§ Considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
§ Clause 1.
§ SIR JOHN GORST (Cambridge University)moved to omit the words "so far as applicable and subject to modifications made by this Act" in order to insert "subject to the provisions of this Act." In regard to the words "so far as applicable" he thought they were unnecessary. But his chief objection was to the word "modifications." It appeared to him that the adoption of the word would pledge the Committee in advance to some very important questions of principle which were to be dealt with on later clauses of the Bill. He suggested that the Government should substitute some neutral word so as to leave to the Committee an unfettered discretion with respect to the modifications of the Act of last year which might subsequently be made in the present measure. One modification which they would be called upon to discuss was that the education authority for London, alone of all education authorities, was to delegate its powers to bodies over which it was not absolutely supreme. Over and over again the Prime Minister said the managers mentioned in the Act of last year were to be the creatures and servants of the local education authority, but under this proposed modification, instead of being the creatures and servants of the education authority in London, they were to be an entirely independent authority with a right of appeal to the Board of Education. The Committee ought not to be asked to pledge itself to adopt these important modifications hereafter.
§
Amendment proposed—
In Clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out from 'shall' to 'apply' in line 7, and insert 'subject to the provisions of this Act.'
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON, Oxford University)1098 said that if the word "provisions" would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman the Government were prepared to abandon "modifications" and thus make the phrase read "subject to the provisions of this Act." But he still felt that the words "so far as applicable" were necessary because the references to non-county boroughs and urban districts were not applicable, and, if these words were not inserted, would involve changes wherever they occurred. It was not desirable that the Committee should have to consider a great number of small changes or that the Bill should be overloaded with a number of small Amendments, and the insertion of these words was therefore desirable.
§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)urged that in a matter of this kind—the retention of the words "so far as applicable"—they ought to accept the advice of the Secretary to the Board of Education. As to the term "modification," it was one not usually used in Acts of Parliament, and "provisions" would be more suitable. He was glad the hon. Baronet was willing to make that change.
§ MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)said he had on the Paper an Amendment somewhat similar in terms, and he was glad the hon. Baronet was prepared to make the suggested change.
§ SIR JOHN GORSTsaid he could not agree with the hon. Baronet that the words "so far as applicable" were necessary, but the question was not one worth discussing at any length, and if the other change were made he would be satisfied.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ MR. TREVELYAN (Yorkshire, W. R., Elland)then moved to omit the words "and subject to modifications made by this Act" in order to insert "except as regards non-provided schools." He said the object of the Amendment was to exclude the voluntary schools from the scope of the Bill. He thought the Committee ought to be grateful to him for withdrawing the discussion from the unattractive regions into which it wandered yesterday, and for raising a good square fight upon a question with regard to 1099 which they could use the English language, and not such barbarous terms as "inco-ordination," "de-democratise," and "ad hoc." He was aware that his action might be displeasing to the Government, who had put forward the Bill as if it were only a piece of machinery involving no great principle. His contention was that it involved exactly the same principle as the Bill of last year, and the Government must not expect to avoid the discussion of most important questions by framing the measure in such a way as to make it difficult to raise these vital points. The Prime Minister, in answering a Question on the previous day, used contemptuous language in reference to the movement in progress among the Nonconformists against the payment of the education rate under the Act of last year. He declared that the movement was against sound logic, sound morality, and sound constitutional law. But they were not concerned with any such questions as that. They were concerned with the fact that a rebellious feeling had grown which was inducing a large body of the most respectable citizens to refuse to discharge their civic duties. He had got into trouble with some of his constituents for having said that he did not entirely approve of that action. But they were bound to recognise the fact that such a movement existed, especially in the large towns. It was useless saying that the movement was not a great movement. There were already 150 committees of citizens who were determined not to pay their rates, and in places like Leeds thousands of citizens had announced their intention not to pay. He asked the Committee to hesitate before it extended the movement to a great metropolis like London, by placing the voluntary schools on the rates. He did not like the way in which they were forced to raise the question, for he agreed with the hon. Member for North Camberwell that the way in which voluntary schools had to depend upon private subscriptions was deplorable. He would say at once that if the Government could bring forward any kind of concordat which would offer any promise of a settlement of this question, he would withdraw his Amendment.
The situation had changed in another way since the Act of last year; not only was there a civic rebellion on the part of the Nonconformists of this country, but those 1100 who cared had been watching a settlement of the question shadowed and outlined, though not actually accomplished, in Wales. Church laymen and Nonconformist laymen had put their heads together and made offers to the Church managers of the voluntary schools. They had come so nearly to an agreement that it was whispered that one of the most eminent bishops thought a settlement could be easily arrived at on the Welsh lines. The only thing which had prevented a definite settlement in the Principality was that the clergy, and the clergy alone, had refused to give up the patronage of the schools. Thus a most desirable settlement was blocked by one small section of the Church of England community. Why could not the Government devise some plan for London which might eventually be made applicable to the whole of England, and which would settle that disagreeable question. Everybody knew that the Bill of last year would continue to be the cause of religious and political friction until the difficulty had been settled in some such way as the Welsh people had come to the opinion it was possible to settle it. London was a particularly good place for making the experiment he suggested, because the educational representatives of London had always shown themselves devoid of denominational feeling. There had only been one attempt to introduce religious controversy on the London School Board and that was promptly suppressed by the action of the majority of the members and by the electors as well. In the case of the Jewish schools they had demonstrated their willingness to respect religious convictions by appointing, as far as possible, Jewish teachers, and in the selection of managers generally they had adopted a similar policy. For instance, they had appointed no fewer than 348 Church of England managers, and thus they had shown themselves eminently capable of giving denominationalists fair treatment. He did not believe that the body which the Government now proposed to set up—a body which would be largely composed of members of the London County Council—directly elected by the people of London—would be any more influenced by denominational feeling than the School Board had been. 1101 Indeed, if anything, he thought it would be less liable to be influenced. He therefore invited the Government to try some scheme which would, on the one hand, give full opportunity to the religious denominations of having the religious teaching they wanted for their children, and on the other, give full control to the public authority.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 1, lines 6 and 7, to leave out the: words 'and subject to modifications made by this Act,' and insert the words 'except as regards non-provided schools.'"—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words 'and subject to' stand part of the Clause."
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONpointed out that the proposal of the hon. Member was practically to exclude the voluntary schools from the operation of the Bill, in order that at some later stage the Government might devise a concordat—the conditions of which the hon. Member did not in any way shadow forth—which would solve the religious difficulty in London and possibly be an example to the rest of the country. If there was one part of the United Kingdom where the religious difficulty was less present than another it was in London, where every sort of school, of every sort of denomination, was open to the children of any and every religious belief. Had the hon. Member considered the number of schools that would be excluded by his proposal, and the proportion of them which would hardly be amenable to any such concordat? There were more than 300 Church of England schools, and more than 100 Roman Catholic schools. The latter were not likely to fall into line with any solution which would probably be agreeable to the hon. Member. There were more than 468 voluntary schools which would, by the Amendment, be excluded, and, as was well known, they had to work under very considerable difficulty. The proposal was, for the sake of a possible solution of the religious difficulty—if it existed at all in London—to retard the efficiency of all those voluntary schools, and keep them outside the control of the local authority—that complete control 1102 over secular instruction which was given by the Act of last year. He asked the House, was it worth while to embark upon a problem so difficult, so likely to excite animosity—and so calculated to prolong indefinitely the debates oh that Bill? He thought not, therefore on behalf of the Government he refused to accept the Amendment.
§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)said that while he held strongly that the Bill last year was a great educational reform in one respect, in so far as it put the whole cost of education on public funds, he felt that it ought to have been accompanied by two concomitants (1) full and complete public control, and (2) the teachers should be relieved from theological tests. Unfortunately those two conditions had not been satisfied. The result would be that every voluntary school in London would be more and more the cock-pit of contention and faction. That would be entirely unsatisfactory, and could not but be disastrous to education. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education called attention to the hopeless condition of the London voluntary schools if they were excluded from the Bill. They were in a hopeless condition. Most of them were in a chronic state of bankruptcy; their apparatus was very scanty; and the teachers were nearly all juvenile drudges, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University used to call them, or uncertified teachers. He would mention two facts about them. The School Board for London had one certified teacher for every fifty-one children on the roll; the voluntary schools had only one certified teacher for every 131 children on the roll. That showed the hopeless condition of voluntary schools from an educational point of view. Therefore, he agreed that they should be taken over sooner or later, and the sooner the better; but on terms fair to the ratepayers who provided the money. He sympathised with the hopeless condition of those schools; but the House would do them more harm than good if it insisted upon thrusting them on the rates on terms not fair to the people finding the money. They would be more starved than before. He desired education to be a popular charge. 1103 That was why he supported the principle of the Bill of last year to maintain all public education out of public funds; but the terms must be fair. They could take a horse to the stream but they could not make him drink; they could lay down schemes for aiding the voluntary schools but they would not work unless the terms were fair. Therefore, while he agreed as to the essential necessity of putting the voluntary schools on public funds, he was bound to point out that if the Government desired to see those schools maintained financially they would frustrate their own end unless the terms were fair.
What were the terms proposed? Every voluntary school was to have six managers, of whom the public were only to send two. That, to his point of view, was entirely unsatisfactory; and he believed the people of London would resent it. They would resent it as much as Durham, the Isle of Wight, and Wales resented it. The expenditure of London money by persons not responsible to the people of London was a very acute question; and therefore, in this endeavour to aid the voluntary schools, the terms should be fair, or else the scheme would not work. His second point was that there were 468 blocks of buildings with 1,500 departments; and, therefore, 1,500 head teachers, who in the past had been partly paid by voluntary contributions, which justified, in the minds of the donors, the right to superimpose theological tests. The voluntary contributions would disappear under the Bill, and with them would also disappear the last claim to superimpose theological tests. It would not be right to pay the salary of a teacher entirely out of public funds, and then superimpose a private test. The public authority should be the only authority to superimpose any test. There was no answer to that. The public would say, "Here we are finding all the money, and only getting two managers out of six; here we are paying the salaries of the teachers, on whom the clergy of all denominations are imposing tests." The public would not have that. They might have to have it for the moment; but they would take the earliest opportunity of upsetting it, which would cause a lot of acrimony and friction, and 1104 the setting back of the work of education. As he understood his hon. friend who moved the Amendment, he did not desire that the voluntary schools should remain out for all time. The Amendment was only to be a temporary expedient; and his hon. friend admitted that he had to move it in a way which did not entirely commend itself to him. His hon. friend did not think the scheme was the best scheme, but let it be adopted, and then let them excogitate a new concordat which would satisfy the people who would have to provide the money. That was a wise proposal which would be better for the voluntary schools in the long run. If they were to be thrust on the rates now, they would be starved as they were being starved under the Act of last year in many parts of the country. The Secretary to the Board of Education asked what would be the condition of the voluntary schools in the meantime. He agreed it would be bad and hopeless; but the scheme in the Bill would not make it better, as it would cause bitterness and acrimony and make the schools a cockpit for contention. He would gladly, with both hands support any proposal, for the time being, to give these starving schools in London an additional Exchequer grant for the next twelve months in order that they might not lose by the non-application of the Bill during that period.
During the year they themselves might be able to do two things, and do them successfully. First of all, they might be able to get a good education authority for London. They might be able to get together a number of persons who would submit to the Government a good scheme for education in London. In addition to getting a good authority, which he thought was easily possible, for they had the time and the circumspection to deal with it, they might prepare a scheme by which the denominational schools might be taken over so as to make their finance sound, and to do it fairly to the people who found the money. There was no finality about the scheme of last year. The only thing certain about it was that it was giving a great deal of trouble and causing a great deal of irritation, which was bound to retard education. The 1105 Secretary to the Board of Education said that the Committee had no scheme other than that in the Bill before them; but, before the Clause was disposed of, he would ask the Committee to consider such a scheme. Its four broad principles were—firstly, that in return for public money the voluntary schools should be under complete popular control — no proportion of two out of six, or nonsense of that kind, which could not stand for any length of time; secondly, that as the voluntarists had the buildings, he would be prepared to pay them a generous rental for the hours they would be occupied; thirdly, that the local authority should appoint the teachers without reference to tests; and, fourthly, that every facility, outside the hours appropriated by the public authority, should be given to the denomination to gather together the children of their faith, and teach them the tenets they desired to teach, altogether irrespective of public money. He did not think that the teaching of denominational tenets could be justified except in that way. That was what was now called the Welsh concordat. He recommended it in the First Reading of the Bill of last year; and he believed it was bound to prevail, as it had prevailed in the colonies. There was now a very good opportunity of trying it in London. It would allay bitterness; and then it could be extended to the whole of the country, and the whole controversy would be got rid of. He supported the Amendment which would take the voluntary schools out if the Bill for the present, in order that they might not rush into a scheme which would frustrate the object in view. If hon. Members thought that they were settling the question by applying last year's Bill to London, they would be only importing the acrimony from the provinces into London. He was afraid it would be so; he deplored it very much. He desired to do the best he could for the voluntary schools; and he hoped they would come upon the public funds on the lines he had suggested.
§ SIR FRANCIS POWELL (Wigan)said that, perhaps, he ought to apologise for intervening, having taken so much 1106 part in the Education Bill of last year. But he had been in the Metropolis for forty years, and had acted as a guardian and a vestryman in the parish in which he lived. He therefore had some connection with the Metropolis, and he desired to express his regret, in the interests of education, that this discussion should have been inaugurated. He was very strongly in favour of a uniform system of education, so far as it could be obtained, for the whole of England and Wales. There was one great reason for uniformity, and that was that if they once departed from uniformity they must enter into the widest fields of discussion, and raise probably some of those bitter controversies which he believed to be profoundly dangerous to the cause of education and religion. The population with which they had to deal with regard to elementary education was to a large extent a migratory one. He believed that in the local legislation of the country—in the administration of municipal affairs—it would be of the greatest advantage to the working man to have uniformity. It was a very great hardship on the working man when he had moved, in pursuance of his calling, from one town to another, that he should find the education of his children conducted under widely different conditions. The hon. Member for Elland, when he spoke of a desire on the part of the clergy to dominate these schools, must have forgotten that where there were six managers of a voluntary school only one was a clergyman, and to say under those circumstances clerical influence was to predominate and tyrannise was one of those monstrous propositions which any one with a less active imagination than the hon. Member for Elland could not for a moment conceive. With regard to the suggestions made as to the bitter controversies that had been raised in the country, so far as he had been able to observe, all the bitterness existed in this House. They had great discussions in the House and brave declarations, but when he went into the country he did not observe any bitter discussions or brave declarations. So far as he could see, there was a desire to make the Act of last year work well, and an Act of Parliament could not work well if there were to be bitter controversies on all sides.
§ MR. NUSSEY (Pontefract), who was almost inaudible in the gallery, was understood to say, he supported the Amendment, as he failed to see how a uniform scheme could in any way remove these bitter controversies. In the interest of education he deplored the fact that there should be any danger of involving this great Metropolis in similar controversies to those which were now raging in the country. The Education Act of last year was not a success. The Church party did not thank the Government for it, and he was not sure that the Roman Catholics were satisfied, whilst it was well known the Nonconformists were not. He hoped, in the interest of education in the voluntary schools, that some modifications which should be satisfactory to the ratepayers would be made. He much deplored the unsympathetic speech of the hon. Gentleman who represented the Education Department, and for that reason he should vote for the Amendment.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, E. Toxteth)said, so far as he could judge, the Bill was skilfully devised to evade all the bitter controversies which had been referred to. Why had the religious controversy again obtruded itself? He had considered so far as he could the Amendment of the hon. Member for Camberwell, and he could not see his way to support it. He should vote against it on two grounds. In the first place, in his opinion the religious controversy was fairly well threshed out last year. He did not favour the Government method of treating this controversy. The Government had two alternatives. They could have adopted the dual system of the School Board and the voluntary school system, or in the alternative the system sketched by the hon. member for Camberwell — that they should take over the schools or rent them, and put them under complete public control, and then place them in the hands of religious teachers for religious instruction at certain times. The Government elected, rightly or wrongly, to adopt the former. The proposal of the Amendment was to refuse to apply to London the principle which had been adopted for the rest of the country; a course for which he 1108 failed to see any argument. If they were to have war in the provinces over last year's Act, surely it would be better to have it all over the country at once and have done with it. There was nothing in the relations between the board and voluntary schools in London to differentiate them from those in the rest of the country; why, therefore, should Parliament refuse to make London the subject of this interesting experiment? He was not at all sure that by proceeding on the lines of the Bill they would not eventually get a good education authority for London. It appeared from the debate that the Committee was not yet clear as to what the constitution and powers of that authority should be, and he was not without hopes that by the assistance of the Government they would get a much better authority than at one time was foreshadowed. He also opposed the Amendment from the point of view of the London County Council. If the Amendment were adopted, the County Council would be left in a shorn and truncated condition. Already it was not in the best of positions under the Bill. There was need both to confirm the authority and to enlarge the powers of the Council as the new education authority, and, certainly, to take away a large proportion of the elementary schools was not the way to magnify its office.
He had been much perplexed to understand why the County Council should be so obnoxious to many Members of the House; and he would much like to know why that body was thus cribbed, cabined and confined, and placed in what an ordinary man fresh from the provinces would consider as not altogether the position in which it ought to be. He remembered having a conversation in the Lobby with an hon. Member who said he had an infallible recipe for deciding Parliamentary action. On being pressed to state it he said it was to vote against the London County Council whenever and wherever he saw it. That was an extremely simple rule of life, and explained much that had previously been somewhat obscure. Under the Bill, as regarded the voluntary schools the authorities would be able to appoint two managers for each school, to group schools under one body of 1109 managers, to give directions which the managers were bound to carry out, and to consent to the appointment of or to dismiss teachers on educational grounds. But the position was very different with regard to the provided schools. The authorities could not appoint managers, group schools, or appoint or dismiss teachers; they could only give general directions, and they had nothing to do with equipment. That was an anomaly, and if the Secretary to the Board of Education would explain the extraordinary difference it would greatly help hon. Members from the provinces who really thought the Act of last year might have been applied in its fulness to London without the qualifications and modifications proposed. By its action of last year Parliament had relegated the religious question to the decision of the municipalities, and he failed to see why it should again be raised now. With many points in the religious policy of the Government he did not agree, but he was strongly of opinion that in the hands of the great municipalities throughout the country the question would be settled on more progressive lines than at one time seemed likely, and he hoped the problem in London would be solved in a similar vigorous fashion.
§ MR. RUNCIMAN (Dewsbury)said the hon. Member for East Toxteth was entirely mistaken in supposing that the Act of last year had dismissed the religious controversy from the minds of the people of England. He need scarcely remind the hon. Member that there was nothing in which the English people were more interested than a good sound religious fight.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLORexplained that what he sad was that the Act of last year dismissed the question, not from the country but from Parliament.
§ MR. RUNCIMANthought the hon. Member hardly understood the business of Members of the House. Their business was to represent the opinion of the country, and it was because they on that side believed they represented the opinion largely held by the country that they were opposing the 1110 Bill. He did not particularly care whether the management of education in London was entirely in the hands of the Borough Councils or of the County Council; doubtless some way out of the difficulty would be found, whichever body took the work in hand. There were important municipal questions involved, but the matter in which he was mainly interested was in frustrating the object of the Bill to place voluntary schools on the rates. The hon. Member for East Toxteth had stated that for the sake of uniformity he would prefer, if there was to be a religious struggle over education, that it should involve London as well as the rest of the country. That was a singularly unkind thing to say. What was desired in London was that the educational system should go a head, unimpeded by religious controversy, and when the Opposition were taunted with having raised the religious question on this Bill, their retort was that it was not they but the Government who were responsible. The hon. Member opposite had also said that it was not altogether generous to propose to take away from the County Council the control of half the elementary schools of London He thought the hon. Member had misread the duties of the London County Council. He did not think the London County Council would be particularly grateful for receiving powers to raise extra money for voluntary schools from the ratepayers, when the spending of that money was handed over to a management over which they had no adequate control; nor did he believe that they would enjoy paying salaries to teachers whom they had not themselves selected. He was one of those who deprecated the passive resistance movement being used as a political weapon. He had stated to his constituency that he thought this was a matter for the private conscience of those concerned, and should not be used as a political weapon. Hon. Members should not get it into their heads that the action of those who refused to pay education rates was wild, hare-brained action. Now, was this action being taken by men who were not worthy of respect? The Secretary to the Board of Education altogether underrated the amount of feeling which had been raised in this country over the Education Bill of last year. He should like him to test 1111 the feeling of the London constituencies in regard to this Bill. Was it possible for the hon. Gentleman to lead a crowd to Hyde Park to express their unbounded enthusiasm for this Bill?
THE CHAIRMANI must remind the hon. Member that we are not now discussing the Bill as a whole, and he must confine himself to this Amendment.
§ MR. RUNCIMANsaid he was speaking with reference to non-provided schools, and he could not do it without importing religious controversy into it. If the Secretary to the Board of Education wished to know the opinion of London he should take the earliest means of testing it, because the people regarded it as an effort to throw the non-provided schools of London on to the rates without granting popular control of those schools. He should be glad if the voluntary schools could receive larger assistance from the Exchequer. But if they were to exist purely on public funds, they should submit to public control. The strong feeling raised on both sides of the House on this subject must indicate to the hon. Gentleman that it was not possible to keep this consideration out of their discussions. The people of this country did not wish to carry this fight on upon religious lines, and if the Church of England would make up their minds that the patronage of the voluntary schools was not worth fighting for, they would be able to set about their business with a great deal more efficiency than they had got at the present time.
§ MR. C. R. DEVLIN (Galway)said he wished to explain why he could not support this Amendment. During the course of the debate reference had been made to the bitterness of the controversy over school matters in Canada, the country from which he came. He knew what was at the bottom of all that bitterness, for it was due to those who opposed the system of denominational schools entirely, and to those who took very much the same line which was now being followed by certain hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House, who wished to destroy a system of schools which had existed during a great number of years, and which system 1112 was created by an Act passed by this Parliament known as the British North America Act. Those who supported the denominational schools of Canada were perfectly satisfied and content with the provisions of that Act. What was the position to day? They were now asked why should they give public rates to schools which were not under public control. Who paid the rates? Did those parents who sent their children to denominational schools not pay rates? Who did pay those rates if not the very people who sent their children to denominational schools? Why should they not get in return their share of those rates to which they contributed? He hoped they would hear a little bit less about the public rates, because in the case of voluntary schools the money was only going back again to those who were paying the rates. He should vote against this Amendment, not because he was hostile to those who introduced it, but because it was a proposition which would deal a blow against a system of schools which had worked very well in the past. He did not refer to the denominational schools of the Church of England, about which he knew nothing, but he did know something about the Catholic schools, and he questioned if those schools would not compare very well with the schools which received so much praise from hon. Members who would like to see Catholic schools done away with. [Cries of "No, no."] But they would as far as they could render inefficient the schools if they withdrew all contributions to them from public rates, as was proposed by this Amendment. By this proposal they practically said to Catholic parents, "If you want a school according to your own religious ideas, to which you have a perfect right, you need not expect for the support of that school any of those taxes which we take from you. You can support it yourself, and then turn round and also support a school which we shall establish for you."
He understood perfectly well that he belonged to the unpopular minority in this country, [An HON. MEMBER: Religious minority]. Of course he did not mean that he belonged to an unpopular political minority, because they were at present the popular political 1113 party. He found in the papers only that morning the most bitter assaults possible upon the religion to which he belonged, and it arose over this very question. He had only to go to Hyde Park on a Sunday to see how unpopular was the religious body to which he belonged. He came from a country where religious rights were generally respected, and those who attacked them would be very quickly put down. He remembered a time when men holding the same opinions as those which had been expressed on the Opposition Benches brought about a very bitter state of things in Canada, but that was not due to any effort made by the advocates of a denominational system, but entirely due to those who had crushed that system out in certain sections of the country. That was the case in 1886 in Ontario, and in 1890 in Manitoba, and that was the state of things which would be brought about in England by those hon. Members who had introduced this very question. He simply rose to explain why in this matter he should give his vote against the Amendment which had been proposed, which, if carried, would deal a very serious blow at the schools which in conscience Catholics were bound to support, because they believed that they ought to send their children to schools managed according to their own ideas. They did not object to inspection, or to thorough and close examination, by the representatives of the public authority, for nothing would be taught in those schools that would in any way be offensive to the constitution of the country. He was perfectly sure that nothing would be taught that was in any way hurtful or injurious, and even if they decided to take away that share of the public money to which Catholic schools were entitled, they would still have the schools in any case. They were the schools to which Catholic children would go, the schools for which Catholics would pay, and for which they would struggle. He hoped that a more generous view would be taken of the whole subject.
§ MR. LOUGH (Islington, W.)said the hon. Member had rather misunderstood the effect of the Amendment. It would not deprive any of the schools to which 1114 he referred of a single shilling of the support they now enjoyed. The hon. Member for the Elland Division, and the hon. Member for Camberwell, both dealt with the necessities of these schools and said they were anxious to make provision for all their requirements. No one had proved more completely than the hon. Member for Galway City that there was something which the managers desired quite as much as State support. Under this Bill a certain amount of control over these schools would be taken away. He could assure the hon. Member that there was the most friendly feeling on this side of the House towards the particular schools he represented. He believed it was a fact that not a single Catholic school in this country was ever transferred to the Board School system, and therefore Catholics could make their plea more consistently and conscientiously than any other sect on behalf of denominational schools. He agreed with the statement that if the Government accepted this Amendment it would be necessary to make provision immediately for these schools in the sense the hon. Member for Camberwell suggested. He thought they ought to look at the Amendment somewhat more closely from the London standpoint. The hon. Member for the East Toxteth Division of Liverpool presented a curious argument. He admitted that the Bill passed last year was calculated to create controversy throughout the country and stated that he did not see why the area of controversy was to be restricted. "No," he said, "as there is to be a row in the country, let there be a row in London also." It was hardly too much to call it a monstrous speech. If they had made a mistake in the country they ought to have the battle excluded from London. The hon. Baronet who was in charge of the Bill stated truly that there was very little religious controversy in London. In connection with the great work of the London School Board, he himself did not think a parent had complained that his religious feeling, or that of his child, had been unfairly treated in a Board school. The hon. Baronet thought that statement supported the Amendment. What they feared was that they were going to introduce religious controversy 1115 in a field which was free from it at present. They could not but think that when the duty of supporting these 468 schools was thrown upon the ratepayers it would evoke in London, as elsewhere, a feeling of popular hostility. There was the same number of Board schools in London, but the voluntary schools had only half the number of scholars. That showed that the schools were much smaller and that they were much less qualified for the great educational work they had to carry on, yet they were to be thrown over to the public authority with almost no, or at least with slight, popular control. Surely, in view of the burden that would be suddenly thrown on the people of London, they ought to consider carefully how they dealt with the question. Surely they might go step by step, and if at first they handed over the School Board system to the new authority that would be enough. Many of the voluntary schools were very ill-fitted for the educational work they carried on. They were in localities where the schools were not wanted, and where they were quite unnecessary. The Government would have to lighten the Bill in some way. He thought the spirit of this Amendment ought to be accepted, and that the Government ought to promise that the subject would receive a little more consideration at a later stage of the Bill.
§ MR. BARRAN (Leeds, N.)said this Amendment did not take away the assistance of the rates from the voluntary schools of London. It merely forced on the Government the absolute necessity during the present session of reconsidering the whole of their position with regard to the voluntary schools, and in any such reconsideration of their position it would be absolutely necessary for them to act fairly and rightly to the Roman Catholic schools, while at the same time giving the proper treatment demanded for the Nonconformists of the country. When the hon. Member for Galway City drew a picture of the happy state of religion in Ireland, as against the sectarian disputes and bitterness in England—
§ MR. C. R. DEVLINI did not refer at all to the condition of Ireland.
§ MR. BARRANbegged the hon. Gentleman's pardon; he thought he had referred to Ireland. The point he wished to draw attention to was precisely the same. In Canada there was no established Church as there was in England, and therein lay the whole difference. Their object in this Amendment was to bring before the Government the reasons entertained in the country why, having passed the Bill last year for the whole country, they should not repeat the religious clauses for London. Everything that was prophesied as to the results of that Bill in the large cities of England had been more than proved. In every large city there was at the present time a bitter and violent agitation against the religious clauses of last year's Bill. Almost every city council had been occupied, and was occupied to-day, with a religious discussion, and it was perfectly evident that this discussion would not subside until some fresh legislation on the religious question had been enacted. That was surely a sufficient reason why that legislation should not be extended to London. He ventured to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education that he should follow the wise course of his colleague on the Treasury Bench, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and apply to this measure the persuasive arguments which had come from the country, as had been done in regard to the corn tax. Precisely the same arguments applied to the religious question in education. The withdrawal of the corn tax was due to the strong and vigorous protest from the country. The opposition and the bitterness which existed to-day in the towns in regard to the Education Bill would to-morrow exist in London if this Bill was passed in its present form.
The Parliamentary Secretary stated that London less than anywhere was subject to these religious difficulties, because in London there was such great variety of schools. He supposed the hon. Gentleman's suggestion was that they were so widely distributed that if a child or a teacher wished to go to one kind of school or another he was at liberty to do so. But he should like to point out—and he spoke 1117 with considerable practical experience of School Board work in a large city—that this was not at all the case, and if they took the 460 denominational schools in London they would find that they covered such large areas that it was impossible for every child or teacher to move from one district to another. The hon. Member must be perfectly aware that the distance a child could travel to school was very small indeed, and it was a well-known fact that to day in London a child wishing to go to a school other than a denominational one, in tens of thousands of cases could not find that school within reasonable distance of his home. Under this Bill a teacher who wished to have an equal opportunity of taking a position in the schools paid for entirely out of the rates, would be unable to find these positions in schools in their own locality. They would, in London, just as they were in the provinces, be practically excluded from the profession in any but their own district, because the expense of removing to another district was practical exclusion. In London there was one difficulty from the religious point of view, which, in many ways he thought, was more acute than it was in any part of the country. He referred to that difficulty where people had been driven from the English Church, and where they did not desire to send their children to the schools of that Church. They had to look at this from a parent's point of view. If a certain number of people in a district or parish were driven out of the Church and from any management of the Church by practices which this Government absolutely refused to put down—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh!"]
§ MR. BARRANsaid he would then go on to another point. He wished to emphasise that the parents here would have no control over the teaching in their own district. In certain districts large numbers of parents would be absolutely excluded from being one of the four trustees of the school out of the six, and they could not vote for them, as they did 1118 not belong to the Church. These were the men who were good Anglicans, but who had been driven out of the Church by the action of those who had remained inside. That was in many ways a more acute matter in London today than in many towns in the provinces. Therefore he supported the Amendment. They ought to have a full reconsideration of the system of managing the voluntary schools after the thorough condemnation it had received in all the large cities and towns in the country, before it was applied to the City of London.
§ MR. CHARLES ALLEN (Gloucestershire, Stroud)said that the hon. Member who introduced the Amendment claimed the gratitude of Members on that side of the House, but, speaking for himself, he did not think the hon. Gentleman deserved any gratitude at all, for he looked upon it with a considerable amount of difficulty. Of course the Amendment was right; if the managers objected to popular control, they ought to object to popular money. He was not quite sure, however, that the hon. Member for Elland was not, at the moment, the best friend of the Government; for surely it was an undeniable fact that the Government had been losing election after election by putting the voluntary schools on the rates on their own terms, and here was an Amendment to try and prevent them doing the same in London. Rather they ought to encourage the Government in their evil ways, and, if they did not trip over the corn tax—which he thought they would—they would find the Government putting the Churches on the rates as well as the schools, and then their cup would be full. If the Government were clever and wise, they would be inclined to take the advice of the hon. Member for Elland; but, luckily, he had a very confident belief in their unwisdom. He was pretty sure they would not accept the Amendment, and, therefore, they could look upon it from the point of view of principle, and not of party politics. The Government had no mandate from the country to bring in any Bill of this kind. They all knew what the Government were elected for at the last election.
THE CHAIRMANsaid that the right hon. Gentleman must come a little closer in his remarks to the Amendment before the Committee.
§ MR. CHARLES ALLENsaid he bowed to the Chairman's ruling, but it did seem to him that the proposal of the Government, which this Amendment was to do away with, could not possibly commend itself to the feeling of the country in any way whatsoever. The proposal was that one-half of the people of this country—if the Amendment were defeated—would be placed in a position of inferiority in regard to the teaching profession in a very large number of schools. That was a point not before the public at the last General Election. The Government, in pressing this proposal at this time, were making a mistake, as they had done in the Act of last year; and for this reason, that the sense of the country had been shown to be against them. The bye-elections proved that. They had now got an opportunity, by the Amendment, to pause for a moment, to give the voluntary schools in London a grant which would carry them over the hard times which all knew they suffered from, while the irritation and quarrels in the country wore themselves down. If that happened the Government could follow the example of the previous Bill, but if it did not, they could search and, mayhap, find a more excellent way.
§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)said that the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Elland would no doubt require some subsequent Amendment in order to make it work; but there could be no difficulty in introducing these Amendments if the Committee accepted the Amendment now under discussion. At this stage he wished to raise a question of principle, but his hon. friend would be ready to bring forward Amendments so as to put his proposal into shape. He supported the Amendment on the very simple broad ground of principle, that the less they had of a bad thing the better. If this clause passed in its present form the Bill would bring into London the same controversies whose exasperating effect they had all watched with so much regret in all parts of the country. The raising of these controversies had been predicted on that side of the House, and 1120 the prediction had unhappily proved true. They desired to spare London from them. The Government made a great mistake if they supposed that the soft and dulcet tones in which this question had been discussed to-day represented the feeling of the country. He could assure the Government that there was a larger, stronger, and deeper feeling in the country on this subject than had yet been realised by the Ministry, and that that feeling, which was gathering to a head in this campaign, would find very forcible expression as soon as a General Election arose. The best friend of the Government would be he who endeavoured to save them their London seats by preventing the application of this clause to London. His hon. friend the Member for Wigan, with his usual sweet reasonableness, said: "Now that the Act of last year has been passed, let us have an end of controversy. We have had a fight, you have been beaten, knocked down, left helpless, and been compelled to pay the school rates. But all that is past. Let us now kiss and be friends, and make up our minds to forget the past and work in an amicable spirit." He knew that had been said frequently, and that there was a human sentiment of amity which would incline to agree to it. But the best way to avoid controversy was not to pass unjust Bills. If good feeling were wanted Bills should be passed which were not only constitutional but also appealed to the natural sense of justice in all people. The Bill had by large sections of opinion in the country been conceived to be an unjust measure, and whenever they were asked to record their protest against it, as they were now, they were bound to record that protest. He did not desire to go into any of the arguments used last year. His hon. friend had declared all they had said last year about the obnoxious and unconstitutional character of the Principal Act, and they were bound to support him in his protest. They delivered that protest in the full belief that they represented the view of the majority of the people of London.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG, Bristol, S.)said that in 1121 rising to make an appeal to the Committee he did not intend to answer at length the arguments advanced in support of the Amendment. He based his appeal on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen. The right hon. Gentleman stated that he supported the Amendment on the ground of principle; that he was opposed to the inclusion of the voluntary schools in this new system, but that under existing conditions he did not wish to state over again the opinions against the Bill because, he admitted, the question had been fully debated last year, when the educational policy of the Government was decided. Everybody must realise that there had been a great air of unreality in the debates. [OPPOSITION cries of "No!"] He did not mean unreality in the sense that hon. Gentlemen opposite did not honestly feel all that they had said, but unreality in the sense that everyone must know perfectly well that the broad lines of the educational policy of the Government had been settled and laid down last year, and no one could seriously believe that they would be likely now to exclude the voluntary schools of London from the educational system which had been applied to the rest of the country. He would point out that the suggestions that they should make this alteration had come from gentlemen who were not London Members.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid there had been no defence from London Members.
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid that the London Members probably felt that the question had been fully discussed last year, and decided that this was not the occasion to present their case over again. At all events, there had been no defence of the Amendment from those who represented London constituencies.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid that one-third of the hon. Members from London on that side of the House had spoken in its defence.
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid that he noticed that the majority of the London Members were absent from the debate altogether. The controversy had been fully discussed last year, and it would be undesirable to re-discuss it now. Therefore, having 1122 regard to the very important questions which remained to be considered, he hoped hon. Gentlemen would be content with making a protest, and allow the Committee to arrive at a decision.
§ SIR MICHAEL FOSTER (London University)said that as he understood the Amendment, it was not to pronounce an opinion on the policy to be adopted but to defer it. He felt very strongly that the voluntary school question was not so urgent in London as it was in the country, and, on the other hand, that the educational question in London was of extreme urgency, especially in those branches of education which passed up from the elementary towards the higher education. He therefore ventured to appeal to the Government whether it would not be in the circumstances statesmanlike to accept this Bill so far as it referred to provided schools, and not let them get once more entangled in those dreadful theological discussions under which education seemed destined entirely to sink. Was it not better to leave these over for a year or more and to frame a Bill which would start efficiently and effectively that sound education for which London was thirsting, and which was absolutely necessary if London was to maintain its place in the world?
§ MR. CORRIE GRANT (Warwickshire, Rugby)said he could not claim to be a London Member, but he had lived all his life in London; and had had a great deal to do with its School Board work; and he strongly hoped that the Government would consider the attitude they were taking in regard to the denominational schools. The Government could not have it both ways. London was left out of the Bill of last year because it required special treatment; and when the Government were now asked to give special treatment to London, they could not ride off on the argument that the matter had been discussed last session. The Government were, he thought, justified in making a special departure with reference to London. In London the denominational schools were managed by men who were largely of a higher type than the managers of denominational schools in the country. This was not a religious controversy; it was a denominational controversy; and that 1123 made all the difference in considering the Amendment. Those denominational controversies were fought out most bitterly in the little towns, where personal animosities came in behind denominational animosities, and where the interests of the children and of education were lost sight of altogether. In London, however, the denominational schools were in the hands of men who were in the forefront of the denomination to which they belonged, and they might be expected to treat this question in a different way to that in which it was treated in small country towns. Again, the denominational controversy did not press in London in the same way that it did in the provinces. Any parent who wished to give denominational teaching to his child had no difficulty in finding a school for that purpose. Travelling on any of the East End overground railways, one must be struck by the noble school buildings to be seen on all hands. He had heard them called the cathedrals of the East End, and the words were never better applied. To his mind the Amendment raised one of the broadest issues that could be discussed on the Bill. It was broad and also important, and it should be settled by the House of Commons. He did not believe in denominational controversies they were not real; they did not stir the parents; they belonged to the sects; and he hoped before very long the parents would step forward and take the management of their own schools into their own hands, and sweep the denominational question out of the way. For that reason, he asked the Government to consider whether they could not accept one of the many methods of settlement which had been suggested. Two or three of them would certainly be accepted by the common sense members of the Committee, shutting out the men who spoke from the denominational standpoint alone. This controversy would have to be settled apart from the clerics and the clerical laity, who were worse than the clerics. On the London School Board there was a five months wrangle as to how the denominational question could be settled, and finally it was settled; and the system had been adopted in many School Boards throughout the country. To-day the 1124 Bishop of St. Asaph, in attempting to arrange terms with the Nonconformists in Wales, suggested that they should adopt the syllabus drawn up by the London School Board. Was not that fact in itself one of the greatest hopes for the settlement of the question in London? The attitude of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education was timid and hesitating, and not such as was to be expected from a man who had done such splendid work in another Department. There was no law student who was not indebted to the hon. Gentleman for his work on contracts; and if the hon. Gentleman only showed the same firmness of principle now, and settled this denominational question, he would write an enduring mark in the legislation of this country. Everyone knew that half the denominationalists were ready to settle it if rent were paid for the schools. He hoped the hon. Member for the Toxteth Division was not going to repeat in the House all the foolish things he heard in the Lobby. If he might venture to make a suggestion to the hon. Member, it would be never to repeat the foolish things but always to repeat the wise things he heard there. He would have less to say but his reputation for statesmanship would at once increase.
The hon. Baronet the Member for Wigan said that this question was put forward largely as a matter of patronage. He himself would not like to put it so strongly. Many of the Anglican clergy were as anxious for good education as were the Nonconformist clergy; but he could not conceal from himself the fact that there was not quite that high standard which he should like to see, and that some of the clergy did make it a matter of patronage. He knew a case in a small town where a Churchman and a Liberal was one of the managers of the denominational schools for thirty years. The clergyman, his curate, his coachman, and his wife were now managers; and the Liberal manager having differed from them the curate, who had been only eighteen months in the parish, told him if he did not like the proposal he could resign. How would the hon. Baronet, after his many years of hard work in this House, feel if a new Member told him that if he did not like 1125 a particular Amendment he could resign. The hon. Baronet the Member for Wigan said it was not a matter of patronage. He would read a letter from a Church of England clergyman to one of his schoolmasters, in which he said that he was now sending in his return to the County Council of the salaries paid to his teachers. This schoolmaster had £74 a year and 30s. for doing some small work on Sundays. The schoolmistress was receiving £45 and £5 for playing the organ. The clergyman wrote saying that if; thy schoolmaster would undertake to do the work he was now doing, for nothing, he would return his salary at £75 10s and he added that the schoolmistress had already agreed that her salary should be returned at £50, and consented to play the organ in future for nothing. Was that the sort of thing to improve the standard of morality in the villages of England, which were supposed to be the care of the clergy? He did not believe they could match such an instance from among any other sect. He did not believe they would ever find a Nonconformist or a Catholic who would make such a proposal as that. He was glad to know it was an isolated case, but when they were told there was no patronage behind this question he pointed to instances such as this as showing the temper of mind and the trickery to which the clergy would descend to save themselves a few shillings. Hon. Gentlemen made the mistake that the Borough Councils in the provinces were the same as the Borough Councils in London.
§ MR. CORRIE GRANTsaid he was answering an argument.
THE CHAIRMANIf hon. Members insist on answering every irrelevant observation in the speeches of other hon.
§ Members it will be impossible to be ever relevant.
§ MR. CORRIE GRANTsaid he would do his utmost to support the authority of the Chair; and, therefore, he would not say another word on the irrelevant portion of the hon. Gentleman's speech. With reference to the speech of the hon. Member for Galway he hoped the hon. Member was not going to draw any conclusions from what he heard in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoons. Hyde Park was on Sunday afternoons the blow-hole of English politics. Catholics, Anglicans, the Government, the Opposition, and every constituted authority were condemned on Sunday afternoons; and he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not put any gloss on the Amendment from what he happened to hear in Hyde Park. He thought the hon. Gentleman had misunderstood the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman thought that the Amendment would deprive the Catholics of this country of something they now possessed, but that was an entire I mistake. It proposed simply that the question should be postponed. It did not take from Catholics anything they had. He entirety agreed with what had been said by his hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell; and in supporting the Amendment he was prepared to vote for a grant which would bring the denominational schools of London up to the level of the denominational schools in the country, while a settlement, which they believed they would get, would be worked out if the Government would only take the advice of the sensible section of their supporters.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 235; Noes, 117. (Division List No. 89.)
1127| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N. E.) | Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Bailey, James (Walworth) |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Arrol, Sir William | Bain, Colonel James Robert |
| Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden | Atkinson, Right Hon. John | Balcarres, Lord |
| Ambrose, Robert | Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Man'r |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Austin, Sir John | Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Ld. G. (Midx | Percy, Earl |
| Bartley, Sir George C. T. | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashfd | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Hatch, Ernest Frederick G. | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Bignold, Arthur | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Hayden, John Patrick | Purvis, Robert |
| Boland, John | Heath, James (Staffs., N. W.) | Rattigan, Sir William Henry |
| Bond, Edward | Helder, Augustus | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Bousfield, William Robert | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Bowles, Col. H. F. (Middlesex | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green) |
| Bowles, T. G. (Lynn Regis) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hn. H. (Som's't,E | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Brown, Sir Alx. H. (Shropsh.) | Hoult, Joseph | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Howard, John (Kent, Faversh'm | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Bull, William James | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hutton, John (Yorks., N. R.) | Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye |
| Campbell, J.H.M. (Dublin Univ. | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Cavendish, V C W (Derbysh.) | Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm | Johnstone, Heywood | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc | Joyce, Michael | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Charrington, Spencer | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Kimber, Henry | Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln) |
| Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Laurie, Lieut.-General | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Coddington, Sir William | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N R | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cox, Irwin Edwd. Bainbridge | Leamy, Edmund | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Cranborne, Lord | Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham) | Smith, James Parker (Lanarks. |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton) | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Spear, John Ward |
| Crossley, Sir Savile | Leveson-Gower, Frederick, N. S. | Stanley, E. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Cullinan, J. | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart |
| Cust, Henry John C. | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Jn. M. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S. | Stroyan, John |
| Denny, Colonel | Lowe, Francis William | Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley |
| Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft | Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier |
| Dickinson, Robert Edmond | Lundon, W. | Sullivan, Donal |
| Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E. | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers | Maconochie, A. W. | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxfd Univ. |
| Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| Duffy, William J. | M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire) | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Malcolm, Ian | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. E. M. |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Maple, Sir John Blundell | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed. | Maxwell, Rt. HnSir H E. (Wigt'n | Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward |
| Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Man'r | Melville, Beresford Valentine | Valentia, Viscount |
| Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. | Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. H. |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy | Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts) |
| FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire) | Wharton, Rt. Hon. J. Lloyd |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Morgan, David J (Walthamstow | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne) |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Flower, Ernest | Mount, William Arthur | Williams, Rt HnJ Powell (Birm. |
| Forster, Henry William | Mowbray, Sir Robt. Gray C. | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Fyler, John Arthur | Murphy, John | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Murray, Rt. Hn A Graham (Bute | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Garfit, William | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Gibbs, Hn A.G.H (City of Lond | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans | Myers, William Henry | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn.E.R. (Bath) |
| Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. | Newdegate, Francis A. N. | Wolff Gustav Wilhelm |
| Gordon, Hon. J. E. (Elain & Nrn. | Nicholson, William Graham | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart |
| Gordon, Maj Evans (Tr. H'ml'ts | Nicol, Donald Ninian | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Gore, Hn. S. F. Ormsby- (Linc | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) | Wvlie, Alexander |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim | O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.) | Younger, William |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | |
| Graham, Henry Robert | O'Dowd, John | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Gunter, Sir Robert | O'Malley, William | Sir Alexander Acland- |
| Hain, Edward | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Hood and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | Penn, John | |
| NOES. | ||
| Allan, Sir William (Gateshead | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tyd | Price, Robert John |
| Allan Charles P. (Glouc. Stroud | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- | Priestley, Arthur |
| Asher, Alexander | Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. | Rea, Russell |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Helme, Norval Watson | Reckitt, Harold James |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristl, E. | Rigg, Richard |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. | Robertson, Edmund (Dundee) |
| Bell Richard | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Black, Alexander William | Jacoby, James Alfred | Rose, Charles Day |
| Brigg, John | Joicey, Sir James | Runciman, Walter |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Jones, David B. (Swansea) | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Bryce, Right Hon. James | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire) | Shaw, Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Kearley, Hudson E. | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) |
| Burt, Thomas | Kitson, Sir James | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Caldwell, James | Labouchere, Henry | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) |
| Cameron, Robert | Lambert, George | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark | Leese, Sir Jos. F. (Accrington) | Stevenson, Francis S. |
| Cremer, William Randal | Leng, Sir John | Tennant, Harold John |
| Crombie, John William | Levy, Maurice | Thomas, A. (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Dalziel, James Henry | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E. |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | M'Kenna, Reginald | Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings |
| Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan | M'Laren, Sir Charles Benj. | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-shire | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Tomkinson, James |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Mappin, Sir Fredk. Thorpe | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Mellor, Rt. Hn. John William | Wallace, Robert |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton | Warner, Thomas Courtenay, T. |
| Edwards, Frank | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney |
| Elibank, Master of | Morley, Charles (Breconshire) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Emmott, Alfred | Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose) | Whiteley, George (York, W. R. |
| Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone) | Newnes, Sir George | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Foster, Sir Michl. (Land. Univ | Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham) | Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk, Mid) |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Partington, Oswald | |
| Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Paulton, James Mellor | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | Mr. Herbert Gladstone and |
| Grant, Corrie | Perks, Robert William | Mr. William M'Arthur. |
| Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E. (Berwick | Philipps, John Wynford | |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Pirie, Duncan V. |
§ Question proposed, "That Clause 1, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
§ DR. MACNAMARAsaid that this clause was the heart and essence of the Bill, and in the three-and-a-half lines of which it was composed the Government practically disposed of the whole educational problem of London. As a London Member he vehemently protested against such a course of procedure. London was entitled to a self-contained Bill, setting up the London authority and dealing with London finance, instead of being fobbed off by a reference to last year's Act. He had never heard a more unjustifiable contention than that the question of London was settled by the 1902 Act. By Clause 27 of that statute it was enacted that the Act should not apply to London except as expressly provided, and the express provision was 1130 for carrying on the Cockertonised schools for twelve months. Lord Balfour of Burleigh had practically promised a Bill for Scotland next year. The Scotch education system was not bigger or more important than that of London, but would the Government venture to deal with it by a three-and-a-half-line reference to the Act of 1902? If not, why not? And if not for Scotland, why for London, whose system was quite as special and peculiar? Of this he was certain — that although the ad hoc principle was killed in England, the Scotch people would insist on it being kept alive in Scotland. The Government were trading on London's apathy. Londoners were apathetic, indifferent, and unconcerned in these matters, and they got the government they deserved. But apathetic and indifferent though they were, he honestly believed 1131 that at the next General Election they would make short work of many of the Members who were treating the education problem in this contumelious way. According to the Secretary to the Board of Education, the objection to an ad hoc authority was its extravagance, but under this proposal that extravagance would be multiplied twenty-nine times. The Bill was financially disastrous, municipally irresponsible, educationally deplorable, and administratively unworkable, and it had only to be put on the Statute-book to necessitate its repeal at the earliest possible date. He had no objection to the County Council being the authority, provided its membership was increased to enable it to do the work. That increase could not be effected now, but it would have to be done at an early date. In the debate on the previous evening the President of the Local Government Board had stated that not only Moderate but Progressive members of the London County Council had told him the Council could do this work without any increase of membership if they reduced the size of their Committees. It appeared, therefore, that, in framing their scheme, the Government entered into pourparlers with the Progressive members of the Council.
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid the question of increased membership was not directly raised, but the assurance was that the Council could do the work, subject to decreasing the size of the Committees.
§ DR. MACNAMARAsaid there must have been some measure of duplicity and intrigue on the part of certain Progressive members of the London County Council, because they must have known that that was not the view of their authority at all, for the London County Council as a whole had resolved that they could not do this educational work.
§ MR. WALTER LONGThe hon. Member has made a rather startling charge, but perhaps he will allow me to say that the Progressive members of the Council I refer to spoke for themselves, and did not pretend to represent the 1132 London County Council as a whole. They admitted that there were different views held by members of the Council, and they stated that many of them did not share their view, and in fact were in favour of an ad hoc authority.
§ DR. MACNAMARAsaid that the Progressive members of the London County Council to a man had voted that the County Council could not take on this educational work, and therefore the Government had obviously been misled by Progressive members of the London County Council. This was a very important matter, because the members of the Council referred to, on their own responsibility, went behind the back of their authority, and told the right hon. Gentleman that the County Council could do this work by merely reducing the size of their Committees. If he were a member of the London County Council he should press this matter to the bitter end. Of course he could not ask for the names. [An HON. MEMBER: You can guess them.] He should like to know who were the Progressive members who voted at the Council meeting in favour of a Resolution that this work could not be done, and who afterwards came and told the Government that it could be done. The County Council could not possibly do this work without increased membership. They were now drifting into rather a serious position. The County Council and the Borough Councils were represented on the Central Committee for London, and the Borough Councils were to have certain function locally. The general opinion expressed yesterday was that it would be desirable to strike the borough councillors off the Central Committee. (MINISTERIAL cries of "No.") At any rate there appeared to him to be a growing opinion in favour of striking the borough councillors off the Central Committee.
THE CHAIRMANI think it would be better to reserve the constitution of the Committee until the next Clause.
§ DR. MACNAMARAsaid if they pursued the general trend of the opinion expressed in Committee it was in favour of taking the borough councils off the Central Committee. In that case there 1133 would be a tendency not to reduce the powers proposed to be given to the Borough Councils locally. He thought they had too much power locally already, and he would rather have thirty-one borough councillors instead of twelve, than increase the power to be given in each locality. This clause did not deal with the London problem fairly, for it dealt with the Metropolis in about three and it half lines. It was because he thought that the scheme of last year was entirely inapplicable to London, and because he thought this measure was bound to be followed by disaster educationally, and wastefulness in regard to finance, that he felt compelled to move the rejection of this Clause.
§ MR. YOXALLsaid he agreed with what his hon. friend had said in regard to wishing that this clause should not be added to the Bill. This clause proposed to apply the Education Act of 1902 to the County and City of London. An Education Act which was applicable to England and Wales was not necessarily suitable to the Metropolis. The measure of last year dealt with various kinds of areas in the provinces, and when it was passed the Government, by exempting London, were of opinion that last year's Act was not a measure which could be fairly applied to the metropolitan area. Now what did they find? They were now to pursue the evil practice of legislating by reference and quotation. If they had had any experience of the Act of 1902 there might be something said in favour of applying it to London. It was true that in the majority of provincial areas the authorities had taken up their duties with something like avidity. A great number of schemes had been brought before the Board of Education, but they had not yet begun to work and no appreciable proportion of those authorities had begun their work; consequently, they had no experience of the working of that Act either before Parliament or the country. It was too soon to suggest that that Act was going to work well, and that it should be applied to London. Many of the details of that Act might prove, after experience, to be quite inapplicable to the metropolitan area. The 1134 London education problem was a separate and peculiar one, and it was entirely different to the problem of the areas dealt with in the Act of 1902. As a whole the London area was well provided with Board schools. Therefore the difficulty in this respect of the Act of 1902 did not apply in the same degree to the London area. The Act of last year did not provide the best possible procedure for London. A better course for the Government to pursue would have been not to extend to it the Act of 1902, but to bring in a Bill dealing, from the first to the last clause, with the London area alone.
The position of London was peculiar and special, and surely the Metropolis was important enough to be dealt with entirely by itself. The Bill was couched in a form to avoid debate, to shirk the real question, and to avoid the great issue, and on that ground he certainly opposed the clause. He also opposed it on the ground of the treatment which the clause had received in Committee, and on the First and Second Reading debates from the Government. Hon. Members on the Opposition side had moved Amendments for the purpose of convincing the Government of the validity and necessity of their criticism. Their criticism had been echoed from the other side of the House by hon. Members representing London constituencies. They had again and again asked that the Act of 1902 should not be applied to London until they knew in what particular respects it should be modified, and until they were assured that the Education Committee for London would be constituted in such a manner as would give some prospect of success. They had been met with a desire on the part of the Government to hasten furiously, and to legislate in a hurry. He protested against so great a problem as the education of London being dealt with in that way. It was a problem which demanded full consideration on educational rather than party or theological grounds, or with reference to the squabbles between the London County Councils and the Borough Councils. It must have been obvious to the Committee right through the discussion, as it had been to him, that the question in the mind of the Government was not 1135 what was best to be done in regard to this great problem of London education, but how they could best reconcile the views of this and that set of their supporters, how they could bargain with the Bishops, how they could baffle the ambitious aspirations of the London County Council, and how they could make it impossible to have a directly elected education authority for London. He condemned and repudiated the way in which this clause had been proposed. No opponent of the Government could say that the Prime Minister and the Secretary to the Board of Education did not approach the great problems dealt with in the Bill of last year with due deliberation and a grave sense of the issues involved. He asked the Committee to contrast their attitude last year with their attitude now. This subject was being dealt with by the Government without due consideration, with haste, and with levity, and for that reason he heartily supported the Motion for the rejection of the clause. He hoped that even at the last moment the Government would relent and consent to the adjournment of the clause to enable the Committee to consider the important Clauses 2 and 3.
§ MR. TRITTON (Lambeth, Norwood)said he was not in full sympathy with the Education Act of 1902, and he had occasion, to his regret, not infrequently to separate himself from those with whom he was usually associated, and he must confess that he was not desirous of seeing that Act extended to London. He did not quite know who was. He had difficulty in finding a genuine friend of this Bill. It had been condemned by the Press; it had been condemned in this House, and right and left by the man in the street. He could not see that it would in any way be an advantage to London to have the Bill extended to it, and, for his own part, he would very much rather that they would go on as they were. They were getting on very happily in London, and their children were having a most excellent education accorded to them. Personally, he did not believe any better education could have been given to the children of this great Metropolis than had been given by the London Board schools during the last thirty years. 1136 It was perfectly true that voluntary I schools were in many places in very great difficulty for want of funds, and that, no doubt, was a good reason for doing something. But in this age in which we lived there was a movement—a growing movement — which must command the respect of all thoughtful Londoners — a movement for linking together rich parishes and poor parishes; and he could not help thinking that our National Church ought to be able to support our national schools and that the scheme of linking rich parishes with poor parishes might be carried out to a very much greater extent, so that those voluntary schools, which were short of funds and unable to carry on their good work of education might be assisted by those wealthier parishes, and be able to get on without rate aid of any kind whatever. They were getting on very happily in London, and then this Bill came in and brought an end to their tranquillity and their peace.
He was opposed to the Bill, and he would give two reasons why he did not wish to see it applied to London. He did not believe it would give the children of London a more efficient education than they had at present, for if its modifications—they did not know what they were to be—were going to consist in putting the education of the children into the hands of a body whose very form was suggestive of confusion and conflict, then he could not for the life of him see where greater efficiency in education was to come from under the Bill. He would rather see a fresh body, elected ad hoc, on different lines, perhaps, from the present Board, than vote for the Second Reading of a clause which would relegate this most important subject — he believed there was no more important subject for the citizens of London to consider—into the hands of an overworked and unwilling body. His second reason was that he believed that if the Act of last year were applied to London, it would be a very fruitful source of religious animosity and sectarian bitterness. If there was one thing in the world that, personally, he hated, it was a religious fight. For many years they had been drawing 1137 closer together instead of going further apart, and there had been a spirit of mutual appreciation and fraternal feeling among all branches of the Christian Church in London. London was not an ordinary city. It might be called the headquarters of Christianity; it was the headquarters of those religious societies which were carrying their blessed influence all over the world, and which were an honour to the British Empire. It was sad to think that this period of peace and tranquillity, which had been enjoyed so long, was to be rudely disturbed and broken up by the passing of an Act which must introduce, more or less, sectarian rancour and denominational differences. For his part he would rather that they went on not seeking to find out where they differed, but seeking to find out where they agreed. This Act would mean that many estrangements would take place; that many a cold attitude would be taken up, and that many friends, who had been living for years and working together for the common good would be driven into opposing camps. It was because he did not think this Act would tend to the efficient education of the children of London, and because it would tend to the accentuation of their unfortunate differences, that he felt bound, with very great regret indeed, to separate himself from those with whom he usually acted, and to vote against the clause.
§ MR. ALFRED HUTTON (Yorkshire, W. K., Morley)said that when a short time ago the President of the Local Government Board expressed the desire that more Loudon Members should speak, he had not long to wait in having his desire gratified. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down represented a London constituency, knew very intimately the common opinion which was held by the citizens of London in numerous parts of the City, and he had made a speech in which he struck the key-note of the real purpose of the clause the Committee was now discussing. There could not be a member of the Committee who believed that they would have spent five minutes in discussing the Bill, or that the Government would have wasted any time in its preparation, had it not been the determination of the Government to put the Church of England schools on the 1138 rates of this city. That was the main and only object of the Bill; and in doing that two great principles had been destroyed which ought to be cherished in regard to education. The one was public control and the other was religious equality. The hon. Baronet who represented the Education Department said that he was not sure that there would be any religious feeling or religious controversy. Perhaps the hon. Baronet, if he would not believe the statements of hon. Members on that side of the House as to the probability of religious conflict, would believe the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, not as a Nonconformist but as an Anglican, and from a knowledge of the working of the voluntary schools, when he offered his testimony as to the certainty of the growing feeling of religious controversy in regard to the measure which the Government was forcing down their throats. If the Government would persist in their wilful blindness and would never take any notice of the warnings Members on that side of the House gave them, if the Government continued to offer suggestions that these warnings or threats, if they liked to call them so, came from men who were of no principle, of no high character, who had no sound logic, no sound morality, and no sound constitutional principles—that meant that no one who ventured to oppose this Bill would ever listen to the First Lord of the Treasury when he taught them anything about sound morality, sound logic, or sound constitutional doctrines. He did not suppose there was any man in the House who was a more extraordinary opportunist than the Prime Minister of this country, and for a man who was in that unchallengeable position to lecture them on political and public morality and constitutional doctrines, was an attitude to take up in this House most astonishing and most regrettable. He had said that it was absolutely necessary to preserve public control. That was why they stood by the principle of the School Board. That was the only security against all the grievances and injustices of which they complained. There was the other principle—that of religious equality. He maintained that the introduction of religious tests, and the strengthening of them in the 1139 schools up and down the country and in this city, was deplorable. Here was an advertisement which appeared in the Schoolmaster newspaper of May 2nd:—"Wanted mistress, trained or certificated"—if she was trained or certificated it was at the public expense—"must be confirmed and a communicant. Average forty."—he supposed that meant the average attendance—"Superintendence of the Sunday School on alternate Sundays, and every Sunday must keep order among the children in the Church." But the most extraordinary statement in the advertisement was—"The salary to be arranged in consultation with the county authorities." They were now asked to advance that principle of calling on the county authorities to further the imposition of religious tests in the schools of the country and of London. He insisted that it was intolerable the Government should have brought them face to face with such a state of things when they were only anxious for a peaceful and efficient scheme of education in the schools of the country.
§ CAPTAIN JESSEL (St. Pancras, S.)said he would not follow the hon. Member who had just sat down in regard to the religious character of this question. In common with many hon. Members on that side of the House he had been in favour of the Bill of last year because they believed that it would be for the advantage of the education of the country, and because they thought it afforded greatly needed financial assistance to the voluntary schools. He was surprised at the attitude taken up by the hon. Member for Nottingham, for many on that side of the House thought that the matter would have been much more easily dealt with if London had been included in the Bill of last year. That, however, was not his own opinion, because he believed that the special conditions of London required different treatment from the rest of the country. Though the Bill was a short one it had been now for some time before the House; and, after all, what was the House called upon to decide? In the first place, whether the School Board of London should continue to exist, and in the second place, if not, what was the 1140 best authority to take its place. He denied that the Bill was being rushed through and not duly considered. He reminded the Committee that all during the autumn the Government had been carefully considering the Bill; the London County Council, the Borough Councils, and the School Board had been working out all sorts of schemes connected with London education. Any hon. Member who represented a London constituency must be well aware of the numerous letters and resolutions which he had received from experts and others dealing with this subject. As to the remarks of the hon. Member for Camberwell, he thought the Committee would agree with him that that hon. Gentleman had died gallantly in the last ditch on behalf of the School Board. He had made a splendid case for it and had shown the good work it had done; but at the same time the hon. Gentleman should recognise, what many of them did recognise, that further progress had got to be made, and that education had to be co-ordinated in London on similar lines as in the rest of the country. He could not agree with the hon. Member when he said that the London County Council would find it impossible to do the work. Two hon. Members of the London County Council in the House had declared that with its present members it was quite capable of undertaking this work. He most respectfully urged that if the London County Council took the advice that had been given to it of reducing the size of its Committees; if it would give to the Borough Councils a good deal of the details of administrative work, as might easily be done, there would be no difficulty in the London County Council being the educational authority for London. As the President of the Local Government Board had shown, the London County Council last session was most anxious to undertake the water supply of London, and did not then complain of overwork; but when the Unionist Government asked them to take over education they were unwilling to do so. Surely they must think that there was something behind the Government, some ulterior motive to overload them and break down the machine. He could not conceive anything of the sort. He thought the 1141 Government had given them the work of education simply because it was the rating body, and the only body which could do the work properly.
The hon. Member for Nottingham objected to this clause being passed until he had seen the modifications to be proposed later on in the Bill. To his mind, once the educational authority was settled, the rest was detail, and it would have been impossible to settle on detail before deciding on the principle. No doubt some parts of the Bill were the result of compromise; but the London education question was so complicated that it was absolutely necessary that some sort of compromise should be come to. Therefore, he thought the modified proposals, as they now stood, were the best that could have been made to meet a very difficult situation. Country Members, he knew, felt somewhat differently, and argued that the county authority alone should be the education authority. They did not seem to recognise that there were other bodies in London desirous of taking their fair share of the work and of doing their duty in the municipal life of London. He thought that there was a very unfair prejudice in some quarters of the House against the members of the Borough Councils. Knowing the County Councils and the Borough Councils, he could not see any great difference between them and their work. He hoped the Government would continue with their Bill as they had now put it down on the Paper. He was in favour of the original proposal, but he recognised the importance of the principle that the municipal government should have a majority on the Committee.
§ CAPTAIN JESSELsaid he thought, taking all the difficulties into consideration, the Government scheme was the best.
§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)said the whole Committee listened with considerable sympathy to the hon. Member for Norwood. It was a pity the hon. Member had not spoken earlier; if he had, the Committee 1142 would have listened to him with even greater sympathy. On the Second Reading of the Bill some of them had ventured to say that one of the reasons why the religious question was so much less acute in London was the wise action taken by the London School Board. If the non-provided schools were to be placed under a local authority, he did not believe any authority would deal with them in a more delicate and tactful way than the London School Board would if left in existence. What they felt now was that this matter, instead of being left in the hands of one authority which could deal with it, would now be left to a municipal body and would get mixed up with municipal affairs, and that the religious difficulty would become more pronounced. He associated him self with what had been said as to the drafting of this clause, which was a clause by reference. That had made it almost impossible to deal with the matter as a whole, or in the way in which such an important question should be deal with. And the matter had been made still more difficult owing to the ignorance of the Committee with regard to the views of Government on this matter. The hon. Member for Norwood had said that both the Government and the local authorities had had an opportunity of considering this Bill since last autumn. The local authorities had certainly not had such an opportunity, because the Bill had only been recently introduced; but if the Government had, they might throw some light upon the various Amendments put down by the Government from time to time. The hon. Gentleman who represented the Board of Education first of all said the number of the representatives of Borough Councils he had included in the Committee was the lowest he could possibly include, but now they had almost disappeared.
§ MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid the Committee was put in a very difficult position in regard to this matter. The original idea was to treat London separately, now they were told that this Bill 1143 was to carry out the Act of last year; to apply it to London and not to treat London exceptionally, and that therefore it could be included in one clause. It was too late to allude to the alternative, the ad hoc authority, but he would like to refer to one matter which had been referred to by the hon. Member who had just sat down, and that was the question of how far the London County Council could undertake this work and why the London County Council, which had been so anxious to undertake the water question, should have declined to have this duty passed upon them. One would have thought the hon. Member would have appreciated the difference between dealing with municipal and non-municipal work. There was another thing—the difference between the amount of work entailed in dealing with the water question and with the education question was enormous. He believed the County Council would be able to deal with this matter if it was placed upon them in the proper way, though it might cripple them in some of their other work. The only way in which this Bill could be worked by the London County Council was by their being absolute masters in their own house and having a free hand to deal with the entire thing. They could only carry out a system of devolution and decentralisation in that way. It must be done by themselves, and there must be no conflicting statutory right with any other body. The London County Council must have complete control, and so far as any devolution was concerned it must come from themselves. As the Bill stood, the London County Council would be in a greatly inferior position to the position of the County Councils under the Act of last year. The London County Council would not be the supreme authority, and he could not help thinking that the checks of the Bill which placed difficulties in their way of attaining supreme control were dictated by jealousy or dislike of the London County Council. He would vote against the Clause on the ground that it was rather a large order for the Government to deal with the whole question of elementary education in London in one clause and by reference.
§ SIR J. BLUNDELL MAPLE (Camberwell, Dulwich)said that those who talked 1144 about religious controversies being raised in London by the abolition of the School Board seemed to have forgotten the object of the Education Act of last year. That Act had been passed because it was necessary that something should be done for the voluntary schools. If they had not kept the voluntary schools going the School Board rate in London would in all probability have risen to 2s. 6d. in the £, and it was the same throughout the length and breadth of the land. He could not understand why the hon. Member for Norwood should suggest the keeping of the old School Board unless he was prepared to have brought in an Amendment substituting the School Board for the London County Council. The measure which had been brought in by the Government was a good measure, from the very fact that they not only had the members of the London County Council but had also twenty-five experts put upon the Education Committee. He thought when the Act was passed everybody in London would be delighted with it. The denominational schools were suffering from, and had been affected very greatly by, the better education given in the Board schools, and the principal object of this Bill was to maintain the denominational schools and what were now called the Board schools at the same high level. The Bill had been well thought out, and it had been decided that they were not to have the old London School Board, and if that was so, and if they could not place the management of education in the hands of the London School Board, the only authority and the right authority to take it was the London County Council.
§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS (Merionethshire)opposed the clause because he considered that the destruction of the London School Board would be one of the worst outrages that a Government could commit. When they thought of the immense deal of work which the London School Board had accomplished, of the difficult problems with which they had to deal, and of the subtle spirit of opposition with which it had to contend, he maintained that its record was an honour to the public spirit of this great city, and a monumental triumph of honest public work. It had been condemned for its virtues, but thank goodness it had not been executed. He 1145 was perfectly certain that the Opposition, and Members on the other side of the House also, would not see the outrage perpetrated in the provinces, inflicted on this great city without a struggle.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid the heartiest expression of disapproval of this clause had come from the hon. Member for Camberwell. He thought he might summarise the language of condemnation used by the hon. Member by saying that the Bill, in the opinion of hon. Gentlemen opposite, was like Dr. Johnson's leg of mutton—ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-cooked, and ill-dished up. And yet the hon. Member's main complaint was as to the shortness of the clause; but when it was stated that they had put so much into one clause, it was forgotten that that clause embodied the result of a very long and careful discussion during the spring, summer, and autumn of last year. They had framed a scheme and enunciated principles which they believed were applicable to London. That being so, what was the object of setting them forth again verbatim et literatim, when they had them in the Act of 1902? Various motives had been alleged as having animated the framers of the Bill, and something was said about bargains with Bishops. He had had something to do with the framing of the Bill, and he had had nothing to do with any bargain with Bishops or a suggestion of a bargain with Bishops. As to the allegation that the framers of the Bill wished to baffle the London County Council, his great desire had been to make the County Council the supreme authority; and so far from the Borough Councils being introduced to baffle the Council, or to set up an opposition to it on its own Education Committee, his hope was that the association of these great local authorities with one another in the work of education would result in nothing but goodwill. When it was said that the Government had created discord where hitherto peace had prevailed, that discord was reigning throughout the country and would reign in London, he could only reply that prophecies of that sort were apt, to some extent, to bring about their own fulfilment. He had had something to do with the action of local authorities in the matter of bringing into operation the Education 1146 Act. He had seen the schemes of nearly all the local authorities, he had had to scrutinise them carefully to see that the conditions of the Act were carried into effect, and that the educational and other interests within the area were all satisfied; and what had struck him throughout had been the honest intention of the local authorities to deal justly with all the interests with which they were brought into contact within their area. The House spent a great part of last year in developing educational principles which it was thought were applicable to London. Having embodied the principles in the clause the question to consider was, what was to be the authority and what were the modifications necessary. The Government hoped that, having put the principles in the clause, and having assigned the County Council as the authority for London, they would be allowed to proceed to deal with the provisions and the modifications which might be necessary to adapt the general principles of last year to London. It was said that the County Council was disinclined to undertake this great work, and that it was idle to pass the clause, because the Bill would never work. All he could say was that, if, the Committee being constituted, the County Council should refuse to undertake the work, the County Council would neglect the greatest opportunity in the educational field that had ever fallen to the lot of any municipality in any country in the world.
§ MR. M'KENNA (Monmouthshire, N.)said the hon. Baronet had not been so candid as the hon. Member for Dulwich, who had openly declared, and it had not been denied, that the purpose of the Bill was to bolster up the voluntary schools with public money from the moment of its introduction. That had been declared by the Opposition to be the purpose of the Bill, and the speech of the hon. Member ought to be learnt by heart by hon. Members opposite and explained by them to their constituents. The Government had a peculiar knack of calling things by wrong names. It had taken the Prime Minister a year to learn that the duty on corn was a bread tax, and doubtless a year hence, when this Bill had proved 1147 an absolute fiasco, the country would be told that inasmuch as it was a violation of two important principles which a great party in the State could not agree to see violated, therefore the Act must be repealed. The Opposition would make no compromise on this point. They would not consent to see the principles of public control of public expenditure, and the abolition of religious tests violated by any Act of Parliament, and so long as this Bill violated those principles they would resist it by every means in their power. There had been no religious controversy of late years, but the Party opposite were now arousing it; the rate-war would be extended to London, and there would be chaos instead of order in London's educational system. The Committee were asked to accept a principle when the machinery by which that principle was to be carried into effect was undoubtedly not yet on the Notice Paper. After the debate of yesterday the Government could not adhere to their existing proposals. This clause was exactly the same as the preamble of a private Bill, before the acceptance of which the details of the Bill were always considered. He, therefore, appealed to the Committee not to tie their hands at the present stage but to reject the clause, and preserve to the last moment educational peace in London.
§ MR. HUGH SMITH (Northumberland, Tyneside)said so many references had been made to the Act of 1902, that it might interest the Committee to know how that Act had worked in the county a portion of which he had the honour to represent. Last year they had this religious conflict in the county. Meetings were held in the constituencies, and supporters of the Bill were challenged to meet the Free Church Council to discuss the matter. He accepted the challenge, and at the close of the debate the Council had the candour to admit that he had put before them arguments which they had not previously heard, and that there was much to be said from his point of view. The only result of the Act in that district was that the School Board had been decently buried and its place taken by the Education 1148 Committee, and the rate which last year was 2s. 3d., would this year be 1s. 3d. in the £. After all their declarations of last year, he had not heard that any of the members of the Free Church Council were desirous of going to prison rather than pay a rate a shilling less in the £. He supported the present Bill because of the advantage it would be to the education of the children. Under the existing system it was absolutely impossible to co-ordinate elementary and secondary education, but when both systems were under one body, they would be able to pass children from the Board to the secondary schools, and thus the education would proceed stage by stage. At one time he would have preferred to see the School Board have the control of both primary and secondary education, but, as that could not be adopted all over the country, he was perfectly content to leave it in the hands of the County Council, and he hoped the Government, after giving the Council a majority on the Committee, would stand fast to that portion of the Bill.
§ MR. GEORGE WHITELEY (Yorkshire, W. R., Pudsey)said the Committee had listened to a remarkable and momentous speech from the hon. Member for Norwood, and one which the Government could not ignore. If other hon. Members on that side of the House would equally freely unburden their minds, there would be little necessity for the constitutional Opposition to exert themselves. He did not agree that this was a debate in which only London Members had a right to take part. As a London ratepayer, he had the good government of the Metropolis deeply at heart, and because he believed this Bill to be a retrograde measure he raised his voice in opposition to it. By passing Clause 1 the Committee would be taking a very serious step. This was the one great operative clause in the Bill, in fact it was the mainspring of the whole measure. Once they passed this clause, rightly or wrongly, they were committed to the principle. After the adoption of this clause they might say good-bye to the ad hoc authority. He was very much struck with some of the speeches made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but he was more struck with the reply of the President of the Local Government Board. The debate upon 1149 this question was opened by a closely-reasoned speech from the hon. Member for North Camberwell, but the right hon. Gentleman did not debate the question then before the House, although he threw on their heads the contention that in a previous debate they had decided not to give London the control of its own water. The control of the water undertaking of a town was something germane to municipal government, but until the fatal step was taken in the Bill of last year it had never been contended that the educational control of a borough or a city should be the work of a municipality. In London, education was a matter so colossal and grave as to almost exceed in importance all the work of the London County Council. The only palliative suggested to this scheme was that in all probability the Government would have to increase the number of the London County Council. Unless that increase was made, they were really placing upon the County Council a greater burden than it could possibly bear. To increase the membership of the London County Council would practically mean that they would be driven to the adoption of an ad hoc authority in a different fashion.
The Government were simply forcing down their throats a scheme to which they strongly objected. The School Board for London did not ask permission to commit suicide, and the London County Council had put on record its wish that these new powers should not be committed to it. There was no public demand on the part of the electors generally for this change. The Government was forcing upon London a new educational system which the people did not desire, and if there happened to be a single redeeming feature in the Bill, he would gladly have supported the measure. Had the School Board for London so ill-managed the extensive work of education that they were going to requite it by abolishing them? The work of the School Board for London had been the marvel of the whole educational world. In the face of that fact, and because there was no popular demand for this change, the Committee would do very wrong by adopting it. As the hon. Member for Norwood had said, the present state of peace and tranquillity in education in London would be upset by this clause, and work which had hitherto been carried on satisfactorily would be performed 1150 indifferently, and the last state of educational matters in London would be worse than the first. Why was it desirable to make this great change at the present juncture? Why did the Government not let a few years pass over in order to find out whether education under the new Act was being carried on better than it was before. Until they had that experience, he thought the Government would be ill-advised in pressing this measure through the House, and he should never record a vote with more sincere pleasure than in voting against this Motion.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid the hon. Member for Tyneside had just stated that he was sanguine in regard to the popularity of this Bill in Northumberland, and he stated that the School Board in his division had been decently buried. So had the publicity of debate there. In that county the County Council, under aristocratic influence, closed its doors to the public and the Press, and unless they possessed another Dr. Johnson to report the debates they would not know anything about the eloquence of the Duke of Northumberland. The hon. Member spoke of a deputation of Nonconformists who were friendly to his view, but he had been told that some of those Nonconformists had already decided not to pay the rate. He then went on to say that the Education Rate had already been reduced from 2s 3d. in the £ to 1s. 3d. That might be so in some parts of his constituency, but they would have to increase the rate in other parts of Northumberland in order to pay for the voluntary schools. Two hon. Members representing London had spoken. The hon. Member for South St. Pancras said this matter was debated last year on the principle of the Bill, but he wished to remind the Committee that hardly a single Member for London took any part in the debates at all. The hon. Baronet the Member for Dulwich said the voluntary schools had been kept going simply for the sake of cheapness. He wondered whether the ratepayers would believe that statement now. Owing to the Port of London Bill and the Water Bill and the London Government Bill the rates of London were going up by leaps and bounds. [An HON. MEMBER: It is due to the London County Council and the School Board.] The shares of the London Water Companies were shooting up to an 1151 enormous premium. [Cries of "Question."] That was the question, because they were still going to add a further increase of rates by this clause. They now had the Borough Councils revelling in their new-fledged grandeur. Who were responsible for most of the increase in the rates? Why the Borough Councils. [Cries of "No."] The rates in the different metropolitan districts had gone up on an average 5d. in the £, and this was almost entirely due to the Borough Councils, who were to be given most of the powers under this Bill. By this clause they were adding another 3d. or 4d. to the rates of London at a time when Londoners could hardly bear it. He noticed that the City Council of Westminster was petitioning in favour of a clause to limit the Education Rate. The City of Westminster was ready to put up the rates for other municipal purposes, but it desired to have the Education Rate limited. Why did the City of Westminster not petition Parliament against putting the voluntary schools upon the rates? Hon. Members sitting on the Opposition side of the House were not opposed to a wise increase of the rates for educational purposes if it was accompanied by public control. This immense increase of the rates was not accompanied by any of that adequate public control which practically all the citizens of England wanted, and which the citizens of London well knew they were being deprived of, simply owing to a clerical conspiracy.
§ MR. WHITLEY (Halifax)said the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education had told the Committee that this clause only contained principles which had been discussed during the spring, summer, and autumn of last year. On this side of the House they believed that those principles were bad, and they fought against them during the whole of last Parliamentary session. They would continue to fight against them in the country until they got them wiped out of the Statute-book. But there was one thing which the hon. Baronet did not tell the House, namely, that this clause, which he was pressing them to allow to be passed, included one third of the Bill of last year which was passed through Committee by means of the closure and which had never been discussed. By the 1152 ingenuity of the Government draftsman they had been precluded this year from discussing that third part of the Bill. The hon. Baronet had boasted that this Bill contained no bargain with the Bishops. There were many good reasons for that. In the first place the Government, he imagined, had had enough of bargains last year when they remembered what took place in the House of Lords, He would remind the Secretary to the Board of Education that this Bill contained not only the original bargain with the Bishops of last year, but also what was known in the country as the Bishops' trick, which was introduced at the last moment. The hon. Baronet would remember also that the late President of the Board of Education stated publicly a short time ago that if the Government had consulted the country after the passing of last year's Bill they would undoubtedly have met with defeat. The Duke of Devonshire acknowledged in so many words, speaking in the last recess, that the country was not in favour of the Bill of last year. Yet the Government proceeded to take further advantage of their majority, and, in a manner which precluded discussion in this House, proposed to apply to London principles which the Duke of Devonshire stated the country, if it had had the opportunity, would have certainly rejected. That was, he thought, trading on the temporary majority which the Government had, and if they carried this clause by that method they certainly could not claim that they had had any popular support behind it. The hon. Baronet omitted to tell the Committee another very interesting fact, which he wished to draw attention to before the clause was finally done with, and that was that there was one body which had had a good deal to do with the framing of the Bill. In January last there was a meeting held in London of the managers of the voluntary schools, and they came to the decision that they would have nothing to do with the Borough Councils. They petitioned the Government not to put them under these Councils, but to put them under the County Council. In the Bill, as introduced, that principle was recognised, and the Government had given to the voluntary schools conditions which were not meted out to the public schools.
1153 The President of the Local Government Board, when recently addressing a meeting of bankers in the South of England, said that if the Government had muddled it was because the people had not brought sufficient pressure to bear, and had not shown them what they ought to have done. That was another interesting theory of government. They had first held the theory that it did not matter how they managed so long as they muddled through in the end. What kind of pressure had been brought to bear in connection with this Bill? First of all they had the voluntary schools seeking public money in support of their schools without public control. The managers passed a Resolution, and the Government at once, with the utmost fervour, incorporated their request in the Bill. The second stage of the pressure was from hon. Members on the other side of the House representing London constituencies. The London Unionists had had, not one, but several mysterious confabulations with the Secretary to the Board of Education, and some of the results were to be seen in curious Amendments which had been put down on the Order Paper by the Government. In response to that pressure, the number of county councillors had been increased by twelve, and the borough councillors had been reduced, and the boroughs had been partitioned out in combinations of electorates which were difficult to understand. There was a third form of pressure on the part of those public bodies which had been entrusted by this House with educational duties, namely, the London County Council and the School Board, both of which contained persons of experience. What kind of response did they meet with? They had the greatest claim on the consideration of the Government, but they had met with nothing but blank refusal. The Government listened to the private interests, and they rejected the public interests. They listened to the backstairs pressure, and they took no account of the public feeling of this country. It was the duty of the Committee before the clause passed to give the Government clearly to understand that those who 1154 fought last year's Bill from the beginning right to the end objected utterly to the principle which was embodied in the clause. They warned the Government that the religious controversy which they had aroused, and which they might profess to regard with contempt, had raised a feeling in the country that would never die out, until the domination of one set of religious opinions had been entirely swept away. Whether inside this House or out of it, they were determined that they would not rest until the Bill of last year, and the Bill of this year, if it was going to contain this vicious principle, had been removed finally from the Statute-book.
§ MR. BRIGG (Yorkshire, W. R., Keighley)said the Government had learned nothing from the experience of the Bill of last year. One would have thought that, having that experience, they would have learned that it was an entire mistake to apply the principles of last year's Bill to London. They had mistaken the opinion of the people of London and of the country generally. In London there was a large body which was carrying out the educational work in a very satisfactory manner. By this Bill it was proposed that the School Board should be entirely dispersed, and that another body should be called in which had no experience in the management of the education of London. He thought that was a very great mistake, and one which ought to have been avoided. It would have been wise on the part of the Government to wait and see how far the Act of last year worked in the country before bringing forward this Bill for London. They might have learned a great deal more, and been able to introduce a Bill which would have avoided the difficulties which were now found in the country.
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
1155| The Committee divided:—Ayes, 230; Noes, 112. (Division List No. 90.) |
| AYES. | ||
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) |
| Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden | Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W. | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W. |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Fardell, Sir T. George | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed. | Maple, Sir John Blundell |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Man'r | Martin, Richard Biddulph |
| Arrol, Sir William | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Melville, Beresford Valentine |
| Atkinson, Right Hon. John | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Molesworth, Sir Lewis |
| Austin, Sir John | Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Fisher, William Hayes | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Fison, Frederick William | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Baird, John George Alexander | FitzGerald, Sir Robt. Penrose | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon | Mount, William Arthur |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Man'r | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey | Flower, Ernest | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Graham (Bute |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds | Forster, Henry William | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch | Fyler, John Arthur | Murray, Col. Wyndam (Bath) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Galloway, William Johnson | Myers, William Henry |
| Bartley, Sir George C. T. | Garfit, William | Newdegate, Francis A. N. |
| Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benj. | Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City of Lond | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nrn | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Bignold, Arthur | Gordon, Maj Evans-(Tr. Emlts | Peel, Hn. Wm. Robt. Wellesley |
| Bigwood, James | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Eldon | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim | Percy, Earl |
| Bond, Edward | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith | Graham, Henry Robert | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Bousfield, William Robert | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Bowles, Col. H. F. (Middlesex | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Guthrie, Walter Murray | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Hain, Edward | Purvis, Robert |
| Bull, William James | Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hamilton Rt. Hn. Lord G. (Midd'x | Rankin, Sir James |
| Butcher, John George | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashfd | Rattigan, Sir William Henry |
| Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ. | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Hatch, Ernest Frederick G. | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.) | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Heath, James (Staffs., N. W.) | Ridley, S. P. (Bethnal Green) |
| Cecil Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Helder, Augustus | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm | Henderson, Sir Alexander | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Chapman, Edward | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Charrington, Spencer | Hoult, Joseph | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Howard, Jno (Kent, Faver'hm | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Hutton, John (Yorks, V. R.) | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred | Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln) |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Seely, Maj. J. EB (Isle of Wight) |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Johnstone, Heywood | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | Joyce, Michael | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton) | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Crossley, Sir Savile | Keswick, William | Smith, H. C. (North'mb Tyneside |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Kimber, Henry | Smith James Parker (Lanarks.) |
| Cust, Henry John C. | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow | Spear, John Ward |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N. R. | Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk) |
| Denny, Colonel | Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham) | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Dickinson, Robert Edmond | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart |
| Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C. | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S. | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Stock, James Henry |
| Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E. | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham | Stroyan, John |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Bristol, S | Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Sturt, Hn. Humphry Napier |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Lowe, Francis William | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart | Maconochie, A. W. | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. Oxf'd Univ. |
| Taylor, Austin (East, Toxteth) | Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H. | Wilson John (Glasgow) |
| Thorburn, Sir Walter | Wanklyn, James Leslie | Wylie, Alexander |
| Thornton, Percy M. | Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Tomlinson, Sir. Wm. Edw. M. | Wharton, Rt. Hon. J. Lloyd | Younger, William |
| Tritton, Charles Ernest | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne) | |
| Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Valentia, Viscount | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord | Sir Alexander Acland- |
| Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H. (Sheffield) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) | Hood and Mr. Anstruther. |
| NOES. | ||
| Allan, Sir William (Gateshead) | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Priestley, Arthur |
| Allen, Chas. P. (Glos., Stroud) | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | Reckitt, Harold James |
| Asher, Alexander | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Rigg, Richard |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbt Hy. | Helme, Norval Watson | Robson, William Snowdon |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristl, E. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Hope John Deans (Fife, West | Runciman, Walter |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Horniman, Frederick John | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. | Shaw, Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Bell, Richard | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.) |
| Black, Alexander William | Jacoby, James Alfred | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Joicey, Sir James | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) |
| Brigg, John | Jones, Dav. Brynmor (Swansea) | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Bryce, Right Hon. James | Jones, William (Carnarv'nshire | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Kearley, Hudson, E. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Burt, Thomas | Labouchere, Henry | Tennant, Harold John |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Lambert, George | Thomas, A. (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Caldwell, James | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glam., E.) |
| Cameron, Robert | Layland Barratt, Francis | Thomas, F. Freeman (Hastings) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Leng, Sir John | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) |
| Cawley, Frederick | Levy, Maurice | Tomkinson, James |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Lough, Thomas | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Wallace, Robert |
| Cremer, William Randal | M'Kenna, Reginald | Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.) |
| Crombie, John William | M'Laren, Sir Charles Benj. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Dalziel, James Henry | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Wason J. Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Mappin, Sir Fredk. Thorpe | Weir, James Galloway |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Markham, Arthur Basil | White, Luke (York. E. R.) |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Whiteley, G. (York, W. R.) |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Moulton, John Fletcher | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Edwards, Frank | Norman, Henry | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Elibank, Master of | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Williams O. (Merioneth) |
| Emmott, Alfred | Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham) | Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk, Mid) |
| Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone | Partington, Oswald | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Dorby Co.) | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Perks, Robert William | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Grant, Corrie | Philipps, John Wynford | Mr. Herbert Gladstone |
| Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E. (Berwick | Pirie, Duncan V. | and Mr. William |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Price, Robert John | M'Arthur. |
§ Question put accordingly, "That Clause 1, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
1158§ The Committee divided; Ayes 242; Noes, 114. (Division List No. 91.)
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Helder, Augustus | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Henderson, Sir Alexander | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | Hoult, Joseph | Purvis, Robert |
| Cranborne, Lord | Howard, John (Kent, Fav'rsham | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Rankin, Sir James |
| Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) | Hutton, John (Yorks. N. R.) | Rattigan, Sir William Henry |
| Crossley, Sir Savile | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred | Remnant, Jas. Farquharson |
| Cust, Henry John C. | Jessel, Captain Hebert Merton | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Johnstone, Heywood | Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Joyce, Michael | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Denny, Colonel | Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway | Kenyon Slaney, Col. W. (Salop | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Dickinson, Robert Edmond | Keswick, William | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Kimber, Henry | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C. | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E. | Law, H. Alex. (Donegal, W.) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers | Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N. R. | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse |
| Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore | Leamy, Edmund | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W. |
| Duffy, William J. | Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham) | Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln) |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wright |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S. | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew |
| Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Faber, E. B. (Hants, W.) | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham | Smilh, H. C. (North'mb Tyneside |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S | Smith, James Parker (Lanarks) |
| Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Man'r | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand. |
| Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Lowe, Francis William | Spear, John Ward |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Lundon, W. | Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk) |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Maconochie, A. W. | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart |
| Fison, Frederick William | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Jn. M. |
| FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W. | Stock, James Henry |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edw. Algernon | M'Killop, Jas. (Stirlingshire) | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | Stroyan, John |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Maple, Sir John Blundell | Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley |
| Flower, Ernest | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier |
| Forster, Henry William | Melville, Beresford Valentine | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Fyler, John Arthur | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| Garfit, William | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City of Lond. | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | Morrison, James Archibald | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer | Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward |
| Gordon, Maj Evans (T'r H'mlets | Mount, William Arthur | Valeutia, Viscount |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. | Vincent, Col. Sir CEH (Sheffield |
| Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Graham (Bute | Walrond Rt. Hn. Sir William H. |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Wanklyn, James Leslie |
| Graham, Henry Robert | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath | Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts) |
| Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Myers, William Henry | Wharton, Rt. Hon. J. Lloyd |
| Greville, Hon. Ronald | Newdegate, Francis A. N. | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lynt) |
| Guthrie, Walter Murray | Nicholson, William Graham | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Hain, Edward | Nicol, Donald Ninian | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary Mid) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord G. (Midd'x | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Wilson John (Glasgow) |
| Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf d | O'Malley, William | Wylie, Alexander |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley | Younger, William |
| Hatch, Ernest Frederick G. | Pemberton, John S. G. | |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Percy, Earl | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Platt-Higgins, Frederick | Sir Alexander Acland. |
| Heath, James (Staff S., N. W.) | Plummer, Walter R. | Hood and Mr. Anstruther. |
| NOES. | ||
| Allan, Sir William (Gateshead | Atherley-Jones, L. | Black, Alexander William |
| Allen, Chas. P. (Glos., Stroud) | Barran, Rowland Hirst | Bolton, Thomas Dolling |
| Asher, Alexander | Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Brigg, John |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Bryce, Rt. Hon. James |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Bell, Richard | Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn |
| Burt, Thomas | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Runciman, Walter |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Jacoby, James Alfred | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Caldwell, James | Joicey, Sir James | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Cameron, Robert | Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Cawley, Frederick | Kearley, Hudson E. | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Labouchere, Henry | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Lambert, George | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Cremer, William Randal | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Tennant, Harold John |
| Crombie, John William | Leng, Sir John | Thomas, A. (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Dalziel, James Henry | Levy, Maurice | Thomas, Sir A. (Glam., E.) |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Thomas, F. Freeman (Hastings |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | M'Kenna, Reginald | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | M'Laren, Sir Charles Benj. | Tomkinson, James |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Edwards, Frank | Mappin, Sir Fredk. Thorpe | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Elibank, Master of | Markham, Arthur Basil | Wallace, Robert |
| Emmott, Alfred | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen | Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.) |
| Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone | Moulton, John Fletcher | Warner, Thos. Courtenay T. |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Norman, Henry | Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Weir, James Galloway |
| Grant, Corrie | Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E. (Berwick | Partington, Oswald | Whiteley, G. (York, W. R.) |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Perks, Robert William | Whittaker Thomas Palmer |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tyd | Philipps, John Wynford | Williams, O. (Merioneth) |
| Harmsworth, R. Leicester | Pirie, Duncan V. | Wilson, F. W. (Norfolk, Mid) |
| Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Price, Robert John | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. | Priestley, Arthur | |
| Helme, Norval Watson | Reckitt, Harold James | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristl, E. | Rigg, Richard | Mr. Herbert Gladstone |
| Hope John Deans (Fife, West | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | and William M'Arthur. |
| Horniman, Frederick John | Robson, William Snowdon | |
| Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
§ And, 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 this evening.