Commons Sitting of 7 May 1902

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  DUBLIN, WICKLOW, AND WEXFORD RAILWAY BILL,

    MIDLAND RAILWAY (STEAM VESSELS) BILL,
    WEST GLOUCESTERSHIRE WATER BILL.
    As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

MILTARY LANDS PROVISINAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
Read the third time, and passed.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER.
Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Land Drainage Act, 1861, relating to Bourne South Fen and Bourne South Fen Pastures, in the Parish of Bourne, in the County of Lincoln; ordered to be brought in by Mr. Hanbury and Mr. Austen Chamberlain.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board, relating to Arundel, Liverpool, and Worthing, and the Counties of Cornwall, Dorset and the West Riding of Yorkshire; ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board, relating to the Biggleswade, the Birmingham Tame and Rea, the Chelmsford, the Upper Stour Valley, and the Watford United Districts; ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board, relating to Darlington, Hawarden (rural),
938
Linslade, Settle (rural), Sheffield and Sunderland; ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 10).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Croydon, Hindley, and Oswestry; ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
"To confirm a Provisional Order under The Land Drainage Act, 1861, relating to Bourne South Fen and Bourne South Fen Pastures, in the parish of Bourne, in the county of Lincoln," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 194.]
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Arundel, Liverpool, and Worthing, and the counties of Cornwall, Dorset, and the West Riding of Yorkshire," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to he printed. [Bill 195.]
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the Biggleswade, the Birmingham Tame and Rea, the Chelmsford, the Upper Stour Valley, and the Waterford United Districts," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 196.]
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Darlington, Ha warden (rural), Linslade, Settle (rural), Sheffield, and Sunderland," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 197.]
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 10) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Croydon, Hindley, and Oswestry." presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 198.]

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP H)
Mr. HEYWOOD JOHNSTONE reported from the Committee on Group H of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Friday next, at half-past Eleven of the Clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Dawley; and Bedworth; to lie upon the Table.
LICENSING BILL.
Petitions in favour: From Small thorne; Norton in the Moors; Bradeley; Finsbury; Bristol; and Lancaster; to lie upon the Table.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
Petition from Bethnal Green, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
Petition from Amble, against; to lie upon the Table.
PLUMBERS' REGISTRATION BILL.
Petition from Heywood, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
Petition from Pershore, against; to lie upon the Table.
SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
Petitions in favour: From Hanley and Burslem; Coventry; New Hirst; Flimby; Grenonside; Hirst; Liskeard; London; Sheffield; Leeds; Ramsbottom; Kensington (two); and, Whitehaven (two); to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS.
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 1st May, Mr. Jesse Collings]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 174.]
TRADE (FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND BRITISH POSSESSIONS).
Copy presented, of Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom with Foreign Countries and British Possessions for 1901. Volume I. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Waziri Operations—Concessions to Native Troops.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the issue of field batta to the Native troops employed in the recent Waziri blockade has been withheld, although the other field concessions have boon granted; and whether, in view of the nature of the operations, and the numerous casualties sustained, he will consider the advisability of issuing batta to the troops employed on the same scale as for other frontier operations.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): Under regulation, field batta is not given unless the service has been distinctly declared by the Government of India to be field service for this purpose. As far as I know, this has not been done, and I am not disposed to interfere with the discretion of the Government of India in the matter.

  National Telephone Company.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the National Telephone Company insists on changing the telephone number of any subscriber who applies to have his line transferred to the message rate system; and whether, in view of the expense in printing and

  941
  postage to which subscribers would thus be put, steps will be taken to continue the present telephone numbers of present subscribers.
  THE SECRETARY TOTHE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,) (for the POSTMASTER GENERAL): The assignment of numbers to the subscribers of the National Telephone Company is a matter which must necessarily be within the discretion of the company and outside the Postmaster General's control.

  Education Bill—Upkeep of School Buildings.
  SIR JOHN BRUNNER: To ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, under the Education Bill, the fee simple of technical schools now belonging to Urban District Councils representing populations under 20,000 will be vested in the County Councils; and, if so, whether he proposes to introduce amendments making the County Councils responsible for the upkeep of the buildings and the carrying on of the schools.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST,): If the building is vested in the Urban District Council it will, under the Bill, vest in the County Council. But if, as is usually the case, the building is vested in trustees no changes in this respect will take place. The liability for the upkeep of the buildings and the carrying on of the schools is transferred by the Bill from the Urban District Council to the County Council.

  Haulbowline Dockyard—Ordnance Department Labourers.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: To ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the War Office will favourably consider the case of the labourers in the Ordnance Department at Haulbowline, with a view to granting them the same rate of wage as paid by the Admiralty to the labourers on the naval side of the Island.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): These men received an increase of one shilling a week
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  on the 1st April, 1901. I cannot consent to raise their wages any further without a very thorough consideration of the whole question.

  Bermuda—Government Flour Contracts.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Government specifications for the supply of flour in Bermuda stipulate that such flour must be either Pillsbury's Best or City Mills Whitelight, both American Brands; and whether, in view of the recent reorganisation and development of the flour milling industry in Manitoba, he will consider the advisability of cancelling those stipulations which now restrict Canadian millers from competing for Government contracts in Bermuda and elsewhere.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I am not aware of any contract for flour at Bermuda. The contract for bread specifies that the flour shall be best American white flour. The question of widening the specification for Bermuda bread in future contracts is being considered. In the specification for flour at Barbados and Antigua the conditions permit of Canadian flour being accepted.

  Ireland—Killarney Land Sub- Commission.
  MR. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can state the date of the last sitting of the Land Sub-Commission at Killarney, the number of cases from that district now undisposed of, and the cause of delay in having these cases heard and new rents determined.
  THE CHIEF-SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): A Sub-Commission last sat at Killarney in December, 1900. There are 146 cases awaiting hearing from this district, and arrangements are being made to send down another Sub-Commission in the course of the next month.

  British Consul at Kobé.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, having regard to the fact the sum of £1,000 is placed on the

  943
  Estimates for Rent Allowances for Japan, will be state how much of this sum is required for Kobé (Hiogo).
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CHAN-BORNE,): The sum required for Kobé varies according as one or two assistants in the consular service are employed there. At the present moment there are two assistants and the total rent allowance is £372 5s. 10d.

  (2.15.) QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Inspector General of Yeomanry.
    MR. PEEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that an Inspector General of Yeomanry has been appointed, he proposes to appoint an Inspector General for Militia, and also one for Volunteers; will he state what are the relations of the said Inspector General to the Inspector General of Auxiliary Forces and Inspector General of Cavalry; will his duties be those of administration or of inspection merely; if the latter, what will his relations be to the General Officers commanding Army corps; and how will he perform his duties in view of the fact that the majority of Yeomanry regiments undergo their annual training at the same period of the year.
    LORD STANLEY: It is not proposed to appoint an Inspector General for Militia or for Volunteers. The Inspector General for Yeomanry will inspect the units of his branch of the service as regards technical details in a similar manner to that in which the technical inspections of the Cavalry, the Militia Artillery and Engineers are carried out by the Inspector General of Cavalry, the Inspector General of Garrison Artillery or the Inspector General of Fortifications or their representatives. The duties of the Inspector General will be those of inspection, and he will, like the other officers named, report to the Commander-in-Chief through the Adjutant General. The General Officers commanding Army Corps will remain charged with the duty of supervising
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    the military training and with inspection as regards military and general efficiency. In consequence of the limited period during which the training of Yeomanry Regiments takes place, it is impossible for one officer to carry out in one year all the inspections; the Inspector General of Cavalry, and other specially selected officers will be therefore detailed to inspect such regiments as cannot be inspected by the Inspector General of Yeomanry, who will, however, inspect every regiment at least biennially.

    Press Telegraphic Rates in India.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, having regard to the fact that the rates for press messages in India are four times as high as the rates in Great Britain, will he consider the expediency of exerting his influence with a view to secure a reduction in the charges in India.
    LORD G. HAMILTON: The rates complained of by the hon. Member are confined to the comparatively small proportion of press messages which, under the system obtaining in India, are entitled to priority of transmission. Considering the very great difference between the distances over which messages have to be carried in India, and those over which they are carried in this country, I am not prepared to press for a reduction of the Indian charges.

    Bilbao Harbour Lights.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the losses sustained by the mercantile marine through the insufficient lighting of the entrance to Bilbao Harbour, will he state whether the subject has yet been brought under the notice of the Spanish authorities; and, if so, with what result.
    LORD CRANBORNE: Since April, 1901, His Majesty's Ambassador at Madrid has brought the matter of the lighting of the entrance to Bilbao Harbour on several occasions before the Spanish Government. The Spanish authorities, however, refuse to admit that the present mode of lighting the entrance is insufficient. The matter is still under consideration.

    Low Flash Oil.
    MR. LEAMY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the increasing number of fatal accidents arising from the use for domestic purposes of low-Hash oil, the Government intend to bring in a Bill to prohibit or regulate its sale; and if, until there is legislation on the subject, the Horn; Department will take stops to warn dealers in oil and the public generally of the danger in the use of low-flash oil.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave yesterday to a somewhat similar Question addressed to me by my hon. friend the Member for Bethnal Green. The considerations set out in that answer, as well as the statistics generally, throw doubt, in my opinion, on the suggestion in the Question that there is an "increasing number of fatal accidents arising from the use of low-flash oil." I would merely add that a Paper containing a series of suggestions for the care and use of petroleum lamps—a most important element in this matter—was prepared and issued in large numbers by the Home Office a few months ago.

    Railway Bye-Laws.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the various railway companies have yet agreed on a uniform system of railway bye-laws for confirmation by the Board of Trade; and, if not, will he take steps to ascertain the cause of the delay.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): I am afraid I can add little to the previous replies given to similar Questions by the hon. Member, except to say that the Board of Trade communicated with the Railway Association with reference to the matter, and were informed that there was not sufficient unanimity among railway companies upon the subject to justify the Association in taking steps to submit a uniform code of new bye-laws to the Board of Trade for approval.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: Has the Board of Trade any authority in the matter?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: We can only confirm: we cannot initiate.

    French Navigation Bounties.
    MR. CHARLES McARTHUR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the navigation bounties granted by the French laws of 1893 and 1902 to French-built sailing vessels and steamers engaged in long-voyaged trades; and whether he will endeavour, by legislation or otherwise, to provide means whereby British vessels in the same trades may be protected from the disadvantages of competing on unequal terms with those bounty-assisted vessels.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am aware of the existence of the bounties referred to. The question of the effect of these and other shipping bounties on British trade was the subject of investigation last session by a Select Committee, which I hope will shortly be re-appointed to complete the Inquiry.

    Rathcormac Postal Arrangements.
    MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been called to the inconvenience caused to the inhabitants of Rathcormac, which has a population of 700, by not having a second daily delivery of letters on week days, as under present arrangements letters reaching Fermoy, the head office for the district, at 11.30 a.m. are not delivered in Rathcormac until the following day, although that town is only three miles distant; and if he will cause a full inquiry to be made into the matter with the view of granting to the people of Rathcormac a second postal delivery, which is already enjoyed by the inhabitants of Clan worth and Kilworth, these villages being also distant about three miles or more from Fermoy.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): No application appears to have been received in London from the inhabitants of Rathcormac for the establishment of a

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    second delivery of letters in the day at that place; but the Postmaster General will cause inquiry to be made on the question of affording this accommodation, and the result will be communicated to the hon. Member.

    Immorality in Glasgow.
    MR. SAMUEL YOUNG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the practices prevailing in Glasgow whereby unfortunate girls who have been imprisoned are released by the payment of their fines by those who make a trade of immorality; and whether, to put a stop to this state of things, he will take stops to extend to Scotland the Act 62 Vict., c. 39, now in force in England.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The attention of the Secretary for Scotland has been called to the subject referred to by the hon. Member, and he is in communication with the Glasgow authorities in regard to the best means of meeting the alleged evil, whether by extension of the Vagrancy Act of 1899 to Scotland, or other wise.

    Annaghmore Disturbances.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if any Roman Catholics were attacked on Christmas morning near the Teagny Orange Hall at Annaghmore, county Armagh.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) (for Mr. Wyndham): It is now alleged, for the first time, that stones were thrown at two Roman Catholics at Annaghmore last Christmas. The occurrence, if it happened at all, was not regarded, apparently, by the persons most concerned as having any significance, since they made no complaint whatever to the police on the matter.
    MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: Has the hon. Member for South Down got Orangemen on the brain?
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the nature of the injuries received by the Roman Catholics who were attacked and beaten at Annaghmore, county Armagh, on the 17th ult.; whether a report has been called for from Dr. Marmion, J.P., who was called in to attend to some of the wounded; and whether the Roman Catholic clergymen and leading Roman Catholic laymen of the district have been consulted as to the necessity for the taking of steps for the more efficient protection of their lives and property.
    MR. ATKINSON: With the exception of the last query, the reply to which is in the negative, an answer on the several other queries would involve the expression of an opinion on facts in issue in a pending prosecution. For this reason, therefore, I must respectfully decline to answer them.

    Irish Railway Rates.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will cause an inquiry to be held into the matter of railway rates for goods, coal, and agricultural produce conveyed from one part of Ireland to another, and further into the rates charged on articles exported from Ireland to different parts of Great Britain, and goods imported from the latter, in order that the same may be arranged on a basis of equality.
    MR. ATKINSON: My right hon. friend has recently stated, in answer to a similar Question, that he is not at present prepared to recommend an inquiry of the character mentioned.

    Belfast Disturbances—The "Bogey Clan."
    MR. M'GOVERN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many of the Bogey Clan in Belfast have been proceeded against, with what offence they have been charged, and whether they have been released on bail.
    MR. ATKINSON: The charge is one of assault. Eight of the accused have been remanded on bail; the remaining twelve are in custody.

    Taxation of Personal Property Abroad.
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can state when a Return, granted last session, in reference to Personal Property (Contribution to Local Taxation Abroad), will be issued and circulated.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I have ascertained that the Foreign Office is still without the information, and we have not received as yet the report from the self-governing colonies.

    Transatlantic Shipping Combination.
    MR. BLACK: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government has information that the same group which has formed the recent steamship combination also controls a large part of the railway communication in the United States; and whether, in view of the effect which such a conjunction may have upon the price of our food supplies, the Government propose to take any action in the matter.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think that I can add anything usefully to what I said in debate the other day on the Motion for the adjournment; but I believe I may say that it is matter of common knowledge that some of the parties concerned in the steamship combination also command an interest in American railways.

    Steamship Companies Subsidies Committee.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that out of the fifteen Members of this House whom it is intended to propose as members of the Steamship Companies Subsidies Committee nine hold among them forty-two directorships in public companies, and of these nine gentlemen one is the chairman of the Clan Line Steamers, Limited, and another a director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, Limited; and whether he will consider the expediency of altering the nomination of the Committee in such a manner as to give directors of companies a less proportion of representation on the Committee.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think it is within my duty to inquire into the number of directorships held by Members serving on Committees of the House. With regard to that part of the Question which refers to the chairman of the Clan Line Steamers and a director of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, I presume that the hon. Gentleman will not suggest that it is either possible or desirable to have excluded from these Committees hon. Members having special acquaintance with the subject under discussion.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: But ought not these Committees to be more or less official in their form?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is not the Question on the Paper.

    PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
    Fifth Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

COMMITTEES (ASCENSION DAY).
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg to move the Resolution in my name as to the sitting of Committees tomorrow. I move it as it had been the practice for many years past, but I may add that it is not to be treated as a Government Motion, and the Government tellers will not tell for it.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That Committees do not sit Tomorrow, being Ascension Day, until Two of the Clock."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
MR. JOHN ELLISregretted that the right hon. Gentleman had felt it necessary to make this Motion. They were just starting under a new order of things, and he might have very well allowed it to drop. He yielded to no man in that House in his appreciation of the great Christian landmarks, but he did not think it necessary to signify his appreciation in such a manner as this. The Committees of the House were now in the flood tide of business, and it was most inconvenient thus to curtail their sittings. In particular the Standing Committee on Trade now engaged on the Licensing Bill had been obliged by this Motion to adjourn for

951
a week. He hoped that, before another year, the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider this matter, and arrive at the conclusion that it was not necessary for him again to make the Motion.
MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTONthanked the First Lord of the Treasury for making the Motion. He hoped the House would not inaugurate the new Rules by the abandonment of these landmarks of the Christian religion, and that it would not signalise the Coronation
year by dropping this ancient practice.
MR. CHANNINGsuggested that it might be as well that, instead of meeting at two o'clock, the Committees should not sit at all on Ascension Day.
(2.23.) Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 118; Noes, 72. (Division List No. 164.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Hay, Hon. Claude George

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

Anstruther, H. T.

Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Heaton, John Henniker

O'Dowd, John

Austin, Sir John

Hoare, Sir Samuel

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Hogg, Lindsay

Parker, Gilbert

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J.(Manch'r)

Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

Percy, Earl

Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

Horner, Frederick William

Pilkington, Lieut—Col Richard

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Houston, Robert Paterson

Plummer, Walter R.

Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

Howard, J.(Midd., Tottenham)

Power, Patrick Joseph

Beresford, Lord Charles William

Hutton, John (Yorks., N. R.)

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Boland, John

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Purvis, Robert

Bond, Edward

Joyce, Michael

Reid, James (Greenock)

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

Renwick, George

Brotherton, Edward Allen

Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson

Burke, E. Haviland-

Leamy, Edmund

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S)

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire)

Lowther, Rt. Hon. James (Kent)

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Lundon, W.

Smith, H. C (North'mb, Tyneside

Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

Macdona, John Cumming

Spear, John Ward

Churchill, Winston Spencer

MacIver, David (Liverpool)

Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Cranborne, Viscount

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Delany, William

M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

Sullivan, Donal

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

M'Govern, T.

Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G.(Oxf'd Univ.

Dillon, John

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Valentia, Viscount

Doogan, P. C.

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Warr, Augustus Frederick

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Maple, Sir John Blundell

Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taunt'n

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

Williams, Rt Hn J Powell-(Birm.

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

Middlemore, John Throgmorton

Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)

Ffrench, Peter

Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)

Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

Field, William

Mount, William Arthur

Wylie, Alexander

Fisher, William Hayes

Muutz, Philip A.

Gilhooly, James

Murphy, John

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute

TELLERS FOE THE AYES—

Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

Myers, William Henry

Mr. Boulnois and Mr.

Gunter, Sir Robert

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Vieary Gibbs.

Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Midd'x

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid

NOES.

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Causton, Richard Knight

Flynn, James Christopher

Black, Alexander William

Channing, Francis Allston

Fuller, J. M. F.

Blake, Edward

Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

Goddard, Daniel Ford

Brigg, John

Crean, Eugene

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Broadhurst, Henry

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Emmott, Alfred

Heath, James (Staffords., N. W

Caldwell, James

Fenwick, Charles

Helme, Norval Watson

Cameron, Robert

Fison, Frederick William

Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

Hobhouse, C. E. H.(Bristol, E.

Parkes, Ebenezer

Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

Partington, Oswald

Tomkinson, James

Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Pirie, Duncan V.

Walrond, Rt Hn. Sir William H.

Langley, Batty

Randles, John S.

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge)

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

Lawson, John Grant

Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

Weir, James Galloway

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Runciman, Walter

Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid.

Lewis, John Herbert

Russell, T. W.

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Lough, Thomas

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Wilson, J. W.(Worcestersh., N.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

Young, Samuel

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Smith, James Parker (Lanarks)

Yoxall, James Henry

M'Kenna, Reginald

Soares, Ernest J.

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

Spencer, Rt Hn C. R. (Northants

Mooney, John J.

Strachey, Sir Edward

TELLERS FOE THE NOES—

Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

Mr. John Ellis and Sir James Woodhouse.

Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Thomas, J A (Gl'morgan, Gower

NEW BILLS.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Education (Scotland) Acts, 1872 to 1893, and the Education ("Scotland) Act, 1901," presented by Mr. Parker Smith, under Standing Order 31; supported by Mr. Baird, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Charles Douglas, Sir John Leng, and Sir John Stirling-Maxwell; to be read a second time upon Friday, 6th June, and to be printed. [Bill 199.]
  LIGHTING OF PUBLIC CLOCKS (LONDON) BILL.
  "To enable councils of metropolitan boroughs to pay the reasonable cost of repairing and lighting public clocks," presented by Mr. Whitmore, under Standing Order 31; supported by Mr. Sydney Buxton, Colonel Legge, and Mr. Harry Samuel; to be read a second time upon Friday, and to be printed, [Bill 200.]

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
(THIRD DAY'S DEBATE.)
Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment proposed to Question [6th May], "That the Education (England and Wales) Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was—
"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 again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
MR. THOMAS SHAW: When I am asked to consider this Bill, I find myself in a somewhat strange atmosphere. It ought to be considered from the point of view of the foundation of the whole ladder of education, and unless the elementary stage is provided for with comprehensiveness it is altogether impossible to build upon that foundation a solid superstructure of secondary or technical education. I propose to consider the Bill from the point of view of the educational authority which has to deal with the matter of elementary education. A great deal has been said in the last few days about the advantage of having one local educational authority. With a good deal of it I agree, but I do not fall down and worship the idea as a fetish.
What is the local education authority proposed to be set up with reference to primary education in this Bill? My objections to it are threefold. First, that it does not appear to me to be a local authority; secondly, it docs not appear to be an educational authority, and thirdly, it does not appear to be a real authority at all. That may seem a pretty comprehensive piece of criticism, but I will endeavour to justify it. In the first place I maintain, and here I am founded on experience in connection with Scottish education, that the authority set up—and I have particularly in view the County Council—is not a local authority in the ordinary and proper sense of the term as applied to education. What are these Councils?

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They are bodies ruling over a very considerable tract of territory. Now in educational matters you must have minute knowledge of parochial and even sub-parochial needs and desires, and it is altogether a different question to take a large County Council and to declare that, with regard to each parish and district within its area, it can he informed of the real needs and desires of that parish or district. A local authority governing a particular district would require to have no great distance to travel. The County Council in very many respects does not represent the ordinary working man or artisan. There are the obstacles of distance and of expense, there is the expenditure of time, trouble, and labour, where the work has to be done far away from home. Obstacles of this kind can only be surmounted in the case of large County Councils at a considerable expenditure of time and money, and that is a positive harrier to members of the artisan class. I have therefore the greatest difficulty in calling this new authority a local authority. Take this question of education. Take the case of a local merchant or artisan, a clever man, fond of education and fond of studying the life of the community from an educational point of view. I know such men in scores. If you make the County Council the local education authority the result will be that these men will be unable to take their part in the educational work, because they would first have to pass through a circuitous route, and have to become elected to the County Councils, for which they could not spare, possibly, the necessary time. Therefore, I think I am right in saying that in no proper sense of the term is it a local authority which it is here proposed to set up. I confess to the House that I have always in my mind the consideration of a picture of a local authority with which I am familiar, local in the proper sense of the term, parochial and administrative, and with the fullest consciousness of the needs of even the humblest members of the population. It is from that point of view that I cannot affirm this local educational authority to be in the proper sense of the term a local authority.
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The next point I have to consider is—Is it really an educational authority? The President of the Local Government Board last night had a good deal to say as to the suggestion of distrust of the members of local administrative bodies. He said it was considered by those who objected to the County Council being the educational authority that these men were unworthy of being trusted with educational control. But that is not the objection at all. We have perfect confidence in the County Councillors within proper County Council functions. Our objection is more physical, practical, and businesslike. It is that you ought not to overload men who are already largely overweighted by County Council business pure and simple. It is for that reason, and not from the point of view of distrust of these popularly elected men, that we make objection. You should not place this fresh burden upon their shoulders. We cannot forget that during the last three decades there has been an enormous burden laid by administration, and by legislation, upon the shoulders of our local authorities. Even since the foundation of County Councils there have been legislative and administrative advances made in the direction of public health—sanitation, the management of water supply, and general attention to local needs; and these have added enormously to the weight of duty which falls on a County Councillor who seeks to conscientiously fulfil his obligations. And if the work of local bodies like County and Parish Councils has been largely added to, I am bound to say that the additional burden falling upon those who conscientiously labour in the educational sphere has been positively overwhelming. What with Minutes of the Education Department and with questions affecting technical and secondary education, and what with the constant strain in connection with the earning of grants, it is impossible to over-estimate the increase which has fallen upon the shoulders of those who properly perform their educational duties. Now, what is proposed by this Bill is to mass these accumulated and accumulating duties now in two different spheres together, and put them on the shoulders of one

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set of men. What is wanted is an education authority better fitted by being in closer contact with its representative element with the people of this country. We want to create a race of educationists to deal with this specialised subject. We do not want to run a mass of educational material into the ruck of County Council business. The mass of detail which our local bodies have to deal with constitutes an increasing difficulty, and it is by no means easy to induce men who are actively engaged in the business of life to come and share the work. That difficulty will be intensified if you mass these public duties together, and throw them upon the shoulders of one set of men. You will have the ordinary business man, who is so valuable in working on the practical details of education on the one hand, or County Council work on the other, shrink from the accumulation of both, and the country will be cursed with that worst of all specimens, the professional local politician or the man who has nothing to do. A more awkward local citizen and a worse busybody does not exist than the man who has retired from business far too early in life, and seeks to turn his wasted faculties to the consideration of work which, if it were kept separate, would be done by far abler men actively engaged in the practical duties of everyday life. On this ground, therefore, I say that the new authority which is being set up is not a true educational authority.
Then, I have further asserted that it is no authority at all. It is removed from the locality. Education is practically crowded out, and provision is made to enable the County Council, which is to be called the educational authority, to transfer its work and responsibilities to committees selected partly from their own body and partly from outside sources. As to the management of the schools, it is a delegation by delegates to delegates. The old Roman maxim was Delegatus non potest delegare, but by this Bill the delegate is not merely able to delegate his duties to others, but he has a double and even triple power of delegation. I am perfectly alive to the consideration which was urged with perfect fairness by the Vice-President of the Council, that,
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while you have only one-third of the management sent in, as it were, by the representative authority, there still is a certain amount of control by reason of Clause 8a of the Bill, which enables managers to carry out the directions of the local education authority. What I want to say is this: If that control is non-effective, the local managers will not be disturbed. The County Council will wash its hands of the matter. It will say, "We are away from the spot, we do not know the needs or aspirations or particular circumstances of the locality, and we will therefore give no directions to those who locally manage the schools." That is what I think will occur, although the Vice-President seems to hold that there will be a steady, effective interposition by the Council in the work of the local education authority. If that be so, why not be frank, and put the majority of the managers on the representative principle? There are two ways of dealing with this matter: either you must have School Boards, or, if you are to adhere to the representative principle at all, you must have a majority of power and control among the body of local managers. Here we come to the real defect of the Bill, it is that the Government are adopting a circuitous, shadowy, and unsatisfactory method, which may be pleaded as a substitute for real, effective focal control. The example which Scotland has so splendidly set for thirty years ought to have been followed, and School Boards in increasing ratio should have been provided all over England. There is a possible difficulty on account of this circuitous method. Clause 2 provides that if a local educational authority fails to fulfil its duties under the Elementary Education Act, then it can be brought to book by means of a mandamus granted at the instance of the Central Board. I fancy when such a proceeding came to be discussed there would be some very strange revelations, and that there would be created a general feeling that the County Councils ought to have had a larger representative share.
Now, I know I am dealing with a state of affairs largely foreign to Scotch ideal, but I hope Englishmen will not be content to dispose of the experience which those have who have for thirty years carried on

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education, not less efficiently than themselves, under the system which I am venturing to lay before the House. The real meaning of this Bill is to be found in the provision for the supersession and extinction of the School Boards. I think that would be a perfectly fatal blunder, and no inducement could be offered me to assist the progress of such a Bill. The whole Bill is founded on a reversal of the true basis of elementary education, namely, that you should have a representative principle, with the willing assent of the people. If you start at the base of the structure, namely, with elementary education, and that founded on local knowledge and experience, and with the people's willing assent, you get their interest in education and you obtain a broad and firm basis upon which you could erect the superstructure of secondary and technical education that is the true pyramid. You can only get the people's interest in education on your side by this representative principle in one or two forms. My countrymen, I grant, are in favour of the School Board system, and I wonder it is condemned in England. In what way has it brought education to the bad? I do not know. I do not know why the Government object to it from an educational point of view. One of the most effective appeals ever made in this House was made by the hon. Member for Camberwell when he appealed for joint action to be taken by the School Boards and municipalities. We have adequate precedent for that proposal in Scotland in the case of secondary education. There is, of course, a difference in the large number of voluntary school managers in England; but is it impossible to conceive that the principle of representative control with regard to these managers should be so leavened in numbers and in power with the real representatives of the people at largo that these bodies could become somewhat more effective in constitution and be practically the School Board for the time?
The true principle of the Bill is that it provides for the extinction of the School Boards, not because the School Boards have become tired, but at the instigation of another body which up to now was not entitled to deal with education at all. That to a Scotchman is perfectly amazing. In Scotland there is no man out of Bedlam who would propose to undermine and abolish School Boards,
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and why it should be done in England I cannot understand. It is rather a difficult thing now, so great is the education we have achieved in Scotland, to find the distinction between voluntary and board schools mentioned in the education reports, so complete and so perfect in its harmony has it worked in the education in the North. But I find, from the fees paid, the ratio of voluntary schools to the board schools is one to eight. For every eight Board schools in Scotland you have one voluntary school. Under that system we have a large variety of education carried on in the same school. I deplore the idea of increasing the sectarian element. I think it is a bad start for our future citizens that they should be brought up in this way, ticketted and ranged each from the other instead of having impressed upon them their citizenship to the community and the Empire. I do not say that we in Scotland have attained perfection, but I do say that of two peoples in countries that are separated by physical distance, by firth and strait and by the open sea, one has become a wonderful educational unit, all by reason of leaving to representative government the representative control of education. It is a remarkable thing, and in this matter Scotland finds its best heritage in the education of its people. It spreads its education from North to South and from East to West, because it is enforced with the willing assent of the people and by popular election. We were told in olden times that a threepenny rate was going to alarm the people of England, but they are going to be alarmed by a good deal more than a threepenny rate under this Bill. A mistake has been made in attempting to supersede and undermine the School Board. They have performed great functions, not only in Scotland but in England. They have trained up a large body of men whose experience is invaluable in the work of education, and I should deplore it if that experience has been lost to England. A hope has been expressed that these persons will be induced to act as delegates on the County Councils, but if that experience is so valuable, why destroy the School Boards on which it has been gained? Thee are many grounds for objecting to the abolition of the School Boards in England, and I think it would be the deplorable thing for England if their abolition should be

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proposed. It is a lamentable departure from sound principle that you should take away from the School Boards the functions which they have so brilliantly performed, and undertake the hazardous enterprise of throwing them into the hands of the municipalities. But I understand the position to be that matters in the eye of the Government have largely changed owing to the Cockerton judgment and they are bound to do something either to un-Cockorton or to amend the law. For my part I would have un-Cockertoned the whole law. I submit that it is a pusillanimous policy that this House is to sit down at the feet of the law as administered by the judges, and say that being the law we shall accept the situation and we shall not attempt to alter the law as you have interpreted it. That is a new doctrine; we are here to make laws for judges to administer and I think it would have been wrong on the part of the Government to have rectified the law. Why did these men go beyond this strictly legal constitution? Simply because it was almost impossible to draw a strict line between elementary and secondary or technical education. The School Boards found themselves charged with the duty of teaching the children; and they found that hundreds of them required a little more than they were getting and they gave it to them. And although they broke that law I say the more credit to them for doing so.
Why do not the Government look to Scotland? We do not break the law by giving higher and secondary education. We are charged by the law to do it, and we do it, I hope, with conspicuous success. Why is an English School Board less fit to do in that Department what is done by our Scottish School Boards? In every part of the country, from North to South, and even in some of the remotest islands, attention is being given to secondary education, and I can point to many cases of the most splendid co-ordination between County Councils administering the funds granted to them by the State and the School Boards themselves, under which children have been transferred from one part of the country where there is not sufficient provision, to another part where under a system of bursaries established with the co-operation, under the sanction, and at the request of the School Boards, the County Councils are able, not to overlap, but to co-ordinate,
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grade, and guide the education up to the very portals of the university itself. It is deplorable that England should be content to sit down under the Cockerton judgment instead of saying the practice that has been condemned as illegal was soundly educational, and it was a sound educational practice, an example in favour of which is to be found ready to hand within the limits of this Island itself.
The secret is that if you have a good representative authority, strictly local and strictly educational—I have very little patience with observations which seem to refer to School Board election and the ad hoc principle as an anachronism; it is nothing of the sort; it is a brilliant success in my own country, and I do not see why England should not continue to have the benefit of it. The secret is that if the representative principle is applied in a locality you may have on top of it, so to speak—growing out of it, and built upon it—a secondary and technical system, and the whole community perfectly content to take upon itself the burden of the secondary and technical education through the rates. Something was said about it being an anachronism. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University spoke of the impossibility of electing skilled educationists, and said that the real discussions at local School Board elections were on the question of religion. Whatever may have been the experience of England—and I should think it very unlikely that that had been its experience—it is not our experience in the North. Our discussions there at School Board elections are on the subject of whether there shall be a higher grade school established in the Community, or whether there shall be a secondary department or a technical institution reared in their midst and paid for out of the rates. I should deplore the day when those things were withdrawn from the direct consideration of the electorate, because the very fact of their being considered is in itself an education to the community. I therefore differ from the scheme of this Bill. I cannot understand the attitude of my hon. and learned friend the Member for Haddingtonshire in thinking that anything which abolishes School Boards can be a step in advance.
Then with regard to the religious difficulties in Scotland. The religious

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difficulty is said to be at the root of al the trouble in England. The hon. Member for North Camberwell pleaded for a concordat. We have a concordat in Scotland. From an educationist point of view, after the heart-breaking speech of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, it is absolutely impossible to have a concordat in England. His view is that the initial operation with regard to the education of a child is to teach him the doctrines of Church membership. Indeed, he went so far as to say that if the Bible were taught in a school without any doctrinal interpretation it would tend towards Nonconformity. Of course, he meant his kind of Nonconformity. If he came North of the Tweed he himself would be a Dissenter. I think it would be a particular kind of conformity that he would be looking for, but he would not find it. The conformity which suits Scotch people is a very poor Nonconformity with him. But we have had a concordat in Scotland, and what is the reason? The reason is that the people have been trained to think that education is the work of the State, and that to a large extent, if not entirely, the training in religion is the work of the parent and of the Church. I myself will never acquiesce in that concordat in any active sense. I think that if the battle were to be fought over again in Scotland, we should relegate to the Churches the duty of instructing their young as well as their grown up adherents, and we should leave entirely to the State the duty of secular instruction. That is my principle. But when the noble Lord declares that Bible teaching alone makes for Nonconformity, all I can say is that we in Scotland, if we are to have religion at all, are perfectly content with Bible teaching. That is good enough for us. No doubt we have a Catechism. It is what the Lord Chancellor would describe as "a sort of" catechism. It is a strange document, probably deriving most of its peculiarities from the fact—as stated by the Vice-President of the Council—that it was a Westminster Document. Westminster document though it was, our Catechism is after all only a series of propositions and answers proved at each stage by references to Holy Writ, it is really a little compendium of human duty derived from the Bible itself. No person could learn from it that there was such
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a thing as Church or Dissent, Episcopacy or Presbytery. Indeed, this Catechism could be read from end to end without a man knowing what a denomination was or what kind of a creature a sectarian might be. In fact, in Scotland the man who talks of a Dissenter in a patronising fashion is a poor sort of creature, and, fortunately, a very rare one. I think our contact with England is helping in that, because the High Church people of England when they go North are all Dissenters too, and the difficulty would be a constantly growing one, more particularly in the summer months, when these Dissenters flood our Highland counties.
The noble Lord said that his idea of a school was that it should have a front door and a back door—that the front door should be the door through which the child went into the school, but that the school was not properly furnished unless it had a back door through which the child was pushed into the Church. I do not believe in back door education. I think it is a pitiable confession that the great and wealthy Church of England should have to make such an appeal—because after ail, it is an appeal to proselytism. The cure for all that propagandism is public by. If your local managers had a majority of the governing body elected by the people, the first thing that would happen would be that their proceedings would be public. From that moment proselytism, as such, would be crippled and would tend to disappear, because it always seeks hidden ways. I would therefore plead that in this Bill, even if you consent to the abolition of the School Boards, you should see to it that a majority on these managing bodies should be given to the people of England in their representative capacity.
This Bill will not remove the domestic trouble between the religions established by law and those that are self-supporting. Indeed, I fear it may add a rankling sense of injustice to that trouble. A Bill which provides for the abolition of School Boards, for depriving the people of a direct share in the administration of their local finances, can never have my support. England may go her own way, she may despise experience, but

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time will show whether to lay the foundations of your entire system in popular elections in localities, and on particular educational issues, will not give a better basis than that provided by this Bill, upon which to build a superstructure which shall take all the gifted sons and daughters of the country even to the higher grades of education. The Bill continues clericalism, and to clericalise education is to sterilise it. It removes the contact of citizens with the primary survey over, and the real responsibility for, education. It will make them take less interest in the thing, and that is the first step towards losing the thing itself. What is that? It is the education we are asking for. It is for that education on a broad popular basis that I appeal, because it is by that, if not by that alone, that we can fit this great people to maintain its place among the nations of the world.
SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The debate has been very prolonged, and I shall endeavour to confine myself to one or two of the salient points of the Bill. If I do not deal particularly with the arguments of the hon. Member who has just sat down, it is because I hope, before I have finished, to be able to show that, interesting though the issues he raised are, they are not relevant to the present situation.
What are the main attacks on the Bill? Apart from the constitution of the authority, it may be said that the main charges are that rates are to be levied on behalf of denominational schools, and that not enough is done for secondary education. These two charges are, then, combined in this: when the great and growing needs of secondary education are manifest before you, why do you interfere with the possibilities of meeting them, by introducing this burning question of rate aid for voluntary schools? I think the answer will be that you cannot create a system of secondary education with a wave of the hand, after the neglect under which the subject has laboured ever since we began to take any interest in education at all. We have at present practically no system of secondary education, and it would be extremely rash to endeavour
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to constitute a complete and ready-made system in the Bill before us. With regard to voluntary schools, if you are embarking on a large and eventually costly system of secondary education, it would be imprudent to leave in your rear and on your lines of communication 14,000 voluntary schools, which might some day be left on your hands, and have to be replaced, and 3,000,000 children who are being educated in those schools. That really is the answer to almost everything said by the hon. Member who has just sat down. The conditions in England are not the same as in Scotland.
But I would rather deal with the Bill as a constructive measure, leaving matters of detail to the Committee stage. I will not touch on the adoptive clause, which has found no friends except the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen. He likes the Bill so little that, if it is to be passed he would like to take it in as small doses as possible. I take it that our object in dealing with education generally elementary and secondary, is to avoid as far as we can, breaks in transition—to enable the youth of this country to pass from the elementary to the higher elementary, and so to secondary education, with as little dislocation of school life, as little change, as easy a transition as we can possibly effect. That points to the importance of the one authority which is one of the great features of this Bill I think it also suggests that it is well not to do as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen proposed—deal with secondary education first; but that we ought to begin from below and organise our elementary education before we proceed to work up to a coherent and uniform system for all sorts of secondary education—If one admits those propositions, one is met by this difficulty: How are you to organise elementary education when you are faced with two sets of schools differently governed—one by School Boards, and the other by voluntary managers, differently financed—one living on the rates and having the inexhaustible resources of the rate payers behind it, and the other maintaining a precarious existence by voluntary contributions; both competing,

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their only bond being the Board of Education and the inspection from Whitehall? And there we are met by a further difficulty: If one set of schools has these inexhaustible resources in the rates, and the other is hampered by the difficulty of obtaining the contributions necessary to its existence, how is it possible to maintain an even standard of attainment in the two sets of schools? How is it possible that the one set of schools should not be allowed to drop below the other, and so the whole standard of elementary education be lowered? It may be said, "Why not leave the whole thing alone, let the voluntary schools linger until they die out, and then replace them I There are several objections to that. While they linger, there is an ever-present feeling of injustice, which, I think, has hardly been adequately represented even by Members on this side of the House. A Churchman has three courses open to him with regard to elementary education. He may be in a School Board district, and then he pays rates for a school which does not satisfy all his requirements; or he may be a contributor to a voluntary school, and then he pays for the school which he desires out of his own pocket; or he may be in a district where there are both voluntary and board schools, and then he pays the rate and also his voluntary subscription. That is rather a hard case. What is the position of the Nonconformist? If he is in a School Board district, he pays rates for a school which entirely satisfies his requirements; if he is in the district of a voluntary school, it is true he does not get exactly what he wants, but he has nothing to pay for it. The conditions of the two, therefore, are not the same, and there is a constant and aggravating injustice laid upon members of the Church of England in this respect.
Then there is another objection to the abolition of voluntary schools. The districts which they at present serve must be served somehow or other: There are 14,000 of these schools. How are you going to supply their place as regards buildings? Are you going to buy, rent, or replace the buildings? Where are you going to find the money?
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Out of the rates? But when you have the buildings, all is not done. You have to maintain the schools. How are you going to maintain them? Out of the rates? I venture to think that the plan of the present Bill, which provides for laying on the rates the burden of maintaining the schools, but accepts the buildings as provided by the voluntary societies, will sit much more lightly on my hon. and gallant friend the Member for the Chelmsford Division than would a condition of things in which he had to both provide and maintain the schools.
Then there is the question of religion. These schools have been maintained at great sacrifices and under great difficulties for more than thirty years. That shows that there are people who are prepared to make sacrifices for the faith they hold. We have heard powerful and eloquent speeches from the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich and the hon. and learned Member for Leamington and Warwick. Nobody who heard those speeches could fail to recognise not only their force and eloquence, but the tone of conviction which rang through them, and I would be bound to say that those speeches will find a willing echo in the hearts of thousands, or even millions, of our follow countrymen. No Government could venture to disregard such religious convictions. The voluntary schools are there, and they can only pass away at a great expense to the community, and by giving a great shock to the religious feelings of many. Their maintenance becomes simply a question of terms, and the question is whether the terms offered by this Bill are fair. I am very anxious that they should be as fair as they can be made, and I hope hon. Members will give me credit for having no desire to see denominational schools maintained simply because they are denominational, or otherwise than in a state of complete efficiency.
Are the terms fair? There is the question of management. It has been said that the nominees of the local authority ought to be in a majority on the managing body. I venture to think that that is quite unnecessary for the purpose these nominees are intended to serve. If the Bill provided for a majority, it might entirely alter and destroy the denominational character of the

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schools, but it would not add to the supervision which these nominated managers will exercise, or to the care with which they will communicate to the local authority any deterioration or injustice or misappropriation of money which might take place. These managers are really to be the watch-dogs of the local authority, and I should say that a proportion of one-third would be amply sufficient for that purpose. Then as to the teaching. Hon. Members opposite have inquired whether the local authority would be able to require the dismissal of a teacher on educational grounds. We are told that that is implied in Clause 8, section (a). [Mr. A. J.BALFOUR: Hear, hear!] I am glad to hear that, because it is essential for the good government of the school that the local authority should be able to require the dismissal of an inefficient teacher on the ground that his secular instruction was inadequate. Then we are told that the maintenance of these voluntary schools closes the lower ranks of the teaching profession to the great mass of Nonconformists throughout the country. I should be glad to see that remedied if it can be remedied without altering the denominational character of the schools. Always bearing in mind that a denominational school should remain such as it was intended to be, I should be glad to support any proposition which would open the lower grades of the teaching profession to Nonconformists.
Now I pass from the elementary part of the Bill. The hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division of Northumberland yesterday criticised the provision placing the power in the hands of the Borough or Urban Councils. I venture to think that that is one of the most important provisions of the Bill. At any rate, it is an answer to the charge of rigidity. The urban districts and non-county boroughs can remain the elementary education authority. It is just in those parts of the Kingdom that the School Boards have been strongest and most vigorous. The Urban District Councils and the Borough Councils as the education authorities can appropriate the School Boards en masse for the purpose of their elementary education Committees. What is more, there is a
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power, if the urban district desires to exercise the option, to deal with secondary education to the extent of a penny rate. If those districts and boroughs do avail themselves of the penny rate, they can enable their elementary education authority to do what the Cockerton judgment declared to be illegal when it was done by the School Boards and to carry on the higher elementary education with perfect legality and to the satisfaction of the community in which those Boards or Councils are. In fact, the School Board will survive in another form. It is obviously impossible to have a uniform system of education throughout the country if you have a number of small Corporations, each with absolute control of the rates in their area. If you are to have one authority, then I am afraid that the School Boards must lose their corporate existence and financial powers but subject to this I should be glad to see them survive to discharge the duties they have discharged in the past.
The composition of the authority is a question that has been very much discussed. We have been told by the hon. Member for the Hawick Burghs that it is a departure from the conditions and the practice of School Board elections, and that it will be fatal to the cause of education in this country. Well, the experience of Scotland may be, and probably is, different from that of England. I have heard but one opinion, and everyone's experience tells him the same story that you cannot get up any great interest in School Board elections, and that an ad hoc authority would be selected on anything almost but educational grounds. The great consensus of experienced judgment has come to the same conclusion as the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, that an ad hoc authority for educational purposes is by no means a desirable kind of authority for such matters.
MR. BRYCE: Perhaps my hon. friend will permit me to say that the recommendations of the Royal Commission did not refer to School Boards or elementary education at all. They were entirely confined to secondary education.
SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I am speaking from memory, but I think the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that the setting aside of the method of choosing the authority by direct election occurs in that part of the Report of the Commission which refers to the School Boards as candidates for the position of secondary education authorities. The great merit of the proposed authority is that it preserves the representative character, because the ultimate authority in these matters is the County Council, and it also provides for the collection of all education interests in the area, and for bringing them all together to supervise elementary and secondary education within those districts.
Now I come to what has been a very serious charge against this Bill, namely, that it does so little for secondary education. It is said that the new authority has no means at its disposal and no very distinct duties before it. We have heard somewhat grandiose descriptions of what the secondary education authority ought to be from the hon. Member for East Lothian and the senior Member for Oldham. I think that they suggested functions which the new authority would hardly be adequate to discharge. But the most serious and detailed attack on the secondary education authority was made by the hon. Member for the Berwick Division. He said that the fault of the Bill was the rigidity, that there was no elasticity, and that he would like to see a new education authority inspired by greater freedom, with what he called megalomania, and invested with considerable power. I listened with some surprise when he proceeded to state what he would have done under the circumstances and to give a definition of the duties of the secondary education authority. The first thing which this inspired authority was to do was to prepare a Report of all the educational resources of the neighbourhood. When it had so reported, the information collected was to be the foundation of a scheme, and if the scheme was approved by the Board of Education, assistance was to be provided from public funds. The employment of which would be subject as a matter, of course, to close departmental supervision. I think that the secondary
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education authority, if set to work according to the plan of the hon. Gentleman, would indulge its megalomania in a straight waistcoat. The limited proposals with regard to finance and the absence of any precise directions to the local authorities are good points in the Bill. The authority will be new for the most part to the work. The conditions under which they will work will be very different in different parts of the country, and it is very desirable that they should consider the resources of their neighbourhood before they begin to raise the money from the ratepayers. One has heard the complaint made already as to the extravagance of the municipal authorities with reference to technical instruction. My own opinion is, that this new secondary education authority will for some time to come be engaged on the border-line between elementary and secondary education; and I do not think it could be more usefully employed. But I have been driven, in the course of this debate, to the conclusion that the education of this country is much more a national than a local concern, and that in the region of secondary education it certainly ought not to be left to the liberality of the ratepayers, or to the megalomania of the County Councils. I have served now for something like two years on the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education, and I have heard something at almost every meeting which have brought home to me that our system of secondary education wants an impulse in some directions, wants control in others, wants organisation everywhere, and that impulse and control can only come from the State through the Board of Education. I think that the Minister of Education during the next few years will hold one of the most important offices, and discharge one of the most important functions that can be discharged by any member of His Majesty's Government. I trust that we shall not fall back on the precarious resources of the ratepayers, but that the Imperial Exchequer will be required to meet the cost that must be incurred if we are to hold our own in the great struggle of nations. But though the great ideas of my hon. friends on the other side of the House may not

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be realised in the immediate future, and probably not by the agency of this Bill, yet I do believe that the secondary education authority under this Bill will have power to discharge a very useful function, and that it will lay a very useful foundation for future effort. I do not suppose that it will at once create or produce in our schools captains of industry, or that it will contribute to the national resources of science and literature, but the extension and the efficiency of that education which lies above elementary education, and on the borderland will have the most valuable effect on the life and character of the people. Education cannot secure success in life, but it may go a long way to make life interesting, and when we consider the dreary surroundings and the monotonous life of many of our fellow countrymen of the labouring class, it is a great thing that continuity and efficiency of education should give them as a permanent possession some knowledge of the wonders of science, of the associations of history, of the resources of literature. It is for this modest work, which I think may be done and effectually done, that the new authority is proposed to be created by the Bill. If the foundations are modest, I yet believe that they will permit a great and valuable superstructure to be raised, and it is because I believe them to be sound and sure that I will vote most heartily for the Second Reading of the Bill.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I certainly never thought, when I took an active part thirty-two years ago in the discussion of the Education Bill of 1870, that I should today find myself in the midst of the same controversy which so largely occupied the attention of Parliament then; still less that I should find myself face to face with what I may call a revolutionary scheme, which destroys, and is intended to destroy, all the features of the settlement of that time; which destroys, and is intended to destroy, the School Boards then established, which is intended to relieve the voluntary schools from the obligations into which they then entered and transfer the authority for education into entirely different hands.
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Now, Sir, the principles upon which this Bill is founded have been stated very definitely by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and by the Vice-President of the Council; but I have this advantage at least in discussing this matter, that I hold to the same principles for which I contended in 1870. They were the principles of the Birmingham League, and I have not, like the founder of that league, abandoned and repudiated them. These principles required that public money should not be given without public control. Now, what are the principles on which this Bill is said to be founded? My right hon. friend the Member for the Dartford Division, who speaks with such authority in this House, asks why we have so failed since then in advancing education, as we wished and as we ought to have done. In my opinion that failure is due, in one word, to denominationalism. What has weakened educational effort in this country? It has been the contest between the voluntary schools and the School Boards. Each ought to have played a greater part than it has played; and now we have a new scheme which is to destroy that form of education which, it is admitted, has been most complete and effective, and to continue that which, it is admitted, has been the least effective, and to endow it with a larger amount of public money. It is claimed that this new scheme has two merits. It is said that it is going to decentralise education, to establish a local authority, to give absolute autonomy, to carry out coordination, whatever that word may mean, and to lead up to secondary education. The Vice-President of the Council, with that graceful self-depreciation which is characteristic of him, has said at Bradford, and practically repeated here, that
"he has been seven years at the Board of Education, and that it will be a disastrous day for the education of this country when it conies to he directed from a central body, however learned and however wise, rather than by a local body, chosen by the people, who know their wants better than the learned and wise people who superintend education at Whitehall, and that the purpose of the Bill is to give effect to this view."
But I ask the attention of the House to the manner in which the principle of decentralisation is carried out in this Bill. The County and Borough Councils are not to

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do anything in regard to education at all, except to find the money. They are to act through an Education Committee. You would have thought that this body, so competent, and which knows everything about education, so much better than they do at Whitehall, was competent to choose its own Education Committee. But no. They are to prepare a scheme. And that scheme is not to take effect without the consent of the Education Department at Whitehall. That does not look to me anything like decentralisation. At Whitehall, they are to judge whether the scheme of the autonomous authority is good or not, and whether they will approve it. They are to give public notice and hold an inquiry if they do not approve it, they may issue a provisional order to take the place of the scheme of the Council. That is to be the position of your autonomous County and Borough Councils! Their schemes are to be supervised by Whitehall, and to be superseded by Whitehall if they are not approved. That is what you call decentralisation! I should like to know what the Birmingham Corporation would think if it were declared that they were not fit to form their own Watch Committee, or Committees for water, gas, or roads, that they must come up to London to get the approval of some central body which may substitute by provisional order another Committee than that chosen by the Birmingham Council itself? I cannot conceive anything more inconsistent with the statement of the Vice-President of the Council that seven years experience at the Board of Education has shown him that these wise and learned men at Whitehall know much less of the business of education than the local bodies; yet they are to sit in judgment upon these local bodies and to overrule them if they please. That is the position of the Councils in regard to education under this Bill—primary education and secondary education—the Board of Education is to govern all. The confidence the Councils have already enjoyed in the case of technical education will be withdrawn, and the constitution of the Executive Committees for this purpose must be submitted to central supervision. It is admitted by the Vice-President of the Council that primary education must be regarded as the
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foundation of the general scheme of education and that you must build up from that. You are going to force primary education on these Councils. What will their position be as a local decentralised autonomous authority with reference to the primary education given in the 14,000 voluntary schools with an attendance of 3,000,000 children? I venture to say they will have no authority at all. The management in schools provided by the local education authority is to be in the hands of managers appointed by that authority; but in the case of the voluntary schools not so provided they are to be managed by the persons who are the managers for the purposes of the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900. The position of the local authority is that they may add one-third to the number of managers. That will leave them in a perpetual minority, and I would ask—What are to be their functions in the management? We are told that they are to secure publicity; that they are to criticise; that they are, in fact, to be a statutory opposition to the majority, framed, I suppose, on the model of the existing House of Commons, and in about the same proportions. There is to be a majority of two-thirds of voluntary managers, and there is to be a constitutional opposition not to exceed one-third, and they are to carry out the elementary education of the country. That is the whole control the local authority is to have over these voluntary schools. This one-third is to secure publicity, I think my right hon. friend the Member for Dart ford said, in the Press. So I suppose the members of this one-third minority are to write against their fellow managers in the newspapers. What a nice, harmonious body—the one-third minority and the two-thirds majority engaged in criticism in the Press! That is the plan which is proposed for conducting elementary education in the voluntary schools.
SIR W. HART DYKE: I dislike to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but really what I said was that absolute publicity would be given to any real grievance which occurred. It would be noised abroad, would get into the Press, and would be public knowledge.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: That is exactly what I said. It will get into the Press, and publicity will be secured. I shall be told that in Clause 8 the local education authority shall, in the case of schools not provided by them—that is, voluntary schools—impose on the managers what they think fit, except upon the religious question. I would ask the House to consider the conditions on which the local authority will be able to instruct the managers to do anything at all. Sub-Section 2, Clause 8, says—
"If any question arises under this section between the local authority and the managers of a school, that question shall be determined—by whom?—by the Board of Education in London.
Therefore, if the local authority give instructions to the managers, and the managers disapprove of them, the dispute is to be determined by the Department in Whitehall—those wise and learned gentlemen who know so much less about it than the local authority. The local authority has no effectual voice in the matter, no effectual authority over the managers, because it is in a statutory minority of one third; and it has no final authority, because any dispute is to be referred to the Board of Education in Whitehall. That is what you call decentralisation. I venture to say it is a delusion, and if it were not an uncivil word, I would call it an imposture. In an incautious moment, the Vice President of the Council said that the powers of the Education Department in law would remain exactly as they are. And so they will. Indeed, under this Bill, they will be rather increased; it is a centralisation Bill in every part of it, as I venture to think I will show. Subsection (a) of Clause 8 provides that the managers shall carry out any directions of the local authority as to the secular instruction to be given in the schools. They will do nothing of the kind. How will directions as to secular instruction in the schools be really given? They will be given in the code by the Education Board, because the Board fixes what are to be the real conditions of the grant, and, therefore, controls the principal fund, determines what is to be the standard, and, in point of fact, what is to be the education in the
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schools. The language of the Bill is framed so delicately that it is difficult to understand it. The Vice-President told us conclusively that if the local authority let the education in a school down, it would rest with him to take care to bring it up; and, therefore, the Board are the persons who will really control secular education in the schools. The next thing is that the local authorities shall have power to inspect the schools. What is to come of their inspection? Supposing they inspect the schools, and that the Education Department inspects them also. The grant depends upon the Department, and if the local authority is perfectly satisfied, and says that a school ought to have a full grant, the Department may take exactly the opposite view, and the inspection of the local authority comes to nothing at all. Then the next thing is that the consent of the local education authority is to be required for the appointment of teachers, excluding the religious element. But supposing the majority of the managers appoint a teacher, and the local authority maintains that he is not a proper teacher for secular purposes, who determines the question between them? Why, the Education Board in London. That is what you call decentralisation. Was there ever such an absurdity? It is the establishment of a constant conflict between the managers and the local authority, the managers being absolutely independent of the local authority—a conflict which is to go to Whitehall to be decided. What could be more injurious to education than an operation of that kind? There is, in fact, a triple authority—the managers, the local authority, both of which are subject to the authority at Whitehall. To contend that there is a single autonomous local authority is absolutely without foundation.
I come to the next point. The managers of the schools are, out of their funds, to keep the schools in good repair. We know that is a most controversial question. We remember how Mr. Acland was attacked whenever he called for some addition to or improvement of a school. The local authority says to the managers of a school, "You must spend so much money on improvements." The managers reply that they do not

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think it ought to be done. That goes for decision to Whitehall; and that is what you call decentralisation. This is the pretence in which this Bill is offered to the country. The next sub-section is also to be subject to revision as to the persons to be chosen by the local authority to be managers. Sub-section (e) states that the local education authority shall have the right of appointing such persons as they think fit to be additional managers, so that their number shall not exceed a third of the whole number. But the following sub-section provides that if any question arises between the local authority and the managers it shall be decided by the Board of Education. If the managers disapprove of the one-third, the question must go to Whitehall to be determined. Therefore, I say that the fundamental principle on which this Bill professes to be founded is an entire delusion and a sham. There is worse still to come in the clauses which follow. Is there any subject of greater importance than the question whether or not, in a particular district, a new school should be set up? But who is to determine that question, on which the local authority is by far the best judge? If you look at Clause 9, you will see that if the local authority proposes to erect a new school in their district, any ten ratepayers may oppose. And who is to settle the matter? The Board of Education. They are the body who is to determine, as against the local authority, whether or not a new school is wanted in the district. Then there is the question, What power has the local authority to put an end to unnecessary schools? Surely nothing can be more important than this power to determine whether a school was unnecessary, and, therefore, should not be supported out of the rates. The Bill provides that a school actually in existence shall not be considered unnecessary in which the number of scholars in average attendance, as computed by the Board of Education, is not less than thirty. Therefore the local authority cannot determine whether new schools are to be set up, or whether small schools in existence shall be considered unnecessary. That takes from the Bill itself all the pretence as to those competent authorities, and I believe the Borough Councils of this country and the County Councils of this country are
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proud of their independence, and will resent being thus treated. Talk about co-ordination! Why, this is subordination. You may call this local self-government. Is it local self-government to treat these authorities in the way the Bill proposes to treat them? This Bill has been framed in the conviction that these bodies do not understand their business, are not fit to carry out the duties imposed upon them by the Bill, and that they should be placed, under the control of those wise men in. Whitehall. Then the Vice-President said that everything depends upon having a single finance. But is there a single finance here? Why, there is no more a single finance than there is a single authority. There are four funds—the rates, the Government grant, the whisky money, and the voluntary subscriptions. In fact, the finances are as multiform as the governing bodies; and, therefore, the whole pretence of unity in finance, as well as in administration, is absolutely destroyed by the framework of the Bill. The Bill places these self governing bodies, these great County and Borough Councils, in a humiliating position such as they are not placed in with regard to any other of their duties so far as education is concerned. Instead of a glorification, it is a humiliation to these bodies to impose upon them a duty for which you think them so imperfectly fitted that you place them under the sort of tutelage that the Bill contemplates for them.
Then there is the question of the rates. I see many hon. Gentlemen opposite who have the good fortune to live more in the country than in the town. My own life, also, has been spent more in the country than in the town; and if there is anything more severely felt in the county district even than the influenza I should say that it is the rates. It is the one subject upon which people in the country districts feel more acutely than anything else. Now you are going to inflict upon these country districts a new burden in the form of a rate, and that new burden will come to the farmers, the small shopkeepers, even to the labourers, with a quarterly or half-yearly demand which was never known before. Dwellers in the country do not like this kind of novelty. It is a novelty that does not amuse them

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at all, which they very much resent; and it will not be commended to them by the knowledge that it is inflicted upon them in order to relieve some half-dozen of the best-to-do people in the district from the necessity of paying their subscriptions to the voluntary schools. That will make the new rate odious, and will also make the cause of education disliked, because they will feel that an injustice has been done to them in order to relieve others. I have not myself calculated what the exact increase in the rates will be. I have seen it stated that it will be from five pence to sixpence. I do not know whether that includes the board schools. But, at all events, there will be this increase in the rates in country districts. In the large towns people, like the eel accustomed to be skinned, are familiar with high rates; but in the country districts the rate ranges from two shillings to three shillings. A very small addition to the rates is more sensibly felt in the country districts than in the big towns; and, therefore, this education rate, I venture to say, will be one of the most detested things ever introduced in the rural districts of England. The talk of making the adoption of elementary education compulsory is due to the fear that it will be so disliked that if you do not compel the local authorities to adopt it the County Councils will not be disposed to do so, in view of the hostile feelings of their constituents. You may depend upon it that when this new rate for the relief of the rich inhabitants of the parish is brought into effect, it will be the burning question at the elections for the County Councils, not this year alone, but next year and every year. Hatred of rates in the country districts is stronger than zeal for education; and by this new rate you will arouse a spirit of resistance to education more powerful than you could possibly create in any other manner. Improved education will depend upon the magnitude of the rate, and that being so, you will have created by this method of procedure, machinery for the purpose of enabling the voluntary school people to escape their obligations. The supporters of voluntary schools, I venture to say, played a very active part in the settlement of 1870, when they purchased
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the monopoly of their schools by undertaking to provide a large portion of their expenditure. What has been the history ever since? They call that obligation an "intolerable strain." Yes, you will hear the ratepayers call it an intolerable strain before you have done. It has been a perpetual struggle on the part of the voluntary subscribers, assisted by the Government, to get rid of the obligation to pay the price and to keep the monopoly. This Bill accomplishes that purpose. It is a denial of the compromise of 1870 that is the basis and motive power of this Bill. This rate will be resisted. I do not say by violent methods—that is not necessary—but by returning County Councillors who will keep down the rates. There will be such an outcry from the ratepayers that it will be absolutely impossible to do what is desirable and necessary for the improvement of education.
I now come to a subject difficult and tender to deal with, and that is the religious difficulty. I join in the universal sentiment of admiration for the remarkable speech of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, which raised the level of the whole of this debate. He spoke with evident sincerity and with an eloquence which we seldom hear in this House. But he was frank. He was courageous. He declined to accept the point of view of the hon. Member for Haddingtonshire. He did not say what it has been the habit to say—that there is no religious difficulty. That is not true. It is not an honest assertion. Every one knows that there is a religious difficulty. The noble Lord himself is a splendid impersonation of the religious difficulty. What is the religious difficulty? It is that the majority of the elementary schools supported by public funds are such that in them the religious education is conducted by, and in the interests of, a single denomination. That applies in the rural districts in most of those 14,000 schools. In a good many places we are cognisant of, there is only one school and there cannot be more, and the whole of the education there is conducted in the interests of one single denomination. The noble Lord says that the religious instruction in the Board Schools is

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very good as far as it goes; but that "it cannot attach a child to a denomination." That is the object of the voluntary schools, and that is the religious difficulty. It is all very well for the denomination to which the child is attaches; but what becomes of the other denominations from which the child is detached? The noble Lord says that unless you have a school which attaches the child to a denomination you "lose a great chance." This Bill, then, is to afford to those who support the Government "a great chance." That is denominationalism well defined by the noble Lord, and nobody knows better than he does what denominationalism is; and that is why I say that the thing which has stood in the way of the advance of education in this country is denominationalism. As long as you maintain that you will never improve the education of the country. There is, as the noble Lord says, the schoolroom with two doors. You compel the children to enter by one door, and then they are subject to a process of manufacture; and when they come out of the other door they are highly-finished denominationalists of the Church pattern.
The noble Lord says that this Bill maintains the status quo. But that is not the case; because the status quo demanded voluntary subscriptions, and the Bill removes the obligation of voluntary subscriptions and places the obligation upon the ratepayers. The noble Lord hardly defends the equity of the arrangement by which under the voluntary school system they get possession of the children and subject them to the influences and the process to which I have just alluded, and he admits that the existing arrangement is not his ideal; and he has a very high and noble ideal. But I wish there were some trace of his ideal in the Bill. There is nothing of the kind. He feels the injustice which is being done to other denominations, and he looks forward to a time when the Nonconformists will be his allies. Yes, Sir, it would be a very good thing if the Church and the Nonconformists acted together for the promotion of religion. Every one wishes it. But what is the necessary and elementary
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condition of the alliance? It is that both parties should be on equal terms. You will never have an effective alliance until it fulfils that condition. That is the only condition for a sound alliance. The noble Lord contemplates a millennium in which the lion shall lie down with the lamb. But the period of the arrival of that millennium is not fixed; and in the meanwhile, until it arrives, the lion will follow its unregenerate instincts and proceed to devour the lamb. That is a process which has been, and is being, performed. Therefore, however much we admire the aspirations of the noble Lord, and wish they could be fulfilled, but I fear for the present that we must contemplate the religious difficulty which some people are insincere enough to deny the existence of—an argument which the noble Lord has sufficiently demolished.
It was stated frankly by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich that there is an indisposition on the part of the people of this country to place the education of the whole children mainly in the hands of the clergy. That is a feeling which has not diminished, but has increased. You are astonished that this Bill, which is a Bill practically for giving voluntary schools into the undisputed management of the clerical element, has evoked a storm of opposition from the Nonconformists of this country. I will go further and say that there is a disinclination stronger than there ever was on the part of the Protestant laity of this country against clerical management. That being so, what is likely to be the result? It is not a question, as it was thirty years ago, of simple creeds and the Church Catechism; it goes a great deal deeper than that now, because it goes into questions of far-reaching doctrine and very new and strange practices. This will be the dominant element in these schools which are to be placed, not under the local authority, but under managers independent of the local authority, and so there will be less and less desire by the Protestant laity to forward education in schools of that character. I do not wish to say anything that will be offensive to anybody, but it is idle to shut your eyes to feelings and sentiments which are very prevalent and very strong; and, therefore, any claim founded

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on the principles laid down by the noble Lord, in my opinion, will not tend to improve or advance education in this country, but will retard it. It is idle to say that the religious difficulty does not exist. It does, and it spreads the spirit of discord through the whole of your educational machinery. And, mind you, when in the country districts of this land, you have, especially in the rural districts, the dislike of rates aggravated and embittered by the religious difficulty, you will have created a force adverse to education of which we cannot measure the extent. It will provoke a resistance to education which will go on from year to year. It will leave you, I fear, in a sense of shame at your backwardness as compared with other people who have not exposed themselves to the same mischiefs. It will be a question for the ratepayers whether the clergy are to have the exclusive possession practically of the common schools of the country. I believe that, if not to-day at a very early period, the ratepayers, who will have a voice in this matter, will declare their dissatisfaction with the arrangement which will give in so large a portion of the common schools an advantage to one denomination to which they are not entitled. This is a condition of things which will not be long tolerated.
I apologise to the House for occupying so much time, and I will not deal with other branches of education, because it is admitted that the disputable part of this Bill is that dealing with elementary education. My firm belief is that when these local authorities have exhausted their energies and resources upon elementary education, there will be nothing left for secondary education. In my opinion, this Bill fails in every point. It has failed to fulfil the conditions of the claim which it made upon the confidence of the House. It does nothing for elementary education except to relieve the denominational managers from their contributions, while it imposes substantially no obligation upon them. The County Councils have been greatly and deservedly praised for what they have done for technical education. They have done it well. They have done it with the whisky money. They had the power to raise a penny rate, but they have not used the power. I observe that in only three counties in England have they used the rate. Why? Because they knew the
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storm that the imposition of the penny rate would bring upon them, and now you are going to give them power to raise a two penny rate for secondary education.
This new rate will create an antieducation spirit. The Bill does not create the single authority which it pretends to create. What it does is to create a new authority in addition to those that existed before: which is a very different thing. This is not an Education Bill; it is a Convocation Bill. It is in that nest the egg was laid, and it has been brought here for us to hatch it. This Bill, therefore, in my opinion, has failed on this great occasion, when the country expected that there was to be a broad spirit dominating the whole plan to provide a satisfactory scheme for national education. The Government should have set aside all these denominational questions and have addressed itself to the whole of the people, irrespective of their creed. If these County Councils were worthy of confidence, why have you cribbed, cabined, and confined them at every point? So far from advancing the cause of education, it will throw it backward, and for my part I shall heartily vote against the Second Beading of the Bill.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): The hon. and learned Member for the Border Burghs has referred to the record of Scotland in connection with the subject of education. I venture to say that in the course of his speech the fundamental differences existing in Scotland as compared with England in respect of education were almost entirely ignored, and one point which is absolutely vital was omitted, and that is, that in almost every public school in Scotland the people insist that there should be distinctive religious teaching. There were one or two other points in the speech that I should have been tempted to dwell upon, but I think that in his own constituency some interest will be excited by his views on the Shorter Catechism. I sincerely hope that the next time he appears at Galashiels he will be heckled on this subject. I could not help being reminded of his forgetfulness of some of the most material points of Scottish history. He seemed to think that interest in education in Scotland originated with School Boards. Every one

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who has any acquaintance with the history of education in Scotland knows that it was because education was given at the end of the seventeenth century in an Act of the Scottish Parliament that education itself created the demand for and the interest in it. To talk of interest in education in Scotland as being the result of an educative body created ad hoc for educational purposes, is to travesty the most elementary facts of Scottish history.
I pass from the hon. and learned Gentleman to the attack made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire. I venture very respectfully to say that in his speech he looked at this matter rather too much as if it were one which was to be determined by denominational jealousies and the conflicting claims of different religious bodies in this country. This is a national matter. Education is a matter for the whole nation, and this Bill has not been conceived in the interest of any one religious body. I trust that when it passes its Second Reading, as I hope this House will do tomorrow, the House will be striking a blow for education altogether apart from its effect on the prospects or fortunes of particular religious denominations. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the settlement of 1837. In that settlement the existence of voluntary schools was an essential element, and the board schools were intended to supplement those schools, which existed throughout the country, and which it was believed would continue to exist. But then we are face to face with this state of things. It is impossible for schools which exist merely by subscriptions to keep pace with the ever-increasing demands of education. We must recognise that schools which have the rates behind them are in a position of advantage, and that the children who attend them obtain, as a rule, better education than those who attend the voluntary schools. I am not speaking, of course, of any universal rule to that effect. There are many most excellent voluntary schools which will compare with the very best of the board schools, but still, particularly in the country, I think it will be found that on the whole the voluntary schools are not in a position to compete with those supported out of the rates. What, then, are we to
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do? Are those schools to be abolished? You must face the situation, and in endeavouring to carry out the settlement of 1870, if you find that it is impossible in this way to provide education sufficiently good for the great body of the children, in fact the majority of the children in this country, you must have recourse to some other means. The right hon. Gentleman is extremely lugubrious as to the effect which the existence of the education rate will have upon the ratepayers and the voters in the country. I am not going to enter into a competition with the right hon. Gentleman in the region of prophecy.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTmade a remark which was inaudible in the gallery.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I do not think that is a sound opinion. I suppose he means by that, that interest in education is not at present so much developed in the South of England as in the Northern parts of the country. The one object of the Bill is to spread education and to increase the interest in it; and we believe as that interest spreads it will be found that the people of the country are not unwilling to take their share in the burden which must be borne if our elementary education is to be placed on a proper footing. I think that the right hon. Gentleman has been hardly just to the County Councils in the matter of education. He spoke as if, with regard to the powers they already exercise with reference to technical education, they had not been in any way spending their own money, while now the money would have to be raised by the rates. Well, as a matter of fact, the money given to them out of the general taxation of the country, is money which, if not applied by them for technical education, would have gone to the relief of rates. If you take money which would go to the relief of rates for the purposes of technical education, they areas distinctly contributing for the purposes of education as they would be if the money was received out of the rates. I think the right hon. Gentleman was not accurate in what he said with regard to the money used for the purposes of technical education. I think he will

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find that in many cases the County Councils have shown their interest in exercising the powers they have by imposing a supplementary rate.
I desire to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman and the House to the fact that this Bill, which has now been before the country for some time, has today, I am informed, been the subject of consideration by the Association of County Councils. They know something of the County Councils, they know something about their own localities, and they know a good deal about this Bill. I am informed that by a resolution passed by a very large majority they cordially accepted the general principles of the Bill, and expressed their willingness loyally to work it. I do not say for a moment that they pledged themselves to every detail, but I believe I am accurately expressing the sense of the resolution, which was carried by thirty votes to seven, when I say that they cordially welcome this measure.
MR. DUNCAN: May I say that I was present at the meeting? There were several members there who did not vote in the way their County Councils desired. They took the opportunity of criticising the action of their own Councils, and voted contrary to their decisions.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I am not qualified to enter into controversy with the hon. Gentleman as to what took place at the meeting. I think the House will see that the members of the County Council Association are those best qualified to voice their opinions. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that this Bill altogether failed in the respect that it does not decentralise the work. Well, if I rightly understand the principle of decentralisation, it is that you should have local administration coupled with central control where that control may be necessary. The right hon. Gentleman asks—how is it decentralisation if you have central bodies at certain points which can control the action of the local bodies? Surely it is a matter of everyday practice that the Local Government Board intervenes with reference to the action of those local bodies throughout
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the country. We every day hear of inquiries held by the Local Government Board, and I never before heard it even suggested that there was anything inconsistent with decentralisation by having a central body to which in case of need you might have recourse. The right hon. Gentleman said that the control of the Board of Education was so great under this Bill that there was little left for the local authority to do. We have heard some criticism of the Bill from those Benches in a different tone. We have hitherto been told by most of the speakers on the Opposition side that the powers of the Board of Education were so impaired by this Bill that it was a serious blot upon it. Then the right hon. Gentleman throws over all that class of critics and says that the powers are so great that they leave nothing for the local authority. I think I may set off the one criticism against the other. The right hon. Gentleman asks why should the Board of Education give its assistance in settling the scheme which is to be initiated by the local authority? Surely there can be nothing more reasonable than that when a matter of this kind is being launched in a locality, the local authority should have the benefit of the experience, and the advice of the Board of Education—assistance, and, in case of necessity, veto. Surely the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that some controlling power of that kind may be most usefully exercised by way of giving security against eccentricities in any particular scheme. There is nothing inconsistent in that with local government. The right hon. Gentleman goes on to say, with regard to new schools, that the Board of Education decides whether these schools are to be made or not. That is, if there is opposition to a new school, it is then only that the Board of Education is called upon to decide, and I can imagine no body more qualified for settling such local disputes. We are told that this is a Bill to hand over the control of national education to the clergy of the Established Church. I venture to say it does nothing of the kind. It is a Bill to render thoroughly efficient those schools in which the majority of the children of this country are educated, and to put the secular education under the control of the local authorities, who best know the wants

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of the neighbourhood. One other criticism I will just notice in a single sentence. The right hon. Gentleman said there is a great want of uniformity about the Bill, because the funds to be devoted to education come from four different quarters. The funds which this House controls the administration of come from many different quarters. The question is whether there is one controlling authority. We do provide one controlling authority, which will deal with the budget, which will settle how much is to be given to education, and exercise proper supervision over the application of that money in conformity with local wants.
A good deal of the criticism contained in many of the speeches delivered from the other side dealt with matters of detail rather for consideration in Committee than on a Second Reading debate. Even the most interesting and charming speech of the hon. Member for the Berwick Division, to which I am sure the whole House listened with the greatest pleasure, argued questions which had better be disposed of in Committee. As the hon. Member himself put it, he did very much differ from the principles laid down by the Vice-President, but only to the application of them. These are, however, considerations that deserve discussion at the proper time in Committee. But there is one feature in connection with this Bill to which I desire to call the attention of the House. Everyone admits that this question of education is a national emergency. Unfortunately, on account of mutual religious jealousies, we have lost educational time, and we cannot afford to lose any more. We must, in fact, make up lee-way. Now, while everybody is agreed as to that, there is no alternative scheme before the House and the country. There has been criticism of details, vague aspirations have been expressed, but no one has ventured to formulate, even in broad outline, an alternative scheme. I remember hearing a remark made in this House that a certain Bill "held the field." Now, everyone is agreed as to the urgency of a reform of education in this country, but is it not remarkable that no one has been able to tell this House what alternative policy to this Bill he would give? So far as I have been able to follow hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, their ideal would be a system of
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universal School Boards all over the country—schools in every district supported from the rates and administered by the School Boards. But we must face the actual state of the facts. There are many districts in the country where there are no School Boards, and therefore no board schools More than half of the children in the country are being educated in voluntary schools. What are you going to do? No one suggests that you should confiscate the fabric of the voluntary schools. No one suggests that while these schools exist you should spend £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 of money in building other schools side by side with them and in competition with them. If both these courses are out of the question, the only alternative is that we must wait till these voluntary schools die out before we can secure an adequate and proper system of education in this country. But even if the voluntary schools died out—which I very much doubt—it would take generations; and in the meantime you would have a very large proportion of the children of this country suffering from defective education, because it is admitted that these schools cannot compete with the School Board schools as regards effective education. Is that a state of things which this country can regard with equanimity? Are we to go on seeing those children lanquishing for education, waiting for the time when the voluntary schools die out and something else which hon. Members opposite would prefer takes their place? Some language has been used in the course of the debate as if the Government were selecting the voluntary schools for favour because the yare Church schools. Nothing of the kind. We deal with these schools because they are there. You can only deal with the material at hand. When I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for the Elland Division the other night, I could not help remembering the great speech delivered in this House in 1847 by his illustrious relative, Lord Macaulay, on this question of education, in the course of which he poured scorn and contempt on the idea that because you gave a grant to voluntary schools you were necessarily favouring Church schools. You give a grant to these schools because they exist. You face the facts and work with the material available for the structure you propose to raise. This Bill proposes to deal with

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these schools. It proposes, in the first place, to make them thoroughly efficient by giving them adequate funds, and by supplying them with skilled superintendence as regards their management. In the second place, it is intended to secure for all the children attending these schools absolute freedom of conscience. We have sometimes been told that the Church schools are really engines for proselytising amongst dissenters. I venture to think that that is a vain imagination, and not a devout imagination. It is a vision called up by a consideration of what ought to be alien to any dealing with the problems of national education. The Vice-President of the Council threw down on the floor of this House a challenge in regard to this subject, which no one has ventured to take up.
AN HON. MEMBER: I take it up.
SIR ROBERT FINLAY: Who is this belated challenger? This debate has gone on for some time since my right hon. friend threw down his challenge, and no case of hardship has been mentioned which, on careful examination, has not invariably disappeared, and I venture to say that if any other case were suggested, it would, when subjected to examination, disappear like the myth to which my right hon. friend has already adverted. But, if anything of the kind has taken place, or has been possible, in the past, it will be certainly impossible in the future. There would be representatives of the public on the Board of Managers, very complete publicity, and effective control of the managers by the Board of Education in London. I venture to put it to the House, therefore, that the suggestion that this Bill may be used for proselytising purposes must be dismissed. The truth is that the religious difficulty has been enormously exaggerated. Nobody denies that a religious difficulty exists, and it must be dealt with in connection with the voluntary schools; but anyone who pretends to know what are the wishes of English parents in regard to this matter will admit that this is a point capable of adjustment. The people of England will not have anything to do with a purely secular instruction. The experiment was tried in Birmingham,
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and it broke down, owing to the opposition quite as much of the Nonconformists as of the Churchmen. What the people of this country desire is that the teaching to be given to their children should be teaching associated with religious belief. A great many people seem to think that the feelings of the poor must be different from those of, for instance, hon. Members of this House. I suppose that very few hon. Members here would care to send their boys to any school where the teaching was not connected with some religious belief. I am convinced that the poor have very much the same feeling, and that their instincts on this point are very perfectly sound. They recognise that education is not merely the imparting of knowledge or information to the children; that it is not merely the training of the intellectual faculties. It is the formation of character; and to ignore in the formation of character those higher influences which do not come into the course of a purely secular instruction, is to go counter to the instincts of the people of this country and to the dictates of common sense. I believe that in the interests of even secular instruction you cannot ignore the necessity of associating your teaching with some form of belief. Are you to tear out some of the most interesting passages in history because the teacher is not to be allowed to tell his scholars what certain events mean, or what happened on some great historical occasion? As soon as children get over the merest elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, as soon as they begin to read literature, even of the humblest kind, they are brought face to face with the question of religious belief, and a teacher cannot keep silence or be restrained from telling the children the history of what occurred 2,000 years ago. He must make some reference to things divine. His mouth cannot be shut as to the greatest fact in the history of the world—the introduction of Christianity—and that there is something more than human in regard to these matters. Then, when the young people go on with their historical studies—I am not now referring to recondite philosophic subjects—is the teacher to pass by the great events of the fifteenth century because he does not know which side to take?

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The experiment of purely secular education has been tried in some of our colonies, and the experiment is being followed with interest. I remember being told by some gentlemen from one of our colonies that they had found by experience that you cripple your secular instruction if the teacher is not at liberty to give that instruction in connection with some form of religious teaching. If we had universal board schools all over the country, which I believe will be quite impossible for generations, I firmly believe that the instincts of religious people would demand that in those board schools there should be a definite teaching of the Christian religion side by side with the secular instruction. The House has heard the testimonies of two most distinguished prelates of the English Church, the Bishop of Winchester and the Bishop of Rochester, as to the admirable character of the religious instruction given in board schools. Therefore, the problem of religious instruction is one which is capable of being solved, and I believe that the children of Nonconformists will be safe from being proselytised in those schools which are dealt with in this Bill. I believe that the net result of this Bill will be that, without trenching upon freedom of conscience, we shall raise the character of secular instruction given in those schools.
There is one fallacy which seems to have pervaded a great many of the speeches during this debate. We have been told that what is wanted is popular interest in education. Of course, if you have popular interest in education, surely it would show itself upon the occasion of an election. It does show itself in Scotland, because people there are intensely interested in education, and the whole of Scotland is supplied with School Boards. But if you have a state of apathy existing, an election will not create enthusiasm for education or give that popular interest which it is necessary for every educational authority to have at its back. If there is want of interest in education the way to deal with it is not by any attempt to manipulate the electoral machinery, but to provide education. Education is not always to be regulated by the law of supply and demand. It is the parent himself, who has had the advantage of education, who alone realises what education, or want of education, will mean to his child, and
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those parents are the people who will insist upon education being provided of a good quality. But the ignorant parent who has no education himself is apt to undervalue education, and will show his apathy even under the most admirably arranged electoral machinery for educational purposes. What this Bill proposes is to further education by giving the control to a representative local authority.
Then it is said that the local authority is not elected ad hoc, and it is not elected specially for educational purposes. Why should it be so elected? I believe nothing has tended to perplex local affairs and fritter away the energies of the electors more than the multiplication of elections. I believe that many worthy men and good citizens who have not troubled their heads much about the education question will recognise that one of the conspicuous merits of this Bill is that it provides only one election in the future. What we want is that the functions of the local bodies shall be so adequate, so complete, and so far-reaching that they will enlist all sorts of interests in the election. If we can have one local body for all purposes, I believe we shall come much nearer to perfection in these matters than we shall by any system under which the energies of the electors are divided between a number of different bodies for different and special purposes. Of course, the local authority under this Bill will be a Committee of experts. What the electors can do in this matter is to send men to the County Council who will realise the advantages of education, and who will know the sort of men they ought to appoint as representatives upon this Committee of experts by whom the machinery of this Bill is to be worked. That is the way in which popular government can be carried on, and they are not the true friends of popular government who put it to the people as if it would be withdrawing anything from their power when you make provision for them having the best expert system of carrying out local government.
I do not propose on this occasion to go into the details of the various criticisms which have been made, because there will be a more suitable opportunity to deal with them than the present time. With regard to the authorities, two complaints have been made. It has been said that

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the County Councils are too large to have the control of primary education, and that the counties are too large an area to take. If we give up the idea of leaving it to each parish, what other unit can be taken? We want attention paid, no doubt, to local matters, but we also want a certain amount of uniformity of administration. By the powers given to the County Councils under this Bill, they can consult the requirements of every locality and ask those best qualified to deal with that locality to give their assistance, and I believe it is much better for the working of an educational system to have County Councils at the head than that we should attempt to split up the county into very small districts, with an elementary education authority to act separately in each one of them. It is said that some of the boroughs and urban districts are too small for the purposes of secondary education. I do not deny that something may be said from this point of view; but it will be impossible to take away the powers those boroughs and urban districts already possess, and any mischief which may result will be obviated by the powers of combination which are conferred on these districts under the Bill.
Another criticism which has been passed upon the Bill is that the powers and duties of the local authorities are not sufficiently detailed in this Bill, and we have been asked what provision is to be made for schools for the training of pupil teachers, and so on. I venture to put it to the House that we should have made a very great mistake if we had attempted to burden this Bill with a code of minute instructions and regulations. I think it is much better to put some trust in the local authorities and leave the Bill elastic in this respect, trusting to the controlling power of the Board of Education. I believe that the County Councils and other local authorities to whom this Bill proposes to entrust this great national question will prove themselves worthy of our trust and confidence. I earnestly hope that the House will pass the Second Reading of this Bill with as little delay as possible, because the question is one of very great importance and very great urgency.
MR. DILLON: This Bill may be considered from many points
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of view. Ireland is not very much concerned, and Englishmen are well able to look after their own interests in education. As an impartial listener, and as one who has sat through all the three nights of the debate, I have been deeply struck with what has been said as to the great urgency of secondary education and the poor provision that is made for it in the present Bill. It is no part of my business to discuss that question. There is, however, one question on which I desire to say a word before I come to the question which largely interests Catholics, for whom I speak in this House, and that is the question of rates versus taxes as a source from which national education ought to be supported. I have long held a strong view that as regards the primary education of a nation, the source from which the main bulk of the expense ought to come is the national taxes. I must confess that in that view I have been strongly confirmed by all that I have heard in the course of the present debate. Why, I ask, should any considerable portion of the burden of education, which is really a national affair, and which applies to the children of all the people, be cast upon localities without any reference to the capacity of those localities to bear the burden? It is evident that such a, principle will cast a grave injustice and a great burden upon localities where the inhabitants are poor, and this is the reason why many parts of the country have been left so deplorably behind in education. It appears to me that a fair arrangement would be that if a locality were called upon, out of its rates or by means of voluntary contributions, to supply the fabric of schools, the nation, out of taxes, ought to boar the whole burden of the maintenance of national education. By thus shifting the burden, you would enable and invite the ratepayers out of their own resources to do something towards the erection of a structure for secondary education, which is a matter of vital and urgent importance. This is a proposal which, I venture to submit to the House, would confer two great benefits. In the first place, it would clear the road for the erection of a system of secondary education worthy of the wealth of this country, which you have to admit is lamentably

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out-distanced by all the civilised nations of Europe, and which will not be altered under this Bill. In the second place, my suggestion would get rid of a difficulty, which, I confess, weighs upon my mind very heavily, and that is the difficulty of settling this question of the voluntary schools. I share the view expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, who said that where the power of the purse resides, there the absolute control will ultimately go. For reasons which I will explain hereafter, Irish Members propose to give their hearty support to this Bill on account of one principle which it contains, although I confess that I have considerable forebodings as to the ultimate result of this Bill upon voluntary schools. I dismiss this aspect of the question finally by saying that when I heard in the course of this debate what was universally admitted on all sides—that one of the great obstacles to the elementary portion of this Bill, and still more to the secondary education proposals, is want of funds and the difficulty of finding where those funds are to come from—I could not help thinking how much better it would have been if we could have rescued some of the £220,000,000 which we have spent on the war in South Africa, or even if we could have devoted to this purpose some £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 from the sum which has been added to the permanent expenses of this country for keeping up the Army and the Navy. Education, after all, forms the basis of a nation's greatness far more than fleets and armies, and this country is at last beginning to find out that this question is more important than imperialism.
I come now to a subject upon which I speak for a large body of people who are more vitally interested in this question than any other section of the community. They are poor people, and from their poverty they have given the most magnificent proof of the earnestness of their convictions by the support which they have given to voluntary schools. I am speaking now for the Irish Catholics of Great Britain, and when we are asked why we intervene in this debate, I say it is because this question, so far as it affects the Catholics of this country, is an Irish question. Quite nine-tenths of the children who frequent these voluntary schools are children of the poor, and
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these schools have been maintained for years not from the contributions of the wealthy, but from the sixpences and the pennies of the poor people. Therefore, we are bound to defend the interests of those people in this House. One feature throughout this debate has struck me very much. Speaker after speaker on the opposite side of the House has declared that he proposes to deal with this question without reference to the religious difficulty. Really, at this period of the day, such an argument appears to give an unreal aspect to the debate, and it is almost incredible. Is there a single hon. Member in this House who will not admit that it is the religious difficulty which hangs like a weight round the neck of education in this country? Many hon. Members have declared that they are ashamed of the position of England in this matter. Is it not trifling with the House to attempt in a debate of this character to shirk that one obstacle which has proved insurmountable, and which in the case of the present Bill will keep this House engaged discussing it for many weeks? If you could eliminate the religious difficulty, your Education Bill would pass the Second Reading in a single night, and the Committee stage would not take a week. Therefore, I say that for a man to get up in his place in the House of Commons and proceed to discuss this question by stating at the outset that he proposes to avoid the religious difficulty, reminds me of the story of the ostrich hiding its head in the sand. The religious difficulty is the whole difficulty, and until you get rid of it you can never put education in England and Wales on a proper footing.
Do not imagine for a single moment that this Bill is going to get rid of the religious difficulty. I have listened carefully to this debate, and one of the chief objects I had in view was to master the Nonconformist grievance against this system. So long as you have so great a body of Nonconformists, feeling so intensely as they do feel in opposition to your proposals for the settlement of this question, do you imagine that you are going to disarm that hostility by ridicule? As I understand it, the grievance of the Nonconformist is that in 9,000 or 10,000 parishes in England and Wales there is only one school in each parish, and to that school the children of millions of

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Nonconformist parents are obliged to go because there is no other. Their complaint is that in those schools Nonconformists have no voice whatever in the management, and that there is a steady pressure put upon the children to conform to the teachings of the Church of England. That is what I gather to be the grievance of the Nonconformists. They also complain that disabilities are placed on Nonconformist children who desire to become teachers, and that there are difficulties thrown in their way in getting employment after they have been trained. If this be true, the state of things is perfectly monstrous. I do not profess to be able to say whether it is true or false, but I cannot believe that a large body of men representing the bulk of Nonconformists in this House would say these things if they knew them to be false. The attitude of the Vice-President of the Council in flatly denying the facts which have been stated on these Benches appears to me to be an attitude very little calculated to bring about that concord and agreement between the different religious denominations of this country upon which alone any enduring and prosperous system of education can be based.
Having said that much, let me just say a word upon another question. I have only two criticisms to make upon the position of Nonconformists. Why do Nonconformists not bring forward some practical plan, other than the total destruction of the denominational character of the denominational schools, which would abolish this grievance? For my part, I may say that any proposal to deal with that question which does not tend to destroy the Catholic schools, will receive the warmest support from Nationalist Members. I have spoken to the leaders of the Nonconformist party, and I have assured them that nothing would give us greater pleasure than to support any scheme which would put an end to their grievance. As to the shocking cases mentioned by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, in which Nonconformist pupil teachers who had distinguished themselves highly in examinations found the utmost difficulty in getting into training colleges, I think that is perfectly monstrous, and more monstrous
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still if in this matter national schools have the advantage. But why do the Nonconformists, who are so wealthy, not provide themselves with more training colleges? As far as I can understand them, they stand exactly on the same footing as Catholics, who do provide training colleges of their own.
Let me turn for a moment to another aspect of this question. I assure my hon. friends above the gangway that I do not wish to be offensive, and all I want is that we should come to close quarters with them, and my desire is that we should understand each other. I would ask this question: Are the Nonconformists of this country anxious to banish Christian teaching of every kind from the schools? ["No."] If they are not anxious to do that, what form of Christian teaching do they want? They want that form of Christian teaching which suits their view. I must confess that, as a Roman Catholic, I have always been lost in astonishment why the different branches of the Protestant Church cannot agree on this matter. We Roman Catholics frankly say that we are the advocates of Christian unity and of an inspired Church. We place dogma and authority over the right of individual judgment. Until I came into this House I thought that that was the dividing line between us of the old Church and those who broke away at the Reformation—that they believe in what is described as an open Bible and the right of private judgment and the individual conscience, whereas we believe in authority and tradition and a unified Church. That being so, it must be manifest to any intelligence that we cannot, on these religious questions, mix with those who advocate that other principle. But I really cannot understand why the different Protestant denominations cannot arrive at some common understanding, so far as religious teaching goes.
Now let me remonstrate with my Nonconformist friends on another point. The other day the hon. Member for the Louth division of Lincolnshire, who, I believe, speaks with authority for the Methodist body, indignantly denounced this Bill on the ground that

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it gave public money to denominational teaching. I was amazed. The Methodist body—so far as I can get any information on the subject—are as much denominational in their teaching as we are ourselves; they maintain an elaborate system of denominational education, and they have even denominational training colleges of their own. What are the facts about the Wesleyan Methodists? They have denominational schools in which their own docrines are taught, enjoying an income of £215,344 per annum, of which, by voluntary contributions, they raise £20,200, or about 7 per cent. of the whole. We Catholics contribute £81,000 by private subscriptions. It works out in this way—the Methodists contribute 3s. 2d. per child per annum for the support of their denominational schools, while we Roman Catholics contribute 6s. 2d.; and who will doubt for a single moment that the Methodists, man for man, are five or even ten times as wealthy as the Roman Catholics? Then I turn to the finances of the Methodist denominational colleges. Their total income is £13,741 5s.; voluntary contributions from individuals, £25; and from Diocesan Boards, etc., £1,800, or about 13 per cent. of the whole. The Roman Catholics have three colleges, with a total income of £13,364 3s. 6d. Their voluntary contributions from individuals are £437, and from Boards £2,017, or 18 per cent. of the whole. Therefore, out of our poverty, also in connection with training colleges, we contribute a larger percentage.
In view of these facts, seeing that they are drawing a larger proportion of public money for the support of their denominational colleges, is it not extraordinary that the Wesleyans should come to this House and protest against the principle of denominational teaching being supported out of public funds? How can that be reconciled with common frankness? The Methodists have a Conference and an Education Committee, and here is an extract from the last report of that Committee, which really is an extraordinary document—
"In anticipation of important legislation it would be most unwise to allow as ingle Wesleyan school to be closed or transferred. The Committee, while sympathising with the managers
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of schools which are financially embarrassed, appeal to them, now that relief is within measurable distance, to continue their work."
I really do think it is rather hard, in view of that statement, that the hon. Member should come down here and denounce the principle to which I have referred. We are told that this Education Committee was overruled at the meeting of the Conference. So it was; it was out-voted. But one reason given was this: "Such management"—alluding to the management provided in the Bill—"need not, in the opinion of the Committee, interfere with the denominational character of the school." That was the ground on which it was suggested the Bill should be supported. In view of these facts, it is rather a large order that hon. Members, professing to speak for the great majority of that body, should denounce the principle of denominational support.
MR. RANDLES: Methodist opinion is clearly divided on this point. I do not want the hon. Member to fall into the mistake of assuming that the hon. Member for the Louth Division was speaking for the whole of the Methodist Church.
MR. DILLON: But when their Education Committee issued an appeal several months ago to their schools to hold out because of the prospect of relief which was coming, it is very strange that he should come here and argue against denominational support.
Now, with regard to Christian teaching. In reply to my question, it was said that there is no desire to banish Christian teaching from the schools. But is not Christian teaching sectarian? Of course it is. Do you mean to tell me that the teaching of the divinity of our Lord is not one of the greatest dogmas? It lies at the root of our whole religion. The position of hon. Members seems to be that nothing is dogma in which they believe, but that everything is dogma in which we believe and they do not. Why do they speak of Bible teaching? Why the Bible? Why not Shakespeare or the Dialogues of Plato, or any other great book which contains moral truth? Do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible? Do you believe in the sacred

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character of the Bible? Is not that dogma? Is it not a dogma to say that the Bible is a sacred book? The moment you make that assertion, you are teaching dogma. The position of these gentlemen is simply this—that "orthodoxy is our doxy, while heterodoxy is every other person's doxy." The position of many of the Nonconformists, so far as my limited intellect enables me to comprehend it, is this: "Nothing is dogma in which we believe, but the moment you touch anything which the Church of England teaches, and still more which the Church of Rome teaches, and in which we do not believe, you get into the region of dogma." A more illogical or preposterous position was never taken up by rational people. If you are logical, the moment you break with the principle of sectarian teaching, you must banish Christianity and you must banish the Bible, or else you must bring the Bible in, as it was brought in in some of the foreign schools, in the days of the French Revolution, as a beautiful poem to be placed beside the poems of Shakespeare and others.
I have listened to the whole of this debate, but not one of the charges which have been brought against donominational schools affects the position of Catholic schools. Ours is a totally different question from that around which the controversy of this debate has raged. Ours is an urban, not a rural question. In the case of the Catholic schools—with possibly ten or twelve exceptions—there is no question of the compulsion of non-Catholic children to attend our schools. Our schools are also situated in large urban districts, where there are alternative schools to which the children can go. No charge of proselytism of which I have ever heard has ever been brought against any of our schools in the country, and yet we are in the unhappy position of being to some extent involved in this conflict. We have been told that if some arrangement could be made by which our schools could be left entirely outside the religious controversy, everyone would be inclined to treat them generously. But is it not a melancholy thing that because the Protestants of this country cannot arrange their differences, we should be dragged into this storm and made to suffer for their
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alleged offences against each other? Here I would take an extract from the remarkable and powerful speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division of Northumberland. He says—
"Even now, if you could give me evidence of towns in which really substantial contributions are being made by groups of parents or groups of persons to Church schools, and alternative schools are available in the district, I would not press objections to giving aid to those denominational schools."
That is exactly our case. We can satisfy that canon of criticism, and therefore I claim the support of the hon. Baronet in our case. Then he used another expression which struck very strangely upon my ear. He said—
"It is not a principle that is in doubt, but what is in doubt is the application of the principle."
That may be the case to some extent regarding Protestants, but it is not the case with us. With us, it is a question of principle, of principle in the highest possible degree. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of the Bill said that more than one-third of the children in the voluntary schools were Nonconformists' children, and that in his opinion the parents in this country did not care one farthing for dogma. What is the Catholic position in this matter? Sir, we attach the most vital importance to the teaching of religion in our schools; but there is another matter, so far as I personally speak, and I am sure I speak also for my co-religionists, to which we attach even greater importance, and that is the Catholic atmosphere of our schools. I care very little for the teaching of religion in the schools, if the school is not Catholic in all its influence and atmosphere. Dogma and Catechism, in my opinion, are the best part of religious teaching, and if you are to admit that there may be, in the schools to which your children are sent, teachers who will avail themselves, from malice prepense, or from a sincere belief of the opportunities that offer in the course of the school hours, to either ridicule or undermine the faith of the children, I would not give much for all the dogma in that school. That is our position, and a position from which nothing but absolute necessity could drive us.
I regard education as a very different thing to what it has been treated in the House of Commons. I place the objects

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of education in the following order—(1) The religious and moral training, and the formation of the character of the child; (2) the physical health and development of the child; and (3) the acquisition of learning. I know that that view is not shared by a good many Members of the House, but in the Catholic Church we consider that moral training should go hand in hand, not only with religious teaching, but with religious influences and a religious atmosphere. Irish Members propose to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill because they approve of the principle of placing Catholic and other denominational schools on equal terms with undenominational schools. They hold themselves, however, quite free in Committee to take such action as they think proper in the interest of the Catholics. I cannot for the life of me understand why this Bill is so violently opposed by Nonconformists. I do not like to be a prophet of evil, but I see in this Bill the germs of what may be the total disruption of the denominational schools.
With regard to Clause 5, I take it that it is now dead. If this is not so and it was to be left optional, all I have to say is that it would be a cowardly Bill, because, instead of attempting to settle this question, it would be an admission that the Government were afraid of it. With regard to Clause 8, in its present form it would give the local authority power to squeeze denominational schools out of existence altogether in a very few years, and, therefore, I shall endeavour to introduce some Amendment in Committee. I wish to point out to hon. Members who hold the view that this Bill is going to relieve the managers of the voluntary schools from all costs, that it is going to do nothing of the sort. In some instances I am sure they will be put to greater expense under this Bill, and the only advantage they will gain is that their teaching will be levelled up to the level of the board schools. Then turn to Section 12, which provides the new authority. There is no provision to secure the representation of Catholic or any other denominational schools. The section is exceedingly vague, and leaves it absolutely uncertain whether we shall have a single representative of the Catholic schools upon the new authority, and, if
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not, we shall be in a worse position than we were before. I have urged this view, but have not succeeded in making it prevail, and it is with a certain amount of regret and alarm that I part with the cumulative vote, which gave one or two Protestant representatives who could be depended upon from my point of view. For these reasons I do not at all share the enthusiasm which some Members have as to the effect of this Bill.
I had, Mr. Speaker, intended to say something about the finances of the Bill, but it is very complicated, and we will have abundant opportunity later on of dealing with them. I support the Bill because it contains a principle which it would be impossible to overthrow and trample under foot without producing an interminable wrangle, and that is the principle of allowing parents to have their children brought up in their own religion, and allowing denominational schools to exist where people desire to have them. We do not support this Bill with any desire to inflict any injustice or hardship upon any section of the community. We desire justice for ourselves and for our poor people in this country, and we do not desire to inflict any disabilities upon anyone.
In conclusion, I once more renew the appeal I have frequently made to friends on both sides of the Honse upon this education question. What is to become of this question if the quarrel goes on? Cannot you get some common-sense men on both sides to come together privately, and arrange concord—a policy which you ought, twenty years ago, to have adopted, and which would have enabled you to unite the forces of this country to bring up your educational system to the level of that of the rest of the civilised world? It must not be imagined that by the passing of this Bill the whole question will be closed, for I look forward to the future from the point of view of Catholic schools, and their interest and existence, with the deepest alarm. If the Government force through this Bill, and ignore Catholic and Nonconformist grievances, they will simply be giving rise to a vast reaction and agitation, in which, in the end, the interests of education must inevitably suffer. It will continue to obstruct and destroy the education of this

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country until common sense at last prevails over the disputes in which both sides, it seems to me, are a bit unreasonable, and until some day or other you adopt the policy you ought to have adopted twenty years ago, of getting the leaders together and endeavouring to arrive at some form of compromise to enable the united forces of this country to bring up the level of your education to that of the rest of civilisation.
MR. ERNEST GRAY: Before considering the terms of the Bill, I wish to take the earliest opportunity of entering my strong protest against a phrase which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South. Aberdeen has used three times in the course of the debate on this Bill—on the First Reading, the Second Reading, and again a few moments ago. I understand that he has asserted that, in his opinion, the Protestant parents of this country do not care a farthing for dogmatic religion. I venture to say that that is inaccurate.
MR. BRYCE: I think the hon. Member refers to something which I quoted from the President of the National Union of Elementary Teachers. I did not use that expression at all.
MR. ERNEST GRAY: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman separates himself from it?
MR. BRYCE: No; I believe it to be perfectly true, but the words were quoted, and were not mine.
MR. ERNEST GRAY: My protest is justified. I care not who uses the phrase. The right hon. Gentleman has used the phrase on three occasions. There may be a, large number who do not care anything about dogmatic religion, but I venture to say that the phrase, as applied to the whole class, is not accurate, and I go further and say that it will give offence to many who feel strongly on this subject and who are as desirous that in Protestant schools the faith they hold should be taught as Catholics are that their faith should be taught in Catholic
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schools. The argument was altogether unnecessary, and it seems to me most offensive. I for one, as a Churchman, take the earliest opportunity of repudiating it.
I want to refer to the principles on which the new authority is to be constituted. Let me say that this debate, if it has done nothing else, has undoubtedly demonstrated the fact that no other plan except one on the lines of that put forward by the Government is at all possible at the present time. What has the opposition been throughout the whole of this debate? United in one idea only—that of opposing—but on no single principle put forward from those Benches have any two prominent men agreed. If there is one principle on which Catholic and Nonconformist, the friends of voluntary and board schools, and, in fact, nearly all others, are agreed up and down the country, it is that there must he one authority for all forms of education below university level, exercising jurisdiction in large areas and controlling all classes of schools. Even Free Church Council meetings adopt a policy of that character, though they may add that it should be popularly elected. Everybody who has gone into the subject with any care has come to the conclusion that there can be no progress, no equal opportunity for every child, no equity in the distribution of educational charges, until you have one authority. The right hon. Gentleman threw it all over with disdain; he kicked it in front of him as a principle not worthy of a second consideration. He condemned the Bill because it sought to give effect to that principle, and he went on afterwards to say that, admitting the principle, the Bill did not give effect to it. That struck me as a remarkable thing coming from a gentleman who presided over a Royal Commission on Education. The next note that struck me was in the forcible speech delivered by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division. He adopted a different idea. He was in favour of one authority, but that we had better get it in stages, that we ought to have an authority first for higher education, and that probably at a later date it should take charge of elementary education. But what happened from the

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seat immediately behind him when a former Bill was introduced? Because the Government of that day did not provide for both forms of education in one and the same measure, notice for the rejection of the Bill was given before the First Beading debate had expired. Day after day the Government was condemned up hill and down dale, in the House and out of it because the measure did not propose one authority for the whole, and now we have the Front Opposition Bench declaring that this is a preposterous scheme. I would ask any one who has listened to this debate from beginning to end to compare the speeches of the Member for South Aberdeen, the hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division, with that of the hon. Member for North Camberwell who laid down that you must have as the essential principle of any reform this one authority. With a conflict of that sort surely it is obvious to the House and the country that whatever be the merits or the demerits of this Bill there is no other scheme possible. If a Government were in office formed by Members from the Opposition side of the House with the right hon. Gentleman as one of its prominent Members he would be compelled to bring in a duplicate of this Bill. There is indeed no other solution of the question.
Let mo ask the House to come to close quarters with the question for a moment, to leave generalities and come to details, and to apply the principles of this Bill to a county, and see what are the conclusions you are driven to. Take, for example, the county of Northampton. In that county at the present moment, in addition to the technical authorities and others dealing with higher education, you have forty School Boards—not an excessively large number as counties go—and no less than twenty-three of those are exercising jurisdiction over populations of less than 1,000. There is one School Board in a district which has a population of loss than 250. This is surely carrying the principle of election to a farce. The election of these microscopic authorities, with next to no power and little or no responsibility, is a subject to which no responsible Minister can close his eyes. He must take steps for the removal of the smaller authorities. If you take away these twenty-three School
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Boards where the population is under 1,000 you cannot leave a void there. You have immediately to take in hand the remaining larger authorities and extend their boundaries and enlarge their powers, which you cannot do without first removing them. You have at once to sweep the whole country clear of the existing School Boards, even if you proposed to set up a universal School Board system, inasmuch as the School Boards must cover large areas. There is no need to enter into detail, but you cannot get good men and women for the work, you cannot put schools where they are wanted, you cannot give the children equal opportunity, and properly distribute the rate charges unless you have larger areas, and even the greatest partisans of the School Boards admit that you must first sweep the country clear of School Boards in order to put them up again. Certainly you must do so in the Administrative Counties, whatever may be done in the Boroughs.
If you go through this process in order to secure progress and some satisfactory system both of elementary and secondary education, you are brought face to face with the question—What are you going to put in the place of the existing authorities? Shall it be large School Boards elected ad hoc, or shall you come to the conclusion, as the Government has done, that it shall be the municipal authority? I have never said a word in this House in opposition to School Board work. Sometimes I have found myself at marked variance with the Vice-President of the Council on this very question. I am not blind, however, to the fact that a large amount of the friction existing in the country is due to the fact that one authority spends the money which the other authority has to levy I am perfectly certain that your Borough Council or County Council will carry on the work of education, both higher and elementary, with the efficiency which has marked the larger School Boards of the country. Why, the same gentlemen are on them very often. There sits one opposite—the Chairman of the Technical Committee and the Chairman of the School Board. In the eyes of some people he is a villain of the deepest dye as a Member of the County Council, and he is everything that is desirable as

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Chairman of the School Board. I cannot bring myself to take that view. You will get the best men in the County Council, and men who have not hitherto been brought into the County Council will be brought in. You will tap a new stratum of society, and, I venture to think this will be for the benefit of the ordinary administration of the Council as well as for the benefit of popular education. You will get these men brought into close touch with the duties they are called upon to discharge, and I feel confident that they will perform them well. There is no better educational authority in the whole country than the Technical Instruction Committee of the London County Council. Nobody has done better work with a smaller amount of self-advertising than that Committee. If that Committee and those of other County Councils can do their technical work well, I do not despair that when their powers are extended to other phases of educational life, they will discharge their work with the same zeal and the same determination, county against county, to make their own county as efficient as the nation would desire. A new idea has grown up in the popular mind. The education of a poor man's child is not now regarded as a charity to the child, or a gift to the family. The idea now is that the education of the poor is the preservation of the State, and we must teach these children in order that the nation may have the full benefit of their mental activity. It is national insurance. It is the development of the best wealth the country has, and with that view—a view which is growing widely throughout the country—I am quite certain that the County and Borough Councils will discharge their duty with efficiency and zeal. If the rating authority is to be the educational authority, that cannot be secured by the universal establishment of School Boards. I believe myself that no complete reform is possible until the administration of the local rates is placed in the hands of one body, and therefore, I am glad to find that the Government have placed education in the hands of the County and Borough Councils which have full control over all local government. It struck me that the hon. Member for North Camberwell was somewhat illogical, when he suggested that in
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some of the large boroughs the Schools Board should be allowed to remain, and that the Council should have its powers extended so as to control every form of higher education, because in the earlier part of his speech, my hon. friend declared that this Bill would be grotesque if the option were allowed to remain, and yet he is claiming that there should be option to continue two authorities. I should be prepared to go with him if he would give the people in these large boroughs the option to elect one authority which should take over both Higher and Elementary Education, but I cannot consent to any option which would leave Higher Education in the hands of one body, and Elementary Education in the hands of another. The Government Bill proposes to reduce the number of educational authorities from something over 3,000 to 328. That reduction alone will make for efficiency. It will be easier for the Board of Education to deal with 328 authorities, than to carry on correspondence with 3,000 authorities. It may be that we have included some boroughs and urban districts which are too small, but that is a detail on which I will not now touch. I think that in a small country like ours we can carry on our educational work perfectly with something like 320 authorities.
A phase of educational work which has not been referred to in the course of the debate, I will touch upon, because I know that outside there is a very keen interest in it accompanied with some fear. I refer to the large educational domain which is under the entire control of the private schoolmaster. A phrase was dropped by the Vice President of the Council which I cordially endorse. It was to the effect that much may be done by organisation without the expenditure of any money at all. The Bill gives power to the County Councils to supervise private schools, and few who have not thought of the matter can understand how much benefit that will confer on the country. If you give people to understand that a certain private school is efficient, and that another is not, you give a chance of selection to parents who can afford to pay £30, £40, or £50 for the education of their children, but who cannot afford

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to send them to a public school. They will have the opportunity of selecting an efficient private school rather than one in which more injury than good is conferred on their children. Any one may start a private school and call it a secondary institution or college. These grow up like mushrooms, especially in seaside places, and often die as rapidly; and parents too often find that the children sent to them have been ruined. Of course there are many good private schools, but my point is not whether they are good or bad, but that at present there is no power in the local authority to test their efficiency. The power given to the local authority by the Bill to give certificates of efficiency to private schools will, in my opinion, be of incalculable benefit.
I listened with keen interest to the masterly analysis which the hon. Member for East Mayo gave of the religious question. I never heard the Nonconformist position more completely laid bare than by the hon. Gentleman. Religious liberty has been the constant cry of Nonconformists, but in its application to school life that liberty does not exist. I most fully concur in the statement that there is as much dogmatic religious teaching in the board schools as in the Church of England, schools. It is merely a question of degree. I doubt even if there is much in the argument of degree, for the principles of the Christian faith taught in the board schools are as repulsive and objectionable to the Atheist and the Jew as the religion taught in the voluntary schools is to those who oppose the Bill. This question will never be settled until freedom of religious thought becomes accepted in fact as well as in theory. I know what the voluntary school is, and what the Sunday school is; and I insist that, notwithstanding all your excellent Sunday schools, you will be committing a crime if you banish religious teaching from the ordinary day schools, Sunday schools, no matter how efficient, can never make up for the teaching which is given in religious instruction in the day school day by day. No one knows, except those who have tried it, what it is for the ordinary teacher in a day school to be recognised
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by the children as the one who should, and who does, give religious instruction as the first part of every day's programme. The influence on the child's life brought into contract with such a teacher is greater than many can imagine, and it would be nothing short of a national disaster to banish that influence from the day schools of the country. Nonconformists allow without protest a treasury grant of 37s. per child to be given to Anglican, Catholic, Wesleyan, and board schools alike. [An HON. MEMBER: No.] Well, I never hear any protest except when an Education Bill comes along. They allow 37s. per child to be given to schools over which there is next to no control, and yet they make a great pother about an additional grant of 10s. per child to bring these schools up to the level of the board schools, when in return these denominational schools are to be brought under absolute control. I know what the voluntary school is. At the present moment what happens is this—The Board of Education sends down the money voted by Parliament direct from the paymaster's office to the managers, and so long as they conform to the regulations of the Board of Education no one can say yea or nay as to how that money is spent. For who is thereto check them? The Inspector of the Education Department may look in occasionally, but very rarely does he trouble about the finance of the school. He is too busy in testing the educational status of the school. It is true that the accounts have to be audited, but the auditor is selected by the managers. Probably he is a bank manager, a man whose honesty is undoubted; but he is altogether unfamiliar with school accounts, and has no power to examine witnesses on oath, or to go behind the vouchers submitted to him by the managers I venture to say that if any gentleman who thinks that there will be no control over dominational schools under this Bill, hands me over his income, I will undertake to put him under most efficient control. The man who holds the purse is the man who can exercise the control. The Board of Education has been able to exercise such control as it has exercised because it had the purse strings in its fingers. The local authority will hold the purse in the future. Under this Bill not

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one single penny-piece would the managers of Voluntary Schools receive from the Board of Education in the future. Every half-penny of the Parliamentary Grant, Fee Grant, and Aid Grant would be paid on account of that School to the Local Authority, who would afterwards pay it out in accordance with conditions made by themselves.
But that is not all. I can recollect only a few years back, some of us would have given much for the audit in this Bid. It will not in future be the audit of a friendly bank manager, but the audit of the Local Government Board, and a satisfactory explanation will have to be given on every penny that is spent. That is not all. I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth deriding just now the one-third representation on the managing body of these schools. It appeared to me that he himself was at that moment the exemplification of one man sent as the representative of a minority. He is a representative of the minority in this House, but he takes every opportunity of disclosing to the public anything which he thinks may be evil. Put one man not afraid to open his mouth, one man who is determined to know what is going on, on the managing body, and he will prevent anything wrong. If I may say so, it is absurd to start with the assumption that the money of these 14,000 schools is being misspent. There may be a case here or there in a half a dozen years where evil has been done, but in the great majority of cases we know what happens. When there is a deficiency the managers put their hands in their pockets and make it up, and I shall be delighted when repairs are required in a denominational school if the new managers will respond as readily as the parsons have done. The fact is that one man acting as the representative of the County Council can prevent evil, and these schools will find themselves very effectively under control. What, therefore, are we getting? By expenditure from local rates, children in the voluntary schools are now to have the opportunities that have been enjoyed by board school children for thirty years. Persecution does not prevail to-day, yet thousands and tens of thousands have been penalised year in and year out on account of their faith. Now these children are to have equal
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opportunities with the children attending board schools, and it is time that they had them, not in the interests of the children, not in the interests of any section, but in the interests of the nation. What has been happening is just this—we, in our blindness and sectarian passion have robbed the country of the best fruits of the training of over three millions of children year after year. It is asserted, again and again, that so long as these schools continue in their poverty there can be no progress. A large number of School Board elections are fought on the cry that the School Boards must not go too fast in order that their schools may not outpace the voluntary schools. Those who assert their love for educational progress are amongst those who would perpetuate this system, and keep the voluntary schools as they are, rather than recognise that people have religious scruples. Reciprocity cannot be all on one side. You cannot expect Anglicans to go on paying for board schools without receiving just and fair treatment themselves. Our people have paid readily and willingly the School Board rate, but they bitterly resent the fact that they have to pay for the maintainance of a principle which has been already granted to every other denomination if they care to use it. The Bill will confer a long delayed measure of justice on these schools.
With regard to the cost which will be thrown on the ratepayers, I cannot close my eyes to it; no one can. It is right we should face it boldly. Whether considered from the point of view of industrial supremacy, or the higher standard of living among our people, if we are to have education it must be paid for. Under present conditions a very large and disproportionate share will be thrown on the local rates and will fall very heavily indeed on some districts. But it is absurd to suggest that it will mean a jumping up of 5d. or 6d. in the £1 in any district at once. The voluntary schools will not be brought up to the level of the board schools all at once; the process will be gradual, but no doubt in from six to ten years you will have in some districts a rate very much higher than it is now. In fact, the more a district has neglected its duty in the past, the more heavily it

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will have to pay, and for that I am not altogether sorry. In a district where a½d. School Board rate has served in the past, there will in future have to be a rate of 6d. or 1s. In my own district we have a rate of 2s. 8½d. for School Board purposes alone, and we anticipate that when we take over 7,000 more children, our education rate will run to 3s. 1½d. in the £1. If we add to that a rate of 2d. for higher education we are face to face with a School Board rate of 3s. 3d. or 3s. 4d. in the £1, and that in a populous but poor and heavily rated district. I will not elaborate the suggestion now, but, in my opinion, effect will have to be given by the Government to the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, and the maintenance of public education will have to be regarded as a national service. If these children are being taught in order that the nation may have the benefit of their brains, the nation must pay for the work. It is as much a national protection as the Army or the Navy, but whoever heard of local contributions, much less voluntary subscriptions, towards the support of the Army or Navy. Education is our great army in the march of progress, and it will have to be supported, like the army which is sent out to slaughter, by the National Exchequer, rather than by means of local contributions. We shall hear more of this question before the Bill is through Committee. The great rating authorities are already realising what their position will be under the Bill. They are struggling between two opinions, whether to see that the children are well taught, or to protest against the Bill in an endeavour to save the rates. I believe, however, that they will come heartily to the conclusion that, cost what it may, the children must be well taught, and afterwards they will make an appeal, which I do not think that Parliament can long resist, that the localities shall provide the buildings and maintain them in a state of efficiency, using them as a local asset, and that the cost of instructing the children, of forming and developing their character, and making them good and profitable citizens, shall he paid by the National Exchequer. It will mean a shifting of the burden, but it will not mean a diminution of the burden. It will mean the transfer from reality to personality
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of a part of the burden of this work, and I see no reason why personality should not pay its fair share. I hope I have examined this Bill not as a Party politician. In this House and out of it I have always refused to look at education from a Party standpoint, just as I can never bring myself to look upon it from a sectarian standpoint. To my mind the immediate effect of this Bill will be the strengthening of the county authorities and the simplification of local government; it will mean effective control over local expenditure; and, above and beyond all, it will mean equal opportunities for every child, whether in a large town or a village, whether in a mansion or a cottage; in fact it will mean a chance for brains wherever they may be found. It will mean a more equitable distribution of the charges for education than prevails at the present time, and in my view also, it is a prelude, and an essential prelude, to the nationalisation of education charges. As such I warmly support the Bill.
It being half-past Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

EVENING SITTING.

  ORDER IN DEBATE—SUSPENSION OF MR. DILLON (20TH MARCH)—ACTION OF MR. SPEAKER.
  MR. MOONEY: In rising to propose the Motion which stands in my name, I will preface the few remarks which I shall have to address to the House, by stating that, as an individual, I regret the necessity which has arisen for any such Motion to be made. At the same time, in the opinion of the Party which I represent, that necessity has arisen, and, therefore, while we as individuals regret the cause, still we would be wanting in courage of our convictions if, when we were convinced that it was our duty to bring forward this Motion, we shrank from doing so owing to any personal feeling. Now I shall submit, and submit very briefly, the grounds upon which we have acted in this matter. The step which we have taken is an unusual one, but I submit,

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  not unprecedented. I can fully understand why that should be so. If I sat here as an English Member, I would, I am certain, be as deeply imbued with the sentiments of respect, and I may say veneration, for the old traditions and ancient glories of this House, and, above all, with that sentiment of respect for the authority of the Chair, with which hon. Members who represent English constituencies are, and I think, rightly filled. Hon. Gentlemen opposite who think that we are violating the old traditions of this House by this Motion, should remember that on the last occasion, when such a Motion, impugning the conduct of the Speaker, was brought forward and debated, it was brought forward and debated in a purely English House of Commons, when Members representing Irish constituencies were, where they should be now, in their own House of Parliament conducting their own affairs. That, Sir, was in the year 1770, and I find in Hansard, that, in the course of the debate, Mr. Grenville said—
  "No Gentleman in the House was ever allowed to use disrespectful words to another, without apology."
  We submit that on the 20th of March the Colonial Secretary was permitted so to do. I do not wish to use strong or un-Parliamentary language, but I submit upon behalf of over eighty Members of this House, that the words used by the Colonial Secretary were disorderly in the highest degree. We do not say that the language used in retort by the hon. Member for East Mayo was Parliamentary; he could perhaps have conveyed the same thing without coming under your ruling. For instance, I find that in 1887, the Member for West Belfast, speaking of the then Under Secretary for Ireland (Colonel King-Harman) informed the House that—
  "The hon. and gallant Gentleman laboured under a natural incapacity to make an accurate statement on any matter of fact,"
  a statement for which he was not, and apparently could not, be called to order. Then, as now, the sentiment was the same, the language in which it was clothed being more in accord with Parliamentary usage. As I have said, we do not allege that the hon. Member for East Mayo was in order, but what we do say is, that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham was guilty of a grave piece of disorder, and that thereby the
  1022
  hon. Member for East Mayo was betrayed into using language for which you, Sir, named him to this House. And we further allege that you were in point of fact in error in naming to the House the hon. Member for East Mayo. We allege, and I will refer you in a moment to a case which proves our contention, that the proper course which you should have adopted was to have called upon the right hon. Member for West Birmingham to withdraw the disorderly and inaccurate statement which betrayed the hon. Member for East Mayo into making a reply which was not couched in Parliamentary language.
  Now, we are well aware that the position which you hold is a most difficult and trying one. We are aware that you are often called upon, without a moment's notice to pledge yourself to some or other cause of action, we know that you are called upon to remember all the innumerable precedents which have been laid down by your predecessors in that chair. You yourself, Sir, have stated that you "are only clothed in a limited infallibility." We agree with you, and we say that on this occasion your infallibility was suffering from a temporary eclipse. We say that the proper course for you to have pursued would have been to have called upon the Colonial Secretary to withdraw the allegation he made against the hon. Member for East Mayo, it you had so requested him, the incident would have closed. Now that is our charge, and I shall refer you to precedent for everything I have said. First, I stated that the language used by the Colonial Secretary was disorderly. He (the Colonial Secretary) said that the hon. Member for East Mayo was a good judge of traitors. That was I submit by your own ruling an unduly offensive remark, and he should have been called upon to withdraw it. I find in Hansard that on 8th August, 1900, the hon. Member for South Donegal, speaking of the Colonial Secretary, said he (the Colonial Secretary) was a man of honour—he was an expert in honour—Then you rose and said—
  "Order, order! The hon. Member must not use an expression of that sort. He must not indulge in offensive personal recriminations."
  The hon. Member replied—
  "What did I say."

  1023
  And you said—
  "The hon. Member said sarcastically that the right hon. Gentleman was an expert in honour. He must know that such an expression practically accused him of dishonour."
  How are we to reconcile that with your ruling on the 20th March? On the 8th August you decide that a Member sitting on this side of the House used a disorderly expression when he gave it that the right hon. Gentleman was an expert in honour, i.e., a good judge of honour. On the 20th March a right hon. Gentleman speaking from the Treasury Bench is allowed to charge an hon. Member on this side with being "a good judge of traitors." We say that the expression was grossly disorderly, and we rely on your ruling on the 8th August, 1900.
  Now as to our allegation that the proper course to pursue would have been for you to have called upon the Colonial Secretary to withdraw his offensive and inaccurate remark. I refer to Hansard of 15th April, 1887, and I will read to the House what took place on that occasion—
  "On April 5th, 1887, the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh accused certain associates of the ban. Member for Cork of being traitors and murderers. The hon. Member for North Louth then said, 'If the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers to me he is a liar,' and on refusing to withdraw the expression he was named and suspended by Mr. Speaker Peel. Afterwards Mr. Sexton said of the hon. and gallant Member: 'You are a wilful and cowardly liar, and if I had you outside the doors of this House I would dash the statement down your throat and thrash you within an inch of your life.' Mr. Sexton was called upon to withdraw, but he refused to do so unless the original charge were also withdrawn. Finally, after some further discussion. Mr. Speaker Peel said: 'I must call upon the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh to withdraw the expression which was the original cause of the disturbance.' Colonel Saunderson withdrew the expression; Mr. Sexton withdrew the words he had used, and so the incident came to an end."
  Now, Sir, the House will see that Mr. Speaker Peel, realising the mistake he had made, owned it, and called upon the hon. and gallant Member who was the original cause of the disturbance to withdraw the expression which drew from the Member for West Belfast, language far stronger than that which was used on the present occasion. That, Sir, is our case, and we have brought on this
  1024
  Motion not from any feeling of disrespect of the authority of the Chair or personal animus to its present occupant, but in order to emphasise what in the opinion of over eighty Members of this House, was an error, and to protect a Member of the minority (a body whose rights are daily becoming more and more encroached upon) from an imputation which was, we submit, disorderly', improper, and one which, if it had been allowed to pass unchallenged, would have been dangerous to the true interests of this House, and to those who do not happen at the moment to be in the majority.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterdesire to second this Motion, not because I ford): I think that I can add very much, or indeed anything, to the admirable speech made by my hon. friend, but because I desire in the most formal way possible to accept responsibility for this Motion, and to emphasise this fact, that it is a Motion brought forward, not on the responsibility of an individual Member or even on the responsibility of a small group of Members of this House, but that this is a Motion which has been deliberately placed on the Notice Paper, after full consideration by a distinct political Party in this House consisting of eighty Members. It seems to me that the House will attach for that reason very much more importance to this Motion than if it emanated from an individual. From every point of view the situation is a serious one, in which the large body of eighty Members find themselves aggrieved by the action of an officer of the House of Commons, and who find themselves bound to bring that action to the test of discussion and a division. The fact that this Party is in a permanent minority of the House and is therefore always at the mercy of a hostile majority, and the fact that that Party consists of representatives sent here by the people of Ireland against their will in pursuance of the Act of Union, in which they have never acquiesced, are sufficient to compel the House to give a very careful consideration to the complaint proposed in the Motion before the House.
  My hon. friend has alluded to the fact that in the very recent history of

  1025
  the House there have not been many Motions of this character, but the right to question or discuss any ruling of the Chair is properly inherent in the House of Commons, and I may be allowed to say that there is no Member of the House who recognises more fully than I do the propriety of investing the occupant of the Chair with very large, with enormous, and indeed sometimes with arbitrary powers. Sir, the hon. Members who sit in this quarter of the House are men who believe in representative institutions. They are men who believe in free Parliaments, and of course we recognise that no deliberative Assembly could possibly exist unless its President had got these powers, and the decisions of that President, whether right or wrong—for the moment, at any rate—are accepted by the House. But, Sir, such power as that vested in the Chair would be absolutely intolerable unless there existed in the House itself the power of reviewing under proper conditions those decisions, and, if they think fit, of differing from the conclusions come to. If no such power existed of questioning the decision given by the Chair, and enforced, whether right or wrong, for the moment, then freedom of discussion would be a thing of the past. But, from the earliest times in the history of this Assembly, this inherent power of the House to discuss under proper conditions the rulings of the Chair, and to differ from those rulings if it so desired, has always been recognised. It is recognised to the fullest extent in the Standing Orders of the House. There are three things which those Standing Orders clearly lay down. The first is that the decision of the Chair at the moment it is given, whether it be right or wrong, must be obeyed, and must be uphold by the House; the second thing is that that decision cannot be called in question or discussed, either on a Motion for adjournment or any casual or haphazard occasion; but the third thing that is laid down in the Standing Orders of the House is that it is within the light of any individual Member of the House—much more within the right of a large independent political Party—upon due notice given and by a substantive Motion, to bring forward for review any ruling of the Chair that is thought to be wrong, and ask for the decision of the House of
  1026
  Commons upon it. It is in pursuance of the inherent right which has been exercised in the past, and which must be maintained if there is to be freedom of speech and freedom of action here, that my hon. friend, on behalf of all his colleagues, has put this notice on the Paper.
  Sir, we hold the view very strongly that upon March 20th last Mr. Speaker did not protect, from grossly offensive and therefore from grossly un-Parliamentary insinuations, a Member of this House. The fact that that Member, the hon. Member for East Mayo, belonged to a minority advocating views which are intensely unpopular with the majority of this House, and the fact that his assailant was a prominent member of the Government and a prominent leader of the dominant majority in this House, in our view, greatly aggravate the case. I desire to read from Hansard a little more fully than did my hon. friend exactly what took place. In the course of his remarks the Colonial Secretary alluded to the fact that certain burghers in the Transvaal were now fighting on the side of England, and he went on to say—
  "You may read it in a very interesting communication which General Vilonel has addressed to General De Wet or General Botha, in which he says that the enemies of the country are those who are continuing a hopeless struggle."
  And, Sir, the hon. Member for East Mayo interrupted and said—
  "He is a traitor."
  The Colonial Secretary said—
  "Ah! the hon. Member is a good judge of traitors."
  The hon. Member for East Mayo then appealed to the Chair. He made an appeal to the Chair which, in my experience of this House, has never before remained unanswered. He appealed to the Chair for a ruling on a point of order. He said—
  "I want to know first whether that is a Parliamentary expression?"
  Mr. Speaker then said—
  "The hon. Member himself interrupted the right hon. Gentleman by crying out that soldiers serving under the British Crown were traitors. I deprecate the interruption, and I deprecate the retort. If the hon. Member will not interrupt, he will not be subject to retort."
  I hope the House will believe me when I say that I am anxious to put my views before the House with as little offence

  1027
  to anybody as possible, and I will certainly not be guilty of imparting any heat to this discussion, if I can avoid it. The first thing I desire to point out is this—that when an hon. Member rose and asked a ruling of the Chair on a point of order, and asked the Chair to rule whether a certain expression was in order or not, he got no answer to his question, and Mr. Speaker gave no ruling. Mr. Speaker did not answer the question which was put, as to whether the expression was a Parliamentary one or not, and I have to repeat what I have said, that in my experience of this House, I have never known any man, not even the humblest Member of this House, who, on a point of order, asking a question from Mr. Speaker, did not receive a reply. The second point I desire to make is this, that, instead of giving an answer to the question of my hon. friend, instead of giving a ruling upon this point of order which was raised, Mr. Speaker dealt in his reply entirely with what he regarded as the provocation which he thought had evoked the expression from the Colonial Secretary. Allow me to say, Sir, in my view, that if the Colonial Secretary's expression was in itself disorderly, no provocation would justify it according to the Rules of the House, and according to the decision of the Chair in similar cases in the past. But I put that on one side for the moment, and I say that there was no provocation in this interruption. In the first place, Mr. Speaker, there may have been some noise in the House. Mr. Speaker, apparently, did not very accurately hear what my hon. friend said, because in his statement Mr. Speaker said—
  "The hon. Member cried out that, soldiers who were serving under the British Crown were traitors."
  Sir, my hon. friend said nothing of the kind.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to explain. What I heard, as I thought, the hon. Member say was—"They are traitors," and that accounts for the words quoted being used. I thought he was referring to what the Colonial Secretary had stated about soldiers and about General Vilonel. He referred only
  1028
  to one apparently. It would not make any difference in what I afterwards said, but I wish to explain.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I have heard that statement with great gratification. It bears exactly upon the point I was putting. [Laughter.] Hon. Members who laugh must really exercise a little more self-restraint and patience The point I was putting was that Mr. Speaker, owing to noise in the House or otherwise, and not accurately hearing what my hon. friend said—and Mr. Speaker has now confirmed that view of mine—misunderstood the exact words. My hon. friend did not say that soldiers serving under the Crown were traitors—he said that a particular man, Vilonel, was a traitor. I submit that that is not an un-Parliamentary expression. Whatever view may be taken of General Vilonel, no man will pretend that for any hon. Member of this House to call General Vilonel a traitor was an unparliamentary expression. The interruption was not, I further say, an offensive interruption to the Colonial Secretary. I cannot see for the life of me how accusing General Vilonel of being a traitor was any personal offence to the Colonial Secretary. And further than that, I desire to say in one sentence, the statement of my hon. friend in reference to General Vilonel, was absolutely true. I have here an extract from the report of the trial of General Vilonel for treason. Let the House remember, General Vilonel was not an Englishman, nor a Britisher—he was a general in the Boer Army. He was tried by a properly-constituted Boer military tribunal, presided over by Judge Hertzog, for treason, and he was found guilty and sentenced to five years hard labour. From the evidence it appeared that he not only surrendered himself, but endeavoured to induce others to take the same course. In pronouncing sentence upon him, Judge Hertzog declared that so long as the history of the States could be read, the name of Vilonel would remain a blot upon its pages. Therefore I make this point—that the interruption of my hon. friend was not in itself any contravention of the Rules of Order, that it was not, in itself, in the slightest degree offensive to the Colonial

  1029
  Secretary, and that it was true, and therefore I contend respectfully that there was no just provocation for the very offensive remark flung across the House by the Colonial Secretary. I would go back for a moment, and say that, even if I was wrong, and if my hon. friend had made use of an irrelevant observation that was offensive and provocative, that would not justify the Colonial Secretary using an expression which was in itself disorderly.
  Therefore, Sir, we come to the question—Was the statement of the Colonial Secretary in itself disorderly. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think there can be no question that saying that a man is "a good judge of traitors" is a most offensive observation, and an observation which is a most offensive one necessarily in a Parliamentary one. I might read from Sir Erskine May's book, in which he details a number of expressions that are un-Parliamentary, not one of them half as offensive as that used by the Colonial Secretary, and he winds up by saying—
  "That any contemptuous or insulting language of any kind is unparliamentary."
  and then he gives as instances such expressions as "calumnious charge," "dodging," "factious opposition," "jockeying," "deliberately raising a false issue," "saying a man was a hypocritical lover of liberty." Now, what was the meaning of the Colonial Secretary's words, "The hon. Member is a good judge of traitors?" I don't suppose anybody—least of all the Colonial Secretary, who, whatever else we may think of him, is a good fighter—he would be the last man in the world to get up and say that his words did not convey the plain and clear insinuation that my hon. friend was a traitor. My hon. friend who moved this Resolution quoted the case of the Member for East Donegal. When he said to the Colonial Secretary—it is unfortunate the Colonial Secretary appears so often in these transactions—that he was "an expert in honour," he was at once, and most properly, called to order; and you, sir, declared that he should withdraw that statement, because it contained an insinuation that the Colonial Secretary was devoid of honour. Surely the statement, "You are a good judge of traitors," conveys a clear insinuation that the man to whom it was addressed was a
  1030
  traitor. I hope the House will not decide that this is a Parliamentary expression, if it is a Parliamentary expression, then I take it to mean my hon. friend would have been in order in saying to the Colonial Secretary, "You are a good judge of liars," or that it would be in order for an hon. Member to say to another, "You are a good judge of thieves"; and there is no end to the possibility of the things that might come within the Rules of Order if this expression is to receive the sanction of the House to-night; and I cannot help thinking that if you, Sir, maintain the position that this phrase was in order, it will be very difficult in future to avoid scenes in this House if hon. Members are to be allowed to bandy such words as "traitor" at one another across the floor of the House.
  The view that we take is that on this occasion a woeful error of judgment was committed by the Speaker, that the error of judgment led immediately to consequences which, I suppose, everybody deplored, and one which certainly did not redound to the credit of this House; and I say that if it is once established—I for one hope it will never be established—that there is to be one Rule of Order for a member of a majority in this House, and another Rule of Order for a member of a minority; one Rule of Order for a man who is expressing popular views, and another Rule of Order for a man who is expressing unpopular views; one Rule of Order for a Minister of the Crown speaking from the Government Bench, and another Rule of Order for an independent Member opposing the Government; one Rule of Order for a British Minister and another Rule for an Irish Member—I say if that is once established, as I hope it never will be, in this House, then it is clear that this Assembly will suffer irreparable injury; and even, taking a wider view, it is clear that representative institutions themselves will suffer. I, Sir, take the gravest possible view of the question raised by this Motion. I would have been glad, indeed, if some other means than this, which we have been forced to take, could have been found to remove the grievous sense of wrong and injustice under which we labour at this moment, and I can assure hon. Members it was

  1031
  not without anxious thought and consideration that we made up our minds to avail ourselves of our lights in this matter, and to move this Motion. Even now I am not without some hope that something may be said to assure the House that in the future those strict Rules of Order which are invariably enforced against us will be used to protect us from insult in this House. Should we unfortunately be wrong in this, should we unfortunately be disappointed in this, I hope, at any rate, this incident will serve to emphasise the position Ireland occupies in this foreign Parliament to which by superior force she is obliged to send her representatives. I beg, Sir, to second the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That during the sitting of the House on Thursday, the 20th day of March, the Member for East Mayo, interrupting the Member for West Birmingham in reference to General Vilonel, said that General Vilonel was a traitor, whereupon the Member for West Birmingham said that the Member for East Mayo was a good judge of traitors; that the Member for East Mayo thereupon inquired of Mr. Speaker whether that was a Parliamentary expression, to which Mr. Speaker replied that the hon. Member had himself interrupted the right hon. Gentleman by crying out that soldiers serving under the British Crown were traitors, that he deprecated interruptions and deprecated retorts, and if the hon. Member did not interrupt he would not be subject to retorts; and that, in the opinion of this House, Mr. Speaker ought to have declared the said language of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham un-Parliamentary and should have required its withdrawal."—(Mr. Mooney.)
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I suppose we all have to admit that the power which the hon. Member who moved this Amendment and his seconder have thought fit to exercise on this occasion is one which ought not to be withdrawn from this House. I suppose we also have to admit that we must retain
  1032
  in our hands the power of expressing our opinion on any ruling which the occupant of that Chair may make. While that general proposition would, I suppose, be accepted in all quarters of the House, I doubt whether there is anybody not sitting in that particular part of the House from which this Motion has proceeded who does not think that the present Resolution is a grave abuse of the privileges which we possess. It is more than eighty years, I believe, since any Resolution of a character comparable with the present Resolution has been brought up for discussion before the House. At all events, I know of no case, and such researches as I have been able to make into the subject have revealed none. What was the last case? The last case was one in which the Speaker, taking up a Bill to the Bar of the House of Lords, made a speech at the Bar against the Bill. I can well understand that was a provocation which might well induce this House to take some notice of the action of its president. But what, is the present case? The Speaker for the time being, whoever he may be, is obliged constantly to make a decision upon the spur of the moment as to the precise character of expressions that fall in the heat of debate from one member or another. In a large class of these expressions, of course, the decision is obvious; the Rule is clear, the line of demarcation cannot be mistaken. But there must be, and there is, a large margin on which the right decision of the moment depends upon the character of what has preceded the remark. It does not depend on the mere sentence, the mere phrase taken in its isolation, but it depends upon the judgment of the Chair as to the effect which the expression may have on the general course of the debate. And I should say, on the general question, that it is the gravest and grossest abuse of the privileges of the House that we should be brought down, that the House should have to assemble, to defend the Speaker against a charge of having given a decision at such a moment and on such a class of question which happens to be distasteful to a certain section of the House. It is manifest if this is to be a precedent for our ordinary practice, if every Member of the House who can get

  1033
  a seconder is to ballot for a day in order to discuss whether the Speaker was right or wrong upon some question which in the nature of the case is doubtful, you not only do your best to bring the authority of the Chair into discredit, but you are lowering the whole character of this Assembly. For my own part I should make these observations, and I should vote as I am going to vote, even if I were of opinion that the judgment of the Speaker on such an occasion and in such a case was one which after a week's quiet reflection is one which I should not have adopted myself. But after the speeches made by the two hon. Members who have just sat down I feel I must go beyond that, and I am bound not merely to point out to the House that it is their undoubted duty to support the Chair in this case, but also there is, as far as my own personal judgment goes, not the smallest criticism to be passed on the decision to which objection is taken.
  I have listened to the case made by the mover and seconder of this Motion, and as far as I can judge they try to base their case on the decision given by the Speaker in a previous session when the Member for South Donegal in the course of a speech declared that my right hon. friend who sits near me was "an expert in honour." I have just refreshed my memory with that speech, and anyone who chooses to wade through the invective in which the hon. Member delights on these occasions will see that he did nothing less than charge my right hon. friend with perjury. I imagine even in the view of the mover and seconder the accusation of perjury is one which they would regard as out of order, and which ought to be withdrawn as soon as made. I would notice also that that statement was made by the hon. Member for South Donegal without the least provocation—no one interrupted, or thought it worth while to interrupt him in the flow of his eloquence on that occasion—and that he made it as it were in cold blood and with the distinct and obvious intention of fixing this charge of perjury upon my right hon. friend.
  What were the circumstances in the case which hon. Members allege afford a fruitful and instructive parallel to the incident I have described? My right hon. friend was making a speech upon South Africa. I will venture to say that
  1034
  in that speech there was nothing said offensive to any Member of the House or to any section of the House. He was not making an attack on the Irish Members in general: he was not making an attack on the Member for East Mayo in particular, nor was there the smallest reference to him. My right hon. friend was referring to a certain burgher general who had given in his allegiance to the British Crown, and who, I believe, was actually engaged in military operations on the side of the British Crown. Thereupon the hon. Member, without having, as far as I can see, the smallest provocation, personal or party, in this connection, chose to interrupt my right hon. friend by saying that this Boer general was a traitor. It was not an un-Parliamentary interruption, but it was undoubtedly an offensive interruption. It was an interruption which carried with it, and was intended to carry with it, condemnation of a man fighting for the British Crown and seining under the British Crown. Then my right hon. friend, not unreasonably provoked by this interruption, observed that the hon. Member was a good judge of traitors. I understand that is regarded by hon. Members opposite as being a parallel and equivalent charge to the charge made by the hon. Member for South Donegal that my right hon. friend was guilty of perjury. That is assented to, do I understand?
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Wait a while.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I rejoice to think that having a knowledge of traitors is regarded as being so offensive by hon. Members opposite. They certainly have occasionally employed phrases which would have implied to the careless hearer that they did not take so grave a view of the charge of disloyalty as it now appears they do. A traitor, I believe, is legally defined as "one who gives aid and comfort to the King's enemies." I heard with the utmost satisfaction from those Benches that they regard no charge as more offensive than that of giving aid and comfort to the King's enemies. I would very earnestly beg them in these circumstances to weigh their phrases with more care, because I remember that the hon. Member for East Mayo told us in this House that he was thoroughly disloyal, and I also

  1035
  remember a speech made by him in Glasgow in which he admitted that he was not loyal. Those are phrases liable to misconstruction; and those who are so profoundly concerned lest anything should be stated suggestive of their disloyalty really ought, I think, to weigh their sentences and balance their rhetoric in a more careful spirit.
  I have endeavoured to make these controversial remarks as inoffensive as I could, and I do not mean to dwell further on that aspect of the case, because there is an incomparably more important aspect of the case on which we have to decide than the peculiar complexion of the patriotism or loyalty of any section of the House, viz., the position of the Chair. What are we asked to decide upon tonight? The hon. Gentleman who moved, and the hon. Gentleman who seconded, this Motion would have us believe that the point we have to decide tonight is whether or not a particular phrase, thrown out in the heat of debate, was or was not a Parliamentary expression. That is not what we have to decide. What has been moved tonight is nothing more nor less than a vote of censure on Mr. Speaker. And whom has it been moved by? I listened with an astonishment bordering on absolute amazement to some of the phrases that fell from the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down, lie would almost have had us believe that he and his friends in this House belong to an oppressed minority, and that, while a licence of expression was permitted to Gentlemen sitting above the gangway on that side of the House and to Gentlemen sitting on this side of the House, no similar licence was allowed to Gentlemen sitting on the Irish Benches. I appeal to everybody whether, in relation to those expressions uttered in the heat of debate, hon. Gentlemen from Ireland are not the spoilt children of the House. I have been a, Member of the House under three successive occupants of that Chair, and all of them have felt, and I doubt not they have rightly felt, that the special circumstances of the Nationalist Members may render it expedient, possibly just, that they should be permitted a licence in debate which certainly is not tolerated,
  1036
  and ought not to be, and never has been tolerated, in other Members of the House. They always tell us that they come here as the unwilling representatives of a hostile member of the Empire. They come here, therefore, with no great love for this Assembly, and professing no great love for this Assembly—in whose honour, however, they affect to speak tonight. It is their duty, perhaps, to discuss many questions of acute and heated controversy connected with the government of their country. They are themselves of a fiery, passionate, and excitable disposition, and I, at all events, do not dissent from the view that a less rigid measure of discipline may occasionally be meted out to them than is proper to the colder temperament of the majority. But, Sir, it is an outrage that Gentlemen who have been so treated, not merely by the present occupant of the Chair, but by his predecessors, should come down to this House in the garb of the oppressed, telling us that they have not the liberty of speech given to Gentlemen above the gangway on that side of the House or to Gentlemen on this side of the House, or that they are not allowed that free expression of opinion which is given in such large measure to ourselves, and to pose as the oppressed martyrs of a small minority. I cannot but think that on sober consideration they will feel that of all charges that can be brought, will not say against the Chair, but against the majority of this House, the charge I have just mentioned is that which has least foundation, least justification, least plausibility in the everyday life of this House, and I speak to Gentlemen who have heard these debates on all subjects, Irish and British, for many years past. It is really more than any patience can easily tolerate to hear the hon. Gentleman whose friends have occasionally abused to the utmost, as I think, the licence of this House, tell us that he belongs to an oppressed minority.
  The occasion on which we have met tonight is in itself a, petty one—a few sentences, cast across the floor of the House, upon a matter which has almost passed out of memory. But in the vote we have to give tonight a much larger

  1037
  issue is involved than whether an expression used by this or that Member of the House is one that was wise or unwise, in conformity or no in conformity with ordinary Parliamentary practice. We have come down here to support the Chair, to give it that strength and confidence without which Parliamentary debates are impossible and free institutions would be a vain imagining. And I earnestly trust that every Member of this House, be his views what they may about General Vilonel, or the Boer War, or the merits of any controversy of any political question, will join together and go into the same lobby in support of the only principle on which free debate is possible—namely, that Mr. Speaker, as long as he exercises with impartiality the great duties and heavy responsibilities with which we have entrusted him, has, and ought to have, our ungrudging and our loyal support.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: In the few words I feel it my duty to address to the House I shall endeavour, not to imitate, but to avoid, the tone which has been exhibited by the First Lord of the Treasury. The question which has been brought before us, and upon which we shall vote if it goes to a division, is in reality a small and narrow one, and I cannot see any occasion for the heat the right hon. Gentleman has introduced into the discussion. There was only one passage in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in which I entirely concur, and that was the passage in which he said that we should settle this matter with no regard whatever to the character and history of General Vilonel, or the merits of the Boer War, or any extraneous subject of that kind. Sir, what we have to decide presents itself to my mind as a simple question. Mr. Speaker, the House has the most perfect confidence in the impartiality and the good judgment with which you preside over our deliberations. We recognise that it rests entirely on your discretion, sometimes in a hurried moment, to decide the course which you think it would be best to take to meet or deal with the occasions or tendencies of undue heat or irregularity in debate. Well, Sir, on this
  1038
  occasion the course which you pursued was to rebuke—a course no doubt you thought most conducive to the preservation or restoration of order—to rebuke the two Members who were concerned—["No "]—to rebuke the two Members who were concerned for the reciprocal retorts in which they had indulged. Yon expressed no opinion, Sir, that any words used were in order or according to Parliamentary usage, but yon called upon them to cease from that manner of conducting debate. As I have said, we gladly recognise your complete discretion in such a matter, and that was the decision you came to. By accepting that decision, we do not endorse any of the language that was used: we are absolved from the necessity of expressing any opinion upon it; and I feel certain that the House of Commons will, with a great degree of unanimity, support the action you took.
  Mr. LEAMY: I had hoped that the First Lord would deliver a speech which would have rendered it possible to avoid going to a division; but he has instead made a speech the most offensive I have ever heard from his lips. He has, as I think, quite improperly, stated that the question before the House is whether or not the Chair should be upheld. That is not the question at all. Before Mr. Speaker entered the House he was a member of a great and honourable profession, and if he had not been called to the Chair of the House of Commons he would, in all probability, have filled a place on the judicial bench. Is it to be said that if a decision he had given as a Judge of the Supreme Court was appealed from to a higher court, it would be a personal nsult? Your position, Sir, is a great position, but above and beyond you is the House of Parliament, and we are entitled to appeal from the decision of the Chair to the decision of Parliament itself. We may lose our appeal tonight—[Laughter.] Members may laugh. I can quite understand that we may lose our appeal in consequence of the votes of men who will not listen to an argument. But who will suffer? Not the Irish minority, but Parliament itself. The First Lord worked himself into a white heat; it was impossible to tell the line of argument he intended to take, until at last he fell back on the declaration that the Chair was outraged and insulted, and we must support the Chair. The hon. and learned

  1039
  Member for Waterford has already said that all supporters of representative institutions must recognise the necessity of upholding the President of such bodies. We have never questioned that the authority of the Chair must be upheld, but we contend that we are entitled to ask whether a decision of the Chair was right or wrong. If Parliament decides that the decision was right: very well, we have nothing more to say, we have lost our case. If the right hon. Gentleman is not to be called to account for the language he used, am I to be permitted tomorrow to stand up in the House and say that the right hon. Gentleman is a good judge of turncoats, or that the right hon. Gentleman who now waves the Imperialist flag is a good judge of Republican rats? If indulgence in that kind of language is to be permitted, where are we going to stop? We know that words are frequently thrown across the floor of the House in the heat of debate which do not express the actual and honest sentiments of the speaker, but what we want to know is whether there is to be one law for the Treasury Bench and another for our Benches? We are accustomed to having in Ireland one law for the Nationalist and another for the so-called Loyalist. If the same principle is to be followed here, we shall be prepared to face it. Pass all the Rules you like, we shall still be able to hold our own against you. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of the licence allowed to Irish Members. What are these new Rules brought in for? I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not make a speech more worthy of his former reputation. We understand he is not likely to remain much longer in this House, but, at all events, he might have shown some respect for its constitution and traditions. I can only repeat that in bringing forward this question we are not seeking to make any precedent against you, Sir, or even against the Colonial Secretary; we wish simply to ensure that the same liberty shall be given to the Members on these Benches as is accorded without stint to hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  MR. BLAKE: I rise, Sir, with the greatest regret, but with an absolute conviction as to my public duty. Your office, Mr. Speaker,
  1040
  is high and enviable, and it is also a very responsible and difficult office—one in which you deserve, and are entitled to, every consideration in the discharge of the arduous and delicate duties which devolve upon you on the spur of the moment and in the heat which accompanies debates in this House. But I do not believe that you, Mr. Speaker, occupy, in theory or ought to occupy in practice, the position which the right hon. Gentleman, the First Lord of the Treasury has made for you in his speech tonight. You are a high executive officer of this House, but it is its instructions, its views, and its orders which you are expected to execute. You speak its voice to the best of your ability, and you pronounce its judgments; but the House is entitled to supervise and revise those judgments which in its behalf you give, and to it you are responsible for every word and action of the Chair. That power is not the phantom to which the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury would reduce it. That power is a real and effective power, and without its existence this House would be your concrete slave, and you, Mr. Speaker, its absolute master. I quite agree that the power of revising your sentence and pronouncing upon it is one which ought not to be undertaken every day; that this is a power which ought not to be lightly used. Frequently you act, or abstain from acting, without any call upon you for decision. But the case, in my judgment, is wholly different when an appeal is directly made to the Chair, when an expression used in Parliament is challenged, and the question is put to you whether that expression is orderly or not. In that case, and under those circumstances, I maintain that it is the right of the humblest Member of this House to obtain a judgment upon the point whether or not a disorderly and unparliamentary expression has been used towards him; and that is the essence of the complaint which we are obliged to make against your conduct, Mr. Speaker, upon the occasion in question.
  The First Lord of the Treasury adopted a tone which I was glad to hear the Leader of the Opposition repudiate. The First Lord brought up ad captandum arguments, and he referred to various

  1041
  matters wholly irrelevant to the consideration of this question; matters which I am perfectly convinced never entered into your mind, Mr. Speaker, as grounds for your judgment, and which I should have been sorry to think for a moment could enter your breast in coming to your conclusion upon this subject It is necessary, in view of the line which the right hon. Gentleman has taken, to advert to the history of this transaction. [Ministerial cries of "Oh, oh!"] Surely some hon. Members who do not realise that history would like to learn it. I maintain that the interruption of my hon. friend the Member for East Mayo was not disorderly, it was not unparliamentary, and it was not offensive. It was not disorderly if it was not an irrelevant interruption, and if it was not offensive towards any Member of this House. Interruptions are the commonest things that occur in our debates. In the very speech in the course of which this interruption occurred the Colonial Secretary was interrupted no less than eight times by the Leader of the Opposition, and not one of those interruptions was disorderly; not one of them was considered improper; and for not one of them was he called to order, although there were some lively passages-at-arms during those interruptions. Interruptions within well-understood limitations are the very salt of our debates. They allow, at the best moment, of explanation, of inquiry, of suggestion. I should like to know how this House could endure the enormously long speeches made on both sides of the House, especially from the Front Benches, if hon. Members were not occasionally relieved from the strain of earnest attention to that long-sustained eloquence by relevant interruptions. It is, then, always a question of degree and circumstance. And where the interruption is more than an interjection, the Member in possession can always protect himself by declining to yield. Where it is improper, you, Mr. Speaker, can, and do, interfere. Therefore, it can never be said that interruptions per se are disorderly. But this interruption which we are discussing was a relevant interruption. The Colonial Secretary had been dealing with the question of improved tone in the thoughts and feeling of our enemies
  1042
  with reference to peace and the prospect of their acceptance with confidence of our terms, and he alluded to those who had been our former enemies who were then fighting with the British forces. He brought up the special case of General Vilonel; whereupon my hon. friend the Member for East Mayo interrupted and said that General Vilonel was a traitor. The House has heard the evidence. My hon. and learned friend the Member for Waterford has read the story, which shows that my hon. friend the Member for East Mayo was literally correct. Vilonel had actually been tried, condemned, and sentenced for treason. But, even apart from that, the statement was justified, because General Vilonel had changed sides, and after fighting in the ranks of his own countrymen, as he had been a little before, he was found fighting in the ranks of our forces. Under these circumstances, even if there had not occurred the sentence for treason, there was a very obvious sense in which the observation that General Vilonel was a traitor would have been justified. I am not at all certain that the old saying—
  "While we love the treason
  If it is on our side,
  We hate the traitor still—"
  is not applicable to this case. I would ask hon. Gentlemen who are disposed now to take General Vilonel to their bosoms how they would feel if it had been, say, General Pole-Carew, or any other English General you please, who, under similar circumstances, had placed himself in this position. So the interruption was true. And it was obviously relevant as to the suggestion of the Colonial Secretary about confidence and good feeling. Again, the interruption was not personal to the Colonial Secretary in the slightest degree, and it was not, therefore, offensive in a Parliamentary sense. I deny altogether the justice or the Parliamentary propriety of the statement made by the First Lord of the Treasury that the interruption of my hon. friend was an offensive one. Words may be used, and rightly used in the freedom of debate in this House, towards men outside this House, which are not permitted to be used towards hon. Members. It is our safeguard as guardians

  1043
  of the public welfare to have immunity for what we speak of those outside, and I am glad to say that in this Assembly the defenceless generally receive adequate consideration; and, although—indeed, I may say because—hon. Members know that they are free from prosecutions and from any legal danger, there is a praiseworthy restraint upon what they say in this House affecting men outside. But in a Parliamentary sense the words used were not offensive, being applied to a stranger. In the case under notice the Colonial Secretary is said to have retorted, but he was not making a retort to any personal attack made upon him. There had been no such attack—nothing said in the slightest degree to wound his feelings or to excite that ardent passion which we know he can sometimes hardly adequately control. But, had it been otherwise, his duty was not to meet offence with offence, but to appeal to you. The Colonial Secretary retorted with the expression that my hon. friend was a good judge of traitors.
  The First Lord of the Treasury has given to the House a legal definition of a traitor. Let me give the popular sense from Webster's dictionary, which says—
  "One who violates his allegiance, and betrays his country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to its enemy."
  I do not think it can be suggested, even by the First Lord, that my hon. friend comes within that definition of a traitor. But no Member has the right so to stigmatise a fellow Member. Nor does my hon. friend need defence here. The First Lord of the Treasury, in defending you, Mr. Speaker, attempted to suggest faintly a repetition of the insinuation which the Colonial Secretary made against my hon. friend. I will not suppose that that was really his line of defence, but that suggestion was made. I pass it by. There can be no doubt whatever that the Colonial Secretary's statement was not merely an offence against order, but it was a gross offence against order. It was a charge of treason. There can be no doubt whatever that if a phrase of that kind is permitted it will be impossible to keep the debates of this House within any rule or order whatever. There are plenty of retorts to a phrase of that kind not more unparliamentary or
  1044
  offensive than it is; and if permitted they would render life in this House almost intolerable. What had my hon. friend done? 'This was no retort made by the Colonial Secretary, because he had not been attacked and he had nothing to retort to. There was no personal attack upon, him. If there had been, it would not have justified his course; but in truth, the right hon. Gentleman himself made and commenced the personal attack. Under those conditions my hon. friend the Member for East Mayo appealed to you, Mr. Speaker. I have agreed that there are numerous occasions in this House in which in the heat of debate words are used across the floor of the House which it may be wise for you. Mr. Speaker, not to hear, if no hon. Member rises to object. Often you may feel that the interests of order may be best served by your not intervening of your own motion; and, at any rate, in that case, the House, no one having risen to order, would have no right to complain. But although this may be so, it is not at all your practice or the ordinary custom to permit, without instant rebuke from the Chair, offences against order infinitely less gross than this offence committed by the Colonial Secretary, which was; allowed to pass unreprimanded by the Chair. I have here a bushel of such precedents in your own time, Mr. Speaker, and during the time of your predecessor, to show that Speakers have felt then-selves bound at once to check the danger of what may result from the commencement of the use of unparliamentary language by calling, without appeal, for a retractation of such phrases. But while you may do this at your discretion, with the exercise of which we can have no reason to complain when no appeal has been made to you, I maintain that the case is entirely altered when the offended Member appeals to the Chair. Then the question has become serious, for it is the clear right of the humblest Member of the House in such a case to demand the judgment of the Chair as to whether the phrase which has been addressed to him is a. Parliamentary expression or not. The reason of the strict rule against offensive language to fellow Members is not that we are more sacred than outsiders. It is that we are at close quarters. It is that

  1045
  offence will engender heat, further offence, and general disorder. It is based on human nature. Therefore swift and stern repression by the Chair is the only security for decency. And when repression is refused, worse disorder will ensue. In old days offences led to duels. In some countries there are military courts of honour. For hon. Members of the House of Commons there is but one court of honour, and that is the Chair. We must depend on the justice of the Chair sustained by the feeling of the House. It is absolutely essential to the decorum, the dignity, and the decency of debate that hon. Members should refrain from personal and offensive expressions towards one another; and it is just when such offences are not reprimanded and rebuked from the Chair upon appeal that an hon. Member feels, unless he has almost superhuman self-control, driven to that kind of retort which produces results which we all deplore. When an hon. Member appeals to the Chair for justice and does not receive it, it is almost certain that lamentable results will ensue. That is the reason why we feel the gravity of this situation.
  In this case, when an appeal was made to the Chair, you, Mr. Speaker, in effect asserted that the hon. Member who appealed to you had justly subjected himself to this so-called retort by reason of his interruption. We cannot assent to that judgment, which does not accord in out-view with the justice or truth of the case. And finding no other means whatever of obtaining redress, and there being no indication that the judgment which had been tendered on the 20th March was not to be the, rule in the future, there was no alternative whatever except for us to submit the case to the decision of the House. We were not so foolish as not to be aware of what will be the result in the Division Lobby. We are quite aware of what that result will be, but that is not, our business. Our business is to submit the question to the justice of the House. The First Lord of the Treasury and the Leader of the Opposition do not regard this as a question of justice, but more as a question of confidence in Mr. Speaker. We do not approach it upon that ground, but as a question of justice. Yet I am quite
  1046
  sure it will have been observed that in the words which have fallen from me, there is no foundation for assuming that I think there has been anything in this matter other than au error of judgment, I desire to state that most distinctly. That is my own absolute conviction. I believe it was but an error of judgment on the part of Mr. Speaker. That error, however, has appeared to us to produce results so grave that we considered it our duty to bring this matter to a final issue here. And I will add this only, that, whatever the result in the Division Lobby may be, I believe this debate will not, be without its fruits. I believe that it will accomplish something to prevent the repetition of such scenes as occurred on the, 20th March by preventing the repetition of such a judgment as was on that day rendered.
  MR. DILLON: This Resolution, which has now been submitted to the House, was not intended to raise what might be called the case of my suspension. Your decision upon that was rot questioned, but as I have, in the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury, been, as it were, placed on my trial—be made two charges against me—I think I may ask the indulgence of the House for a few moments while I make a statement in reply. He made two distinct charges. The first charge was that I was guilty of a provocative and insulting interruption of the speech of the Colonial Secretary, and he based, to some extent, his justification of the language used by the Colonial Secretary on the provocation which I had given him. But then he went on, in very guarded language, it is true, but as I interpret him, to indicate that the Colonial Secretary, apart from the justification which I provided him with, was justified in calling me a, traitor, as he practically did. Well, speaking as an Irishman, in our ears—I do not know how it would sound in the ears of others—it is impossible to conceive a more insulting epithet, and the sophistries with which the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to soften the insult of that epithet are completely lost upon me. No man who could be called, with impunity, a traitor should sit in this House. [Ministerial cheers and Irish counter-cheers.] Well, why don't you carry out the logical conclusion of your cheer? Any man who would allow himself to be called a traitor without meeting

  1047
  the charge as it deserved to be met, wherever it is made, ought not to be allowed to associate with honourable men. That at least is our doctrine in Ireland, and I, for my part, will never allow any man to call me a traitor without giving him on the spot my opinion about him. The expression I used in saying that General Vilonel was a traitor was neither offensive to the Colonial Secretary nor to any British soldier. I frankly admit that had I applied that term, as the Speaker thought I did, to the soldiers fighting in the service of His Majesty, it would have been a gross offence; but I did nothing of the sort. The expression was not offensive, personally, to the Colonial Secretary, nor was it calculated to excite his wrath in the ordinary course of things. As a matter of fact, I had sat listening with intense interest to the statement and argument of the Colonial Secretary. One would imagine that I had been interrupting him offensively the whole evening, but it was quite the contrary. I venture to say that he had not a more attentive or a more silent listener in the House than myself. But that was not the case all over the House. He was interrupted five or six times by the Leader of the Opposition. Was that disorderly? I only allude to that for the purpose of showing what ought to be a matter of course. The fact is that interruptions have never been held to be disorderly. Take the case of the First Lord of the Treasury. He is constantly interrupted, and yet he always shows absolutely good humour and appears to enjoy it, and they help him along in his speech. To interrupt is not disorderly. It is consistent with the continual practice of the House, if the interruption is within proper limits—if it is ad rem and not offensive.
  What provoked this interruption of mine? The Colonial Secretary on this occasion was engaged in an argument proving the success, to his own satisfaction, of the conciliatory policy then going on. He came to the question of General Vilonel, and I, feeling strongly, not as a pro-Boer, but from the British point of view, as to the possibility of peace in South Africa, thought, and think still, it was a great blunder, a grievous error, to employ such a man,
  1048
  whom I did not call a traitor because he joined the British, but because I had read the account of his trial, and knew that while serving under Commandant-General Botha, under his own flag—which, remember, was as much a flag demanding loyalty as your flag—he was accused of entering into communication with the British Commander, and was tried and sentenced to penal servitude by a legal tribunal of his own country. He was under that sentence of penal servitude when you captured him, and adopted him as one of your own Generals. At all events, I may be pardoned for taking a strong view in such a case. When the right hon. Gentleman tries to make light of the charge of traitor, perhaps he does not know that that charge carries with it, to us Irishmen, infinitely bitter recollections. No word that can be used against an Irishman is so bitter as the word traitor, and I, Sir, hold that in raising this discussion tonight we are amply justified, and I hold that the issue we have brought before the House is of far more importance than hon. Members would gather from the First Lord of the Treasury, who concluded by saying that they came down in these numbers to support the Chair. No doubt this Motion will be defeated by an overwhelming majority. You, Sir, had great predecessors in that Chair, and they had greater difficulties to contend with than you have had. Those who remember the old days of 1880, 1881, and 1887 in this House will recall the difficulties which the occupant of that Chair had to deal with. In those days terrible scenes were enacted in the House. Members of the Irish Party were suspended again and again, and at one time the entire Party was driven out of the House. But throughout all those storms of passion the Chair never lost the confidence of the persecuted minority, and when Lord Peel came to retire at a later period, the Irish Party joined in the vote of thanks to him. Now, Sir, I hold that the triumph of the Chair is not to defeat a vote of this kind by an overwhelming majority. The true triumph of the Chair is to obtain the confidence of the minority in the House. The real triumph of the Chair is to convince the smallest minority in the House that they can have the protection of the Chair when the majority is most intolerant and most

  1049
  clamourous. I confess that in this instance I left the House with a bitter sense of injustice, which I still feel, and that sense of injustice was aggravated by the fact that, without any provocation, I was subjected to a foul and intolerable insult, and that when I appealed for protection to the Chair I was denied that
  protection. When I used language which I frankly admit is intolerable in any legislative Assembly, I was punished, but the original cause and author of the scene was allowed to go scot free.
  (10.53.) The House divided:—Ayes, 63; Noes, 398. (Division List No. 165.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Ambrose, Robert

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Leamy, Edmund

  O'Dowd, John

  Blake, Edward

  Lundon, W.

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Roland, John

  MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  O'Malley, William

  Burns, John

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  O'Mara, James

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  M'Fadden, Edward

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Cogan, Denis J.

  M'Govern, T.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Reddy, M.

  Crean, Eugene

  M'Kean, John

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Cremer, William Randal

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Delany, William

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Roche, John

  Dillon, John

  Minch, Matthew

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Doogan, P. C.

  Mooney, John J.

  Sullivan, Donal

  Ffrench, Peter

  Murphy, John

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Field, William

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Young, Samuel

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Nolan, Col. John P.(Galway, N.)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Grant, Carrie

  O' Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Patrick O'Brien.

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Bigwood, James

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bill, Charles

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Black, Alexander William

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Aird, Sir John

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton

  Allhusen, Augustus H'nry Eden

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Bond, Edward

  Chapman, Edward

  Anstruther, H. T.

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Charrington, Spencer

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Bowles Capt. H. F. (Middlesex)

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H A. E.

  Arrol, Sir William

  Brassey, Albert

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Asher, Alexander

  Brigg, John

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Austin, Sir John

  Brown, Alexander H. (Shropsh.

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Bull, William James

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Craig, Robert Hunter

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r

  Butcher, John George

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Crombie, John William

  Balfour, RtHn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Caldwell, James

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Dalrymple Sir Charles

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Denny, Colone

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Cavendish, R F. (N. Lancs.)

  Dewar, T. R (T'rH'mlets, S. Geo.

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Beresford, Lord Chas. William

  Cawley, Frederick

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Digby, John K. D Wingfield-

  Bignold, Arthur

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Helder, Augustus

  Middlemore, Jno. Throgmorton

  Dixon-Hartland. Sir Fr'd Dixon

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Henderson, Alexander

  Milvain, Thomas

  Doughty, George

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Mitchell, William

  Douglas, Rt Hon. A. Akers-

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Hope, J. F.(Sheffield, Brightside

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.)

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Horner, Frederick William

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Dunn, Sir William

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Hoult, Joseph

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Morgan, David J (W'lthamstow

  Edwards, Frank

  Howard, Jno (Kent, Faversham

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Elibank, Master of

  Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

  Emmott, Alfred

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Evans, Sir Francis H (Maidstone

  Hutton, John (Yorks. N. R.)

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Moss, Samuel

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Mount, William Arthur

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J.(Manc'r

  Jones, D'vid Brynmor (Swansea

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Finch, George H.

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Myers, William Henry

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Keswick, William

  Newdigate, Francis Alexander

  Fison, Frederick William

  Kimber, Henry

  Nicholson, William Graham

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Kitson, Sir James

  Norman, Henry

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Knowles, Lees

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Flower, Ernest

  Langley, Batty

  Palmer, George Wm. (Reading)

  Forster, Henry William

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Foster, Philip S (Warwick, S. W.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth)

  Partington, Oswald

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Lawson, John Grant

  Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlington)

  Garfit, William

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H (City of Lond.

  Lecky, Rt. Hn. William Edw. H.

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Fareham

  Penn, John

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Percy, Earl

  Gordon, Hn., J. E (Elgin&Nairn)

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Philipps, John Wynford

  Gore, Hn G.R.C.Ormsby-(Salop

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

  Gore, Hon. S.F.Ormsby-(Linc.)

  Leigh Bennett, Henry Currie

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Price, Robert John

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

  Purvis, Robert

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S)

  Pym, C. Guy

  Green, Walford D (Wednesbury

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury

  Lowe, Francis William

  Randles, John S.

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Rankin, Sir James

  Gretton, John

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Macartney, Rt Hn W. G. Ellison

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Rea, Russell

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Hain, Edward

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  M'Calmont, Col H. L. B (Cambs.

  Renwick, George

  Hamilton, Rt Hn L'rd G (Midd'x

  M'Calmont, Col. J.(Antrim, E.)

  Ridley, Hn M. W.(Stalybridge)

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nd'rry

  M'Crae, George

  Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

  Rigg, Richard

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Malcolm, Ian

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  Maple, Sir John Blundell

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Robinson, Brooke

  Harwood, George

  Mather, William

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Maxwell, Rt. Hn Sir H. E (Wist'n

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Maxwell, W. J H (D'mfriesshire

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Round, James

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  1052

  1053

  Runciman, Walter

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Rutherford, John

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Whiteley, H (Ashton-und-Lyne

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Stroyan, John

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos Myles

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Williams, Rt Hn J Pow'll-(Birm.

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G (Oxf'd Univ.

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Tennant, Harold John

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

  Seely, Maj. J. E. B (Isle of Wight

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Seton-Karr, Henry

  Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.)

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

  Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)

  Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R.(Bath

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Skewe-Cox, Thomas

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Smith, HC (North'mb, Tyneside

  Valentia, Viscount

  Wylie, Alexander

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Spear, John Ward

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Spencer, Rt Hn. C. R (Northants

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Sir William Walrond and Mr. Herbert Gladstone.

  Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton)

  Stanley, Ed ward Jas. (Somerset

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  MINISTER OF COMMERCE.
  MR. LOUIS SINCLAIR: The Motion which stands in my name is intended "to call attention to the fact that the increasing volume of trade of this country with all the world renders it imperative that a Minister of Commerce be appointed; and to move, That the present constitution of the Board of Trade is obsolete; and that, in the opinion of this House, the paramount importance of industry and commerce to the well-being of the Empire requires that these interests shall be administered by a Department in no respect inferior to other Departments of State, and to which should be entrusted every function of the executive Government especially relating to industry and commerce." It is not my object in moving this Motion to make any reflection on the President of the Board of Trade, for everyone is aware that his courteous and conciliatory spirit has rightly won him the position of a favourite in the House of Commons, but it is imperative that we should realise that what was necessary in 1620 cannot be sufficient for purposes of the Empire in 1902. So far as I can trace, the first Ministries were the offspring of the Privy Council, and in the year 1620 the Council proposed four Committees, and constituted (1) a Committee for Foreign Affairs;
  1054
  (2) a Committee for Naval and Military Affairs; (3) a Committee for Complaint and Grievance; (4) Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations, and this last Committee was appointed by Order in Council at the beginning of every reign. It consisted of (1) a President; (2) a Parliamentary Secretary; (3) the Lord Chancellor; (4) the Principal Secretaries of State; (5) the Chancellor of the Exchequer; (6) The Speaker; (7) the Chancellor; (8) Privy Councillors with special knowledge of trade; (9) Irish officials with rank equal to that of Privy Councillor.
  The office of a Vice-President, previously held, was abolished in 1867, as it was found that the orders given by the President of the Board of Trade were often rendered nugatory when they came into contact with those of the Vice-President. In 1860, owing to the increased work placed upon the Board, a demand for extra help was made, and a special Departmental Committee was appointed to look into the whole of the administration, and it was recommended that the Board should be divided into four departments: (1) Railway; (2) Mercantile and Marine; (3) Harbours; (4) Commercial Business.
  This division was not sufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand on that Board, and so in 1867 it was divided into twelve departments. It is, therefore,

  1055
  evident that the constitution of the word "Board" in Board of Trade is absolutely an anomaly and an absurdity, because, although the Speaker holds a position on that Board, as a matter of fact he never sits on it, nor does the Lord Chancellor, and nor do other Members whom I have just named, and the administration of the whole of our commerce at the present time seems to be entirely in the hands of paid officials who are not selected through any business qualifications, and who cannot, therefore, pay proper attention to the requirements of our merchants. In 1814 much dissatisfaction was felt that the Board of Trade was held in little esteem in our Ministry, and that in consequence the Foreign Office looked down upon that Department and paid no attention to its requirements. On an inquiry being made, it was recommended that the Board of Trade should have a higher footing and be more on an equality with the Foreign Office; that it should have direct communication with the diplomatic and foreign service in connection with foreign trades; and that the Foreign Office should have an officer to conduct correspondence with the Board of Trade In 1865 the Foreign Office established a Commercial and Consular Division, which so far as I can trace, was the first step in giving this country some commercial knowledge of what transpires abroad. In order to show the difficulties attending the position of men of commerce in those days it need only be stated that it was thought derogatory for the President o; the Board of Trade to have any connection with a business house, and Mr. Goschen when appointed Vice-President, retired from a well-known position as head of an important firm and from the Director ship of the Bank of England. Mr. Cave did the same in 1866.
  I am sure the present feeling of the nation would be to welcome at the bead of our administration on trade such men as Mr. Goschen, who are qualified to see that our commercial interests do not suffer at the hands of foreign competitors. At the present time trade and commerce is administered by four departments. The Foreign Office appoints commercial attached and consuls. Many of the latter are selected from the class of retired foreign merchants who often live miles out of the town where they hold office,
  1056
  and when required cannot be found, and are useless, not only by their absence from their post, but also on account of the inadequate and unbusinesslike reports they furnish to our country through the Foreign Office. Commercial attached are even in a worse position. Their spheres are limited, their staff is inadequate, and they are not selected from the best schools of commercial enterprise.
  The Home Office frames the laws for and regulates our home industries, and, although its present head has a great knowledge of business, the Statutes framed by that Department have proved that they are not based on any intimate conception of the requirements of employers or employed. Consequently the industrial classes are injured and our manufacturers are hampered by useless and entirely inapplicable restrictions, which cause them personal loss and handicaps them in their competition with foreign countries. The officers who administer these laws have to exercise the greatest discretion as to what to enforce and what to pass over. I can understand that if the Home Office confined itself to the administration of justice in the land it would have its proper work to do, and if a redistribution of work became necessary it would be well fitted to take over the Bankruptcy Department from the Board of Trade.
  The Colonial Department has no representatives in our colonies, and merchants at home are accordingly at a great disadvantage. They have to compete with foreign nations who are supplied with most minute information of the needs of our colonies by competent and businesslike attaches and consuls. Is it fair that owing to the apathy of the Government at home we should be deprived of an outlet for our own commerce in our own colonies? Is it not apparent, from these remarks, without diving further into thousands of incongruous anomalies not only in the formation of the Board of Trade, but in its administration, that it is an obsolete institution? Is it not time that we should realise that commerce and trade is not only the backbone, but the most vital organ of our existence? Is it not time that the nation should awake to the fact that foreign competitors are ever increasing and encroaching on our preserves? Does not everyone know that

  1057
  our merchants have no facilities, and that in every market foreign firms obtain contracts which are ours by right?
  What is wanted? We should have a Minister to represent trade and commerce, capable in every way, and he must have high Cabinet rank; a Minister whose weight and influence in this Council would be recognised by all—that in all questions of diplomacy our commerce and trade should be taken into account. This Minister, in my opinion, should not be above trade, and we might well seek such a man amongst our City and merchant representatives. It should not be necessary for him to dissociate himself from his business to prove his integrity. He should have under his direction the whole of such administration as appertains to trade, commerce, and industry. It is he who should appoint all consuls and commercial attaches. All laws regulating factories and workshops should emanate from his Department, which must thoroughly understand the question of capital and labour. Is it not time that Members of the House of Commons should recognise that there must be something in the demands of our merchants, voiced in such powerful language by the Chambers of Commerce? Is it not the duty of the House to listen to this most important section as much as to those who advocate reform in education, water supply, and Rules of Procedure? Would not a Minister of Commerce be the best adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in determining taxation? Surely it is time for us to have at the head of our Department of Trade a man possessed of such qualifications which contact with the world has ensured for him, and whose ability and success have already won for him the esteem of business men? Would not such a man be capable at the head of, what I may term, our most important administration, and be able to safeguard the interests of a nation which can truly claim to have been the pioneer of commerce and an example to all other nations of the world, but whose very existence is threatened in no small degree by the competition which it has taught the foreigner to wage against itself?
  MR. HELME: When the Board of Trade was founded it was called the Board of Trade and Plantations, which reminds us that the shackles were not then removed from the limbs of the slaves. What we now want is to get some of the red tape and the shackles which at present embarrass the Board of Trade removed. The supporters of the Motion claim that it would be an advantage to the commercial interests of the country if a Minister of Commerce were appointed equal in rank to that of the other Chief Secretaries of State. A rearrangement is required. For instance, at the present moment, communications coming from abroad in regard to our trade and commerce pass through the hands of the Foreign Office or the Colonial Secretary's Office, but the commercial men of the country would prefer that all these communications should be carried on by an independent Department. The President of the Board of Trade has, at the present time, an Advisory Committee, but its functions are too limited, and it cannot deal with the initiation of business, or suggest any course of action which would be for the benefit of the commerce of the country. The Motion before the House is supported by the Chambers of Commerce throughout the country which have business relations with all parts of the world, and whose aim is that everything should be done to keep this country in the premier position of the trading nations of the world. Although I do not altogether agree with the hon. Member who moved this Resolution that if we had had a Minister of Commerce the shipping combine would not have taken place——
  Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present—
  MR. HELME: On the present occasion I shall content myself with seconding the Resolution; and I hope that everything that can possibly be done will be

  1059
  done to rearrange the management of the commercial affairs that come within the scope of the Government, so that our national interests may be protected and developed.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the present constitution of the Board of Trade is obsolete; and that, in the opinion of this House, the paramount importance of industry and commerce to the well-being of the Empire requires that these interests shall be administered by a Department in no respect inferior to other Departments of State, and to which should be entrusted every function of the executive Government especially relating to industry and commerce."—(Mr. Louis Sinclair.)
  MR. FIELD: I desire to support the Motion. I have been in the habit of attending meetings of the Associated Chambers of Commerce for ten years or thereabouts, and I have had an opportunity of introducing at these meetings, Motions advocating the appointment of a Minister of Commerce for the British Empire. These Motions were at first looked upon as being premature; but, of late years, they have been passed not only by Chambers of Commerce but by Trade Associations also. The commercial mind of the country has become aware of the fact that England is behind every other country in the world in commercial organisations. We can draw the moral between the attendance in the House when we were discussing a political matter this evening, and the attendance now when we are discussing a Motion of this magnitude. It shows how much interest is taken in these matters. The House, in my experience, tikes no interest in commercial matters, and the result is that we have no Minister of Commerce. France, 100 years ago, had a Minister of Commerce in the principal of one of its Universities Commerce would not, however, be admitted into Oxford or Cambridge. It is one of these thing which the gentlemen of England do not wish to touch unless to get profit out of, and the result is that other countries like America, and
  1060
  Germany are simply forging ahead, and are leaving England standing. Where is England today as regards exports, imports, and railways! As another sign of the little interest that is taken in commerce, the railways are permitted to do practically what they like. They are even allowed to give a preferential rate to foreign imports, and the result is what is called Free Trade, but, which I call free imports and practical protection for the foreigner. That would not be permitted in any other country, because an intelligent interest would be taken by the Government in the man who pays the taxes. That interest is absent in this country, and the remit is that the foreigner finds the country practically a paradise. In Germany last, year many millions of money were earned by the railways, and were put to the credit of the State to reduce taxation. When I ask the President of the Board of Trade a Question about railways, he always replies—I am quite sure that he is perfectly frank and sincere—that it is so difficult to get information. I sat on the Railway and Canal Rates Commission for six months in 1893–4, and I found that the railways governed this country and this House; and I am not at all surprised that the President of the Board of Trade is unable to obtain any information from them?
  What is the Board of Trade? I elicited by a Question in this House the fact that the Board of Trade consists of permanent officials. We have no Board of Trade in the proper sense of the word. Does not every business man in this House know perfectly well that if you have a change of Ministers, and a Minister is sent to preside over a particular Department, without any special qualification, he is simply in the hands of permanent officials, unless he is a very strong man. The permanent officials govern nearly every Department in this country and more particularly the Board of Trade, and the result is a cast iron policy. The officials are sure of their position, no responsibility attaches to them, and there is no opportunity of criticising their actions except on Supply and they can do what they choose. The result is, as every

  1061
  hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, that, unless under exceptional circumstances, Ministers are practically in the hands of the permanent officials; and they cannot he otherwise in the existing state of things. I would not advocate a change such as occurs in America every four years. That would be one of the greatest evils that could befall an administration; but it is the other extreme. The condition of affairs in this country shows that the Board of Trade is unable to cope with the competition which at present exists. I believe it collects statistics as regards Great Britain, but not as regards Ireland, but I maintain that Ireland is entitled to a special Department of the Board of Trade, and that it ought to be the duty of this House and the Board of Trade to develop the industries of Ireland as well as of Great Britain. We are face to face with what might be called a national crisis in this country. We have a great shipping "combine," we have imports from every country in the world, and we have a system of so called Free Trade. One of the reasons why Great Britain has not progressed in recent years is that there is no special Department to deal with trade and commerce such as her competitors have. America, Germany, and even Japan have Ministers of Commerce.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): America has no Ministers of Commerce.
  MR. FIELD: The Americans have a system of collecting statistics, and whether they have a Minister of Commerce or not their methods are superior. They are buying up everything. It is even said that they will buy up London and the Houses of Parliament. I entirely agree with the terms of this Motion, and trust that the Government will, in their own interests and in the interest of the commerce of this country, consider the necessity of appointing a Minister of Commerce.
  MR. HOULT: I do not know whether the time
  1062
  has arrived when the appointment of a Minister of Commerce should be considered to be within the region of practical politics, but I do know that the exigencies and requirements of trade and commerce require more attention than they are in the habit of receiving. I am rather inclined to fancy that if we had a man with the necessary business knowledge and capacity appointed to some position in the Government to watch over the trade interests of this country, it would be a distinct advantage. I think that such, a man at the present time would view with some alarm the decrease in the number of our sidling ships. It is well known that the French Government gives very considerable bounties to French sailing ships, and it is quite impossible for English sailing ships to compete with French sailing ships, and, in the course of time, our English sailing ships may be wiped off the seas. Ten years ago the tonnage of English sailing, ships was 2,400,000 tons; today it is only 1,500,000 tons. That must necessarily be a matter of very serious consideration because our sailing ships are really the nurseries for the sailors of our mercantile marine. I think that such a man would regard seriously the statement we have often heard from the hon. Member for the Chelmsford Division that in his district there are thousands of acres of derelict land suitable for wheat-growing, perhaps the best wheat growing land in the world. I think that a business man would conclude that there is something wrong in our system which permits that agricultural land to be derelict, while at the same time we are purchasing wheat produced in other counties at a cost ranging from 27s. to 35s. a quarter. Then, I am rather inclined to fancy that a business man would regard the sale of two lines of steamers engaged in the Far East coasting trade to foreigners as being a matter which required some serious consideration and attention, because those ships are not sold because they are old or because their owners wanted to part with them, but because foreigners wished to buy them and can make them pay when Englishmen cannot. That must, of necessity, be a

  1063
  very serious matter in connection with the maritime affairs of this country. A business man, representing commerce and industry, would regard the importation of steel plates from America, which we have hitherto produced entirely ourselves, for the purposes of shipbuilding as a matter of very great importance, and he would be rather puzzled to account for it, America being a protected country in every sense. I think that a Minister of Commerce would view with very considerable alarm the fact that our imports are gradually increasing at a greater rate than our exports, and that last year our imports exceeded our exports by the enormous sum of £183,000,000, and that in the previous year the excess was £178,000,000. Perhaps he might be able to show that, some way or another, this balance of trade is not a loss to this country. Many of us take the view that it is a very considerable loss to the country, and that we are living in a fools' paradise. Then, I am inclined to think that if we had had such a Minister of Commerce when the Sugar Bounties came into existence, they would never have been allowed. There is no doubt that the position of our trade is on an entirely different footing to what it was in years gone by. What was suitable twenty or thirty years ago is no longer applicable. Our trade is attacked not only by bounties but by "combines" as well, and it may be necessary for the Government of this country to take in the future a different view with respect to trade interests. It may be necessary for the Government, as the custodians of the trade interests of the country, when they see the possibility of a trade or industry being ruined by unfair means—I do not fear fair and honest competition—to take steps to help that trade or industry through that unfair competition. I have the greatest faith in my countrymen. I believe they have the same grit, energy, and determination; they work from early morning until late at night, and they can compete with foreigners on fair
  1064
  lines and hold their own. I hope that the outcome of this proposal may be that more attention will be given to the trade interests of the country than they have hitherto received.
  MR. BANBURY: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has enunciated some very startling doctrines. He has informed us that if we had a business man as Minister of Commerce he would see in Essex the best wheat-growing land in the world, and immediately wheat would grow there. That is a very excellent sentiment, but I do not see how even the most excellent Minister of Commerce could make wheat grow unless the price were raised, and I do not think any Government would remain long in office that proposed a duty of 15s. or 20s. on wheat. Without that, no Minister of Commerce could cause wheat to be grown in Essex at a profit. Then the hon. Gentleman said that a subsidy should be given to sailing ships. Are we to be taxed to save the sailing ship industry? The hon. Member for the St. Patrick Division took a different view of the functions of a Minister of Commerce. According to him, his first duty would be to reduce rates on railways, and, therefore, the Minister of Commerce would be in this curious position—that while, on the one hand, he would be safeguarding the pecuniary interests of certain gentlemen interested in shipping, he would, on the other hand, be taking away money from the vast number of people who own shares in railway companies.
  It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
  House adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.