§ Considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
§ New Clause (Managers)—(Mr. A. Balfour)—brought up, and read the first time.
§ Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
§ (2.35.) MR. TREVELYAN (Yorkshire, W.R., Elland)said there ought to be some discussion as to the generally unsatisfactory character of this Clause before they came to the Amendments. On examination of this Management Clause they found it to be as narrowly denominational as it could possibly be. The trusts, as at present constituted, were of various characters, but in general they would either leave the appointment of the managers in the hands of the incumbent or else in the hands of the subscribers to the school. But one of the 1368 first things likely to occur as a result of this Bill was that the subscribers would become nonentities. At every stage of the Bill money was being put into the hands of the managers, thereby relieving them of the necessity for seeking subscriptions; and where now there were perhaps twenty or thirty subscribers giving a pound apiece, in future there would only be two or three. The rest of the money required for repairs would be obtained from other sources, such as the rent of the schoolmaster's house and from endowments, which, by the action of the Committee on the previous day, were largely put into the hands of the managers. The result of the disappearance of the subscribers would be that the appointment of the foundation managers would be in the hands of the parson in a great many more cases than at present. In many cases there would be no subscribers left, except the incumbent and his curate, who would for form's sake remain a subscriber to the school. This appeared to him to be a very unsatisfactory condition of things to perpetuate. What would happen with a large number of the villages, where at the present time persons other than friends of the incumbent were chosen to serve on voluntary school committees? This Bill had created in the minds of the clergy a presumption of hostility between themselves and the popular managers; and, in future, the parson, where he had the power, would do his best to choose four managers who would uphold his particular views and would follow his lead absolutely. He would deem that necessary, because he would regard the two managers chosen by the public as hostile to himself. The four foundation managers would probably be the parson, his favourite curate, the wife of the squire, whom he could depend upon to give an annual tea to the children, and one of the churchwardens. He contended that the members of the denominations concerned ought to have more freedom in the; selection of managers, and that there ought not to be left so much power in the hands of the incumbent of the parish. Was there any reason why two of the managers should not be appointed by communicants of the Church to which the school belonged? It would maintain the essential spirit of the trust. It would be very unfortunate if in future the managers were chosen from 1369 "the inner ring" of the parish, controlled by the parson. He had in his mind a case which occurred in the North of England in which the parson, because of his very High Church proclivities, lost nearly the whole of Ins congregation, and merely preached to the squirearchy of the county, who came from long distances in order to listen to his eloquent sermons. The people of the parish went elsewhere. But what would be the condition of things in a case like that? The incumbent would practically have the appointment of the whole of the four managers, and surely it would be better if his parishioners had a right to select at least two of them. It certainly would cause less friction. He hoped the scope of the Clause would he widened so as to ensure that the denominational managers were more truly representative.
§ MR. ALFRED HUTTON (Yorkshire, W.P., Morley)hoped the Prime Minister would be kind enough to explain to the Committee how it was proposed to work this Clause. No one would know how to go about the appointment of the four denominational managers. It would be very difficult to make the appointments in accordance with the present trust deeds, because one of the constituencies named by the trust deeds—namely, the subscribers to the schools—would exist no longer, as there would be no need for subscriptions. The First Lord had on innumerable occasions told them that one of the main objects of the Bill was to destroy what had been called the one-man management of the school, but by practically placing the appointment of all four denominational managers in the hands of the incumbent they were deliberately giving more power to the one man than he had ever before had. It was boned to create a great amount of friction. It was not a healthy state of things that the majority of the managers of a school should owe their position to the nomination of the incumbent. The best people would not accept office on such terms; men and women of independent character certainly could not do so.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)thought the First Lout would admit that the Clause required a good deal of amendment, even from his own point of view. What was the Government's 1370 idea as to these appointments? Under the model trust deed of the National Society which dominated the majority of the Anglican schools the management was vested in the clergyman of the parish and his curate or curates. There were to be four denominational managers under the Bill, so that where the incumbent had three curates he and his curates would fill the four places. As a rule in country parishes the incumbent had one curate. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."]
§ MR. MALCOLM (Suffolk, Stowmarket)In the majority of cases the clergyman of the parish has no assistance.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEDoes the hon. Member tell me that in the vast majority of cases the clergyman has not assistance in the way of a curate?
§ MR. MALCOLMYes
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he would accept that statement from the hon. Member, but at any rate in thousands of parishes the clergyman had a curate; in those cases half the denominational managers would be, clerical. How were the others to be appointed? Under the model trust deed any vacancy was to be filled by election by the subscribers of 10s. and upwards of the current year. The Clause passed yesterday destroyed that constituency. There would no longer be any need for subscribers now that the only burden on the managers was the repairs. To bear that burden the managers would have the rent of the schoolmaster's house, which would alone be a larger sum than was generally represented by the subscriptions.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI am dealing with rural districts.
§ MR. MALCOLMAnd in many rural districts they have not a teacher's house.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid he accepted the hon. Member as an authority on curates, but on this point he could not agree with him. His hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell informed hint that out of 1371 14,000 voluntary schools, there were 8,194 to which schoolmasters' houses were attached, and the rent of these buildings would provide a fund for repairs. In these cases certainly the subscribers were not needed. The second fund arose out of the endowments, and in many cases the endowments, unless they were earmarked for the school teacher's salary, would be at the absolute discretion of the trustees for the fabric and repairs. These two funds would render it unnecessary to appeal for subscriptions. [An HON. MEMBER: Then there are the fees.] With the fees there would be three funds which would enable them to dispense absolutely with subscribers. Supposing that they wanted a few pounds in cases where there were no endowments and no schoolmaster's house, what would happen? A big sum was not wanted, but a sufficient sum of money for the purpose. The clergyman would fix his own constituency. He would settle down with his curate to make out a list of the men who would probably subscribe. The curate might suggest Mr. So-and-So, because he was a rich man. The clergyman naturally wanted the control of his school. There was a good deal of human nature in Holy Orders. He would object to the gentleman named by the curate because he was a Low Churchman whose views did not correspond with his own. He would then pick out the members of his congregation of either sex who would be most amenable to his influence. All he had to do was to go to four or five members of the congregation who were his best supporters. He would ask them to put down £1 each, and the men so picked out would elect the managers in the district. But to say that this method of selection represented even the denomination itself was a perfect farce. Since the Government had decided that schools should be denominational let them be frankly so. Let them really represent the denomination. Did they propose that the trust deeds should remain as they were, the clergyman ex officio with power to appoint his own curate or curates, and the balance to come front the subscribers whom the clergyman himself selected? In the event of there being no subscribers at all, how did the Government mean to provide a constituency to elect the managers?
§ (3.2.) THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the Committee that I should now reply on the points raised by the hon. Member for the Elland Division and the hon. Member for Carnarvon. A great deal of the argument of their speech is based on the assumption that no subscriptions or sacrifices will be required in future from those who support the voluntary schools. Well, as a friend of the voluntary schools, I almost wish that were the case, but I am afraid that it is very far from being so, and that it will be found when the Bill comes into operation that the idea that the various denominations interested in these schools will have to make no sacrifices to keep up the schools is an idea which has no foundation in fact. There may be here and there exceptionally constituted schools where the contributions of predecessors have put the schools in so good a position that they do not require to ask the existing generation to put its hand into its pocket to carry out the work of the schools. It is quite true that such cases exist. Cases exist, no doubt, where the endowments are of so large a character that the school is independent of outside support, or where the managers or trustees of the school were possessors of the fee simple of the schoolmaster's house, which they turned to some account. But though these cases undoubtedly exist, the broad fact remains that this Bill, while it does relieve much of the strain that presses on the managers of voluntary schools, and while it removes that particular kind of competition with rate-aided schools, of which the managers of voluntary schools have so long and bitterly complained, does put undoubtedly upon the managers of denominational schools the duty and the necessity of still deriving funds from private sources in order that the schools may remain allocated to the denomination. Therefore I would venture to point out to the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken, that the financial basis on which they have proceeded is one which does not correspond to the actual facts of the case. I put the same conclusion in still more precise and explicit language. It is quite clear to me that it is a 1373 mistake to suppose that we have destroyed the constituency based on contributions to the school. It may be that annual subscriptions are not required in the same sense as before, but contributions undoubtedly will be required, and I see no reason why, in the schemes to be presented to the Education Department, the managers may not suggest a constituency, modified in some detail, but having for its basis the willingness of the constituency to subscribe for the support of the school of the denomination to which they belong.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEWho does the Prime Minister suggest they should be?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUROf course it is impossible to suggest who would be the people who would subscribe to the cost of any of the schools in the district, but it is perfectly possible, while modifying the trust deeds, to maintain, if not the precise provisions of the trust deeds, at all events, something on the same lines. I see no inherent difficulty in doing it. The hon. Gentleman gave a sketch of what he supposes will be the constitution of the Board with its four denominational managers. He said that the trust deed of the National Society contemplated, in the first place, that the clergyman shall be ex officio a trustee, to which, in the case of a Church school, I. think nobody would object. He further stated that the clergyman might appoint the curate, if he has only one, two curates if he has two, and three curates if he has three; the result of which manipulation of the body of managers would be that all the four managers would be gentlemen of his convictions. I cannot conceive that that would be the actual operation of the Clause we are now discussing. Of course, as the House knows, the normal board of management will consist of six members, four of them being necessarily denominational; but we do not limit by the Bill the possible number to six. Six is the contemplated number, but there are cases in which that would be exceeded, and if the number of six is greatly exceeded I do not see why there should not be more 1374 than one clergyman on that extended number. But I should be sorry to see an immense clerical preponderance on the board of management, and certainly that would be attained if the hon. Gentleman's prophecy were fulfilled. But I cannot believe either that the existing trustees would present any such scheme to the Board of Education for their approval, or that the Board of Education would be disposed to agree to it if there were three clergymen out of a body of four denominational managers on the general board of management. That certainly is not contemplated. It is the business of the Board of Education to have regard to the general scope of the intentions of the trust deeds, but I cannot see that such an arrangement would be desired by the National Society, or sanctioned by the Board of Education. One of the difficulties which must always be borne in mind is that the Clause is necessarily wide and indefinite in its character, because the number of trust deeds to be dealt with are almost infinite in their variety. If we had simply a single form of trust deed to deal with, this House might have a free hand to take it into consideration, to state the way in which, we intend to preserve the spirit of that trust deed, and to say, in view of the general provisions of the Bill, that we propose that such and such modifications should be made. That would be a possible policy, and it might be the right policy if we had only one corm, but as we have to deal with an infinite variety of trust deeds, I think we must draw the framework of this Clause so as to give the discretion of the Education Department and the existing managers the widest possible latitude. I think it was the hon. Member for the Elland Division who asked "what becomes of your protestations about one man management?" My answer is very plain. My answer in the first place is that one man management means, I presume, management by one man. For that we substitute management by six men. That, at all events, will be a considerable change. It is said that this is all a pretence and a delusion, because one is the clergyman and the others are the nominees of the clergyman. Why should there be this view of the relations between the various 1375 members of the Church? I cannot think that these men will all be dismissible by the parson, and, therefore, surely I am justified in repeating what I said before. In the first place, this Bill substitutes six men management for one man management, and in the next place it puts on the board two men who have no relation to the original trust deed of the school, and there is no reason to suppose that in regard to the four remaining managers there will not be sufficient breadth and elasticity of arrangement so as to make them properly representative of the denomination to which they belong.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)said that one part of the speech of the Prime Minister he could not, for the life of him, understand. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that in such a case as had been put by the hon. Member for Carnarvon, where there would be more than one clerical manager that matter would be dealt with by the Board of Education.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURYes.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEUnder a scheme?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe word scheme is not used in this Clause, but, of course it is contemplated that the proposal would be made to the Board of Education, which would have something to say as to the constitution of the new body of managers.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKENo, Sir, that would not occur at all. The case put would be consistent with the trust deed.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURNo, I think not.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEIt is the commonest thing in the world for two clerical managers to act.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIf we had cut down the denominational managers to four, then it would not be consistent that two or three of these should be clerical members. It would have been different in cases where the board of 1376 managers consisted, as was sometimes the case formerly, of fourteen or sixteen members.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid that that was an entirely new rendering of this Clause; and there again he was sure that the Clause would have to be interpreted by the Courts. It had never occurred to him that the case put by his hon. friend would be inconsistent with the trust deed. He did not think it was. There was nothing about the spirit of the trust deed in the Clause. If the Clause were read perfectly carefully, as it was now before he Committee, it would be seen that it had to be shown to the satisfaction of the Board of Education that the provisions of the trust deed as to the appointment of managers were in any respect inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, etc. The ordinary case was where they were consistent. The ordinary case was that the managers were to be communicant members of the Church of England and, in some cases, that they were to be communicant members of the Church of England and subscribers. He believed that it would be held by any court of law that the clergyman and the curate could continue to be put on the board of managers. In the ordinary rural parish there were only three managers. The forms attached to the church doors were more commonly signed by three persons than by any larger number, and of these three, sometimes two were clergymen and one a county gentleman or a leading farmer. He was sure there was nothing inconsistent with that in the spirit or letter of the trust deed. He could not think that the explanation of the Prime Minister was right on that point. Then, as to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that under the Bill things would go on as now in regard to Church management. Their point was that things did not go at all. At the present time there was no constituency. All that was done was that the clergyman asked two people to sign the forms with him. But they were starting afresh and introducing some form of public management of these schools and responsibility of management, and surely his hon. friend was right in saying that in doing so they ought to create some sort of 1377 a constituency. In his hon. friend's supposed case it was to be a Church constituency, subject to the conditions of the trust deed. There were two cases which commonly existed at the present time. First, that in which there was no management except one-mail management. The second was worthy of the consideration of the Committee, because it was common in populous parishes where there were small manufactures. In that second case there was a body of managers of Church Schools, but then the trust deed was not adhered to. Although the trust deed said that the managers must be communicant members of the Church of England, as a matter of fact some of them were Nonconformists. He knew of a case where two of the managers of Church Schools were Wesleyans. Of course that had been done with the view of securing liberal subscriptions from Nonconformists. In another case where the management had been so far popularised, the treasurer of a Nonconformist School was also manager of a Church School! That was more popular management, but it was inconsistent with the trust deed. Both these cases pointed in the same direction, and showed that they ought to create a real constituency.
§ MR. MALCOLMsaid he wished to apologise to the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs for having interrupted him in the course of his speech, but he was rather led to it by what he considered the exaggerated statements of the hon. Gentleman. There were certain cases of wrong or hardship, but these were the exceptions; and it would be a pity to proceed with legislation on the assumption that the exception made the rule instead of proving it. The hon. Member for Carnarvon said that it was possible under the trust deed for the parson and three curates to form all the denominational members of the board of management, and then the hon. Gentleman proceeded to argue that in all the country districts of England the parson was blessed with one, two, or three curates. Now, he would point out that almost half the country parishes had not got a curate as well as a vicar, that in a small minority there were only two curates and a vicar, and that in scarcely any at all were there a vicar and three curates. He thought that these facts would puncture in some degree the 1378 contention of the hon. Gentleman. Then the hon. Member for Carnarvon went on to point out what a conspiracy there would be between the vicar and his curates to get control over the school endowments; but in many parishes they had no other endowments than the school house, while in the towns very few of the parishes had school-houses; so that both from a rural and a town point of view the hon. Member had been misinformed. The hon. Member for North Camberwell said that in 8,000 parishes there were school houses, but he inferred that many of these were board school houses [Dr. MACNAMARA: No; voluntary school houses.] He hoped that the general case against the Government Bill would be more accurately stated in future, in order that the country might know the facts of the situation and the great difficulties with which the Government had to contend.
§ SIR EDWARD GREY (Northumberland, Berwick)said he was led to suppose from the hon. Member for Stowmarket that his case was much more the exception than he anticipated, because the country parish with which he was most familiar had one curate, also a schoolmaster's house which could not be claimed under this Bill; and the school had an endowment of £20 a year. His parish might be from that poin of view more favourably situated than the generality; but it must not be supposed that the ordinary type of parish had not a curate and a schoolmaster's house as well. He did think that the country parish with one curate was not at all an exception. [Mr. MALCOLM: I said one half.] If they could have had a Return of the number of voluntary schools throughout the country, giving the composition of the managers and how far they were under clerical control, it would have astonished many hon. Members.
§ MR. WHITLEY (Halifax)said that six months ago he had asked for such a Return, and the Government actually refused to give it.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYsaid that there were a large number of instances in which the managers were nominated by one man, and he was quite sure that the 1379 figures of such a Return would have been a revelation to Members of the House. They had been told that a breach was to be made by this Bill in one-man management, and he understood that the Prime Minister had said that a breach ought to be made in the practice of one-man nomination of the majority of the board of managers. But what he wanted to know was. How was that to be carried out? So far as they could see, this Clause increased the power of one-man nomination, because the amount of subscriptions was to be diminished. They were going to give a large additional sum out of the public funds for the purposes for which the subscriptions were required before, and by diminishing the subscriptions they were placing into the hands of one man, in a great number of cases, the power of nomination of the whole board of managers. He knew of managers instance where the board of managers was entirely at the disposal of the vicar, who said that he was anxious to give that board of managers a broader foundation. That was to be done by giving a nomination of one manager to the Parish Council; but when the Parish Council inquired into the matter they found that whoever they elected as manager must remain at the disposal of the vicar. How was that going to be altered under the present Bill? The Prime Minister said that there would not be a clerical preponderance on the board of management, but the majority would be clerical nominees. He did not see that the Prime Minister made out his case. Supposing the man who hitherto nominated the whole board continued to nominate four-sixths of the Board, how would there he anything in that inconsistent with the provisions of the Bill? That could only be cured by widening the constituency from which the managers were to be selected. The Committee might or might not accept the particular constituency, proposed by his hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs; personally, he should support it. But what lie contended for now was some sort of constituency, and unless the Government could see their way to introduce something in the nature of a constituency, then they on that side of the House should propose a constituency for themselves. The ease for widening 1380 the trust deeds, and for not being bound by the provisions of the trust deeds was an immensely strong one. The foundation managers would not be solely appointed for the purposes of the trust; they would be the executive of the local education authority. The trust deeds were drawn up before the State had taken on itself the duties of education. The situation now would be entirely altered. The trustees to be nominated under the trust deeds were to be invested with powers of a far wider character; and the only fair way of compromising, in the public interest, was, while securing the denominational education demanded where the trust deed required it, and foundation managers of a particular denomination, to introduce an element of a constituency which would give some guarantee that these managers, in carrying out the provisions of their trust, would be people who would be worthy to be the executive of the local education authority, and who would feel that they had responsibilities, not merely under the provisions of the trust deeds, but to the wishes of the parents themselves in a particular parish.
§ LORD HUGH CECIL (Greenwich)said he rose, not so much for the purpose of answering the criticisms from the other side of the House, as to point out one or two things relevant to the discussion. The idea on the other side of the House appeared to him to be that it was just and fair to take full advantage of the existence of school buildings built for a particular purpose and use them to the utmost for educational purposes, and yet not have any regard for the intentions of those who had built and supported those buildings as expressed in the trust deeds. That appeared to him to be a most unfair principle. If the State wanted the buildings, they ought to pay for them. But that was not the principle of the present Bill, and it was rather late to enter on that now. The present Bill contemplated using the buildings without paying for them; therefore, they roust be used subject to the provisions of the trust. That was an argument he was entitled to use; it was not an argument which his right hon. friend could use; because he had already disregarded, or attempted to disregard, the trust deeds on a very 1381 important point. The Government would least of all be able to claim that they had been faithful to the principle of the trust deeds. They had disregarded and violated them; and, in the process, they had disregarded, violated and outraged the religious convictions of a great portion of their supporters. That was so. But if they had a grievance against the Government in respect of that and other matters, they were not blind to the fact, which was very clearly emphasised in the debate that evening, that there might be another Government still worse. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Berwick Division was likely to be the most moderate Member of any Government that could possibly take the place of the present Government. Yet, the right hon. Gentleman thought it would be quite legitimate to upset the trust deeds, and have a constituency giving some form of popular control, which had been already rejected in Clause 7. Before, however, the system set up in this Clause could come into operation and a new set of managers were appointed some months must elapse. If any change of Government were to take place, if—he was sorry to put so lugubrious a hypothesis—a distinguished Member of the present Government were to die in the interval, the whole situation might be changed, and the whole of the denominational schools throughout the country would be at the mercy of those who succeeded. He really thought that that was a position open to criticism by those interested in denominational schools. It was to be observed that there was to be some obscure, yet undefined, power given to the managers over religious instruction in the schools. Therefore, the matter was more important than it was before that ill-fated Friday when the Government turned their backs on their own principles, and admitted the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment. That being so, there was ground for the very keenest anxiety. If anything happened to the Government between now and the time those orders came into force, every denominational school in the country might lose its character. Therefore, he earnestly pressed on the Government to consider whether it was fair to 1382 those who had built the denominational schools and had supported them, to leave the whole character of those schools at the disposal of any Board of Education which might come into existence between now and next July. That was a very haphazard way of legislating. He did not want to press the Government now; and owing to the situation in which they were placed through the action of hon. Gentlemen opposite, he was very reluctant to move Amendments at that stage; but he hoped the Government would consider whether it would not be possible to introduce some provision which would allay the very reasonable apprehension which was entertained. If a hostile Board of Education came into power every denominational school in the country would be altogether changed.
MR, A. J. BALFOURsaid he sympathised with his noble friend, who had evidently spoken under the stress of contending emotions. His noble friend was in some doubt, he gathered, whether the Government were more to be reproached for their imaginary change of front, of which he complained, or their reckless dealing with trust deeds; or whether, on the other hand, their preservation was more to be prayed for in order that an even worse Government might not come into existence within the next few months. If his noble friend could suggest any reasonable alteration consistent with their view of their own Bill, which was different from his noble friend's view of the Bill, which would carry out the object which his noble friend and himself had in common, the Government would gladly consider it; but, apart from that, and until he saw that Amendment, he would only say he would do all he could to preserve his own health and that of his colleagues.
§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)said that the right hon. Gentleman had given expression to a purpose with which the Committee would heartily concur; and he might, perhaps, congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the fact that the time was approaching when the debates would no longer expose hint to the strain which had excited the apprehension of the noble Lord. He must leave 1383 the noble Lord and the Government to settle between themselves the grievance of the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment. He really did not know that that deadly arrow had struck so deep; and he supposed they should hear more about it at a later stage. He should, however, like to assure the noble Lord as to what would happen if another Government came into power. Looking at the Clause, he could not imagine that there could be any considerable discretion given to the Board of Education. It was perfectly clear that, under the Clause, the trust deeds would go on as they were going on now; and that it would have practically no application except in cases where there was no trust deed. If there was a trust deed which could be made compatible with the Bill, it would continue to exist. It was also plain that there would be no power on the part of the Board of Education to alter a deed, unless it contained provisions inconsistent with the Act; and that would, he believed, be only in a small minority of instances. The result would be that practically the powers exercised under the trust deeds hitherto would continue to exist. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that in the majority of cases there was now one-man management; but that one-man management would continue because the clergyman would have the power of appointing. What difference would there be whether he appointed his wife or his daughter or his churchwarden?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURasked in how many cases would the clergyman have that power.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he gathered the clergyman would have that power in a great many cases. The one-man management would continue on account of the facts of rural life. There were three kinds of rural parishes. There was the parish in which there was conflict, which he was afraid would be more acute under the Bill; there was the parish in which the clergyman enjoyed the complete confidence of the laity of his own church, and in which things would go on as at present; and there was the parish—and it was in a great majority—where there was neither conflict nor harmony, but apathy. Thirty 1384 years ago the clergyman, speaking generally, was the only man who cared about the education of the parish, and he had a great incentive to making his management effective. He had a strong spiritual motive. The Kenyon-Slaney Amendment showed how exceedingly keen and warm and strenuous were the feelings of the district in a large section of parishes with regard to the spiritual prerogative of the clergyman, and where-ever the clergyman was able he would use that spiritual prerogative to his utmost in the endeavour to get three other managers on the Board who would conform to his views. One could not complain of that, because he would be acting according to his conscientious convictions. But it was for that reason, because there were so few people in the rural parishes who cared for education or who took the trouble to watch over the clergyman, that he believed the one-man management would continue. The charge on subscriptions was a perfectly insignificant charge. He had endeavoured to get an estimate of the charge on subscriptions. In a district covering 100 children it would be very small indeed; it would be a charge quite easy for four or five people to meet, without any strain, out of their own pockets. Added to that there was the fact that in 8400 of these schools they had the rents of the school houses, and in at least 1500 there were endowments and school fees. So that in one half of the voluntary schools there were other funds from which the cost of repairs could be defrayed without touching the subscriptions. He believed the thing would remain, so far as the Bill was concerned, even more in the hands of a small number of persons than heretofore, because hitherto it had been necessary to call for subscriptions from a wider area than now. One other observation suggested itself to him. For twenty-five years they had had in the House a demand, which had latterly become less articulate and less effective, for some recognition of the power of the laity in the Church of England. If one who belonged to another country and was able to look dispassionately at these matters might express his feeling, he would say that 1385 it was a pity that in this Bill some better recognition was not given to the rights of the laity. The view of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was that the Bill was promoted to secure that denominational teaching which the Church, as a whole, desired. He was sure he did not ignore the laity, but the Bill did. If it did not, it would have provided for a universal rule under which in every parish, whatever the terms of the trust deed, there should have been an election by members of the Church of England in the parish of these denominational managers. If that had been adopted it would have rendered the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment entirely unnecessary. If the right hon. Gentleman would even now admit an Amendment to that effect he would do a better stroke for the Bill than any he had yet done. He was convinced that would be the best way of solving the difficulty, and therefore, in the interest of peace in the Church of England and in the interest of the rights of the laity he very much regretted that some such course had not been taken.
§ MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE (Somerset-shire, E.)said that the words of the Clause as to the provisions of the trust deed being in any respect inconsistent with the provisions of the Bill obviously pointed to those, the great majority of cases, in which the deed provided for a larger number of managers than was allowed under the Bill. In the great majority of these trust deeds four managers were provided for. The principal task of the Board of Education would be to cut down the number of managers, and he thought they might look to that Department to see that the claims of the clergy and the laity were properly balanced. One very important aspect of the question had not been discussed, and that was the very large number of cases in which there were no trust deeds. How were the Board of Education going to meet such cases? He would be glad to have a little more light thrown upon that. This brought them to a set of cases in which there was no trust deed and the school was private property, which might be diverted to any other purpose by the owner at any time. It was very curious that there was no 1386 allusion to the owner of a school throughout. He thought that some words would have to be inserted directing the Board of Education to have regard to ownership in these schools.
§ MR. A. BALFOURappealed to the House to bring the discussion on this Amendment to a conclusion.
§ (3.55.) DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)regretted he could not accede to the request of the right hon. Gentleman. His case against the Clause was that where there was no proper constituency the Clause did not create one, and that where there was a constituency it would destroy it. The Prime Minister had said that the broad fact remained in the Bill that the duty and necessity of still providing proper funds for the repair of denominational schools would rest on the denominational managers. That was true of the original form of the Bill. But from March 24th right down to the present moment it was notorious that the Church, through its leaders, had been attempting to whittle away the financial obligations which had been put upon it by the Bill. As the Bill now stood, the Government had destroyed the constituency by taking away any obligation to maintain voluntary contributions. As the Bill originally stood, there was a considerable obligation on the managers to maintain the fabric out of voluntary contributions, but the obligation had now been practically removed. ["No, no."] First of all, under the Clause adopted on the preceding day the managers were to have a considerable pull on the income from endowments. That income amounted to £151,000. He could not say how much the managers would get of that sum, but whatever the amount, it would go towards the upkeep of the fabric. Then there was the rent from voluntary school teachers' houses, of which there were 8,494. Most of those houses were in the country, and worth, perhaps, only £4 or £5 a year, but those in the towns were worth £25 or £30. Even at the moderate figure of £5 each, the rents would amount to more than £42,000. Then the next Clause to be considered proposed to give the managers a right to a share of the school fees, which in the past had gone to the relief of local rates, and had amounted to £232,000. In addition to that, the Board of Education had agreed 1387 that in future there should be fees in night schools. Therefore, from endowments, rents and school fees, there was roughly £500,000 of money, which, together with the £800,000 in voluntary subscriptions, made £1,250,000 upon which the managers would have some claim under the Bill. He had gone carefully into the question of the cost of maintaining the fabric, and considered that an average of 2s. per head would amply meet the charge.
§ MR. JAMES HOPE (Sheffield, Brightside)pointed out that, according to the last Report of the London School Board, the charge was 5s. 3d. per head.
§ DR. MACNAMARAthought the hon. Member must surely be aware that all charges in connection with building operations and so forth were much higher in London than in the country. He could point to hundreds of cases in rural districts where the expenditure per child was not more than a penny or two pence, and the Committee might rest assured that 2s. was a generous estimate. On 3,000,000 children, that worked out at £300,000 for the upkeep of the fabric—a charge which could be easily met out of the share of the £1,250,000 given to the managers in the manner he had described, with a considerable sum left over to form a building fund for future use in connection with Clauses 9, 10 and 11. According to the model Clause now in existence, in all respects other than the superintendence of the religions and moral instruction of the scholars, the control and management of these schools was to be vested in and exercised by a Committee, consisting of the principal officiating minister of the district, his licensed curate or curates, and a certain number of other persons who continued to be contributors to the amount of 20s. a year. With this obligation to maintain the fabric practically removed, how many of such contributors would there be? The constituency was practically destroyed, and they would have to fall back on the clerical element. The Prime
§ Minister was doubtless sincere in saying he did not want the clerical element to dominate the schools, but as the result of this Clause, the schools would be so dominated, because the only constituency by which a lay element could be secured was destroyed. He hoped that before the Clause was passed, it would be so modified as to secure a fair amount of lay representation on the trust management of these denominational schools.
§ MR. MOSS (Denbighshire, E.)said it was generally recognised that the more popular the management the better was the education, but under this Clause all idea of popularising the management of denominational schools was given up. As the hon. Member for North Camberwell had conclusively shown, voluntary subscriptions would practically be unnecessary in the future. That being so, under the provisions of the trust deeds, they would go back to the bad system of one man management—either directly by one man, or by one man and his nominees. The great bulk of the trust deeds would still be consistent with the principles of this Bill, and the managers would be appointed under the provisions of those trust deeds, which meant they would be appointed by the clergyman. In the event of there being no trust deeds, how did the Board of Education propose to proceed? On what principle would the Board provide either trust deeds or for the election of managers? As the existing constituency was to be destroyed, would the Board map out a constituency in the various areas by which managers should be elected, or would they themselves appoint managers? The Clause was extremely vague, and the Committee ought to have some information on this point.
§ (4.13.) Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 203; Noes, 110. (Division List No. 554.)
1391| AYES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Baird, John George Alexander |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Arrol, Sir William | Balcarres, Lord |
| Allhusen AugnstusH'nry Eden | Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Baldwin, Alfred |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Bailey, James (Walworth) | Balfour, Rt. Hon. A.J. (Manc'r |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Bain, Colonel James Robert | Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) |
| Balfour, Rt Hn GerablW (Leeds | Hamilton, RtHn LordG(Midd'x | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Bathurst, Hon Allen Benjamin | Hanbury, Rt.Hon. Robert Wm. | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Hardy, Laurenee(Kent,Ashf'rd | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Beresford, Lord Chas. William | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Bignold, Arthur | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Heath, Arthur Howard(Hanley | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Bond, Edward | Heaton, John Henniker | Purvis, Robert |
| Bousfield, William Robert | Helder, Augustus | Pym, C. Guy |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex) | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Randles, John |
| Brotherton, Edward Allen | Higginbottom, S. W. | Rankin, Sir James |
| Brown, Alexander H. (Shropsh. | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Rasch, Major Frederic Carne |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset,E. | Rattigan, Sir William Henry |
| Bull, William James | Hope, J.F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Campbell, Rt. Hn.J.A (Glasgow | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | Ridley, Hon M.W.(Stalybridge |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham) | Ridley,S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Cavendish, V. C. W.(Derbyshire | Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred. | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Cavzer, Sir Charles William | Johnstone, Heywood | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Kemp, George | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Chamberlain, Rt HnJ.A. (Worc | Kimber, Henry | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Chapman, Edward | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Knowles, Lees | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehonse) |
| Corbett,A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Law, Andrew Bonar(Glasgow) | Seely, Maj. J.E.B. (IsleofWight |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Lawson, John Grant | Shaw-Stewart, M.H. (Renfrew |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Lee, Arthur H.(Hants.,Fareh'm | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie | Smith, HC(North'mb Tyneside |
| Denny, Colonel | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S. | Spear, John Ward |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Lockie, John | Stanley, EdwardJas. (Somerset |
| Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers | Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol,S. | Stock, James Henry |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Lowe, Francis William | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley |
| Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Taylor, Austin (East Toxtet[...]h |
| Elliot, Hon A. Ralph Douglas | Lucas, ReginaldJ. (Portsmouth | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Faber, Edmund (Hants, W.) | Macartney, Rt Hn W.G. Ellison | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Macdona, John Cumming | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | M'Arthrtr, Charles (Liverpool) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Fergusson, Rt. Hn. SirJ(Manc'r | M'Iver, Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W | Vincent, Col Sir C E H (Sheffield |
| Finch, George H. | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Majendie, James A. H. | Walrond ,Rt. Hn. Sir William H |
| Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas | Malcolm Ian | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Maxwell, Rt HnSir H.E(Wigt'n | Wtdby, Lt.-Col.A.C,E(Taunton |
| Fison, Frederick William | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd |
| FitzGerald,Sir Robert Penrose | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire | Whiteley, H (Ashton und. Lyne |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Morrell, George Herbert | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Flower, Ernest | Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham(Bute | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Forster, Henry William | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) | Wilson-Todd, Wm. (Yorks.) |
| Garfit, William | Myers, William Henry | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E.R. (Bath) |
| Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | Newdegate, Francis A. N. | Wylie, Alexander |
| Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | Nicholson, William Graham | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Gore, HnG.R.C. Ormsby-(Salop | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) | Younger, William |
| Graham, Henry Robert | Parker, Sir Gilbert | |
| Greene, SirEW (B'ryS Edm'nds | Pease, Herbert Pike(D'rlington | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury | Pemberton, John S. G. | Sir Alexander Acland- |
| Groves, James Grimble | Percy, Earl | Hood, and Mr. Anstruther. |
| NOES. | ||
| Allan, Sir William (Gateshead) | Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Causton, Richard Knight |
| Allen, Charles P(Glonc.,Stroud | Burns John | Cawley, Frederick |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Burt, Thomas | Channing, Francis Allston |
| Barlow, John Emmott | Buxton, Sydney Charles | Craig, Robert Hunter |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Caldwell, James | Cremer, William Randal |
| Bell, Richard | Cameron, Robert | Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Shackleton, David James |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon, Sir Charles | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Leigh, Sir Joseph | Shipman. Dr. John G. |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | Leng, Sir John | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire |
| Dunn, Sir William | Lewis, John Herbert | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Edwards, Frank | Lloyd-George, David | Spencer, Rt Hn.C.R.(Northants |
| Ellis, John Edward | Logan, John William | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Emmott, Alfred | Lough, Thomas | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Evans, Sir FrancisH(Maidstone | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Tennant, Harold John |
| Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | M'Kenna, Reginald | Thomas, Abel(Carmarthen,E.) |
| Fenwick, Charles | M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan,E.) |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Markham, Arthur Basil | Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Moss, Samuel | Thomson, F. W. (York, W.R.) |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick) | Moulton, John Fletcher | Toulmin, George |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Harwood, George | Palmer, Sir CharlesM.(Durham | Wason, Eugene |
| Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Partington, Oswald | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. | Philipps, John Wynford | White, Luke (York, E.R.) |
| Helme, Norval Watson | Price, Robert John | Whiteley, George (York, W. R.) |
| Hemphill. Rt. Hon. Charles H. | Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Rickett, J. Compton | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth |
| Horniman, Frederick John | Rigg, Richard | Wilson, Fred. W.(Norfolk,Mid. |
| Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) | Wilson, Henry J. (York , W. R.) |
| Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Roberts, John H (Denbigh) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Jones, David Brymnor (Swans'a | Robertson, Edmund (Dundee) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Kearley, Hudson E. | Roe, Sir Thomas | |
| kitson, Sir James | Runciman, Walter | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Lambert, George | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland | Mr.Herbert Glad stone and |
| Langley, Batty | Schwalm, Charles E. | Mr. William M'Arthur. |
§ (4.25.) MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid they had been discussing the question of the constituency that should elect new foundation managers. He wished to make it clear why he was selecting a constituency which was a denominational one. He took it that the decision of the House had been that these managers must be denominational managers. The question was what was a proper denominational constituency for the election of the four managers of a denominational trust? He selected two different bodies. First of all, the parents. The whole case in favour of dogmatic religious teaching had been that it was the demand of the parents. They argued that the parents wanted to bring up their children in their own faith. He knew the state of things that existed in Wales, and he understood that in England about four-fifths of the parents were not concerned much about any faith at all. In Liverpool about 90 per cent. of the population were outside any place of worship on Sundays at the morning or afternoon service. The accommodation in London would only provide for one-fifth of the whole population, so that if they crowded all the churches in London they would have four-fifths of the population outside. It was an extraordinary thing that these places he had mentioned 1392 were the keenest about providing dogmatic teaching for the people of Wales, although they did not attend their own places of worship. The people who did not care enough about dogmas to subscribe a penny towards religion in London, nevertheless returned Members to Parliament who demanded that the ratepayers of Wales should give definite religious teaching to their children just to save them from paganism. Was there any other basis on which the Prime Minister, or any other defender of the sectarian faith, could justify this proposal except that the parents wanted their children brought up in a certain faith? The parent was the best jadge, and no one had a right to judge for him. The parent was the guardian of the spiritual interest of his child. If the parent did not want his child brought up in any particular faith why should it he forced upon him by outsiders? Why not leave the parent himself to select? The subscribers had been gradually wiped out by several Acts of Parliament of which the present Bill before the Committee was the climax. The subscriber had been gradually abolished. He suggested that the parents should select two of the managers for the purpose of administering the trusts in which they had a much larger interest than anyone else. It was a great 1393 mistake—and the noble Lord opposite was constantly making it—to assume that the only interest they had got in a school was the interest they had in the subscriptions. The most precious interest was that which the parent had got in the faith of his child. If they were going to give the subscriber of 10s. the right to manage the school and to declare what sort of instruction was to be given in it, the man who sent his child to the school had a right to a voice in declaring what sort of instruction should be given, and especially what sort of religious instruction he wished his child to have. Now he came to the second branch of his Amendment. They should not leave it to the minister practically to elect his own colleagues. This was carrying cooperation rather too far. The Prime Minister would not trust the County Council to this extent. The right hon. Gentleman would not trust one member of the County Council to elect the whole of his colleagues, but that was practically what he was doing with regard to the Board of Management. With all the ingenuity of the right hon. Gentleman, his reply on that matter was very inadequate and slightly irrelevant. He respectfully challenged the Prime Minister to point to anything in the trust deed that would diminish the one-man power of the clergyman. The clergyman selected the curate, and he could select the subscribers. Really, this was very important, because the whole thing turned on it. The clergyman was cognisant of the needs of the school, and if he wanted £10 he would pick out the people who would subscribe the amount. If anyone went to him and obtruded a, subscription on him—a very unusual thing in any kind of business—he might refuse it. He might say that he had already got his £10 and that he did not want more. The hon. Member asked the Prime Minister to say whether the clergyman could refuse a subscription. In any case, he need not collect subscriptions every year; and the trust deed said that the elected managers were to be elected by "the subscribers of the current year." On the question of the denominational character of the management the Committee had decided; but, accepting that decision, he urged that the laity as well as the clergy should be 1394 represented. Otherwise, it was a perfect imposture to put this proposal forward as anything but clerical control.
§
Amendment proposed—
In line 1, at the beginning, to insert the words "Two of.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe hon. Member, in moving his Amendment, told us both at the beginning and the end of his speech that he frankly accepted, for the purpose of argument, the decision at which the Committee arrived earlier in the debate that four of the managers should be foundation managers, but either I misunderstood his speech or misunderstood his Amendment, for I thought the first part of the hon. Member's speech advocated not denominational management, but management including two representatives of the parents irrespective of their denomination.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI accepted for the purpose of argument the statement of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, that the parents were eager for denominational teaching.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe hon. Gentleman will admit, I think, that it is part of the complaint he makes against the whole of the Bill that in many Church schools in the country there are children whose parents do not belong to the denomination.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEindicated dissent.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThat is the actual fact. It has never been denied by any of the advocates of the Bill, and it has been undoubtedly proved by the opponents. It is a notorious fact. These grievances exist sometimes on one side and sometimes on another. The hon. Gentleman will admit that if his Amendment were carried it would not secure that denominational representation of four foundation managers which he professes to be ready to take for the purpose of argument. I do not deal further with 1395 that branch of the Amendment because I think it is dealt with in the ten our of the hon. Member's own speech. The remaining part is directed at preventing what the hon. Member regards as absolute clerical domination over the four foundation managers. I am quite unable to understand from the hon. Member's explanation what there is in the normal trust deed of the National Society to give the clergyman this power of nominating all his colleagues for the foundation management. The hon. Gentleman said that the clergyman would hardly ever require subscriptions, and if he did they would be very small in amount. He said that all the clergyman would have to do would be to go to some subservient person in his parish—
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGESympathetic, rather.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURSome sympathetic person in the parish and say to him "Give me 10s. or £1," or whatever is the qualifying sum, and in that way get a constituency who would only return persons in absolute sympathy with himself. I do riot agree with the hon. Gentleman. The task which will devolve upon the managers of the National Society's schools is that of devising a scheme which will as far as possible carry out the intentions of the trust deed. Now the intentions of the deed of that society are plain on the face of it. They are not intended to give clerical control or a clerical majority on the managing body. It is perfectly true, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, that the clergyman of the parish is ex officio a member. It is also true that he may appoint his curate or curates as managers. There might be on the board of management one, two, or possibly three clergymen, but the number of managers of whom this clerical element would form a part was a large and indefinite number. There is no question under present circumstances of dominating any large body of subscribers, and therefore what the National Society managers will have to do is to try to frame a scheme in which the four denominational representatives shall be a reflection of the kind of body contemplated by the original trust deed, and as that original 1396 trust deed does not contemplate a clerically dominated body, so I hope the reflection or copy of that trust deed, which will be embodied in the future trustees or governing body of the schools, will not be any more than its prototype clerically controlled or with a clerical majority. Therefore I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is justified in his contention. I do not think I need go any further in the matter. I do not think the hon. Gentleman in his speech, whatever may be said of the Amendment, described the actual kind of constituency he would wish to have for the election of denominational managers, I content myself with the hon. Gentleman's speech, and with showing, I hope with some force, that just as the existing trust deeds of the National Society are not intended to give this clerical domination of which he is afraid, so the trust deeds which are to replace them will be framed on the same model and will be intended to carry out the same result.
§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)said that what they desired was that the Government should make some suggestion as to the manner in which the managers would be selected. The right hon. Gentleman did not really seem to appreciate the point of the Amendment. In a large number of cases at the present moment there was a good deal of elasticity in the working of the trust, and managers were brought in who did not fulfil the conditions of the trusts. If this Clause passed as it stood the managers would be the persons signified by the trust deed. He did not wish to go over again the arguments which had been so admirably stated, but it was quite obvious that this possibility of choice would be very much limited indeed, for it would not be necessary for a particular school to have so many subscribers as in the past. The hon. Member for Stow-market said that there was no conspiracy on the part of the clergy on this matter. He did not wish to impute any blame as to why there had been one-man management hitherto; but what the hon. Member opposite wanted to retain was that one-man system, while what they on that side of the House 1397 desired was to bring the lay element into the management. There were many cases where it had been very difficult to bring on to the board of managers a man of independent mind. The possibility of choice by the clergyman would be so limited that practically all the foundation members would be under his control. It seemed to him that the Clause, as it stood, was contrary to the spirit of the Bill, and even to what the Government desired; and he hoped that even now the Government would enlarge the letter of the Bill by which the trustees would not be absolutely limited in their choice. There was no doubt that of the four denominational managers there might be two clericals and in some, cases three. The Chairman was to have a casting vote, so that all that was necessary was that the Chairman should secure the appointment of two supporters, and that would give him a permanent majority. Another important point was that it was desirable to have the lay element on the board of management, and the only way in which that could be secured in small country districts would be by enlarging the terms of the trust.
§ MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH (Anglesey)said they were all agreed on one point, and that was that the model trust deed would remain in force after this Bill became an Act of Parliament. The question, therefore, was how this trust deed would operate in rural parishes. Any one who read the trust deed knew that the qualification of a manager was very difficult to attain. First, a candidate for managership must subscribe 20s., and the franchise for the election of a manager was a subscription of 10s. for every manager the subscriber wished to vote for. That franchise was very much out of date and ought not any longer to remain in the country. He understood that where the trust deed could not be carried out in its entirety it was, according to the Chancery doctrine of cy pres, to be carried out as near as possible. So far as he understood, this Bill was intended by the First Lord to remove what he called an intolerable strain—which was the subscriptions—from the shoulders of the subscribers who had to bear it. If that were so, what became of those subscriptions and subscribers? They 1398 knew now that the voluntary schools had a fund at their disposal sufficient to meet their requirements, and even to leave a profit. When that took place the necessary successors of the subscribers were the ratepayers, and the power of the subscribers ought really to fall into the hands of the ratepayers. The First Lord said that they ought to disregard the trust deeds, but he thought they ought to enforce them, for there was a certain popular element in them. The First Lord admitted that under the trust deeds one-man management was possible; but what was wanted to be enforced was that there should be some general popular denominational element amongst the four members elected by the denomination. They wanted to make these four members not representative of any one man in the parish, but of the denomination itself; and he thought it ought not to be beyond the wit of man to devise some scheme whereby that would be secured. There were representatives of the Protestant Laymen's League in the House, and surely these Gentlemen were anxious that the Protestant laymen should be represented on the board of managers. He asked the hon. Member for East Toxteth, where the Laymen's League was particularly strong, was he really content with the Government scheme on this point? Did he not think that there should be some popular element in the choice of these four denominational managers? It was quite true that in a great many parishes the majority of the parents were Nonconformists, although their children attended the Church schools. But it was open to the hon. Gentleman to move an Amendment to the Amendment, that the parents who elected the denominational managers should belong to the denomination. They had heard of the inalienable rights of the parents, and here was a case where some justice could be done to them.
§ SIR EDWARD GREYsaid there seemed to be a misunderstanding between the two sides of the Committee as to what the intention of the Clause was, and he should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education which was the right 1399 interpretation. He really thought the hon. Member for Carnarvon had based his Amendment on the assumption that what would happen in a certain number of cases, after this Clause was passed, would be, that under the typical National Society's trust deeds, where subscriptions would be no longer required, the incumbent would remain the one person nominated by the trust deed on the Committee of managers, but three other managers were to be appointed, and in a case where the subscriptions which had been given were withdrawn, and there were no subscribers left, the incumbent would have it in his power to select those three by simply going to three different people in the parish and saying, "If you will each give 20s. you will become the other three managers." In that way those three would be his nominees, and if he should be displeased with any one of them, all he would have to do would be to say that he did not want his £1, and to apply for the amount from somebody else. Their reading of this Clause was that after the Bill was passed, the appointment of managers under the trust deeds would go on automatically as before, except in a case where the Board of Education was appealed to on the ground that the trust deed was inconsistent with the provisions of the Act. The reply of the First Lord of the Treasury was that in every such case the Board of Education would draw up or approve a scheme. But where was that to be found in the Bill? The Board would have to approve a scheme for the appointment of a committee, but not every scheme for management. His contention was, that except in exceptional cases, where there were no trust deeds, or where the management under a trust deed was inconsistent with the provisions of the Bill, the Board would not come into the matter.
§ (5.5.) MR. EMMOTT (Oldham)thought it was no doubt the case that under this Bill a great number of Orders would have to be made, as had been suggested by the right hon. Member for East Somerset, and, under those circumstances, asked whether it would not be worth while to endeavour to arrive at some uniform system. He admitted that the effect of the Bill would 1400 be to somewhat diminish the danger of clerical domination. But the question now was, the old constituency being destroyed, how should a new constituency be created? Much was heard of the rights of the laity and their lack of interest in Church matters, and so long as the clergyman remained the autocrat in the parish it was difficult for a Church layman to take such interest. The clergyman was very apt to talk of "my" parish, "my" church, and "my" school, though, on the financial side, it was "your" debt. But debt after the Bill passed would become non-existent and subscribers unnecessary, and he agreed with his hon. friend that two managers should be elected from the parents of children attending the school. But among the strong supporters of this Bill there were some who cared a good deal more for the unalienable right of the parson to dominate everything in the parish than anything else. The probability of the representatives of parents being Nonconformists, and their appointment being inimical to the denominational character of the school, would only arise where there was but the one school amid a population largely Nonconformists, and in such a case he should be prepared to say, let the denominational character of the school cease. It was only fair that the parents of the children attending the school should have a voice in the management.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSON,in reply to the right hon. Baronet, said that where the foundation managers were neither more nor less than the number mentioned in the Bill, there would he no further trouble, and no necessity for application to the Board of Education; but if the managers were too many or too few, or if there was no trust deed, upon application made, the Board would follow the trust deed as closely as possible, or the past system so far as it was in conformity with the Bill, so as to obtain four foundation managers.
§ MR. TREVELYANgave an instance of a school in the South of England where the voluntary subscriptions amounted to £60, all subscribed by two or three people, and where the managers were elected by virtue of their being subscribers. As a result of the introduction of the Bill, 1401 all the subscribers had fallen off except one, and the clergyman was in a position to select his own managers. What would happen in the future would be not the one-man management of which they had heard so much, but more black-cassock management. The "grouping" Clause would further increase the tendency to clerical control, because where six or seven parishes were grouped together for the purposes of appointing one Committee of management, it was not unreasonable to suppose that the clergyman of each particular parish would insist upon being put on the Committee. What were the Government afraid of? Unless there was very good reason for not doing so, parents and communicants would naturally desire that the clergyman should be appointed to the management. After the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment the other side need not be in the least afraid of outside unclerical members coming on the board of management.
§ LORD HUGH CECILsaid he did not think hon. Gentlemen opposite who had suggested a great number of cases in which difficulties would arise had sufficiently considered how overwhelming were the difficulties in the way of their proposal or any possible proposal on the same lines. As to their suggestion that the other managers, apart from the incumbent, should be representatives of the denomination, if they had been following closely the controversy about Church reform for the last four years, they would know that nothing was so difficult as to say who was and who was not entitled to be regarded as a member of the Church of England. A great many people were anxious to increase the power of the laity in the Church, but in order to determine who were the persons who ought to have extended powers in the management of the Church itself, they must first determine who the laity were, and to attempt to do that by a Clause in this Bill would lead to widespread opposition. Then it was said, why not fall back on the parent? It was perfectly true that the rights of a parent over his child were the greatest rights that could be conceived. But a parent, because he was a parent, had no rights over other people's children. His position was very different from that of a citizen. A citizen was part of a larger whole, and in respect of the whole had certain rights, and therefore there was no 1402 impropriety in a majority of citizens determining what was good for a minority of citizens. Therefore they could not have the system of the representation of the laity until they determined who the laity were, and they could not have representation of the parents, because the parents' rights were purely individual over his own children, and consequently they must fall back upon the trust deed, on respect for which the Clause was founded.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he always listened with considerable interest to the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich because he always tried to bring back the Committee to questions of principle, and more particularly on this occasion because the noble Lord had said two things well worth the saying. He had pointed out how excessively difficult it was to find what the definition of a member of the Church of England was, but the difficulty of finding a definition of what constituted a member of the Church of England, did not alter the general proposition that there ought to be lay control. If the Government admitted that, it was for them to suggest a method which would give some satisfaction to the claims of the laity. He did not gather from the noble Lord whether the laity should be represented or not.
§ LORD HUGH CECILsaid, as the Bill stood at present, that would depend largely on the trust deed.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid the trust deed was simply a document which determined the destination of certain property, and he denied that the right of looking after bricks and mortar was to prevail over the lives, wishes, and liberties of individual living men. He was sick and tired of hearing this right of property continually brought forward as if it was to supersede and over-ride the rights of living beings. He would far rather buy out or rent the school. The right hon. Gentleman said that was not the scheme of the Bill, but if the Government would come forward with a proposition of that sort, they would find there would be no difficulty about the money. The bricks and mortar would not stand in the way of what was called for in the interests of justice. The argument of the noble Lord as to the rights 1403 of parents being individual was very subtle, but because parents might conceivably have different wishes with regard to their children, were all the rights of the parent to be altogether extinguished and denied because he was an individual man, without the right of saying what should be done with regard to every other individual man's child? The idea was absurd. Parents were a kind of solidarity, and, speaking broadly, the wishes of the parents belonging to the Church of England were substantially the same. They would only obtain substantial justice if they adopted the representative system. Therefore, the dilemma put by the noble Lord did not touch the needs of the case. It was no answer to the proposal, and the only answer that could be made by the Government was a better proposal which would more adequately meet the wishes of the parents. Until that was given they would continue to ask for a scheme, and, in default of receiving one, they put forward this scheme, which was better than nothing. With regard to what had been said by the Secretary to the Board of Education as to the cases where there might be too many managers or too few, in the former case, he supposed, the simple course would be to cut oil one. In that case the existing system would remain, and the clergyman would retain such right of nomination as he at present possessed. If there were too few managers, he assumed that one or two would be added in the same manner as persons were now elected, viz., by the subscribers. In neither of those cases would there be any change from the present system; and all that had been said on that side of the House about the position of subscribers, about the clergyman being able to have many or few subscribers as he pleased, and about the subscribers being few and probably immediately connected with the clergyman, still held good, as the management would be substantially the same as in the past. He assumed, and he thought they had a right to assume after the events of the last fortnight, that every possible advantage would be taken by the clergy of the power given into their hands by the letter of the law, and therefore it might fairly be taken from the answer of the 1404 Secretary to the Board of Education that the system would remain substantially unchanged.
§ (5.32.) THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,) Inverness Burghssaid that one satisfactory feature of the debate was that it had definitely put an end to the assertion made earlier in the proceedings that the one-man system of management was not interfered with by the Bill.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYdid not understand the right hon. Gentleman to repeat the assertion.
§ Sin ROBERT FINLAYthought it was hardly possible for the assertion to be repeated after this debate. First, there was the control of the local education authority over all the secular part of the education; secondly, on the board of managers, who had the control of the religious education, there were two managers nominated by the local authority; and, thirdly, the clergyman would be one of four foundation managers—there being three others who would certainly put an end to the idea that, even as regarded the foundation managers, it was simply a case of one-man management. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen had entered into the question of whether the alternative scheme of buying out the Church schools would not have been better than the scheme in the Bill. But to a sale there must be two parties. It was not enough for a person to be willing to buy; the owner must be ready to sell. If the owners of the Church schools valued the distinctive teaching for which the schools were established so highly that they declined to sell, what was to be done? Were they to be forcibly expropriated? Was Parliament to take these schools, which were provided for one purpose, and apply them to another, thereby violating convictions strongly entertained by those interested in the schools? He ventured to say that the suggestion of the right 1405 hon. Gentleman that that was a feasible solution of the difficulty was one which would be rejected by the bulk of Members on his own side who would object to the expense, and by those on the Government side who were interested in the maintenance of the distinctive principles for the teaching of which these schools existed.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he did not give it as his suggestion. What he said was that the Government ought to have made the offer. The First Lord of the Treasury had spoken as if the difficulty in the way was these schools, but, as he had not made such an offer, he was not entitled to say that that was the difficulty.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYthought the considerations to which he had adverted were a sufficient explanation of why such an offer was not made. It was totally impracticable, and would have been rejected by the commonsense of both sides of the House. With regard to the alleged difficulty of framing schemes for the election of foundation managers in the future, he would point out that the provision that the clergyman was to be ex officio a member and was to appoint his curates, was only a portion of a trust deed which contemplated a considerable number of other managers. The National Society's trust deeds provided that there should be original managers—subscribers—and that future vacancies were to be filled up by election by the body of subscribers. So that, as compared with the body provided for in the Bill, a committee of considerable dimensions was there contemplated. The presence of the clergyman, even with two or three curates, on a large body of that kind, was not at all of the same significance as it would be on a body in which there were only four foundation managers. The effect of any order made by the Board of Education under this Clause would be as far as possible to reflect the true intent and purport of the trust deed, although, of course, it would have to be modified to meet the changed circumstances. It would not fairly represent the effect of the trust deed if, where there were only four managers, it gave three places to the clergyman and his two curates. 1406 Obviously, if anything like the proportion contemplated in the Bill was to be preserved, provision would have to be made by which the representation of lay subscribers provided for in the trust deed was perpetuated.
§ MR. BRYCEput the case of a trust deed which contemplated five managers, of whom the clergyman was given power to nominate one, and asked whether, in the view of the Attorney General, when those five managers were reduced to four, the clergyman's power of nomination should be taken away.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYdid not think it desirable to enter into details of how any particular case should be dealt with. It was sufficient, at the present stage, to say that the function of the Board of Education would be to make an order that would fairly carry out the true intent of the trust deed, having regard to the altered circumstances. Then the right hon. Gentleman appeared to contemplate that, in future, in a great many cases, there would be no subscribers.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYapprehended that in future there would be a considerable demand for the purpose of meeting the cost of repairs. There might be individual parishes so happily situated in regard to endowments applicable to repairs that subscriptions would be wanted either not at all, or to a very small extent, but throughout the county generally he thought there would be a large demand to meet the cost of the repairs thrown on the managers by this Bill. It was not for him to forecast the future, but one of the possibilities certainly was that the churches interested in these schools would find it convenient to establish something in the nature of a central fund, either for the whole country, or for considerable districts, to which subscriptions might be paid. It was quite within the range of reason that subscriptions might be given either for the repairs of an individual school, or to a central fund available, as required for 1407 the repair of any school within the sphere of the operations of the fund. He did not say whether it would be done or not. It would be for the Board of Education to determine these matters according to the circumstances of the case, but it would be perfectly practicable to say that those who were willing to enter into a legal obligation to subscribe, when required, a certain sum per annum for the purpose of repairs, should count as subscribers, as also should those persons resident in the district served by a particular school who agreed to subscribe either to the particular school or to a central fund available for the purposes of the school. He threw out these suggestions simply to show that the difficulties were not by any means to be assumed to be of the nature supposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but he felt tolerably confident that the questions, as they arose, would really solve themselves, and that there would not be any great difficulty in making the necessary orders.
§ MR. BRYCEasked, in reference to the hon. and learned Member's last suggestion, whether, if there was a diocesan school repair association, the members of the association would be entitled to vote for the managers of a particular school.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYsaid his suggestion did not go to that extent. It was simply that they might be considered as subscribers for the purpose of electing members of the board of a particular school any persons resident in the district served by that school who had entered into an obligation to pay a reasonable subscription, although that subscription might go to a central fund, so long as the fund was available for the purposes of that school.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYdid not care by what name the fund was called— whether central, diocesan, or anything else. He really could not see that the difficulties were so terrible as hon. Members seemed to apprehend.
§ MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)said the Attorney General had made two 1408 suggestions, one of which was very happy and the other far less happy. He had suggested that in the case of a trust deed which provided for a managing body of twelve, of whom three were ex officio, when that the number of foundation managers was reduced to four, the ex officio element should be reduced proportionately. That was a principle the adoption of which by the Board of Education would work greatly to the advantage of education. But when the hon. and learned Member went on to foreshadow the possibility of the subscribers in a given parish, not to the funds of the parish school, but to a diocesan fund for all the schools in the diocese, being regarded under the terms of an order as subscribers for the purpose of electing managers of a particular school, he opened the door to a very dangerous proceeding. He hoped the suggestion was not to be regarded as coming with any official force, or as dieing in the nature of an official forecast of the future policy of the Board of Education. He had applied to these proposals a standard which would measure not how far the Bill fell short of their ideal hut how far it went in advance of the actual state of things. It was something to provide that there should be a committee of a fixed size, one element of which would consist of representative persons. This committee would meet regularly and perform its business according to a schedule, and that would be a distinct advance upon the actual state of things at the present time. He understood that this committee was attacked on the Opposition side of the House for not being sufficiently representative and public in its character, and it was attacked on the Ministerial side from below the gangway because it provided for a possible state of things in which the rights of the trust deeds and the clergymen would be overridden. He was bound to say that in this matter of the education of the children the rights of the trust deeds or the rights of the clergymen ought not to override the rights of the parents of the children attending those schools. He protested against any fetish contained in trust deeds being allowed, to override the rights of the people of the present day. He wished to say one or two words about what hail been claimed as the rights of the clergy. He did not deny that in the rural parishes of England—he did not 1409 think it was true so much of the urban parishes—the clergyman had shown himself to he the person most interested in education, and he had given a very large amount of time and a disproportionate amount of his stipend and salary to that purpose. Of the voluntary contributors, the man who had given by far the most in proportion to his means, had not been the wealthy layman but the clergyman. In many cases they had done this out of a sincere regard for the welfare of education and out of a sincere conviction that the principles of the Church of England were the best for the children. But Parliament were now confronting a new issue. They were now dealing with a Bill which proposed to reorganise the local control of elementary schools, and the contention that the services of the clergy in the past entitled them to render the same services in the future, and that the trust deeds must not be affected, was hardly appropriate to the present situation. They were discussing now a new method of local control for denominational schools, and in so doing they had a right to consider as a new departure what was the proper method to adopt. The question was whether there was to be amongst the foundation managers a representative of the parents. He had had some experience of one or two cases where it was provided by the trust deed that a certain element of the managers should be appointed by the parents of the scholars. His experience had not been that the parents of the scholars had been particularly anxious to serve. He did not know that the parents of children attending public elementary schools made at all ideal representatives in the management of the schools, but he was sure that they made a better representative element than no representatives at all. He agreed that the parental element was not the best possible element from the public and representative point of view, but nevertheless it was an advance upon what was proposed by the Government, and he should therefore vote for the Amendment. He wished to renew his protest against the idea that the parent was to have no rights in the matter while the clergyman was to have rights over all the children in the parish. The noble Lord opposite claimed such rights for the clergyman, and why? Simply because he was the 1410 clergyman of the parish. The clergyman had certain parochial rights, but he thought it was time that they eliminated clerical rights from the schools, and placed the management upon a proper basis. The whole cost of management now came from the popular purse, and the managers ought to be drawn from the popular will, and neither the rights of the clergy nor the terms of the trust deeds should be allowed to stand in the way.
§ SIR JOHN GORST (Cambridge University)said he rose to have a point cleared up. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen, in a speech he made a very short time ago, said that if the trust deed provided for a smaller number, say three trustees, it would then be the duty of the Board of Education to make an Order varying the trust deed and making the number up to four. He wished to ask the Attorney General whether that was so. If that was the case he wished to know under what particular provision of the Bill that result was arrived at. In the Clause under discussion it would be seen that the power of the Board of Education to make an Order depended upon whether—
It is shown to the satisfaction of the Board of Education that the provisions of the trust deed as to the appointment of managers are in any respect inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, or insufficient or inapplicable for the purpose, or that there is no such trust deed available, the Board of Education shall make an Order under this section for the purpose of meeting the case.What did the Act say about endowments? Sub-Section 2 of Clause 7 provided that—All public elementary schools not provided by the local education authority shall, in place of the existing managers, have a body of managers consisting of a number of foundation managers, not exceeding four, appointed as provided by this Act.Therefore he should have thought that the Board of Education would have had no power to vary such trust deeds or to increase the number from three to four.
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYsaid his right hon. friend the Member for Cambridge University had pointed out that the provision made in Section 7 was that the number of foundation managers 1411 was not to exceed four. The question of having four might arise if there were to be two managers representing the local authority. He thought his right hon. friend had omitted to notice that if the appointment of managers was insufficient or inapplicable for the purpose then the Board of Education would make an Order to meet the case. If it were necessary that there should be four managers no provision would have to be made unless it was in order to keep up the balance of representation.
§ SIR JOHN GORSTsaid he wished to point out an example which would be an extremely common case. There were a number of cases where the trustees were the vicar and churchwardens. Take for example a Welsh parish where the great majority of the people were Nonconformists. The vicar and the churchwardens would be the foundation managers of the school. Presumably the vicar and his churchwardens would be Churchmen. The County and Village Council might put on two other managers, who would presumably be Noncon formists. They would then have a Board of Managers consisting of three Churchmen and two Nonconformists. At Easter, when the people's churchwarden came to be elected, there was nothing to prevent another Nonconformist being elected, and then they would have this school managed by three Churchmen and three Nonconformists. In this case what became of the two-thirds majority which they were promised?
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYcontended that the Board of Education could rectify such a case by the making of an Order.
§ SIR JOHN GORSTUnder what provision of the Act could they do that?
§ SIR ROBERT FINLAYThere is provision made for the making of such an Order—
On the application of the existing trustees or managers of the school made within a period of three months after the passing of this Act.It was for the Board of Education to say whether in such a case the provision of the trust deed would not be deemed insufficient or inapplicable for the purpose.
§ (6 0.) MR. SAMUEL EVANS (Glamorganshire, Mid)said he thought the argument of the Attorney General wan entirely unsound, and did not constitute an answer to the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that they on this side of the House had at some period abandoned the argument that under the provisions of the Bill the Government would still be perpetuating one-man management. They had not abandoned that argument. He preferred another phrase, however. What they were now objecting to was the perpetuation of clerical management. The interesting speech of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich illustrated the difficulty in which they were, and in which they must continue to be if they were going to preserve these denominational schools for ever. The noble Lord said it was impossible to know who was a member of the Church of England and who was not. The hon. Member believed that theoretically he was himself a member of the Church of England. He preferred the word communicant to member. He did not know the proportion of schools which were managed under the modern trust deed.
§ SIR FRANCIS POWELL (Wigan)I believe, from information which I have at hand, that a great majority of the schools are under the modern trust deed.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid he did not know whether the word used was member or communicant, but that did not get rid of the difficulty. The noble Lord's view was that the education of the country ought to be in the hands of the clericals.
§ LORD HUGH CECILI said that religious education in the Church schools should be under the clergy.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid the point was that the noble Lord was driven to the position that nobody should take part in the management of the Church schools but the clergy. He was in a hopeless minority in the country and he was in a hopeless minority in this House if hon. Members were able freely to express their convictions. What was wanted in order to check the practices which had grown up 1413 in various parts of the country was that the laity should be represented. The speech of the First Lord of the Treasury seemed rather sympathetic, but what security had they that the lay element would be allowed to come in? Surely it was reasonable to ask that the parents should have a voice in saying who were to be the managers of a school. The body of the pious founder would turn in his grave if he knew of some of the things which were now practised. In 999 cases out of 1,000 the clergyman would be one of the foundation managers, but he ought not to be the sole controlling manager. It was necessary that they should know precisely how the number of managers was to be fixed. The First Lord of the Treasury had stated earlier in the evening that the number of managers was not necessarily confined to six, and the right hon. Member for East Somerset had equally clearly said that the number was confined to six. It was important that the Committee should know whether the answer given by the Prime Minister was the right one. The hon. Member quoted sub-Head (b) of Clause 7, and, in view of the Prime Minister's statement in regard to the number of managers not being limited to six, asked what interpretation was to be put on it.
§ MR. MALCOLMhoped the Government were satisfied with the new position they had taken up with regard to trust deeds. That position he held to be that they had altered trust deeds and watered them down to suit the purposes of the Bill. The right hon. Member for South Aberdeen had made a remark which passed without any protest from the Government, namely, when he expressed indignation at the idea that trust deeds might overrule the wants and wishes of living men. He should like to know how far this new theory as to the violation of the sanctity of trust deeds was going to be carried. Was it to stop at endowed schools, or would it be extended to other forms of property? If it was not going to be extended, he thought it very invidious to alter trust deeds only in the case of voluntary and endowed schools; but if it was going to be extended, it would be very dangerous, in the future, to institutions which, at least, Conservatives had been proud to defend.
§ MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)said the speeches of the noble Lord and other hon. Members had proved that the defenders of trust deeds were rather to be found on the Opposition side of the House than on the other. The spirit of the old trust deeds was largely in favour of a fair representation of the laity, which was what they asked for. He did not intend to deal with any of the arguments which had been so admirably and conclusively stated in regard to the main issue, but he wished to refer to the central point of interest in[...]regard to this Amendment. The First Lord had given his own view and justification of what the Bill was going to do, and the Attorney General had given information as to what could be done under the Bill. What he wanted to say was that the Clause they were discussing did not create any machinery for carrying out the objects pointed out by the First Lord, or the suggestions made by the Attorney General. The First Lord had said in the most unqualified way that he did not wish to see this power of constituting any board of managers solely or mainly of clerical elements continued, but this Bill provided no machinery for checking that which, in the First Lord's opinion as well as in his own, was an evil. He had taken the trouble to examine some of the facts in his own division. In one of the towns there were three churches, and the clergy had created great animosity owing to their Ritualistic practices. In one of these churches there were three curates. In another town, the principal Church had no less than five curates; and he challenged the Government to deny that the Clause, as it now stood on the Paper, would make it possible for the incumbent, if not imperative, to place these curates on boards of management. It was really idle to say that the Board of Education had any power to interfere except in relation to the members of the board of managers provided for under Section 7 of the Bill. He was willing to credit the First Lord with perfect sincerity when the right hon. Gentleman said that he did not wish these managerial bodies to he composed entirely of clerics, and when he made the remark, which was of very great interest, that be anticipated that societies like the 1415 National Society would draw up a scheme which would carry out some of the objects he had in view. But what he maintained was that that was not provided for in the Bill or in the Clause under discussion. It would be of interest to have an explanation of the meaning which could be attached to what the First Lord had said as to drawing up a further scheme, either with the consent or under the supervision of the Board of Education, or by a society like the National Society. What they were concerned with was the question of the laity having some right to protect themselves—ordinary humble Churchmen who had quite as good a right to be considered, and not merely Nonconformists and their grievances—from extravagances in religious teaching which a large majority of these Church parents strongly objected to. It was a fact within his own knowledge that many of the Church people in the town he had referred to had been obliged to leave these churches and go to villages two or three miles distant if they wished to attend a communion service such as they had been accustomed in former times to associate with the pure and reformed religion of the Church of England. Under this Bill, as it stood, the clergy who had thus acted would have a perfect right and opportunity to be placed in the full management and control of these schools. That was a gross evil. As to the Amendment, he had great doubt as to using the parent as an elector as a practical remedy. On the management there should be a representation of the Church spirit, and not merely of the clerical spirit. This was not a Party question, and he trusted hon. Gentlemen opposite, many of whom he knew shared the views he had been expressing, would support an effort to obtain some modification of the Bill by which the great evils possible under this Clause should not be allowed to occur.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)said he rose with considerable hesitation to intervene in this debate; first, because his short acquaintance with the House of Commons would, he thought, cause him to transgress some of its Rules before he sat down; and, secondly, because he came in, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at the fag- 1416 end of a lengthy and much debated Bill, and at the end of the session, when everything that could be said upon the Bill, pro or con, had already been said, and he took it that the audience there were satiated with arguments for and against that measure. But he was encouraged to speak on this occasion because the issue that had been raised during the course of the discussion had been rather wider than he anticipated from the terms of the Amendment put down by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. He would like, before touching on some of the controversial points raised, to thank the hon. Member opposite—he did not know where he sat for and he had now left the House—who was kind enough to make a statement in regard to his election to the effect that it was a victory for the principles of some League which he was understood to represent there. He had always understood that amongst hon. Members opposite that election was understood to have been fought upon the Education Bill, and that the reduction of the majority was, in a certain sense, a check to His Majesty's Government upon that Bill. He was sure it must be a very reassuring matter to hon. Members on that side of the House to learn that the Education Bill, as indeed was the fact, had nothing whatever to do with the election, and that, if there was a triumph in that election for the principles of the League which he represented, it was also in that sense a triumph for His Majesty's Government. The Amendment which had been suggested by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs raised certainly a very grave question, as had been shown during the course of that debate, and the hon. Member who spoke last, in a certain sense, raised the particular issue, which was whether one-man control in the conduct of those schools had been sufficiently checked by this Bill. When this Bill was first introduced and when it appeared in all its nakedness before the country, he thought there was a general disposition amongst all classes of the community to consider that it stood very much in need of Amendment. It had received that Amendment during its passage through the House of Commons, and, for his 1417 part, he thought that those Amendments had been due as much to the spirit and temper of His Majesty's Ministers in the conduct of the measure as they had been in any sense due to the suggestions from the other side of the House. The question raised was whether what was called one-man management had been sufficiently checked by what had been already adopted in way of Amendment to the Bill. He thought they had gone a pretty long way in checking one-man management under the Bill. In the first place, as was pointed out by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, they had the control over the secular education, then they had the two members of the management committee appointed entirely by local bodies; last of all, they had something which did not appeal to the noble Lord, but did appeal to him very strongly and to many others—the Amendment which stood on record as the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment. He extremely regretted that that Amendment should have had the effect it had apparently had upon the noble Lord, who fell into an unduly pessimistic frame of mind, when he appeared to contemplate, not only the decease of His Majesty's Government, but possibly also the decease of his near relative. If that Amendment had had so serious an effect in that direction he could only hope the House would be reassured by what he could truly state to he the fact—that in his election, at any rate, the effect of the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment was of the most gratifying nature. If he came with any mandate to that House—he did not know that he did, and he certainly did not receive any—he took it to be that so far as the principles laid down in the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment were concerned, he was sent there to defend and support them in what the noble Lord was pleased to call all their naked deformity, without dilution or mitigation—and both by vote and speech to carry them, so far as he could, in the support of His Majesty's Government. There were even wider issues raised upon that if question of Church reform and Church policy. The noble Lord had alluded to the difficulty of saying who was and who was not a Member of the Church of England. He thought they were all agreed that there was a difficulty, not only as regarded the membership of the Church of England, but even sometimes a slight obscurity as to what were 1418 the principles of the Church of England. He would hope it would be recognised that the Government, in dealing-with the great question of settling the management of those schools, had an enormously difficult task to contend with. Although the word "bargain" was occasionally repudiated on both sides of the House, as a matter of fact the whole basis of that Bill was nothing more nor less than a bargain, concordat, or whatever they liked to call it, between the State and the Churches concerned. He saw no reason why they should be ashamed of admitting that it was. He saw no reason why, as Churchmen, they should be ashamed of admitting that there was under that Bill, in a certain sense, to be a new concordat between the State and the Churches on the subject of the religious education of the young. There was no doubt whatever that what had been done in regard to the religious instruction of the young was something different from what it was to be under that Bill, and the change was simply in favour of giving the laity more control over the education in the future, and diminishing the control which had hitherto been exclusively exercised by the clergy. Turning to the terms of the Amendment, he must confess he would at an earlier stage of that measure have been very glad if the Church, of which he was a member, had seen its way, in the single-school rural areas at any rate, to accept some representation from the parents of the children. He could not share the difficulties, rather he thought of a metaphysical character, which distressed the noble Lord the hon. Member for Greenwich in regard to the rights and duties of the parents. He might have misunderstood him, but he took him to say that although a parent had a right to have his child educated in the full principles of his own religious faith—at, he supposed, the public expense—he had no right to express what his wishes or ideas were in regard to that faith in the only effective manner which, under present-day conditions, he could—by his vote for a representative on the board of management. That seemed to him a hard saying. He did not wish to enter into metaphysical arguments, but he would have thought under modernconditions that it was possible even for a 1419 parent to express his ideas by his vote in regard to the education of his child. But they had to recollect that what was suggested by the Amendment went a good deal farther than anything that had happened hitherto in regard to the Bill, even than that awful Amendment, the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment. What was suggested was that that House, without consultation with the Church as far as he knew, without getting an expression of opinion from representative bodies of the Church, should proceed to form a religious constituency which was to send on to those boards of management representatives according to the denominational views of that body. He regarded that as a very extreme step to take. He spoke with very great hesitation in those matters, because he was quite unacquainted with the length to which that House was prepared to go. Certainly, on such questions as the reform and discipline of the Church of England—a matter in which for his sins he had had some little experience, thorny as they were—he did not know how far the House was prepared to go, but he was certain of this, that it was not open to the House to force upon any religious body, whether it were the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, or any other, a system practically of religious constituencies and self-government, without at any rate the appearance of some form of consultation in the matter. Therefore, surely, while some of them on that side of the House might retain the honest opinion that the Church of which they were staunch members would have been better advised had it accepted, in the rural areas at any rate, some representation directly from the parents—at the same time they were not prepared, vi et armis, to force upon the Church, by their vote in this House, what she herself had not expressed her willingness to accept. He wished she could have seen her way to accept it, because he believed, in spite of all the trust deeds, and in spite of the dead hand with which they had to deal, they would be safer in matters affecting the Church of England if, instead of reverting to the past, they had dealt with the immediate and practical problem of the moment; and surely in admitting, as that Amendment suggested, the parents of Nonconformists to a vote 1420 for the purpose of sending a representative on to the management bodies of those schools, they might in that sense have welcomed it as tending to broaden the position of the Church of England, to enlist in her cause the sympathies of those numberless Nonconformists who, after all, he believed were not so far alienated from her as some people imagined, and by giving them a direct interest in the religious instruction of their own children to bring them to the conviction that the National Church was not inimical to their claims, but might, in due time and with proper diplomacy in Church and State, come to be once more the National Church of this country.
§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)complimented the hon. Member who had just spoken upon the most admirable debating speech to which they had listened from a new Member of the House. The hon. Member was not privileged to be in the House during the First and Second Reading debates in the earlier stages of this Bill, and before he came to deal with the Amendment the hon. Member gave them a general view of the measure. He should not be allowed to follow the hon. Member in that respect, but he congratulated him upon a most interesting speech. It was specially interesting to those who sat On the Opposition side of the House, because the hon. Member, coming fresh from his constituency, absolutely confirmed everything that had been said upon that side of the House as to the origin of the Bill. The Government had repudiated over and over again the statement that there was any concordat or agreement with the Church, but the hon. Member for East Toxteth twice most explicitly stated that the Bill was the result of a concordat between the Government and the Church. And when he came to deal with the Amendment before the Committee the hon. Member expressed his full sympathy with that Amendment, and gave as his only grounds for not supporting it that it was not part of that concordat. Might he suggest to the hon. Member that the Church had a special representation in the Parliament of the realm, through the bishops in the House 1421 of Lords, and that they were perhaps incidentally represented in this House by the nobe Lord the Member for Greenwich and other representatives of the ecclesiastical party. The hon. Member might therefore safely vote on that occasion for the Amendment of which he approved, and see what view the special representatives of the Church—the bishops in the House of Lords—would take of the matter when it came before them in the House of Lords incorporated in this Bill. The hon. Member had gone out of his way to describe his election as a triumph, but he only claimed it as a triumph of the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment, and his support of the Bill, and even his rejection, on grounds of expediency, of the Amendment now before the Committee, appeared to be based, like his election , on the Kenyon-Slaney Amendment. With regard to the Amendment itself, there might be some on the Government side of the Committee who might be disposed to think the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs had been too specific in the form of his Amendment. A distinguished artist who had written a book on the gentle art of making enemies, had said, while any man could choose his friends, no one could be too particular in choosing his enemies. It might be felt by those who opposed the Amendment that his hon. friend had been too particular. Therefore it was important to understand that, if the Amendment were accepted in
| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. |
| Allan, Sir William(Gateshead) | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Holland, Sir William Henry |
| Allen, Charles P (Glone.,Stroud | Douglas, Charles M (Lanark) | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Duncan, J. Hastings | Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea |
| Barlow, John Emmott | Dunn, Sir William | Kitson, Sir James |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derhyshire) | Edwards, Frank | Lambert, George |
| Bell, Richard | Ellis, John Edward | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Emmott, Alfred | Langley, Batty |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Evans, Sir Francis H.(Maidstone | Layland-Barratt, Francis |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington |
| Burns, John | Fenwick, Charles | Leigh, Sir Joseph |
| Burt, Thomas | Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Leng, Sir John |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John | Levy, Maurice |
| Caldwell, James | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Cameron, Robert | Grant, Corrie | Lloyd-George, David |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick) | Logan, John William |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Griffith, Ellis J. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Cawley, Frederick | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William | M'Kenna, Reginald |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin |
| Cremer, William Randal | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Mansfield, Horace Rendall |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. | Markham, Arthur Basil |
| Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan | Helene, Norval Watson | Newnes, Sir George |
§ principle, the mover would, as he understood, be willing that the other side should amend it as regarded the particular form of constituent body to be adopted. The Amendment had assumed fresh importance since the Attorney General had made an explanation which, for the purposes of the trust deed, anticipated the inclusion of subscribers to a national fund if resident in the district, and it was not clear what "district" meant, because there was nothing in the trust deeds about "resident in the parish," and frequently voluntary subscribers did not reside in the parish at all, but in an adjoining parish, and the moment it was extended in that way to a district fund or a national fund for repairing national schools, it would enormously widen it. The whole scope of the debate had been enormously widened by the admissions of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSpressed for an answer to his question of whether the number of managers was to be limited to six, or whether it was to be an unlimited number, as stated by the Attorney General.
§ (6.43.) Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 109; Noes, 218. (Division List No. 555.)
1425| Norman, Henry | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Tonlmin, George |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Schwann, Charles E. | Wallace, Robert |
| Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Shackleton, David James | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Palmer, Sir CharlesM.(Durham) | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Partington, Oswald | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Sinclair, John (Forfarsltire) | Wilson, Fred. W.(Norfolk, Mid. |
| Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | Sloan, Thomas Henry | Wilson, Henry J.(York, W. R.) |
| Philipps, John Wynford | Spencer, Rt HnC.R.(Northants | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Price, Robert John | Strachey, Sir Edward | Wilson, J.W.(Worcestersh.N.) |
| Reid, Sir R. Threshie(Dumfries | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe | |
| Rickett, J. Compton | Tennant, Harold John | |
| Rigg, Richard | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E. | Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. |
| Robson, William Snowdon | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr | George Whiteley. |
| Runciman, Walter | Thomason, F. W. (York,W. R.) |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Duke, Henry Edward | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie |
| Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden | Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S. |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Faber, Edmund B. (Hants,W.) | Llewellyn, Evan Henry |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Lockie, John |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Finch, George H. | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine |
| Arrol, Sir William | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Fisher, William Hayes | Long, Rt. Hon. Water (Bristol,S |
| Begot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy | Fison, Frederick William | Lowe, Francis William |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Fitz Gerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | Lowther, C.(Cumb., Eskdale) |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth |
| Balcarres, Lord | Forster, Henry William | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Galloway, William Johnson | Macartney, RtHn. W.G. Ellison |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Gardner, Ernest | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Gibbs, Hn.A.G.H.(CityofLond. | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) |
| Balfour, RtHn Gerald W. (Leeds | Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | M'Iver, Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W |
| Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin | Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Gore, HnG.R.C. Ormshy-(Salop | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Malcolm, Ian |
| Bignold, Arthur | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Manners, Lord Cecil |
| Bigwood, James | Graham, Henry Robert | Maple, Sir John Blundell |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Greene, Sir E W (B'ryS.Edm'nds | Maxwell, Rt Hn SirH.E(Wigt'n |
| Bond, Edward | Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury | Milner, Rt. Hn.Sir FrederickG. |
| Bowles, Capt. H.F. (Middlesex | Gretton, John | Montagu, G.(Huntingdon) |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn | Groves, James Grimble | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Guthrie, Walter Murray | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Brotherton, Edward Allen | Hamilton, Rt. Hn LordG(M'dD'x | Morgan, David J. (Walth'mstow |
| Brown, Alexander H.(Shropsh. | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm. | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Hardy, Laurence(Kent,Ashf'rd | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer |
| Butcher, John George | Harris, Frederick Lever[...]on | Murray, Rt Hn.A. Graham(Bute |
| Champbell, RtHn.J.A.(Glasgow | Hatch, Ernest Frederick George | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Myers, William Henry |
| Cavendish, V.C,W.(Derbyshire | Health, Arthur Howard(Hanley | Newdegate, Francis A. N. |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Helder, Augustus | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon.J. (Birm | Hickman, Sir Alfred | Parker, Sir Gilbert |
| Chamberlain, RtHnJ.A. (Worc | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Charrington, Spencer | Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E. | Percy, Earl |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Hogg, Lindsay | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Hope, J.F.(Sheffield, Brightside | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H.A.E. | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Coddirwton, Sir William | Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred. | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Purvis, Robert |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | Johnstone, Heywood | Pym, C. Guy |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Kenyon, Hn. George T.(Denbigh | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | Kenyon-S1aney, Col. W. (Salop. | Randles, John S. |
| Crossley, Sir Savile | Keswick, William | Rankin, Sir James |
| Denny, Colonel | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Rattigan, Sir William Henry |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th | Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Digby, John K. D. Wingfield- | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Ridley, S. Forde(Bethnal Green |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon | Lawson, John Grant | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. | Lee, Arthur H(Hants., Farcham | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Royds, Clement Molyneux | Stanley, Lord (Lanes.) | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M | Welby, Lt.-Col.A.C.E(Taunton |
| Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander | Stock, James Henry | Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd |
| Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) | Stone, Sir Benjamin | Whiteley, H(Ashtonund. Lyne |
| Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Strutt, Hon. Cherries Hedley | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Scott, Sir S. (Marylehone, W. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Seely, Maj.J.E.B,(Isleof Wight | Talbot, Rt Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv. | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Sharpe, William Edward T. | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks) |
| Shaw-Stewart, M.H.(Renfrew) | Thornton, Percy M. | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath) |
| Simeon, Sir Barrington | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Sinclair, Louis (Romford) | Tritton, Charles Ernest | Wylie, Alexander |
| smith, H.C(North'mb Tyneside | Tully, Jasper | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Smith, James Parker(Lanarks. | Valentia, Viscount | Younger, William |
| Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) | Vincent, Col. SirC.E.H.(Sheff'ld | |
| Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich) | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) | TELLERS FOR TILE NOES |
| Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk | Walker, Col. William Hall | Sir Alexander Acland |
| Stanley, Edward Jas.(Somerset | Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H | Hood and Mr. Anstruther. |
§ (6.55.) MR. ALFRED HUTTONsaid the Amendment he now proposed to move was not quite accurate as it stood on the Paper. He moved to insert, after the word "managers" in the first line, the words "of whom one shall be the parent of a child attending the school." That, he submitted, would leave the appointment in the hands of the persons who had the appointment under the trust deed, but it would compel them to appoint a parent of a child attending the school. The Amendment was one that should have the sympathy of the Committee. Hon. Members opposite had used the parents as a cover under which they had urged the importance of having dogmatic teaching in the schools. So far the parent had been made the stalking-horse to obtain other concessions, and it was not asking much to ask that hon. Members should show some slight practical confidence in the parents by supporting an Amendment which provided that there should be among the managers one layman who was the parent of a child attending the school. If the Government were going to reject every suggestion of this kind, they would simply ensure the power of nomination being left in the hands of the clergyman. They had declined to give the nomination to the laity on the ground that the laity could not be defined, or to the parents on the ground that they had rights only over their own children, so that the nomination remained in the hands of the incumbent. The Clause for the grouping of schools had been inserted with a view to improving the administration from economic and educational point of view. But if schools over a considerable area were to be grouped, each of those schools would 1426 have a right to one representative on the body of managers, and the incumbent of each parish might reasonably claim to sit on the board by which his own school was managed. There was every probability of that happening, and he thought there ought to be some stipulation that other than clerical representatives should have a right to sit on these boards of management.
§
Amendment proposed,
In line 1, after the word 'managers,' to insert the words of whom one shall be the parent of a child attending the school.'"—(Mr. Alfred Hutton.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he had always had a certain amount of sympathy with those who wished to see the parents of the children represented on the board of management. But manifestly the proper time to have made such a provision was when dealing with the other two managers. It would only hamper the election of trustees if this limitation were imposed.
§ Mr. HERBERT LEWIS (Flint Boroughs)pointed out that the endowments of voluntary schools had been greatly increased, inasmuch as in future they were to have the rents of the schoolmasters' houses, a share of the fees, and a large proportion of the endowments, and all the supporters of this Amendment asked in return was a, slight increase of popular management. That was surely a very small request. It should be remembered that the model trust deed provided that the clergyman in any case should be chairman of the body of trustees, and there 1427 was nothing in the Bill which prevented the continuance of that provision. Therefore, even assuming the parent turned against the clergyman, the latter would still have a casting vote. The Government might very well go to this small extent in enlisting popular sympathy with the schools. The success of the elementary schools in America was due to the popular sympathy they had been able to enlist by giving the public the share of representation to which they were entitled. Under this Bill the public were not given their due share of representation, and, in view of the concessions made to voluntary schools, the least the Government could do was to accept this Amendment.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid there was a further reason why the parent representation should be taken out of the denominational managers under the trust deed. The hypothesis on which the Bill had been defended was that the large majority of the parents were members of the denomination to which the school belonged and desired denominational instruction; therefore, it was among those parents that the managers should be sought. As the parent was the person supposed to desire denominational instruction, he was the proper man to voice as a manager the wish of the other parents. The reason the proposal to take a parent out of the popular managers was not warmly accepted on that side was that they desired the popular managers to be chosen with the greatest possible freedom—that the field of selection should not be in the least degree limited.
§ SIR JOHN GORSTsaid that the right hon. Gentleman had spoken as if the foundation managers were to be chosen from time to time. That was not the scheme at all. The scheme was that foundation managers were to be the trustees under the deed, or under variations of the deed made by order of the Board of Education. Suppose that a parent was appointed one of the foundation managers, what would happen when the parent so appointed ceased to be the parent of a child in the school? The child would grow up and cease to be a scholar. How was a new trustee 1428 to be appointed, and what was to become of the old trustee? The Amendment was really unworkable, and was based on a misapprehension as to the manner in which the foundation managers were to be appointed.
§ MR. GEORGE WHITELEY (Yorkshire, W.R., Pudsey)said that unless on the board of management there were persons connected with the children under instruction the board might be entirely out of touch of everything that went on in the schools. The members might be all bachelors, or they might be old fossils of seventy or eighty years of age who had been managers for half a century, and were really incapable of properly discharging their duties. It was very desirable in such cases that there should be some change. The Prime Minister objected to the Amendment at the present stage. If the right hon. Gentleman would undertake to have it inserted elsewhere, no doubt his hon. friend would withdraw it now, but it ought certainly to be embodied in some portion of the Bill.
§ MR. WHITLEYcould find no suggestion in the Bill that the foundation managers were to be appointed for the term of their natural lives. This proposal to put one parent on the board of management was the suggestion of the Government themselves in one of the forms of Clause 7. It was not the fault of the Opposition that the proposal had been dropped, and they were now taking their last opportunity of asking the Government to carry out the principle. Surely it was reasonable that the parents should add one to the denominational managers. There was no fear of them choosing from any other denomination, and they could not rest assured that this representative would be a Churchman, or a member of the same denomination as the school. He was simply asking that the parents should not be overlooked and neglected in this matter. For his part he thought that if the Government refused this Amendment it would be a very thorough exposure of the hollowness of their professions with regard to their desire that the teaching should be according to the wishes of the parents of the children.
§ MR. SPEAR (Devonshire, Tavistock)expressed the opinion that if the Government were to accept the Amendment the popularity of the Bill would be increased, because it would give parents some voice in the management of the schools. It was true they would have a voice in the election of County Councils, by whom the Education Bill was to be administered, but working men were unable in most cases to become members of the County Councils, and it was therefore most important that every reasonable opportunity should be afforded them for taking part in the administration of the schools. The noble Lord the Member for Greenwich had said while a man might have jurisdiction over his own children, that did not carry power over other men's children. But he ventured to say that only the man who had children himself was really qualified to enter into the difficulties and necessities of other men's children attending schools. Consequently he considered it would be highly desirable for the Government to accept the Amendment. He did not agree that there would be no necessity for voluntary subscriptions under the Bill, but the area for which those subscriptions would be collected would be considerably curtailed. The working
§ classes would be unable to give the qualifying subscription necessary under the trust deed, and would, therefore, be shut out from the boards of management. If the Amendment were accepted it would obviate that difficulty and tend to increase public confidence in these schools. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University had suggested that a manager elected as a parent would cease to be a manager when his child left school, but that difficulty could be surmounted by giving the other managers a power to fill up vacancies, and they could elect the parent of another child attending the same school. This would ensure a continuation of parental representation and would have the additional advantage of ensuring the introduction of new blood occasionally amongst the foundation managers. As one who had loyally supported the main principles of the Bill, he urged upon the Government the importance of accepting the principle of the Amendment, being certain it would tend to the advantage of the voluntary schools and the welfare of the children.
§ (7.19.) Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 97; Noes, 210. (Division List, No. 556.)
| Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Wilson, Fred.W. (Norfolk,Mid | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| White, Luke (York, E. R.) | Wilson, Henry .J. (York, W. R. | Mr. Alfred Hutton and |
| Whiteley, George (York, W. R. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) | Mr. Samuel Evans. |
| Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N. | |
| Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Gibbs, Hn. H. A. G (CityofLond. | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Allhusen, Augustus H'nry Eden | Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | Morgan, David J(Waltharnstow |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Gore, Hn G.R.C Ormsby-(Salop | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer |
| Arrol, Sir William | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Murray, Rt Hn A.Graham(Bute) |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Graham, Henry Robert | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Gretton, John | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Groves, James Grimble | Myers, William Henry |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Guthrie, Walter Murray | Newdegate, Francis A. N. |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Hamilton, Rt Hn LordG. (Mid'x | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Balcarres, Lord | Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert Wm. | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Parker, Sir Gilbert |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Horsey) | Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo. | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Balfour. Rt Hn. GeraldW.(Leeds | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Percy, Earl |
| Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin | Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Bentinek, Lord Henry C. | Helder, Augustus | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Bhownagree, Sir M M. | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Bignold, Arthur | Hickman, Sir Alfred | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Bigwood, James | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Hobhouse, Henry(Somerset,E.) | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex) | Hogg, Lindsay | Purvis, Robert |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hope, J.F.(Sh'ffield, Brightside | Pym, C. Guy |
| Brotherton, Edward Allen | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Brown, Alexander H.(Shropsh.) | Howard. J. (Midd., Tottenham | Randles, John S. |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Rankin, Sir James |
| Butcher, John George | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Rattigan, Sir William Henry |
| Campbell, Rt. HnJ.A. (Glasgow | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred. | Ridley, Hn. M W. (Stalybridge |
| Cavendisk, V.C.W.(Derbyshire | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Ridley,S. Forde(Bethnal Green |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Kemp, George | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Kenyon-Slaney, Col.W. (Salop) | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J.A(Worc | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Charrington, Spencer | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monrn'th | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lawson, John Grant | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Lee, ArthurH (Hants.,Fareham | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Seely, Maj. J.E.B. (IsleofWight |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S. | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Crossley, Sir Servile | Lockie, John | Smith, HC(North'mb. Tyneside |
| Denny, Colonel | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham) | Stanley, Hon Arthur(Ormskirk |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol,S | Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset |
| Digby, John K. D. Wingfield- | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph | Lowe, Francis William | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dix'n | Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale) | Stock, James Henry |
| Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lucas, Leginald J. (Portsmouth | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred | Talbot, Rt Hn. J. G (Oxf'dUniv. |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Macartney, Rt Hon W.G Ellison | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart | Macdona, John Cumming | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W. | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edward M. |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Finch, George H. | M'Iver,Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W | Valentia, Viscount |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) | Vincent, Col. SirC E H(Sheffield |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Majendie, James A. H. | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | Manners, Lord Cecil | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Maple, Sir John Blundell | Walrond, Rt. HonSir William H |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Maxwell, RtHnSirH E. (Wigt'n | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Forster, Henry William | Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir FrederickG. | Welby, Lt-Col.A.C.E(Taunton |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd |
| Gardner, Ernest | Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants. | Whiteley, H (Ashton-und.Lyne |
| Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R.(Bath) | Younger, William |
| Willoughby de Eresby, Lord | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Wilson, John (Glasgow) | Wylie, Alexander | Sir Alexander Acland- |
| Wilson-Todd, Wm H. (Yorks.) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George | Hood and Mr. Anstruther. |
§ It being after half-past Seven of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again tins evening.