain denominational—and it is assumed that they are to remain so—there must be some guarantee that the teachers appointed shall be such as shall command, the confidence of the denomination. May I quote a few words of an eminent member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the President of the Wesleyan Training College at Westminster, from the Methodist Recorder of April 24th? He says—
"If the right of appointing teachers is taken away from the Committee of the denominational school, you destroy the denominational character of the school.
That is true: and this Bill safeguards the appointment of teachers by giving a veto on educational grounds to the local authority. It also gives power of dismissal under Clause 8. I am told that under that clause the local authority would have power to dismiss a teacher on educational grounds. The real control, however, rests not with the managers but with the local authorities. They have power to fix the curriculum, to arrange the time tables, to determine the salaries of the teachers and the nature of the appliances of every kind to be used in the schools. They can hold an inspection of the schools. Finally, they have the veto on the appointment of teachers, and the power of dismissal, If that is not giving complete control, I do not know what is.
Here I may answer another question which has been raised. What purpose is served by the local authority appointing one-third of the managers? The answer is, that that brings in the element of publicity and criticism. There can no longer be any privately managed school. The local authority, as I have attempted to show, has complete control, both financial and educational.
Now I will touch very shortly on the point raised as to the provision of new schools. It has been alleged that the provisions of the Bill will favour the

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establishment of denominational schools rather than undenominational. I can see no ground for that prediction unless it be the assumption that the local authority will prefer to set up a denominational school, because it will be built at the cost of the denomination asking for it. But under Clause 10 the local authority has to consider other things besides economy; it has to consider the interests of secular instruction, and the wishes of the parents. But that is not all. The Board of education is the umpire. They have to decide if a school is necessary; and, if it is necessary, what kind of a school it is to be. This clause as to the new schools is intended to meet, and docs to a, certain extent meet, a grievance which has long been felt by Nonconformists and sometimes by others also. It has been welcomed by some of the Wesleyan Methodists.
MR. BURT: No, no! It was beaten by two to one at the voting.
SIR RICHARD JEBB: I only mention the fact that it was received with approval by many influential and representative Wesleyans. I may observe in passing that the remedy suggested by this clause is not the only possible remedy. Clause 27 in the Act of 1896, providing for special religious teaching in a school on the demand of a reasonable number of parents, could be applied. Or we might withdraw the children from the schools during the religious instruction hour, and give them religious instruction somewhere else. But the remedy suggested in the Bill appears to me to be a fair one, and I believe it to be a workable one.
The last point to which I shall refer is the training of the teachers. It is made the subject of a complaint against the Bill that it has made no direct reference to the training of teachers But that is a form of education other than elementary: and therefore under Clause 2 the local authority can provide for it. The reason of the absence of more explicit provision for the training of teachers is, I presume, that the framers of the Bill wish to leave the local authority perfectly free to adopt such methods as they think necessary. The local authority is
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responsible to Whitehall and to the ratepayers for the efficiency of the elementary schools, and would therefore have the strongest motive for having the teachers properly trained. One method would be to provide maintenance scholarships by which a pupil might pass from an elementary to a secondary school. Nothing is more important than that teachers should receive their training largely in secondary schools. For my part, I welcome such possibilities, because they tend to provide a remedy for a grievance keenly felt by Nonconformists, that in many places Nonconformists cannot be admitted as pupil teachers. That is a real grievance. Personally I should be glad if in Church Elementary Schools some pupil-teacher places could be reserved for Nonconformists under a conscience clause. I should also welcome some further provision of undenominational training colleges.
I thank the House for having allowed me to say thus much. I do not claim perfection for the Bill. I do not doubt that it may be improved in Committee. But it seems to me essentially a good Bill, framed on the right lines, and marking a great advance. I believe that, so far from weakening, it will greatly strengthen the popular interest in education. I do not think that it will promote a strife of creeds; of that there has often been too much in School Board elections. I rather hope that the country will see in this Bill an honest and earnest attempt to provide for a great national need in a way fair and just to all. I hope that the experience gathered by the great School Boards will be brought by many of their able and energetic members to the Education Committees. The best proof that in our day new machinery is needed is the fact that the best School Boards, acting from motives excellent in themselves, have been driven to exceed their legal powers, and to undertake work for which they were not originally constituted. I hope that the debate in all its stages will be conducted, as it has been begun, in a conciliatory spirit, in a spirit of mutual for bearance and generous prudence, in a spirit worthy of the best traditions of the House, worthy of the great interests with which we are

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dealing, and of the nation on whose destinies our deliberations may exert a lasting and far-reaching influence.
MR. HALDANE: On this side of the House we always listen with genuine pleasure to the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. This has not been an exception to the rule. With his eloquent concluding words we all agree, and, if we do not share his sanguine anticipations as to the working out of some parts of the Bill, at least we all recognise the genuineness and earnestness of his desires for educational reform. While I associate myself with many of the powerful criticisms of my right hon. friend the Member for South Aberdeen, which have not, in my opinion, been adequately dealt with, and while I feel with him that this Bill is not all that we might have expected after the interval since 1895, in which a Government with a very powerful majority has been in office, I do not in all respects approach this question from the same point of view. Nor do I share the fears of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean. I think that public opinion has been awakened on this Bill with extraordinary rapidity, and that, imperfect as it is, and bad as in many respects is the machinery it offers, it presents an instrument which that public opinion will show itself capable of wielding, and by means of which a real and substantial advance may be made in the only direction in which education could progress.
Now I may be asked why I should have anything but a feeling of opposition towards a Bill of this kind. Sir, I feel that this question of education cannot be left standing as it is. It is a question which affects the national life, and I, for my part, feel that it is one of great urgency. You cannot keep the question of education standing at this moment. It is a question far beyond sects and priests, whether of conformity or nonconformity; it is a question which affects the national life in a manner which is fraught with urgency. There is nothing more striking than the extent to which people are more and more realising the importance of education, not only in
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every Department of Government, but in every department of industrial and commercial life. We have a great Empire, a great Navy, and a great position among the nations. That position depends upon the enormous volume of our trade and commerce. That volume of trade and commerce came to us in a time when we had practically no competitors, when the courage and energy of our people were able to make themselves manifest, with splendid results in the way of success, without the competition and hindrance which we now experience. But all that is changed. Nations have come up, furnished in a way that we are not, with education and technical training which we do not possess; and it is vital to our interests, essential to our position as a nation, and necessary for the preservation of our commerce, our Navy, and our Empire, that we should put ourselves on the same footing as those nations are on. But we cannot do it at a stroke. We have that task before us, and the sooner we set about it the better. The educational system of Germany took sixty years to build up, and I feel that we must not lose any opportunity which offers of making some start, at least, of a substantial kind in the right direction.
It is not necessary for me to dwell tonight upon the contrast between our position and that of other countries. In the United States, as has already been said, education is in a very varying condition; in some States it is organised as in this country, in others wholly different. Chaotic as, in many respects, are the educational arrangements of the United States, it is at least apparent that tremendous strides have been made with in the last few years and are being made at the present time. We cannot afford to neglect the example of the United States, with its multiplication of Universities, its splendid high schools organised sometimes by the State and sometimes; by private effort, which are giving to the people of that country education such as they did not possess twenty years ago. We have, too, to contrast our system with that of a small country like Switzerland, where education has been on a scientific basis for a long time

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past, and with the still more remarkable system prevailing in Germany. The Consular Reports on Education now published are very striking, and in nothing are they more striking than in the evidence they give of the remarkable effect of education on the continent upon industries. We had a remarkable speech in the House the other day from the hon. and learned Member for the Launceston division, showing the enormous difference which technical knowledge had made in the brewing industry. That was a striking example, but you have only to turn to Germany to find half-a-dozen cases in which the training of experts and the turning out of young experts has made a difference of an equally striking character in other industries. Take, for instance, the beet sugar industry. We hear in this country that Protection is assisting Ger many in her great sugar industry. Whether that is so or not, the main element that has helped her has been the enormously increased skill which the experts there employed have been able of late years to bring upon the output, and by so doing enormously to increase that output. Then, again, contrast the condition of the chemical trade in Germany and in this country. The Tyne used to have upon its banks chemical works, full of industry, which now are in a semi-deserted condition; while Germany has forged ahead, because her system of education has been adapted to meet what is essential to that great industry—the training of experts, without whom it is impossible to progress. It is that which takes from us more and more such industries as the colour industries and others that we have seen slipping through our fingers during the last decade. Take Prussia. In the last thirty years that country has increased her expenditure on education in a degree which perhaps is not relatively greater than ours—we have increased ours to an enormous extent—but Prussia has increased her educational expenditure in some branches five-fold, and in others twenty-fold. But it has had this striking feature—that everywhere that increase has taken place on an organised plan. In this country a great sum of money is expended by the State, under some Acts. For whose benefit? For the benefit of
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the voluntary schools, isolated and taken apart from the rest of the educational system. At another time we tyke up something else, and deal with it in a patch-work fashion. Thus it comes about that our expenditure has been made in the last few years in a fashion—not like that of the Germans, dominated and permeated by the influence of some end to be realised and kept in view right through—but on a piece-meal or patchwork system, with the result that we have not had the advantages we ought to have had for our money, and are far behind the position in which we ought to be.
I want to approach the criticism of this Bill in the light of what it seems to me the Government should have been trying to do for the last seven years, and I shall deal, first, with what would have been the ideal system for this country, and then with that which we actually have. To my mind, the ideal system would be, not one which treats—as some hon. Members on this side think we can treat—secondary education apart from primary. There are those who suggest that only secondary education should have been dealt with in this Bill, and that elementary education should have been left to be dealt with separately. I totally differ from them. Education is an organic whole, you can no more separate secondary from primary education than you can separate the head from the hand. The two belong to the same life. Education ought to be treated as an organic whole, and the parts correlated the one with the other. You want an organic whole, in which you would have primary, secondary and tertiary education—of which we get too little in our system—linked together and permeated from the top with the intention of the university and not the spirit of the church. More than that. Not only would I have the three kinds of education linked, but after a thorough system of elementary education—which, I agree with the Vice-President must be the foundation of everything above it—I should like to see what is so remarkably apparent in Germany and Switzerland, and is becoming apparent in the United States, viz., an opportunity given to would-be students to follow out either of two courses in higher education. There

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should be the opportunity to choose either culture, for culture's sake, the training for a profession, the general training of learning, or that special kind of training which is necessary for the proper equipment of the captain of industry, and which consists in the application of scientific knowledge to industry. There ought to be that choice, and students should be taken to secondary schools of different kinds according as they chose the one or the other course, which should land them at the end in the tertiary system—something corresponding to the university on the one hand, or those other kinds of universities now so well known on the continent, which are so strikingly equipped by the German Government, and which constitute a distinctive feature of the modern system of education—mean those great technical high schools, which in Germany turn out a stream of experts every year, sending them into the industries, and enabling people to have at their command a constant flow of young trained students who can be set to work in the great factories and processes.
The ideal of treating education as an organic whole involves a single educational authority. I am convinced that you cannot make more progress after the stage we have reached, unless you put primary and secondary education together under one authority. That feature in this Bill I hail. Unless that principle is adopted you will find yourself embarrassed, not only by over lapping, but by contradictions, because your educational system will be ad ministered by two bodies of people in a different spirit, and with different purposes in view, with the result that the one system will not fit in with the other. Then there is another thing about the ideal system. Let me first recapitulate. Primary, secondary, tertiary, all linked together and co-ordinated, with the double aim or choice making itself apparent as soon as the student passes the elementary, under a single authority—that is essential. But here the continental example ceases to be of use to us. You cannot adopt the State the Government—as your authority, as has successfully been done abroad. You must take the splendid foundation of
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local government—which is one of the greatest successes of this country, and is the genius of our people—and erect your educational structure upon that foundation. I am sure that would be good not only for education but also for local government. Local government begins to show signs of getting uninteresting; I shall not be sorry if there is a little of the new sort of controversy brought into the elections; it will get rid of much of the deadness that has come over local government in some parts of the country. We have heard from my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean that the County Councils are getting into the hands of the country gentlemen and the farmers. I agree with him, but I would like to see them get more into the hands of the educationists.
Now I come to another point. It is absolutely essential that something should be done to complete the system which we have, and without which completion that System cannot be made really effective. In this country when you pass secondary education you have nothing of which the State takes any account. The Vice-President of the Council spoke as though it were really no duty of the State to provide secondary education in the same sense as primary, and as though everything beyond that were more the concern of private individuals. That has not been the experience abroad. If we are to have a system of education which will save our national life and our commerce, we must go a good deal farther than that. I think the university element—the tertiary element—in our system of education is a vital and essential one. That is a matter upon which we are very backward. We are backward on both sides of the House in this matter. When I remember that Germany, with a population of 55,000,000, has twenty-two universities, and if you count the new technical high school which has been set up at Dantzic, eleven universities of applied science, or altogether at least thirty two institutions of university rank, I grieve to think that England, with a population of 31,000,000, has only seven. I do not wonder our educational system is in so backward a condition.

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In this matter I think we want awakening on this side of the House quite as much as upon the other side. Those of us who were interested in the Bill creating a teaching university for London will remember that when we were debating this question in the House we had some opposition raised as to such a teaching university being unnecessary and out of place. When I hear speeches like that made and see articles such as I see sometimes in the newspapers, I do think that at this time of day there is plenty of room for waking up. I do not believe that you can do anything with the system unless you deal with tertiary education as well as primary and secondary education. We need a much larger provision of that element to permeate the whole of our educational system. Take for example West and East of England. Bristol and the rest of England has got absolutely no university at all. I know there are colleges which are doing admirable work. The East of England has got nothing at all in this direction. In order to get the kind of education which I feel is a vital necessity at this moment, it seems to me that we require, in each of a number of districts into which the country ought to be divided, some authority of the university type which ought to do three things. In the first place it ought to train teachers. There is no provision to train teachers in this Bill, but I notice that there is a power in a late clause of the Bill which gives the education authority of the county or county borough power to enter into an arrangement with outside bodies for the training of teachers. That is the only provision made for the training of teachers in this Bill.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: They may set up large training schools for teachers.
SIR JOHN GORST: Some County Councils are already doing this.
MR. HALDANE: I am aware of these exceptional cases, and I am glad of them, because we are shockingly short at the present time in our teaching supplies. I should like to see every educational district possess a university authority, and I should like to see that authority undertake the
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training of teachers. I do not mean that there should be such an authority in every educational district under the Bill but I will give an illustration of what I mean. At the present time Birmingham, which has got a new university doing admirable work, is showing signs of a very striking development of this nature. The university authorities in Birmingham have entered into an arrangement with the two adjacent counties of Worcestershire and Staffordshire, as well as with the city of Birmingham itself, and they are training teachers: and there is every indication that before long they will become a real educational authority in that district. In the same way Liverpool might deal with one-half of Lancashire, and Manchester might deal with the other half; and so on through the entire country. In this way you could get the Universities brought into relation with your educational system, and it seems to me that until you do this, and until this question of the training of teachers is taken up in earnest, the proposals made by a Bill of this kind, useful though they may be, must fall short in their operation. There should be no gaps left in this system, and now that we have got an Order in Council which seeks to encourage a start in the training of teachers, and which seeks to register teachers under two denominations, so that the training will be of some importance in determining into which category the teacher gets, you have got at least a foundation upon which some step forward might be made.
And surely the matter is urgent. There are 62,000 elementary teachers. Of these only 36,000 have been through the training colleges. The training colleges are forty-five in number, and all but two are denominational. I cannot but regard this state of things as deplorable. I am not bigoted as to the interference of ministers of religion in education. On the contrary, recognising that they are permeated by a strong sense of duty, I welcome their co-operation in matters of education. But there are some things they do badly, and certainly on them ought not to be left the responsibility of the training of teachers, which is no function of the Church. This question should be looked at from a

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point of view of educational efficiency in the first place. Besides the forty-five residential training colleges, there are in this country sixteen day colleges of a university type which train some 1,200 teachers per year. In this condition of things what it comes to is that you have half your elementary teachers never having been to a training college at all, and of those who go through the colleges one-third are shut out altogether from the chance of getting that higher training which is so essential in education. Contrast this with the state of things in Germany. Here we do not train our secondary teachers at all, and it is enough if the gentleman who undertakes the duty has good credentials, came from a University, or is a clergyman. In Germany no person can be employed as a teacher who has not a certificate from the State as a trained teacher. That rule applies to every class of school, private as well as public.
What happens in setting up a secondary school in Germany? In the first place, the teachers must be certificated by the State. They must have gone through a course in an elementary school, followed by nine years in a secondary school. After being in the Army they must then be three years at the university, and one year at a seminary, and after that one or two years on probation—with the result that nobody is allowed to teach in a secondary school in Germany until he has been thoroughly trained. That applies to every class of school, both public as well as private. No wonder they get in Germany a degree of efficiency with which we have nothing to compare. I regard the question of the teachers as vital, and it is one of the shortcomings of the Bill that it makes but an inadequate provision for their training. What the schools are depends upon the teachers, and the teachers are what the law makes them. This has had a very bad effect on the elementary schools in particular, for the teachers have been driven to take too narrow a view of their function in education. This narrow view which has been taken of elementary education is one of the things which make me feel that if you are to get efficiency you can only get it under a single authority.
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In the light of these preliminary observations, which I few have been too long, I should like now to say a few words about the Bill itself. We ought to consider this question from as wide a point of view as possible, and it is for that reason that I have tried to sketch what really appears to me to be the real idea of education, in the light of which I wish to consider what ought to be my attitude towards this Bill. You have this dilemma to start with. I agree-that the voluntary schools cannot be allowed to go on as they are at the present time. Anyone who has read of the condition of these wretched voluntary schools cannot but feel a sense of disgrace when he compares the elementary system of education in this country with what it is abroad, for here the whole system is organised in the interests of small centres instead of in the interests of a great system of education. Therefore, I am prepared to say that the voluntary schools system must be either ended or mended. The ending of them would take a long time and would entail a very great cost, considering that they are 14,000 in number and have 3,000,000 of children, and, therefore, I am in favour of mending them. The voluntary system would require a vast sum of money to replace and would involve much delay. This question, I am firmly convinced, is a national one; and not only this, but it is urgent. Therefore, as you cannot end the voluntary schools, I feel that you must mend them. For my part I think it is extremely desirable that these schools should be dealt with in such a fashion as will not only mark a substantial advance, but make it possible to secure even greater progress in the future. I sympathise slightly with the attitude of those on my own side who are against rate aid to voluntary schools, but I cannot feel a great deal of sympathy with them. Those who take up this attitude are receiving large sums for the maintenance of their own denominational training colleges and voluntary schools, and therefore they do not come to the controversy quite clean-handed. On the other hand, I feel strongly that these schools should be put under such control, if they are to be so mended, as to ensure that you shall get a return for your money.

713
I feel in this matter that we must approach this Bill with large and generous ideas. The first consideration is that you must make a step forward. You must make your elementary system more efficient. The second is that you have a number of difficulties just now which must be got over, and from an educational point of view there is the necessity of our giving primary foundation without making it so extremely difficult as at present to pass from the primary to the secondary. But there is another consideration which weighs with me as against the argument which has been put forward a good deal tonight that the new educational authorities you are proposing to set up will not be in a position to deal with secondary education adequately. Nothing has been more striking—and it has been observed by continental writers as well as our own—than the steps forward, the signs of activity and of an improved public opinion about education, that have been seen in this country in the last few years. Technical education has been taken up by the county authorities in a way that would have surprised people a few years ago, and it has carried with it a good deal of secondary education. I for one do not take a gloomy view of the capacity of the County Councils to deal with other than technical education. I approach this Bill feeling as regards the first part of it, which constitutes the single authority, and imposes the duty on this authority, that that is a good provision. When I come to the second part, I think it is a bad blot that, instead of imposing a duty with regard to secondary and technical education, it should leave things at the discretion of the local education authority. I think that is a blot, and that it is wrong to have a distinct two-penny rate as distinct from the other rate. I should like to have seen the two put together and administered as a single rate by a single authority. I think that is a defect in the Bill which you will consider when you get to the Committee stage. As regards the option to adopt Part III. of the Bill or not, that is bad; but I am not without hope, from what I hear, that there is some intention on the part of the Government to drop that option clause. Well, then, as regards Clause 8, I agree with the hon. Member who spoke last that it gives you a very much more real control than has appeared to some people
714
over the management of voluntary schools, if you get public opinion to put it in force. Everything in this Bill depends upon whether you get public opinion at your back. If you do not, you are no better than you were before, and in some respects you are worse. But if you get public opinion behind you, I feel that in this Bill there is a way forward, and that in Clause 8 there is a way of controlling and making efficient the denominational schools—a way that is worth taking into account, because it puts on the local authority not only the duty of making; education efficient, but of satisfying the people that they are getting an adequate return for their money. I own that I am surprised that the supporters of the voluntary schools should have lent themselves so easily to this control, for if I were to predict what will be the position in twenty years, I would say that there will not be a voluntary school of the old sort left in existence. The ratepayer will see that he gets value for the money spent on those schools, and I think that things will not be left in the lamentable condition some Members have imagined. As to Part IV., with respect to the constitution of the local authority, I am disposed to think it is well that there should have been a considerable degree of elasticity in the selection of members. I do not think it is a good thing to insist that the members should be mainly, or still less altogether, derived out of the County Council or other body from which they derive their finance, and which nominates them. It seems to me that both from the point of view of bringing in the university element, and enabling the local authority to got hold of those who are interested in tertiary education, and the conducting of the education of the district, and the point of view that enables you to get the best men, it is well that the selection should have been left somewhat elastic. There are other provisions in this Bill, some of which seem to me to form very formidable blots. I do not, for instance, like Clause 9. It seems to throw much of what ought to be the duty of the authority to keep education efficient, into confusion, because it puts power into the hands of the Church schools—those interested in the Church schools—which I feel they ought not to possess. I feel, for one, that Clause 9 ought to be resisted with all their strength, on the part of those who

715
desire to see education made thoroughly efficient. But, speaking generally, I feel about this Bill that it is one of which, as I have said, something may be made, if only you have public opinion, anxious and ready to make use of its opportunities. I should adopt for myself the words written the other day in a letter to The Times, by Professor Lawrie, of Edinburgh University. Writing about this Bill, from an outside point of view, and without any twist or bias one way or the other, he says—
"I believe I look at the whole question from the point of view solely of education, taking account, however, of the conflicting forces which the Government has to bring into cooperation. Although I am in sympathy with the Nonconformist conception of education, which is larger and more liberal than that of the Anglican Church, I cannot share then animosity to their fellow Christians. With an admixture of elected members in the managing bodies, one need not be too much alarmed at the prospect of proseltytising. Even without the amendments I have ventured to suggest, I would, speaking as a Presbyterian and an educationist, accept this Bill, because it is a step forward, not backward. It contains in it much more than appears on the surface. It is a move in the direction of the national control of all schools, and of the organisation of education generally; it tends to liberate the teacher from one-man government, and makes his tenure of office mote secure. It cannot but broaden instruction in the school; it admits of easy development by means of amending Acts; by one stroke of the pen it converts denominational schools into board schools by putting them under a council; and, finally, it is a policy of decentralisation."
These views may or may not be too sanguine, but they contain an element of truth. This Bill, whatever its defects, and it has defects, at least establishes the principle of the single authority, and sweeps away certain barriers which exist; and if it docs not open up a high road along which we can advance, it, at least, breaks down some of the hedges which prevent public opinion from taking a step forward. I believe that with this Bill will come that public opinion which we shall have with us in a very short—time that public opinion which will arise from the necessity of our education and our national conditions, that public opinion which will arise from the necessity of better training for those who are engaged in our trades and industries, those who have to take an essential part in our life, and who control the future of the affairs of our people. I believe we shall have a
716
public opinion which will demand steps forward such as have not been seen in the last five and twenty years. The Hill breaks down some of the barriers which prevent that public opinion from operating at the present time. Speaking for myself, I feel that strongly. I feel that for the first time it will be possible to take steps systematically forward towards secondary education. I believe it will be possible to bring into co-operation with the authorities, people outside who are concerned in the tertiary aspects of education, and who so far have been shut out. Therefore, although the blots on the Bill will prevent me from voting for the Second Beading, I for my part cannot vote against it. I feel that this Hill is one that deserves recognition because of the chance it gives of making steps forward, and although there are defects in it—defects which I shall find myself in cordial co-operation with my hon. friends in endeavouring to remove during the Committee stage—I feel that, although I cannot bless the Bill, I can bless the idea that underlies it. If the principle is put into operation with public opinion behind it this instrument may mark a step forward along the highway of education and progress.
LORD EDMUND TALBOT: I think after the debate which has taken place the country will feel convinced that there is a good deal more to be said for the efficiency of the Bill than some hon. Members opposite would have us suppose. I venture to say that, regarding this measure from the point of view of the extreme denominationalists, it is by no means an ideal Bill. A Bill by which the only people who can have a school built and maintained for them at the public expense are those who are satisfied with a modicum of indefinite religious teaching, or with no religious teaching whatever, cannot be regarded as ideal from a denominationalist point of view. It is remarkable that in a State which officially recognises Christianity, in which a form of Christianity is established and maintained by law, which is part and parcel of the Constitution, that those only of the poorer classes who do not require definite religious education for their children, or who prefer none at all, should alone be those who can obtain elementary

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education absolutely free at the public expense. But if this Bill does not satisfy the sentiments and aspirations of the denominationalist, and if compromise is to be taken as the text of Statesmanship, then I believe the Government are to be congratulated on having produced a measure which must improve the educational efficiency of the country. It is true we have to pay a heavy fine to ensure our religious teaching. We shall still have to bear the heavy burden in the building of schools and in the acquiring of land on which they are built. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen seems to think this would be a small burden. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman can be quite so unfortunate as I have been in hearing some of the piteous appeals which are made for the building of new schools.
It being half-past seven of the clock, the debate was suspended until the evening sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Debate on Amendment to Second Reading continued.
  LORD EDMUND TALBOT: When I had the honour of falling as the first victim under the new Adjournment Rule. I was venturing to point out that I regard this measure from the point of view of an extreme denominationalist. I had got to the point I wanted to touch on—the heavy burden we denominationalists have to bear in buying the land, buildings, and schools in order to secure for our selves religious instruction. That burden is no light one. Under this Bill it will be heavier rather than lighter. Structural repairs and alterations will in my humble judgment be a constant source of anxiety. I frankly admit that we are relieved of what we now have to bear, namely, the further penalty of in adequate secular instruction. I speak with some feeling on this point, because I belong to a religious communion which is a very small minority in this country.
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  But I venture to assert there is no section of the community which is in more deadly earnest on this question than we are. We must never forget in dealing with this question that we are dealing with the children of the poorer classes, and it is a melancholy fact that the greatest percentage of the very poor in this country have been found amongst my fellow catholics. Hitherto and at this moment that heavy handicap has been increased by the further penalty of the parents of these children having for conscience sake to see them educated by overworked and underpaid teachers. I rejoice indeed to think that under this Bill teachers in voluntary schools will no longer be at that disadvantage, and that they will have now and in the future a more favoured and more fortunate position than their comrades lately occupy. I regret very much—and I confess I was surprised—that opposition to this Bill comes from the religious Nonconformists. I very much doubt whether amongst the earnest minded Nonconformists there is that opposition which those who are allied to them more by political than religious ties would have us suppose. [An HON. MEMBER: Much more.] This Bill does not deprive the Nonconformist of any religious advantage he now possesses. The Nonconformist's position is improved. He has still preserved for him the present School Board system of religious education, which is a system of his own making. New schools can and will be built entirely out of public money in which this same system will continue. In fact those Nonconformists who are satisfied with this School Board religious system are the only religious body who obtain preferential treatment by this Bill. And those of them who are not so satisfied with such religious teaching as is obtainable under that system, and I believe them to be a growing number are placed in exactly the same position as any other denomination and can build schools of their own. I have heard it urged that they are too poor a body to expect this of them. If my co-religionists can manage to pay this fine and bear this burden, so also can the Nonconformists, and in many cases they do. It is not accurate to say that they have not the means, nor is it just to say they have not

  719
  the zeal nor the self-reliance by which these things are done. The benefactions of the rich among them—and they are numerous—are an example to us all; while the spirit of self denial amongst their poor, not only in the actual giving out of small earnings, but often in the giving free of manual labour after working hours in building and restoring their places of worship, is well worthy of imitation. And wide and far reaching as the unhappy differences between them and my co-religionists are in faith and belief, neither can it be said of them that they are wanting in religious zeal. Why, it is due to them and their persistence that such religion as is taught in the public schools exists at all. And it is because a large proportion of them are satisfied with this vague and indefinite form of religious instruction, with the little risk attending it, if any at all, that they are content with the present system and are prepared in many places to go without schools, and not because they are either wanting in the means or the zeal to build them. But I fail to see on what principle what they have successfully demanded for themselves they should decline to share with us, especially when as under this Bill we have to pay heavily for the luxury of having it.
  We have been threatened with a rate war. The very mention provokes a smile among my co-religionists. For a quarter of a century has the temptation to take this same illegal step been before us. It has not been without difficulty that the temptation has been hitherto resisted. Perhaps it would not have been resisted had it not been felt that the intolerable injustice could not be allowed to endure. If under this Bill the conscientious objector is really forthcoming, he will be an interesting personage; he will be objecting to paying his share of the cost of public education in his locality, but only after having been saved his share of the value of the land and the cost of building on it which otherwise would have fallen on him. These threats, if carried out, will, of course, be regrettable. But they will have their amusing side, and to some of us the situation will be interesting. At any rate, the country will be able to judge between those who might have broken the law with some foundation of excuse and
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  those who break it when the advantage is all on their side. If this Bill does not satisfy all the aims of the denominationalist, I admit also it does not satisfy the extreme secularist who would eradicate all religious teaching and all religious sentiment from any system of public education whatever. If either of us is going to wait for our ideal, the present chaos in education will have to last a long time. If the secularist opposes this Bill, he must separate himself from the Nonconformist, for it is the latter who has insisted that the recognition of religion of some kind shall at least be possible in the State schools. He must separate himself from the educationalist, who prefers an efficient education for the country at once to a continuance of the present confusion. By opposing this Bill, he will be voting against the possibility which it holds out to the poorest child, who may have been gifted with more than average intelligence, of having that gift developed and utilised to its own best advantage and that of the State; and, above all, he will be voting against a principle embodied in this Bill, and which, I believe, is very dear to the English people—the sacred rights of parents as regards their children.
  I will not go into any details connected with this Bill at this stage. In conclusion, I would like to associate myself with hon. Members on both sides of this House who have urged upon His Majesty's Government to drop the permissive clause. I quite recognise the force of the arguments which the First Lord brought forward in introducing this measure; but I most respectfully submit the arguments we have since heard go far to outweigh those in favour of it, and I hope the Government will drop that portion of the Bill.
  MR. PERKS: In the few remarks which I shall offer to the House, I shall not challenge the statement made by the previous speaker that the important Church to which he belongs has throughout its long history been actuated by lofty motives in its action in regard to elementary education in this country.

  721
  But I think he will admit that the Nonconformist Churches, and especially the Members of that Church which ranks in numbers next to the Established Church—I mean the Methodist Church—have also been actuated by an earnest desire to afford every child the highest form of education that can possibly be given. We have endeavoured, both in our denominational schools, of which we have nearly one thousand, and also in the board schools, to secure for the children of the country sound religious education. While we have endeavoured to do that, we have striven to do it by limiting religious education in the board schools to those elementary principles of Christian faith which Non-conformists hold in common with the Catholic and the Anglican Church. We have been content to leave the exposition of those tenets mainly to the school teachers of the country, and have been averse to the introduction into the board schools, as well as the voluntary schools, of clerical teachers, who might be tempted, in their zeal, to stray beyond the legitimate bounds of Christian instruction, and to become involved in what the Minister for Education has aptly described as the quagmires of sectarian and technical doctrinal teaching. The Wesleyan Methodist Church of this country has, by an overwhelming majority, pronounced judgment against this Bill, although from the teachers' point of view considerable pressure has been brought to bear on its Educational Committee to pass a sort of paternal benediction upon this Bill. Notwithstanding the pressure brought to bear by some of the elementary teachers, the Parliamentary Committee of this Church has like the authorities of other important Nonconformist Churches, declared that in its judgment the Bill fails to effect any unification of educational government in the country, or to give to the Nonconformist teachers and children the security from sectarian tests which they are entitled to expect.
  We have had from the Minister of Education a rather apt description of the Bill. He spoke of the Manchester plan, and I think the Liverpool plan, the Birmingham plan, and sundry other plans, and he indicated that this scheme of his was to be sent down into the country to
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  be submitted to the County and Borough Councils, and that those bodies were to be invited to frame their own Provisional Orders constituting their respective educational authorities. They were asked, in fact, to draw up their own Provisional Orders, and then they were to come to this House with a delightful chaos of conflicting schemes, all of which were expected to confer educational advantages on the respective communities which were supposed to have different educational interests at stake. When one looked at the position, and at the proposals to make these powers permissive in counties and boroughs, one could not help seeing there would be a total want of unity in connection with the schemes throughout the country. Adjoining counties might respectively accept and reject the Bill, and even in a particular county there might be large towns refusing it and adjoining county districts coming under it. In Lincolnshire, for instance, Grimsby might refuse to accept, while the city of Lincoln might agree to accept the Bill. That is only one illustration of what would occur in many counties, and the result will be that you will not have anything like a uniform system of educational: control. I frankly admit that I am not particularly enamoured of what is called the ad hoc authority. If the county authority had time to devote to the whole question of education in all its branches, and if its constituent members were such that they could, by training, devote time and attention to these important educational questions, I should not be averse to endowing it with this authority, especially if some reasonable project had been submitted to the House to secure that the spending authority should also be the authority which levied the rate. But when you come to examine this Bill you will find that on these important features it absolutely breaks down.
  I have endeavoured to point out that a unified authority is not provided under the Bill. When you come to deal with these small Committees, particularly in the rural districts, it is apparent that the central authority will have no control. I believe I am correct in saying that in the Elementary

  723
  Education Act, as originally introduced in 1870, it was proposed to endow the local authorities with the control of the parish schools. I am not prepared to say that a school area of these small dimensions would be wise, nor am I indisposed to agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that the small School Board areas have not proved to be a success. But he proposes to control the rural schools in a great county through non-elective Educational Committees, who are themselves only indirectly controlled by the central County Council. That is, I think, a proposition which cannot be defended. The element of local control absolutely disappears. Look at the composition of the present Committees of Management. They consist generally of the parson, the curate, and one or two churchwardens. Usually there are five managers, who are elected by the subscribers, but as the tendency of this Bill will be to annihilate the voluntary subscribers, who will, in future, elect the managers? Where the local board of managers consists, as it often does, of five members, only one will be appointed by the Education Committee. What would become of the local School Boards? He asked how the existing Board Schools were to be managed. Are they to be managed by the elective Committees or by the School Boards? If you propose to wipe out the existing local School Boards, what are you going to put in place of them? We know perfectly well that in the case of the voluntary school you are going to infuse a small element of nominated managers, but their powers will be absolutely nil. They will be sitting there in the condition of a permanent minority—one in five or two in six—and the suggestion recently made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a letter to the Press, that the light of publicity will be thrown, through this solitary representative, upon the proceedings of these local Committees of Management is, I think, a very delusive one.
  Passing away from these Managing Committees of the local voluntary schools, I ask what is going to be the situation of the governing bodies of School Board schools in the locality where they now exist. Are the managers going to be wiped out
  724
  altogether? Are you going to appoint a Committee of Management, or do you intend to provide a new educational authority to take the place of the managers of the local School; Boards? In the small towns there are hundreds of men and women who have for many years devoted much time and attention to the work of the School Boards, and I think we are entitled to know whether they are to be wiped out completely, or whether they are to be retained in any way whatever as managers of the local School Boards.
  It has been urged in support of this Bill that it will prevent sectarian strife. I venture to think that that will not be the case. On the contrary, I fear it will import into County and Borough Council elections an element of sectarian controversy which, hitherto has been unknown, because these bodies are going to put their hands entirely on the elementary education of the country: they may nominate one-third of the Education Committees; and, as far as I can see, when once you nominate these local committees, when once the County Council has framed its Provisional Order and sent it up to the Department, and when it has been forwarded by the Department to this House for confirmation, it remains absolutely unchangeable. I do not know what provision is made in the Bill for varying from time to time the constitution of the local authorities which are submitted in the shape of Provisional Orders to the Department or to this House.
  SIR JOHN GORST: The managers of public schools will be appointed under the provisions of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, and in that there are regulations enabling them to be removed at any time.
  MR. PERKS: I am trying to get at the position of the School Boards in little towns and villages. But I pass from the question of central authority for one moment to refer to the rating question. There are in the county of Lincoln no fewer than 313 voluntary schools in villages where there is no choice of schools, and if you are to bring up those voluntary schools to the

  725
  educational standard of the board schools, you will have to levy in the county of Lincoln a rate of eightpence in the pound. That may be a very pleasing outlook for people outside the county, but it is not at all a pleasant one for the farmers and ratepayers of Lincolnshire, and it would extinguish such advantages as have been given by the Government in the shape of the Agricultural Rates Bill. We have always been told that one of the great objections to establishing School Boards has been that of expense, and we know perfectly well that in little rural towns it has been the practice, immediately the voluntary school gets into financial difficulties, to send round the hat for a voluntary rate, so as to avoid having a School Board. What is the first thing that will occur when the voluntary schools in our small towns and villages are taken over by the County Council? Up will go the rates. So far as I am concerned, I would far rather spend money in education than in drink or in war, but, at the same time, I do not think it at all a pleasing outlook for the rural tax-payer, particularly in agricultural districts, that an expenditure of eightpence in the pound should be looming in the near future if this Bill passes. We were told by a preceding speaker that all sections of Nonconformity which owned denominational schools ought to be indebted to the Government for the modicum of relief given by this Bill to their schools. We have been told, too, that our schools have been in a weak condition, that while we have been able to build them, we have not been able to maintain them, and that we ought therefore to be grateful to the Government for coming to our relief. But in the case of schools under the British School Committee and of those belonging to the Wesleyan Church, neither of those communities has asked for any relief for their schools, and what is more, I venture to think there will be a large majority of the Members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church—and I trust the same may be said in regard to the British schools—who will refuse to come upon the parish for aid from the rates even if the Bill is passed. The right hon. Gentleman does not know what I know of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. That communion is altogether out of harmony with the views of the Government on educational
  726
  matters; and the other day the special Committee appointed by the Wesleyan Conference to consider the Government Education Bill, and take action thereon, by a majority of forty-nine to twenty-three passed a resolution recommending that the most strenuous opposition should be offered by the Methodist people to the passing of the Bill. I believe I am justified in saying that if the Government pass this Bill, the Wesleyan Methodist Communion will decline to accept aid out of the rates towards their schools. [Sir JOHN GORST dissented.] I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not think so, but I venture to say that I am a better judge of the intentions and the policy of that great religious community than he is; and I honestly believe that they will refuse—I trust they will—to come on the rates of the country for the support of their schools.
  SIR JOHN GORST: If this Bill passes, the local authority will become responsible, and the school managers will be bound to obey the directions they receive.
  MR. PERKS: That is a purely official view to take of the position. You cannot compel any religious community to take this relief. They can carry on their own schools, and they need not show any deficiency.
  SIR JOHN GORST: They cannot help themselves, if the Bill becomes law, unless they cease to be public elementary schools.
  MR. PERKS: I beg to doubt the construction the right hon. Gentleman places on the Bill, that by handing back the contributions from the rates these schools would cease to be public elementary schools. There is another point I wish to deal with in connection with the Bill, and that is that it seems to me that there is no prohibition against the voluntary school managers charging in their accounts rent for their schools.
  SIR JOHN GORST: No, no!
  MR. PERKS: If I am wrong, then I accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman; but I do not see anything

  727
  in the Bill which would prevent the Wesleyans, or Roman Catholics, or British school managers charging rental as one of the expenses of the schools. I trust that if there is any doubt on the matter the Minister of Education in the course of Committee will introduce words making it quite clear that such a course is not to be allowed, because if it were allowed it is perfectly clear that it would be an endowment of religion. The President of the Council on Education expressed a few years ago in the House of Commons some important views in regard to this subject. Referring to the voluntary system he said—
  "It is a system which places in the hands of religious bodies and private individuals duties and powers, which in every other country in the world are considered as appertaining to the State, and should be exercised by it."
  That dictum of the Duke of Devonshire is precisely the view which many of us take, and it was supported as recently as 1685 by the present Colonial Secretary. Speaking at Bradford that right hon. Gentleman asserted in the clearest possible language that there should be no rate or grant from the public funds which was not subject to popular control. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
  "I, for one, shall not hesitate to express my opinion that contributions of Government money, whether great or small, ought in all cases to be accompanied by some form of public control."
  The only effective form of public control proposed by the Bill is the appointment of a third of the local managers of voluntary schools. The right hon. Gentleman further went on to say at Bradford—
  "To my mind the spectacle of so-called National schools turned into a private preserve by clerical managers and used for exclusive purposes of politics or religion is one which the law ought not to tolerate."
  That is precisely the view we take. It is perfectly true that on secular questions the central county or borough authority is supposed to have some sort of oversight; but they have nothing to do with the appointment of teachers; they have no veto on the appointment of teachers whenever any question of religion is involved. We know perfectly well that in over 8,000
  728
  parishes where there is no choice for Nonconformist parents but to send their children to voluntary schools, the question of the appointment of teachers is almost invariably mixed up with some religious qualification. There are 1,800,000 children attending today the voluntary schools of the Anglican Church, and 500,000 or 600,000 attending the Wesleyan, the British, and the Roman Catholic Schools; but so far as the Anglican Schools are concerned, although at least one-third, probably one-half, of the children are Nonconformist, yet no Nonconformist boy or girl becomes, as a matter of fact, a head teacher in these schools unless he or she becomes a member of the Anglican Church. That is a most intolerable grievance to the Dissenting and the Nonconformist Churches.
  SIR JOHN GORST: No, no!
  MR. PERKS: Oh yes, it is the case. We have had the most careful investigation made. The bishops and clergy of the Anglican Church are constantly asserting that, come what may, they must hold the appointment of the chief teachers. That is one of their main claims. Their schools, it is alleged in the trust deeds, are established for propagating, the principles of the Anglican Church in this country, and how can these principles be propagated unless the head masters and mistresses are Anglican? That was our grievance before the Bill of 1870, and it will be a still greater grievance when a largely increased proportion of the annual cost—indeed almost the entire cost—of these schools is thrown upon the rates. We think that is a gross injustice, and the Government, which depends to a large extent on the Nonconformist vote, ought to listen to the plea of their Nonconformist supporters. I wish to refer to a letter which appeared in The Times on 24th April from one of the most prominent supporters of the Liberal Unionist Party in the Metropolis, and well known as an educationist of very large experience. I mean Dr. Glover, who, in the course of his letter, said—
  "Our Conservative allies in Unionism cannot expect that we should renounce on a vital

  729
  question like education the essential principles of Liberalism—representation with taxation, the soundest education of the people without waste of public money, and the liberation of teachers from ecclesiastical tests. It cannot be denied that support of the Bill which is to determine for the future our educational system would come very near to such an abandonment."
  An attempt was made by the Colonial Secretary to answer that letter, but I think that anyone who reads the correspondence impartially must conclude that Dr. Glover's contention holds the ground.
  I would just refer for a moment to the effect of the provision in the Bill which is supposed to be inserted for the purpose of pacifying and propitiating the Nonconformists in the little villages and towns in the country. The last speaker said that the Nonconformists could establish their own schools, and that the County and Borough Councils would maintain them for ever. This may be done in hundreds, even in thousands of villages in the country, I freely admit. I do not agree with some of my friends who think that this Bill will be a serious menace to Nonconformists. I think that proposition is absurd. The Nonconformists are too powerful, numerically and financially, to be under any such fear. The notion of crushing them out is nonsensical and ridiculous. The Church to which I belong might easily put up 500 Wesleyan Methodist denominational schools, but what would be the effect? There are many places where, if this were done, the National; Anglican schools would immediately come to an end—notably in Lincolnshire and Durham, and more so in Cornwall. Seventy to eighty per cent. of the pupils attending the Anglican schools in many of the villages of these counties are the children of Nonconformist parents, and if we put up schools in villages or small towns wherever thirty Nonconformist children can be secured as scholars, as is provided under this Bill, the effect would be not only to empty the National schools, but to duplicate the whole educational machinery and put a new and unnecessary burden of taxation on the county or borough. Does anyone say that that would be a wise thing to do? It would be unwise from a denominational as well as from an educational point of
  730
  view. It is far better to get rid of religious differences and to try to arrive at some concordat on the subject of religious education. Yet that is the only clause which is supposed to meet the grievances and the claims of Nonconformists. It does not deal at all with the sectarian tests which have hitherto been imposed on teachers. I have had cases brought to my knowledge where young women and young men have been required to sign an agreement containing as a term of engagement that they must enter the Anglican Church.
  SIR JOHN GORST: No, no.
  MR. PERKS: Oh, yes! I will produce one to the right hon. Gentleman with the greatest pleasure. The only thing that the gentleman who drew up that agreement forgot was to stamp it. Now that those Anglican schools are to be thrown entirely for their support on the public funds, I think it is fitting opportunity to secure the teachers from these sectarian tests. Then, nothing is done by the Bill in connection with the training colleges for teachers. The Wesleyan Church has only two, the British schools have two or three, and the Roman Catholics have several; but we want to have the entry of all these establishments free from sectarian tests, and so remove a grievous inequality and injustice. In conclusion I might ask who are the real authors of this strange sectarian Bill, and whence has the Government got its mandate. The answer to that question may be found in a speech delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 23rd July, 1901. He then said—
  "He thought that on the whole the Government were well disposed towards the Church, and Church schools; but it was not a very brave Government, and they were a little timid about lighting battles."
  The Archbishop seems to have changed his mind a little. After the lapse of six months, he seems to have had some encouragement from the Government, for in the early part of this year he adopted a more hopeful tone, and at Folkestone in January said—
  "There were signs that the Government would listen to anything that was said, because in a very great degree their own political position depended upon it, and it would be

  731
  rather awkward for them to face the Church if only its members were united upon that subject."
  I think we see in these speeches the source from which the orders to the King's Government have come to introduce this Bill. The Nonconformists object to the Bill, because, as I have said before, educationally it is a bad Bill, because it makes no provision whatever for rescuing teachers from ecclesiastical tests, because it unnecessarily imposes on the ratepayers of this country, without any effective popular control, an increased charge on county and borough rates; but we also object to it because the mandate on which the Government is acting in connection with this Bill has not come from the country, but from the clergy of the Established Church and their diocesan associations, and because it subordinates the interests of commercial and secular education to the exigencies of clericalism.
  MR. HANDLES: We naturally approach a question like this from various points of view, but we are all trying to secure the best interests of the education of the children of this country: and it is from that point of view I wish in the first place to look at the question before the House. I have had some slight experience in various relations to the education question. I am a member of a School Board, a member of a County Council, a member of the Technical Education Committee of that Council, and also a member of the Church to which the hon. Member who has just spoken belongs. The record of that Church in connection with the education question is indeed distinctly honourable. It is a record of no little effort and some sacrifice in the interests of education. So far as I can judge from the course of this debate, there is a general agreement that the law is not satisfactory at present, and that it is a hardship that, while half of the children in this country are educated at the expense of Imperial and local rates, the schools of the other half should only receive assistance from Imperial sources, and should have to struggle and battle with such difficulties as lack of finance always means in competition with schools which are so much more aided from the rates. That is recognised as a difficulty, and I think every hon. Member who has spoken on this Bill has recognised that
  732
  something should be done to meet it. Whether what is being done in this Bill is satisfactory, is a matter for further consideration; but it is unfair that a certain section of our population should both pay for education in the rate-aided schools, and also for the education in their own voluntary schools. That is a position which any fair-minded man, be he a Nonconformist, Romanist, or Anglican, must recognise cannot fairly continue.
  The Bill may be looked upon from two standpoints—what it does not do and what it does. The right hon. Gentleman who opened the debate referred to it as a Bill to supplant the board schools, and put in their place denominational schools. I do not regard it in that light at all. It seems to me that it is a Bill to prevent the denominational schools from being wiped out by rate-aided schools. The advantages which the Bill possesses are various according to different stand points; but it does recognise that all education in; this country cannot be reduced by the machinery of an Act of Parliament to one rigorous cast-iron pattern. It does not attempt the impossible, and docs not attempt to satisfy those who, whatever the Bill was, would still remain unsatisfied. So far as I am concerned, as a Nonconformist I am quite willing to accept a Bill which does not do everything I require, provided it does something I require; and I take it that this Bill does something which I think is for the best interests of the education of the children of this country. The powers under this Bill, which will be administered by the County Councils, will, I believe, be well administered. My experience in County Council work in connection with technical education is that it is one of the best-administered departments in our local self-government; and the Technical Instruction Committee with which I am connected devotes itself, without any idea that it is being priest-ridden or parson-ridden, to the best interests of the technical education committed to its charge. The question of religion or sect, or of no sect, never crops up at the meetings of the County Council and the Technical Instruction Committee. I am also a member of a small School Board in a rural district. Perhaps we are not an ideal Board, and that we do not do everything in the best possible way, but we do the best we can. The same individuals who constitute

  733
  that Board will continue to be the local managers of education, as this Bill is not going to substitute another set of men. Why should the children of half our population be penalised because of the religious convictions of their parents? Because that is what it amounts to if you say you will only aid the children of parents who are satisfied with a board school education and not aid the children of those who are not satisfied with that particular form of education. The Bill also provides for a representation in a way which is not provided for now, and from the Nonconformist point of view it is a distinct improvement on existing conditions. At present, if a case of injustice arises, there is no remedy for the parent of the children. If a case such as that referred to by the last speaker occasionally does crop up—and I believe they are regretted by all—what is the remedy? There is at present no practical remedy; but under this Bill there will be two local managers, to whom the parent may appeal, and who will be fittingly charged with responsibility in connection with any grievance which may arise. If those persons fail in their duty, every member of the County Council of the county in which the school exists is available, and the aggrieved parent may bring his complaint before the County Council through any of its elected members. This does not exist at present, and the Bill makes some attempt to provide that where a real grievance exists it shall be ventilated, and with a reasonable hope of success. Assuming that the adoptive clause is withdrawn, it seems to me that this Bill is calculated to be a great advantage to the people of this country.
  The right hon. Gentleman who opened the discussion referred to the Bill as being blest from ecclesiastical sources only. It so happened that a week ago, instead of remaining in the House of Commons to a very late hour, I went down to Cumberland and there attended specially summoned meetings of two large Committees of the County Council—the Finance Committee and the Technical Education Committee—to consider this particular Bill. They are under no ecclesiastical authority, and, therefere, they do not come within the terms of the definition of those who, according to the right hon. Gentleman, bless the Bill. They are a secular authority, and they cordially, I might say almost enthusiastically,
  734
  approved of the principle of the Bill, and expressed their willingness, if entrusted with it, loyally to carry out its provisions. That decision was arrived at without a dissenting voice as regards the principle of the Bill. There was a protest from the representative of the city which Mr. Speaker does the honour to represent, and he objected because his city, not being a county borough, would be regarded in a special light; but with that trifling exception no dissenting voice was heard. Those Committees consist of men of every creed, of every section, and of every party, but not one word of this terrible bitterness, which is being imported by certain sections, was heard in the course of the discussion. Certain Amendments were suggested of which I myself approve and which no doubt in due course will come before the House. The hon. Member for the Louth Division referred a good deal in his speech to the Wesleyan Methodist Church. I have no right to speak on behalf of that Church, and I do not believe that any man in the House of Commons has a right to represent it. It is a large community, and is accustomed to speak for itself in its own way and to make known its own desires. It is quite true that a Committee of that Church did meet to consider this Bill, and I am perfectly free to confess that the figures given by the hon. Member for the Louth Division are probably correct, and that, substantially, when it came to the voting, there was something like two to one against the Bill. But I did note this, that so far as the educational experts of that particular Church are concerned, as represented by men like Dr. Waller and others associated with him, there was a strong feeling that the principle of the Bill ought to be accepted, and that they should concentrate their efforts on such points as were capable of Amendment.
  MR. PERKS: I may say that I have been requested by the secretary of the Committee to submit their views to the House, as contained in a resolution, signed by the President of the Wesleyan Conference, which I hold in my hand, and which concludes as follows—
  "For all these reasons the Committee are of opinion that a most strenuous opposition should be offered on behalf of our people to the passage of this Bill."
  MR. RANDLES: I quite understand all these resolutions. I do not, of course, challenge for one moment the accuracy of what has been stated by the hon. Gentleman; but I say these resolutions reflect the opinion of a majority only, not the opinion of the Church as a whole. The Church is by no means unanimous, and I contend that the best part of it is opposed to the resolution referred to by the hon. Gentleman. I know something of our Church, and I do not believe that the view now being put forward would hold water very long. It would surprise me very much if, after mature reflection, any of our schools refused to take that which would be their proper due, and which would fairly come to them under the operation of this Bill. It is said that the children will be withdrawn from schools. That is one way. Another way is that certain gentlemen will not pay their rates. That is equally absurd, but perhaps more likely to take place, because it is so much more pleasant not to pay rates than to withdraw children from school. As regards the question of rent I believe that under the present arrangement you cannot charge rent unless your subscriptions amount to a sum equal to the rent. I know a Roman Catholic School which was placed in that predicament, and I do not suppose that the position would be any different under the Bill. Another grievance of which much has been made is the difficulty of teachers in Anglican and other schools. It is a difficulty perhaps, and I recognise it; but at the same time schools do not exist for teachers, but teachers for schools.
  I would like to ask where the real opposition to this Bill comes from. So far as I can see, it is reasonable to expect that a political party, opposing in a professional sort of way, should oppose it; but so far as I can discover from the debates in this House, the Opposition was not very keen from the Front Bench opposite. There was some criticism of details, there was some talking round the Bill, but there was not that strong determination to curse the Bill. The hon. and learned Member for Haddington expressed the position very well, I thought. He tried to avoid blessing the Bill, but at the finish he said he could not refuse to bless the principle that underlay the Bill. Where are we to get the people who will
  736
  curse the Bill; who will oppose it out and out; an opposition with something real about it, and with a bit of sting in it. So far as I can discover it comes from what is sometimes called the Council of the Free Churches. My hon. friend opposite knows a great deal more about the operations of this particular Council than I can tell him. He is one of the leading lights, and, along with the proprietor of the Daily News, is one of the financiers of the concern.
  MR. PERKS: I ought to say that it requires no financing.
  MR. RANDLES: Some time ago I was asked by a Free Church Minister if I would join the Free Church Council Association and, naturally, I asked one or two questions. The first question I asked was whether it was political in its aims and objects, and I was told, "Oh, dear no, not in the slightest." I asked what was its real object, and the answer was, "We want to fight the Church." I could only reply that, as I had no quarrel with the Church, it was not in my line, and my answer kept me out. At the great Congress of Free Churches recently held in London, I noticed that the Chairman at the opening of the proceedings said that with very few exceptions it consisted of carefully chosen representatives of the Free Churches. It is quite true that they were carefully chosen. In the course of the meeting a gentleman called Upson expressed the view that this Bill, which was under consideration, was capable of amendment, and might not be altogether objectionable if amended. His remarks were simply drowned with laughter and cries of "Jesuit Tory," and the like; so that if you happen not to be excluded at an earlier stage, as I was, any arguments that you may wish to present later will be drowned with laughter. I do not for a moment mean to say that the Free Church Councils are all based on these ideas. Some of the best men of the country belong to them, but there is a desire on the part of individuals, in my opinion, to use them for such non-political purposes as opposing the Education Bill now before the House. I would appeal to my friends not to use their position as Nonconformists to wreck what is, after

  737
  all, a Bill for promoting the better education of the children of this land, irrespective of class or creed. It is not worth while, from my point of view, at any rate, to destroy a measure which is calculated to do something to enable the children of this country to receive that which should be their birth right—the best education the State can place at their disposal, an education which will permit of their climbing a ladder, not provided by this Bill, but which may be built up by the authorities who will have charge of the Bill, to enable the children to rise from class to class, and from school to school, and to take advantages of every opportunity which will enable them to compete in commercial and industrial enterprise with the various nations of the world, many of whom are better equipped than we are. I do not think it is worth while to revive the bigotry, the religious intolerance, and the sectarian hatred involved in the determined and bitter opposition to the principle of this Bill. These things belong to an unhappy past. The policy recommended by some hon. Gentlemen in connection with this Bill means the raising up of the religious animosities of bygone days the accentuating of every evil, and the doing to education in this country such mischief and injury as it will take generations to undo. Happily, I believe that a better part will be played: I believe that the Bill will go through, amended perhaps in certain important respects, but destined, as its promoters intend, to secure the educational interests of the children of this country.
  MR. TREVELYAN: Some of us on this side of the House did not at once jump to the conclusion that this was a Bill to be opposed, because we felt, in common, I believe, with a great part of the country, that the reorganisation of our system of national education was necessary. This Bill has not originated in the complaints and clamour of a convocation. It is demanded by the people from a sense of shame in our possessing the worst instructed peasantry in the West of Europe, a fear on the part of our industrial population that we shall not be able to meet commercial competition, and a belief that the time has come
  738
  when equality of opportunity should be really given to all men. Many of us would have made great sacrifices of party obligation in order to support the measure. I go further and say that many of us sitting on this side of the House will support a good part of the machinery of this Bill in discussion in Committee, for, although we are supporters of the better part of the School Board system, we are not so enamoured of that particular system as not to look forward to the time when our great county authorities may control education, may have education added to their activities, and may become the real democratic working local machinery for education. But we are all the more disappointed, our hopes are all the more dashed, because, whereas we see some good things in the Bill, we believe these good things are marred by faults, which the speech of the Vice-President shows are not to be remedied as the Bill goes through Committee.
  There are two leading characteristics in this Bill which are seen in every line of it. First of all, there is suspicion and distrust of representative authority, and secondly, there is a partiality towards, and confidence in, the parson. We had as direct a statement as we possibly could from the Vice-President in his speech, when he said that the electorate was not fitted to choose the persons to preside over education. That statement did not apply: alone to School Boards; it was made as a general statement by the Vice-President. I should like to say, first of all, that I do not think that the Government are altogether to be blamed for the situation in which they find themselves. They had to make a difficult choice, and our complaint is that they made the wrong choice. The tares of this choking religious feud were sown in 1870, when those who struggled for a single national system failed to obtain their end. At that time there was a band of Liberals who raised an emphatic protest against what was being done. One, a junior Member of Mr. Gladstone's Government, whose name still arouses friendly recollections in this House, resigned. And why did Sir George Trevelyan resign? I will give the House his reason in his own words. He said—
  "The essence of a national system is that the nation should approve some special type of

  739
  school to which all others should be induced to conform themselves, not, perhaps, by compulsion, but by the offer of certain advantages. Parliament was invited to spend much time and attention in order to fix what the model of the future national school should be, and to stamp that model with the approbation of the nation; and then, instead of giving to these model establishments such exceptional advantages that the existing denominational places of education would gradually have been led to absorb themselves in a uniform national system by motives of honourable self interest, the Government enormously increased the grant of public money to those denominational schools."
  What that band of Radicals wanted was that the system should gradually become a single national system, and if that had happened, what a different position we should have been in now! Here we are, a generation later, with a country unanimously desirous of building up a system of higher education. We have had the experience of thirty years, and the country is fully alive to the fact that in this matter it is far behind other nations. And yet we find ourselves in this position: that the wheels of progress are still clogged by this denominational difficulty, and the Government are in this dilemma of having either to subdue or to immensely strengthen the denominational system of the country. They have chosen the latter alternative; and, having made, as I think, a wrong choice, they find that they dare not trust the County Councils to deal with the question; they dare not make their Education Committee representative, they dare not give them control over the schools, they dare not allow them to choose the teachers, and they dare not abolish religious tests. All that comes of their determination to maintain the denominational system. The first thing apparent in the Bill and in the action of the Government is their very implacable hostility to the School Boards. It is true that the Government are not quite so hostile to the School Boards as the Dean of St. Paul's; but we are told by the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, who has been at the head of the Department for seven years, that the children in board schools are taught tricks and turned out like performing animals.
  SIR JOHN GORST: Where the board schools are too big.
  MR. TREVELYAN: He cited a number which, I think, would about represent the average size of any ordinary board school. Why has he done nothing during this period of office to try and reduce the number?
  SIR JOHN GORST: I have issued an Order with that object. By a Minute of the Education Department, it was recommended that the number in boys' or girls schools should not exceed 300, and in infant schools 400.
  MR. TREVELYAN: I am very glad the right hon. Gentleman is beginning to act up to his opinion. I cannot understand why he has not done so before.
  SIR JOHN GORST: I cannot unbuild the schools. I found them there.
  MR. TREVELYAN: The Government have utterly failed to recognise the fact that one very successful part of our existing system has been associated with our School Boards. We do not on this side defend the small School Boards, any more than we profess to be satisfied with voluntary schools. But on the School Boards in our large towns we have had the services of able men and women whose one desire has been to improve education: and they have raised the whole standard of education far more rapidly than it could have been raised by the mere action of the Department. All that the Government has done in the last few years has been to carp and grumble at the action of the School Boards, and to try and bring them into disrepute by petty criticisms and by blaming them when they tried to advance. We ought to be very chary how we act in regard to the School Boards in such big places as Leeds, Bradford, and Manchester. Before we destroy them, we ought to make sure that the people desire their destruction. This Bill enables a mere catch majority of the Corporation, which may be personally jealous and hostile towards the School Board, to abolish it. I think that, in recognition of what the School Boards have done, and of the enormous value they have been to elementary education, we ought to be very sure of our ground before we destroy the Boards in these large towns.
  I now come to the counties. There we have a free and unchallenged field for a new

  741
  educational authority. The system there is chaotic and incomplete. More money and more brains are wanted; a more sympathetic management is desirable, if our educational system is to improve in country districts. How is the new authority to be composed? It is as far removed as it can possibly be from a really representative character. I should like to call the attention of the House to the history of the different Bills brought in by the Government to give power in the matter of education to County Councils, because it is a history of degeneracy. In the Technical Instruction Act of 1889 certain powers were given to the County Council, but nothing was said about its delegating them to any Committee. Again, in the Act of 1891, there was nothing to make the appointment of a Committee compulsory. In both of those Acts the County Council—a representative body of the people—had the whole control in their hands unchallenged. Then came the Bill of 1890, which made the Education Committee compulsory and seemed that the majority of the Members should be representative County Councillors. Next came the failure of 1901, and in that Bill again it was sought to secure that the majority of the members of the Committee should be representative County Councillors. It is only when we come to the Bill of 1902 that we find the representative principle departed from. The County Council may devolve the whole responsibility for education upon nominees of its own, and one of the reasons why so many of us welcome the prospect of having the County Council eventually as the education authority is because we hope that religious quarrels will be dissipated, for it is these sectional and religious conflicts that endanger the whole system. It would not do to dissociate the Committee entirely from the County Council, which is the rating authority. If that were done it is not difficult to imagine what would happen. If the Committee were not a representative one the County Council would be tempted in its craving for economy to reject its budget. Very scant respect indeed would be shown for a created authority.
  We are told that this education authority is to have absolute control over secular education. There was a very interesting meeting in Yorkshire the
  742
  other day at which some eminent men spoke, and they put very different interpretations upon the meaning of "secular control of education" as provided in the Bill. Archdeacon Wilson said—
  "If the whole of the secular education were placed absolutely under the control of the local education authority, the influence of the management would be less than ever, and would be chiefly in a social and humanitarian direction, to be shown in acts of kindness in embellishing the schools and giving pleasure and refining influences to the children. Therefore, Nonconformists would not be condemned to powerlessness as they feared."
  But at the same meeting the hon. Baronet the Member for North-West Manchester took a different view, and, speaking to Church people present at the meeting, said—
  "On the whole there was not likely to be any consequent serious interference with the proper management of denominational schools."
  What is the real test of this secular control? You can only test it by one thing. Anyone who has had anything to do with the management of schools knows that nine-tenths of that management consists in the choice and control of the teachers. The people who appoint the teachers practically control and manage the school. But under this system there is no power of control over the choice of the teacher on the part of the central authority. The person who is to be selected is to be appointed absolutely by the managing authority as now. Bate aid is going to be given in discriminately and absolutely, without any light of control. In every other branch of local Government where rate aid is given it is insisted that there should be proportionate control on the part of the authority. But in this case we are going back on the arrangement of 1870, and in two years from the passing of this Bill the subscribers to the voluntary schools will have ceased to exist, and the schools themselves will simply have become parsons' schools. Yet you are going to give them rate aid.
  It is argued on behalf of the advocates of denominational education that by giving public control over denominational schools the result will be that the religious teaching now given will be lost. The demand of the Church was moderately stated the

  743
  other day by the London Diocesan Inspector when he said—
  "There is only one object that the supporters of voluntary schools need be anxious to fight for—that is, ability to teach their own children the faith of their forefathers in all its fullness."
  I think that is a reasonable demand, and it is one which everyone who believes in religious toleration ought to approve of. It is necessary to meet the demand of those people who feel that their children require special denominational instruction. But it is not necessary, in order to meet that demand, that they should be allowed to have teachers whose salary is paid out of the public fund and who are appointed subject to some religious test. There is another way much more likely to settle this question. The difficulty does not exist in many parts of the word where English people live. It does not exist in our great Australian colony of New South Wales, where there is a secular system and where, in order to meet the requirements of those who are not satisfied with that system, there is a special arrangement under which, at a particular time of the day, ministers of the different denominations can come in and teach their own special creeds. It seemed to that active mind which has just passed away in South Africa that all that is needed to meet the real requirements of religious parents, and all indeed that they can justly demand, is that they should be allowed to have easy opportunities of teaching their children the special doctrines that they desire them to be taught. I hope Churchmen will not insist upon passing this Bill, for although the present intolerable strain on them will have been stopped there will be substituted for it another intolerable strain which will be much more difficult to meet, an intolerable strain on the consciences of a large number of men who are called upon to pay the rates, and who believe in the principle that representation should go with taxation. A very formidable alliance will be gradually formed and Churchmen will have to meet Nonconformists who will have what they regard as a terrible grievance. They will have to meet many Protestant Churchmen who are not very easy about this Bill, and who see that a great many of the voluntary
  744
  schools are used as seminaries of ritualistic teaching; and they will have also to meet educationalists who, when this Bill is passed, will not find people more interested in education but engaged in a bitter religious controversy. What we want to do is to follow the example of our colonies in this matter.
  MR. LYTTELTON: Not unnaturally, the last speaker referred to the part taken by his father in the education controversy of 1870. It has been a fault on the part of some hon. Members who have addressed us from that side of the House that they have regarded the situation too much from the point of view as if the compromise of 1870 had not taken place It is no use doing that. We have to deal with the situation as it now presents itself, and I feel no difficulty whatever in supporting generally and with cordiality the proposals which the Government have made. After the observations of the hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire it is absolutely useless and superfluous to attack the Bill from that point of view. It is impossible that such men as the Principal of Birmingham University, Mr. Sidney Webb, of the Technical Education Board in London, and others could be generally in favour of the principle of this Bill if, in point of fact, it was the product of clericalism. It is really the product of the absolutely unsatisfactory state of things that at present exists. The Vice-President reminded us that education in England is now compulsory and free. I would venture to say that the corollary which arises from those two postulates is—and this is a good Radical doctrine—that every citizen should have in education an equal opportunity. What is the present position? A citizen gets a good or a bad education according to geographical situation. If he is situated in the district of a small rural school board, or in a district with only a small rural voluntary school, we all know what sort of education he gets, whereas if he is situated in Bradford, Leeds, or Birmingham, he gets an excellent education. It is absolutely illogical and wrong that when the State says: "You shall be educated, and educated for nothing," the State should give the citizen in one

  745
  portion of the country a first-rate education, and the citizen in another portion of the country a very had education. That is one of the fundamental difficulties in the unsatisfactory state of things now existing.
  There is another difficulty, equally fundamental, and contradictory to the Liberal principles in which I was brought up. It used to be a leading Liberal principle, that no man should lie under any civil disability by reason of his religious faith; and another is contained in the good old Whig formula that all men should worship God after their own fashion. Let us consider for a moment what the situation is, and how these cardinal principles of Liberalism are violated. Some denominations are taxed twice for their education, and the tenure of certain religious views by a citizen condemns his children to an inferior education at a greater cost. I venture to say that the School Board compromise of 1870, against which Sir George Trevelyan protested, was distinctly a denominational compromise. It satisfied the consciences of thousands, to whom Biblical reading and explanation dissociated from creeds, contains all that is necessary to salvation. That is a denominational teaching. It is a perfectly respectable one; I do not wish to say a single word against it. In many board schools, admirable religious teaching is given in a most earnest and faithful spirit, by teachers who, no doubt, illustrate it by their own conduct and lives. It would be absurd for anyone who was brought up at a public school, as I was, to say that that widely differed from that which we received at Eton, and, I daresay, at Harrow and Rugby. That teaching in board schools satisfies a great number of people, and all those who are satisfied with it, obtain their religious teaching at the expense of the State. Here I would use words which are not my own, but are those of that very distinguished educational authority, quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire, Professor Lawrie—that the Act of 1870 puts the religion I have described, and which is taught in board schools, in precisely the position of an established and endowed church. There is only this difference—that the endowments of the church are furnished by those who are satisfied with its
  746
  doctrines, but the endowments of a board school are contributed to by those who are not so satisfied.
  May I summarise my remarks up to this point? It is really beyond dispute between us that the existing state of secular education is inefficient, irregular, and capricious, dictated largely by geographical situation, and is also unjust, because, from the true Liberal point of view, it has this degree of intolerance—that it gives preferential bounties to one form of religious opinion, and it imposes a pecuniary burden upon another. Taking these two difficulties—the secular difficulty, the difficulty of the inefficiency of the education, and the injustice of the religions teaching—how does the present Bill meet them? In the first place, it meets them by the creation of a local authority, and it provides that there should he a rate in aid of all, instead of in aid of one class of denominational schools.
  There appear to be two main objections brought against the Bill. The first was made by Mr. Acland—a name which everybody who values education must always mention in this House with honour. He said that there is no guarantee of efficiency or of advance under this Bill. The second objection, if I may put it in my own words, is that the test of the vitality of a religious faith is to be found in the willingness of people to make sacrifices for it; it is urged that by this Bill that measure of the vitality of a religious faith is diminished, and that, by it being subsidised, one form of religion is stereotyped more than another. With regard to the first objection—that there is no guarantee of efficiency—that entirely depends upon how much or how little you believe in representative institutions. You have the County Council; it is popularly elected. By Section 8, Clause (a), the managers of all schools are directed to obey every request or demand that that County Council shall make. In other words, there is nothing which relates to secular education which is not under the absolute management of that body. It really is preposterous to say that that provision does not absolutely provide for the secular domination of the voluntary schools by the County Councils. Then it is said that the Government are afraid of the representative principle

  747
  by having only one-third of the representation on the Boards of Managers. I have sat on a good many Boards and Committees, and I say with certainty that nothing corrupt or morally wrong can ever be done by a majority against an earnest and emphatic minority. ["Oh!"] You see illustrations of that in this House every day. [Laughter.] Well, perhaps "every day" is an exaggeration. Take either the Welsh or the Irish minority, if a majority in this House were to propose something cardinally wrong with regard to Wales, would not the Welsh minority have a great deal to say to it? I think it would. What I submit to the House is that no proposal of a despotic or corrupt character could ever live in the light of the criticism to which, it would he subjected by such a minority. There may be objections—the light hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean pointed them out—made in certain counties, based on the unpopularity of increased rates, to making education as efficient as we all desire it to be. But it might well be provided that if any school sacrifices the standards which are the condition of the Parliamentary grant at present, that grant should be the minimum allowed by the local authority, so that you could not get a worse position than you have at the present time. After all, it really depends on your belief in your fellow-countrymen. The measure of your confidence in what these local authorities will do is your belief in the wish of your fellow-countrymen to have a good educational system. That must be your only real guarantee of efficiency, because most people would admit that it would be destructive to run too far ahead of local opinion in the matter. It would defeat its own end to screw up education higher than the more enlightened opinion in the county required. Therefore, my reply to the objection that there is no guarantee for educational efficiency would he that the guarantee lies in the character of the local authority—and, after all the character of the local authority is determined by the people of the district. If they do not care about education, no Act of Parliament will make them.
  748
  As to the second point—that by granting rates to denominational schools you are tending to stereotype the religious opinion in those schools—I feel that there is some force in it. But what in the world can you do more by way of tolerance and of meeting the grievances of Nonconformists than this Government have, on at least two occasions, done? Clause 9 does not satisfy some hon. Gentlemen opposite; neither did Clause 27 of the Bill of 1896. That latter Clause was precisely or very nearly the proposal which the hon. Member who has just spoken advocated. It was that all schools should be put on the rates or subsidised, and ministers of all sorts and kinds of denominations admitted at stated hours to teach the particular denominational faith in which they believed. It was always a matter of wonder to me why that was rejected with so much contumely by Nonconformists in the House. Various reasons were urged, such as that it brought religious controversies too early into the lives of the children, and so forth; but I confess the arguments did not appear to me to be convincing or to have the real ring of sincerity in them. In an outburst of candour about two years afterwards, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton let the true reason come out—that the Nonconformists, speaking generally, had not a sufficient number of religious teachers to enter the denominational schools every day in the week. They were ready to leave the matter entirely to the teachers on the weekdays, and themselves to do the teaching on the Sundays. That is a perfectly legitimate reason. The poverty of a religious body is no impeachment of it. If it had been said that the Nonconformists did not receive that perfectly handsome and liberal offer because they could not find the means to work it, everyone would have accepted that reason. The Government clearly must have known of it, because they have made a proposal by which it is possible to meet Nonconformists in another way. If any member of the Nonconformist body, on either this side or the other, will tell us how we can possibly assist them by any other than one of those two methods, I for one will promise the most careful attention and sympathetic hearing to the

  749
  proposal. I have thought the matter I over very carefully, with an earnest desire to meet them on this point, but I have been unable to devise any other project. Another proposal is to secularise the schools altogether. That very naturally encounters the strongest opposition of the teachers, who see in it the withdrawal of their chief source of influence. It is also contradicted by the Birmingham experience. The plan was started in 1870, and, although Birmingham is a stronghold of Nonconformity, the Non-conformists themselves disliked the proposal, and, after trying to work it for a short time, they caused it to be abandoned.
  I wish to say only one word more. There seems to be on both sides of the House a certain fear of denominationalism. Denominationalism has its drawbacks, but still it has great and noble advantages. Consider how much greater force there is in something positive than something negative, and what a much better basis for the fabric of education is that in which a man does believe than that in which he does not believe. The basis of the compromise of 1870 is what men do not believe in. I venture to think that the basis for the fabric about to be erected is what men do believe in with all their hearts. Let anybody who knows London ask the great workers in the East End—men like Mr. Booth, Canon Barnett, or the heads of Oxford and Cambridge Houses—what is likely to be the effect of this system upon a child thirteen or fourteen years of age Who leaves the board school without any association to attach himself to or to guide him in the difficult three or four years which he has to spend before he gets settled in life. Some of those institutions I have mentioned are not at all denominational, but I think many of them will tell you that the great hope for the derelict poor of London is that some denominational body should get hold of these children when they leave school and keep a connection with them during those four or five difficult years which they have to pass through after leaving school. I think the Wesleyan Methodist body has been holding out most admirable illustrations of what can be accomplished in this Tray. A boy looks to these bodies for approbation if he does well, and he
  750
  fears their disapprobation if he does and this is one of the good results, in my opinion, of denominational schools. This system; interests; a body comparatively small in the welfare of the pupils; and, though, there may be some element in this Bill which hon. Gentlemen opposite may not like, yet I feel that they may console themselves in some degree when they know that denominational bodies, whether Church, of England, Roman Catholic, Jewish, or Nonconformists, will interest themselves under this Bill in the welfare of the children with more effect than at present, and will be able to give them a more valuable guidance in the future.
  MR. EMMOTT: I am anxious to save the time of the House as much as possible, and I will at once plunge into a criticism of this Bill from my own standpoint. Most unfortunately, this Bill, as presented to us, rouses once more old' controversies, but to a large extent I believe this to be inevitable. If you have 300 Churches and sects, each one of which claims that it teaches you the right way to live in this life and the best and only way to reach Heaven, and if each agrees that it is important that their doctrines should be taught to children when they are young, it is clear that if you disturb the old compromise you are perfectly certain to raise those old controversies, and you must debate the question over again. Personally, I hate this religious controversy. The children suffer while we quarrel, and the great mass of people do not care twopence about it. I am one of those who do not believe in the niceties of dogma as suitable food for the very young—I believe infinitely more in effect of example on character than in the too early inculcation of theological subtleties which must again be reviewed when children become men. The unspoken sermon is so much more potent than pulpit discourse. So much of this controversy does not appeal to me at all. But I recognise the claim of other people to think differently. I recognise the claim of Roman Catholics to surround their children by what they call a Catholic atmosphere. Their case is peculiar. My own desire, my one and only desire,

  751
  on this point is to find some via media which, as far as possible, will be fair to all parties alike.
  My real objection to this Bill lies on other and wider grounds than the question of the treatment of voluntary schools. As I desire to get rid of this part of the subject as soon as possible, I will say what I have to say on it now. The scheme of the Bill is perfectly well known to all hon. Members, and the only question is, whether it is a fair compromise or not. In my opinion it is not a fair compromise. I am intensely anxious to see this matter settled. I believe the country wishes to maintain voluntary schools. I entirely approve of rate aid to maintain these voluntary schools. Now, if in every district there were a choice of schools; (1) Publicly managed schools; (2) Church of England schools; (3) Roman Catholic schools; as in many big towns, I consider that the hardship would not be great. It is not so necessary for the local authority to have control in that case. There would be a hardship as to teachers, because in denominational schools only denominationalists need apply; whereas, in board schools, denominationalists would have the same chance as others. But the position is sharply differentiated from other districts. In large tracts there is no choice of schools and no pretence of a choice. In 8,000 parishes or more there are only Church of England schools, and Nonconformists and Roman Catholics must go there. Nearly all teachers in those schools are, and will remain, members of the Church of England. This is a real, intolerable hardship to Nonconformists, and all Liberals who are friends of religious freedom are bound to help Nonconformists in this matter. These are public schools to which all must go and in these schools the public ought to have control or, at least, have a majority in the management. They ought to appoint the teachers, or at any rate a majority of them, apart from sectarian motives. Whether, under such circumstances they should pay rent, etc., is a further consideration.
  I cannot go into this, at length, at the present moment. I know it is stated that the local authority has complete control over secular education, and that the managers are to carry out any directions as to secular education. Yes, but the
  752
  crux of the whole matter is the question of the teachers. In these 8,000 schools Nonconformist teachers are practically excluded, and it does not seem to me that any plan can be fair which confines teachers to one denomination. There ought to be a binding instruction that the religious teaching should he in the tenets of the Church of England, and as the Church of England is about as united on the interpretation of its doctrines as is the Liberal Party at present, this is a fairly wide order. I am anxious for a fair compromise, but no compromise can be fair which does not give the public a real control where there is no choice of schools.
  I turn with a sigh of relief to other points. There is one broad principle which ought to secure consent. The best test of the Bill is whether it is likely to lead to speedy and efficient reform of those parts of the educational system in which we are defficient. It is not sufficient that reform is allowed. It is necessary that there should be in the first place, money; in the second place, time; and in the third place, knowledge and enthusiasm directed to those deficiencies. If there are deficiencies in the two departments of primary and secondary education, I think it is necessary to determine where the deficiencies are greatest, and see that the attention of the local authority is directed to that particular department. It is by this test principally that I judge the Bill. Now I put forward this proposition. If you compare the condition of our elementary and secondary education, you will find that our secondary education requires early, careful, and thorough reform far more than elementary. Our elementary-education has been compulsory for thirty years. On the whole it has made great progress. The intolerable strain was relieved in 1897. I shall be glad to see this difficult question of the voluntary schools settled. But as a matter of comparison in its effect on the future of the nation the immediate settlement of the question of voluntary schools is of small importance compared with the necessity for organisation and completion in regard to our secondary education system, and the provision of specialised training of the highest kind. There is no need for me to detain the House in proving

  753
  this. I will not go back to Matthew Arnold, but in Vol. 9 of the Special Report on Educational Subjects, Mr. Michael Sadler says, on page 160—
  "In some important respects we in England have dropped behind in the rare. We need much more and much better secondary education for boys who leave school for business at the age of sixteen."
  That is as regards second grade secondary education. Then he goes on—
  "We need much more ample provision for organised research in every branch of knowledge. And we need much more of the highest kinds of professional and technical training. We cannot afford to be indifferent to what is being done abroad. Germany and the United States are conspicuous in the struggle for educational supremacy. Both nations are convinced that educational efficiency is a necessary part of the foundation of national greatness and of commercial success. What they and other nations have already done, and are lire-paring to do, has made searching educational reform in England a pressing need."
  And on page 12 he says—
  "We have to face the fact that it will take us, under the best conditions, between twenty and thirty years, at a moderate computation to remodel our secondary and higher education and to put ourselves (so far as instruction is concerned) on a level with the Germans. During that period Germany is not likely to be idle."
  Now, to any one who looks on this as I do, it is a question of simple patriotism. There is our great glaring deficiency staring us in the face. "The very existence of the empire depends on sea-power and school-power." That is Mr. Michael Saddler's phrase and not mine, and it refers to secondary and higher education.
  Our great public schools are splendid schools for the formation of character in a certain mould, whether it is the type of English gentleman, be he soldier, statesman, or sportsman, or all three, a type which we know and love so well, or lawyer, or business man. But these schools have intellectual deficiencies. They are too one-sided in their education, and they do not cover the ground. In every suitable district you want secondary schools with traditions, mutatis mutandis, as far as possible like those public schools, and with a curriculum suited to the circumstances. These schools should be cheap schools which the lower middle class can afford to send their children to, and they should be schools to which our brightest children of the working-classes
  754
  can be sent at an early age, by some scheme of scholarships not dependent entirely on examination. We have not got these schools in sufficient number, and this Bill will not give them to us, except here and there.
  This is a national and Imperial question. I am not pleading for the children but I am pleading for the nation. We have the finest raw material in the world. An American consul said the other day that the English had the greatest reserve of force in the world. Thank God it is true. But the modern race is relying less and less upon native force, and more and more upon mind and intellect: and we are not using our raw material; we are not turning out sufficient men, morally and intellectually disciplined for work in the world, and we can only do this by immediate and far-reaching reform in secondary education.
  And now let me turn to technical training. Sometimes I wonder if we are not on the wrong tack. We have hundreds of technical schools and classes, excellent, no doubt, and doing good work, but nearly all what the Germans call Gewerbe-schulen. They are nearly all evening schools, and they are all crippled by the want of a sound preliminary secondary education. Mr. Reynolds, the headmaster of the Manchester Technical School, which I think is one of the best in the country, said that he would like to see all the technical schools shut up for ten years, if only at the end of that time the children would come prepared to benefit by the instruction they could then receive. We are leading industrial people. Our rivals have all comparatively numerous polytechnics and high schools for pupils from eighteen to twenty-two years of age, but we have not. Look at Lancashire. Manchester is a centre of great industries. I speak without knowledge of the present position, but I think I am pretty correct in saying that there are only about 150 day scholars at the Manchester Technical School. Compare that with Charlottenburg with its thousands, and far higher training. Our commercial system is individualist, and it depends on leaders as much as, or more than, on hand workers. Just as in war your

  755
  privates are important, yet they are no use without generals, so in commerce, captains of industry are vital. We have far too little training for our captains of industry, and your new local authorities in our industrial districts are very imperfectly seized of this fact, and so it is necessary that we should take care, in changing our educational system, that this is attended to. To show how vital this matter is, let me remind the House that in a recent paper (No. 575 Diplomatic and Consular Reports of the German Iron Trade in 1900 and 1901), the Imports from the United Kingdom to Germany numbered twenty-five classes and all but two decreased. Mr. Gastrell says—
  "This table showed most unsatisfactory results for the British iron trade with the German Empire."
  The German exports to the United Kingdom numbered thirty classes and all show increases but six, and those six are small. Mr. Gastrell says—
  "A consideration of the above tables will show that the state of trade between the two countries is improving from the German point of view and deteriorating from that of the British manufacturer."
  I do not say this is all due to education, but that class of articles is one in which education tells and our only hope of improving our position is to improve our education. Not so much our elementary education as providing sound secondary education with technical superstructure. This is the important question to my mind, and it is much better worth spending an autumn session over than any other subject.
  And so I come back to the first test. I say distinctly secondary education is most deficient; that it is of most importance to the nation, and now I go on to show that it is least likely to get attention under this Bill. Clause II., dealing with the application of the money, is permissive except as to the maximum. There is an entire absence of any indication that it is the duty of the authority to take a survey of secondary education and supply the deficiencies. In Wales the Joint Education Committee had to submit schemes for intermediate and technical education for the inhabitants of the county. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University told us that Welsh precedent was irrelevant, because there were more endowments in this country
  756
  for secondary education than in Wales. With all due deference to the right hon. Gentleman, I cannot understand why he used that argument. They were allowed to raise a halfpenny rate, and that was doubled by the Government. The duty was laid upon them to prepare a scheme, and Imperial funds were given in aid of the local rate. That was your own Bill, passed by a fair-minded Conservative Minister who was a friend of education. With that scheme before him, statesmanlike in plan, excellent in result, and elastic in application, the right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President of the Council, the responsible Minister of this House, goes down to Bradford and tells the public that the only alternative is absolute, blank permission to do anything or nothing, and a rigid, binding scheme by Parliament to provide such and so many schools in each county, without regard to the wants of the inhabitants. I have no patience with such a statement of the case. There was the Welsh precedent before the Government, and I cannot see why they did not make better use of it. The money will probably be found to be inadequate, but this seems to me to be a Committee matter, and I do not wish to take up the time of the House unduly.
  The real reason why secondary education is unlikely to obtain attention if the duty is not laid on the local authority, and if the grant is not made from Imperial funds, is that new local authorities are likely to jib at the expense, and they will find it difficult to give the proper amount of time to the question. You are going to raise the rates to support voluntary schools by 2d. or 4d. or 6d. Is there such enthusiasm for education that you can rely on adding the burden of secondary education? In towns there is often jealousy now in regard to the School Board rate, and yet I am perfectly certain that the Councils would have spent as much. But they will begin their new task hoping to cut down, whereas the voluntary schools will increase the expenditure. In counties the increase will be considerable: but in neither town nor country is there yet a sufficient fire of enthusiasm to overcome the cold douche of this increased rate. A difficulty equally great is in regard to time. I am assuming

  757
  that the local authority has the knowledge, and I am taking the question of time. I assume that elementary education is taken over by these authorities, and that the majority of the Committee are members of the Council. If this is not so, I think it is inevitable that there must be a good deal of friction. The option given to the local authority under this Bill is really an absurd thing. Why should the question of justice to voluntary schools be mixed up with the question of the suppressing of the Board Schools? For it is a national and not a local question. I assert that the County Councils are hard-worked. But there is another difficulty, and it is that many of the councillors live at a considerable distance from the centre, and you cannot make calls upon them to spend much of their time and money in order to induce them to meet at the centre very often. According to this Bill, they must immediately deal with elementary education, and they must appoint managers for all the schools in the county. They have also to make the rules for secular instruction, inspect the schools, arrange for the audit, and deal with the whole question of the finances; and it is certain that they will have a good deal of correspondence with the Education Department upon many undefined points. If Town Councils take over the work of the School Board, have hon. Members of this House any idea of the huge work that the managment of a School Board in a large town already is? Have hon. Members any idea of the work which the Town Councils of our large towns have to do, and of the time which is occupied in doing that work? The Town Councils will have to do this educational work in addition to their ordinary duties. Recollect that this question brooks no delay. They will have to make a careful survey of the existing schools and to make a scheme of scholarships from the elementary to the secondary schools, and from the secondary schools to places of higher education. They will have to fill up gaps by helping old schools or building new ones, and they will have to make provision in their own or adjoining counties for that higher specialised education which is practically non-existent in this country;
  758
  and besides, they will have to deal with all the difficult but intensely important questions of suitable curriculum for modern requirements. You want to do this wisely, giving equality of opportunity to people whom it will pay the nation to educate. Will your new authorities have time to do all this, and inclination for this, all at once? So far as the Bill goes, they can do it or leave it undone. It is well to be plain in this matter, and to deal with facts, at any rate, as one sees them. There is not much zeal in this country for education. It will come in time, provided that you make it the duty of the local authority, that you do not overweight the local authority, and that you have effectual power of supervision. If secondary education is to be relegated to the dim and distant and problematical future, you are striking a great blow at the future welfare of the heart of the Empire. I have now finished this part of my criticism. I have probably not done much to convince hon. Members, but I have tried to state my case fairly. To me—if the House will believe me—it is no Party matter. I have tried to discuss it without religious bigotry or Party passion.
  Now I want to discuss for a few minutes the question of "one authority." The point I want to make clear is that this question of one authority for all education is rather an ideal to be aimed at in the future than one capable of possible attainment at the moment. It is not one overriding necessity to be immediately carried out. In order to explain my position, may I lay before the House an alternative scheme? I speak in no spirit of dogmatism. I can claim no authority, but I have given a good deal of time, study, and thought to this question, and naturally I have formed strong views. I put them forward on this occasion only to make my criticism clear. If we could start again, if we could clean our slate of this particular Bill, I would like to see an authority proposed to take charge of secondary education at once. There should be laid upon it the duty to survey the provision for secondary education and to make good the deficiencies. For the formation of the authority, the

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  Welsh precedent might be taken. But there are two observations I would make. In the first place, in making a great step like this, is it not possible to decentralise too quickly? Secondary education is not the province of the man in the street. You must have experts to do good work. America has its Secretary or Director, with wide powers, besides a greater enthusiasm for education than we have. In Germany, secondary education is governed by experts. France has a bureaucratic system. We must have experts, too. You cannot be sure of them in your authorities. Therefore, the Board of Education should retain a good deal of advisory and compulsory power. The right hon. Gentleman reminded us this afternoon that education will not always be governed by Gallios who care for none of these things. In the second place, there are some counties which require special treatment. It is acknowledged that London is one. But so is Lancashire. There are fourteen or fifteen county boroughs in Lancashire. Outside of these is an administrative county with an abnormal and irregular area. It is a plum cake with the plums out. Each county borough has urban districts round it, belonging educationally to it. Education is regional, and statesmanship would recognise it. The ideal solution for Lancashire would be ad hoc areas. The whole question wants debating by a Committee representative of both the county and county boroughs. The last is an additional reason why you should be careful in the preparation of your scheme. The Welsh Joint Boards made a scheme of districts and district governing bodies besides a county governing body. My suggestion would be that the local authority for secondary education should attend first of all to secondary education, and then prepare a scheme for suitable districts and suitable authorities for elementary education. If we proceeded somewhat on the Welsh plan, I believe we could arrive more quickly at the goal we all have in view.
  That is, in rough outline, the scheme I should prefer, and preference colours the criticism I have to make on this Bill. I am not moved by the cry "one authority": it is there as an article of "catholic
  760
  faith"; and I find myself on this matter a "Protestant" and "sceptic." I have no complaint of the general idea of the local authority; but I do grumble at a new idea being treated as a self-evident axiom. Why must you have, here and now, one authority? The argument in syllogistic form is this. There should be one authority for all grades. This suggested local authority is best for secondary, and therefore it must be best for primary and secondary. But is your major premise proven? Why must there be one authority? It struck the Vice President of the Council, soon after going to the Education Department, that it was the right line. Does that prove it? There were strong men at the Board of Education before these Agamemnons. Did Mr. Acland say so? Did the Secondary Education Commission say so? I never knew a phrase so quickly made a fetish of. What is the argument for it? I do not think I have time to go through all the points, but it is said the plan will prevent overlapping. That is done by leaving all secondary education to the secondary authority. That is made easy by the new code. It is further said that you must correlate primary schools to secondary, so that the child can step from one to the other at any age. I very much doubt the possibility or advisability of the proposal. Education to finish at fourteen is different from that which is to finish at seventeen or nineteen. For secondary education you want to lay the foundation from ten or eleven years of age. What we want is an authority for secondary education chosen with the intention of giving at any rate supervisory control to elementary education at some future date, if and when it has proved a success in secondary education and shows itself able and willing to take over the control of elementary education. Are you sure of your new authority? I think it will work well in time, but you have similar bodies in the Technical Education Committees, and I cannot absolutely agree with the Vice-President of the Council in the high character he gave to these bodies. They have confined themselves to technological questions Very few have shown a desire to take a

  761
  comprehensive grasp of technical education. The Manchester concordat was suggested by the university, I believe. In counties the whisky money has been largely used for subventions, which are usually small in amount and uncertain of continuance, and the scheme of scholarships not always wise or thorough. In towns the chief desire has been to attend to technical schools. For the really serious problems of secondary education the members of some local authorities will want education as badly as the neglected children. Take the questions of "humanistic "and "utilitarian" education. What will some of the authorities know about these questions? South Kensington imposes too much science in its day schools of science. What will a local authority with narrow commercial ideas do? After all, education is wanted for the formation of character and to help the imagination, as much as for utilitarian ends: that is where expert knowledge and advice are wanted so badly. Is it not reason and common sense to prove your local authority before overweighting it? Will you serve the general interests better by giving the new authority the most important thing—secondary education—or by depleting its purse and exhausting its energies by elementary education, and leaving it the choice of whether it will apply the relics of its mind and an empty exchequer to some steps in the direction of secondary education? Can you find an area suitable for both elementary and secondary education? Practically the Bill acknowledges you cannot. Boroughs of 10,000 and urban districts of 20,000 are excluded from the purview of the county as regards elementary education, but surely that means that the whole county wants
  762
  dividing for this purpose. Why not say so? Why not have schemes prepared of areas and authorities for elementary education before you give new local authorities control? I know something of one or two of our Town Councils. In big towns the Town Councils are too busy to take up all the work at once. This craze for one authority, and that untried, to take the place of all others, is absurd. It is ten times more ridiculous owing to the fact that there is not one authority after all this talk. You have the County Council with the power of the purse, and you have the Education Committee to attend to detail. If the working authority has not the power of the purse, it is not a real authority. In other words, we are attempting to do by this Bill at one jump what should be done by steps, and what would be better done by degrees. We are running the danger of neglecting the more important secondary education for elementary. In addition, I do not see the elements of fair compromise in the provisions for voluntary schools in districts where there is no choice. Under these circumstances, I must oppose the Bill unless very big concessions are made. I shall only say in conclusion that I have tried to state the case fairly as I see it. This seems to me a crisis in our educational history. A Bill called for by the neglect of secondary education, the lineal successor of last year's Bill, which dealt only with secondary education, has been utilised to carry out the idea of one authority, which is certainly new, and in the sense used doubtfully true. I protest, I must say with no feeling of narrow-minded bigotry, but in what I conceive to be the real and permanent interests of the nation, against the form this Bill has taken.
  SIR W. HART DYKE(11.50.) SIR W. HART DYKE (Kent, Dartford) moved the adjournment of the debate.
  Debate adjourned till tomorrow.

POST OFFICE SITES BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time"—(Mr. Austen Chamberlain.)
MR. FLYNNsaid the Government should give some explanation of the provisions of the Bill or put it oft' to a future day. It dealt with sewers, drains, and other matters in regard to which the County Council of London was the governing body, and the House was asked to adopt the Bill without any explanation whatever.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,)said the Bill provided for acquiring two sites in London for the purpose of enabling the Post Office to carry on its business. One of these was a site off Oxford Street which was urgently needed in connection with the telephone system. It would be in the recollection of the House that he was asked the other day why extensions were not open to certain districts. It was impossible for the Post Office to make progress with the system until they were able to secure this site. As to the form of the Bill, it was exactly similar to all Bills of this nature, and followed the precedents of former years. So far as he was aware, there was no opposition to the Bill from any quarter which was concerned. He appealed to the House to pass the Second Reading now. The Bill would be
764
sent to a hybrid Committee, and all objections, if there were any, could be heard in the ordinary way. It was really of serious importance to the public service that the Bill should not be delayed.
MR. CALDWELLsaid the Financial Secretary to the Treasury had stated that the Bill followed the lines of all the other Bills of the Post Office. He was surprised to hear that statement, because the Bill did not do so. If it had, he would not have offered any opposition whatever to the Bill. He thought it should have contained a proviso similar to that in previous Acts and with the insertion of which he had himself something to do. In the 1890 Act a proviso was inserted for the protection of the Corporation of London, and, if the Post Office required to break open the streets, they should be obliged in this case to apply for permission to the County Council, just as in the other case they had to apply to the Corporation of London.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I will put in that clause, but I do not think the Bill requires it.
MR. CALDWELLsaid the clauses were specially put in the previous Acts to protect the local authorities.
It being Midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Adjourned at five minutes after Twelve o'clock.