EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

HC Deb 15 June 1904 vol 136 cc156-211

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland Penrith) in the Chair.]

Clause 19.

Amendment again proposed— In page 8, line 30, to leave out from the beginning to the word 'commit' in line 31, and insert the words "A school board may from time to time."—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."

MR. CALDWELL (Lanarkshire, Mid.)

I said that when this Amendment was under discussion on the previous night I two points had been raised. One was that it was desirable to trust the school boards in the matter of the exercise of their powers for the appointment of managers, and the other was in regard to the state of educational opinion in Scotland. Well, as representatives of Scotland, many of them knew the manner in which educational opinion was attempted to be impressed upon Members of the House. He supposed that every Member for Scotland had received that day the telegram from the Educational Institute of Scotland asking him to support the clause in regard to managers as amended by the Secretary for Scotland. In addition to the telegram he had also received a letter which would go far to show how educational opinion had been and was being worked up in connection with the Bill The letter said— In view of last night's discussion in the House of Commons this Association respectfully asks you, as representing a constituency from which a large number of our members are drawn, to give your hearty support to the Scotch Secretary's Amendment which makes it possible for all school boards to appoint managers. He thought the Secretary for Scotland would appreciate the manner in which it was being attempted to influence Members of the House by representing what was the so-called opinion of Scotland. This proposal to leave the matter to the school board, instead of, as provided in the Bill as originally drafted, securing that in every parish there should be a body of managers in non-enumerated districts who would represent practically the interests of the parish, could not meet with their approval. This question of taking the management of the schools from a body representative of the locality, as arranged under the Bill, and giving it to a body to be determined solely by the school board was no doubt being put forward largely in the interests of certain educational organisations in Scotland. It was, he took it, being put forward with a view to promoting the interests of the teaching profession so as to have a body of managers not directly connected with the parish. He was bound to say that, so far as the Bill was concerned, it proceeded on fair lines considering the fact that they were taking away the parish school boards and substituting the district school boards, who were to employ a body of managers in the parish to manage the parish schools so as to secure the representation of the local opinion of the parish.

Now he came to the suggestion that they ought to trust the school boards. Well, so far as that side of the House was concerned, they always had been in favour of trusting the people, and consequently of trusting the representatives of the people. If this were a matter of a school board elected by a parish for the education of the parish, he could perfectly well understand them trusting the school board to represent the interests of education in that particular parish. But what was the position under this clause? They were dealing with a combination district representing six or eight school boards, and the people of one parish would only have one-sixth or one-eighth of the representation on the school board, and therefore, if they were to trust the school board as representing the people in managing the parish schools, they must realise that the electors in a particular parish would only have the nomination of one-sixth or one-eighth of the members of the board. They, therefore, were not trusting men elected by the parish, they were trusting a body of men which included many who were not elected by the parish, and he looked on this as separating the final link in the chain that connected local interests with the educational interests of Scotland as embodied in that Bill. In the first place, they had taken away the parish area and substituted for it the district area, and now they were taking away the control and management of the parish school from the parish as such, and giving it into the hands of a body largely composed of members outside the parish, and the effect would be that no ratepayer in the parish would feel himself to be in the slightest touch with the parish school. So far as the management of the individual school was concerned it would de volve on the combination and not upon the representatives of the parish. Thai, as he had said, was practically the last link which connected the parish school with the parish, and by this Amendment they would absolutely destroy all local control over the schools.

But they were going a step further, they were acting in the interests of a certain body of people who imagined that they represented the educational interest in Scotland, and who desired that the appointment of managers should be divorced from the parish. What were the duties of the managers? Those duties were now left very much in abeyance. If the Secretary for Scotland would look at the Act of 1872, Section 22, he thought he would find that the present clause might well be deleted. In his view there was practically no need for it, and he believed that the power would remain in the school board even supposing that they did not appoint the managing committee. Anyone who had any knowledge whatever of the existing state of matters in regard to the management of schools by school boards must know that practically the board had very little to do with the question of education. The education given in the school was regulated by Code and by inspection, and all the school board had to do was to appoint the teacher, fix his salary, and deal with matters of that kind. If they found that the school board had practically, no power except as regarded those questions, then what was the necessity for delegating the power to managers? They were not going to delegate under Clause 29 the powers of the attendance committee. What, then, were they going to delegate? He must confess that from his point of view the question of the appointment of managers was immaterial. It did Dot matter whether they were to be appointed by the education authority or by the school board, or whether they were to be appointed as proposed in the Bill, all he wanted to point out was that they were separating the link which bound the people in the parish to the parish school. He thought that that was one of the greatest blots on the Bill, and in the public interest he hoped that it would not be persisted in.

THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,) Buteshire

said that if they were really anxious to pass this Bill—as he believed the great majority of hon. Members were—they must regret to have heard the speech just delivered. The hon. Member had read a telegram and suggested that it constituted an unfair attempt to influence the House, but he confessed he could see nothing wrong in the telegram. He protested against the hon. Member raising again a question which had already been discussed. The hon. Member having been beaten, now, in a vindictive spirit, did what he could to wreck the Bill. The course the hon. Member was taking was such as to put the Bill in great danger from expiry of time.

MR. CALDWELL

May I explain that I have not put down a single Amendment which I would have done had I the intention attributed to me. It is ungracious on the part of the Secretary for Scotland to use such remarks. It is a most important Bill, upon which a Scottish Member has every right to be heard.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

I shall be most glad to apologise to the hon. Member if his future conduct on the Bill makes it necessary.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)

I think the right hon. Gentleman should at least withdraw the word "vindictive."

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said he would be most happy to withdraw any word that gave pain or offence to anybody in the House.

MR. CALDWELL

That is not the way to conduct the Bill.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that as to the hon. Member's remark upon not putting down Amendments, he had certainly made Second Reading speeches on Committee Amendments. He did so on the very first day as a matter of fact. But let them get back to the Amendment. His only object in moving the Amendment was to get what the people of Scotland desired. There was a middle course between the proposal in the original Bill and the Amendment. They might leave the enumerated districts free, but in the non-enumerated districts they might make the appointment of managers compulsory, while leaving the education authority free to choose the managers. Probably the case was best met by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire, which provided that one of the managers should be a member of the school board who had been elected for that division where the school was.

MR. THOMASSHAW (Hawick Burghs)

said the observations which the right hon. Gentleman had just made were a complete refutation of any charge against his hon. friend who, after all, had not made a very long speech, as he spoke for only ten minutes. His hon. friend knew the Bill as well as any man in the House, and it would be a very bad day for the discussion of Scottish measures when they were deprived of the advantage of having such knowledge imported into their debates. His own opinion was that the difficulties which had arisen were due to the very drastic alterations which the Government had made in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had attempted to gather together the opinion of Scotland as to the amendment of the Bill, but the great mass of the Scottish people who approved of the Bill and did not propose to amend it had been dumb, and their voice had not been heard. Clearly the teaching bodies desired to be relieved of all kinds of control except that of their own body. But what was the attitude of the parish councils? A conference of representatives of ninety-five of the most important parish councils in Scotland had passed a Resolution approving of Clause 20 of the Bill, which delegated the appointment of school managers in rural parishes to the extent of two-thirds to the parish councils, and he supposed that if the parish councils had organised a number of district committees for purposes of agitation and had circularised hon. Members on the question the right hon. Gentleman would never have put down that Amendment. There was a strong feeling in Scotland against the abolition of the parish area in connection with education. He thought that the middle course suggested by the right hon. Gentleman would provide that local opinion should be represented in large and densely populated geographical areas.

SIR CHARLES RENSHAW (Renfrewshire, W.)

said he had followed the discussion on this subject with very great interest. He held that it was unnecessary to put an obligation on the new education authorities to appoint managers in either the enumerated or the non-enumerated areas. In many cases the new education authority would find it most desirable to appoint managers, and it would be desirable that the representatives of the locality for which managers were to be appointed should be members of the managing body. That would be a guarantee, and the management would be in absolute touch with the education authorities. He him self had had some experience in this matter, as he was for a long time chairman of a large rural school board, and he knew that if they elected outside managers and no members of the school I board it was very difficult to get the managing work done as it should be. He therefore believed the best solution would be found in appointing managers to appoint local members of the school board and add to them local gentlemen interested in education.

MR. CROMBIE (Kincardineshire)

said he believed the education authorities in his constituency were in favour of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. At any rate he gathered that from a deputation which waited on him recently. If the parish councils had power to appoint managers, there would be divided interests and divided authority. He wished to know how the right hon. Gentleman proposed to force the education authorities to appoint managers, how far the compulsion was to go and in what direction?

ME. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that now they had reached more peaceful times he would be happy to make his peace with the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark. He was sorry if he had offended the hon. Gentleman or hurt his feelings, for he was sure lie would do his best in assisting them to pass the Bill. What he now proposed was to leave Clause 19 practically as it was in the Bill, and in Clause 20, which dealt with the non-enumerated districts, to make it compulsory to appoint managers, but to leave the choice of those managers to the educational authorities, subject to the one statutory condition that among those managers there must be a member or members of the educational authority who were returned for the electoral division in which the particular schools were placed. If that met the view of the Committee he would move the necessary Amendments in their proper order.

MR. MUNRO FERGUSON (Leith Burghs)

said he had no objection to the compromise, although he would have preferred to see the right hon. Gentleman's former proposal adhered to. The parish school boards in the non-enumerated districts had not been so effective as many educationists thought, and he believed parochial managers would be still less effective because they would not have any really responsible work. He did not anticipate that local managers would do much good, but, on the other hand, under the present proposal they would be unable to do much harm. As he had said, he would have preferred the former proposal, as a fully representative character could have been secured if the units for election were properly arranged and the travelling expenses of representatives paid. He believed that that was the true solution of the difficulty. While regretting the change, he recognised that it had been made in the manner in which it would do the least possible harm.

SIR JOHN GORST (Cambridge University)

desired to warn Scotch Members, as the result of English experience, against the great danger of allowing outside bodies to interfere in the appointment of managers. He thought the compromise would not do any harm, because it would not allow of any such outside interference. The great objection to the appointment of managers by outside bodies was, that if the board, of managers was not one in which the local authority had confidence, the local authority would keep in their hands powers which ought properly to be delegated. It was far better, therefore, to trust the local authority, and to leave the matter entirely in their hands, confident that they would then delegate such of their powers as could most conveniently be delegated.

MR. McCRAE (Edinburgh, E.)

regretted that the words in question were to be omitted, because he agreed that the power of appointing managers should be optional. With regard to the two clauses, the appointment of managers was an entirely new thing so far as Scotland was concerned, and he believed that Clause 19 if retained would be quite inoperative. In the un-enumerated districts it might not be possible for the school board itself to undertake all the duties, so that in certain cases managers might be required. He suggested, therefore, that the power of appointing managers should be optional. If the managers were to be merely unpaid servants of the school board, with no power to initiate administrative changes or expenditure, then only a very inferior class of man would undertake the work. There was the further objection that it constituted a departure from the representative element. He understood that even in the working of the English Act the difficulty to which he referred had arisen, and managers had found that they were so subordinate to the local education authority that their power was practically nil. He fully acknowledged the disposition shown by the right hon. Gentleman to meet objections which were raised, and he appreciated the concessions which had been made, but he felt that the present concession was one in the wrong direction.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said he was really giving the maximum of freedom of control. If the school board did not wish to appoint outside managers, what was simpler than for them to appoint their own body?

SIR ROBERT REID (Dumfries Burghs)

thought the Committee might at once accept the amended proposal of the Secretary for Scotland; he entirely agreed that in substance the clause was optional though in form it was compulsory. In addition to freedom in the selection of persons to be managers, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would keep in mind the necessity for complete freedom in regard to the range of subjects committed to the managers.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that with the exception of the appointment and dismissal of teachers that point was conceded.

SIR J. FERGUSSON (Manchester, N.E.)

was extremely glad the Secretary for Scotland had made this concession. The provision was so elastic that a school board would virtually have the power of appointing committees of its own number to manage particular schools, or of selecting the fittest people in parishes, and that, he thought, would be a great advantage to the cause of education.

DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)

asked whether he understood correctly that in the non-enumerated districts the school boards might carry out this provision by appointing themselves as managers.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

Yes.

DR. MACNAMARA

said that the principle which had been laid down, and with which he understood the right hon. Gentleman to agree, was that in the enumerated districts the appointment of managers should be optional, but that in the counties the areas being so large, and the distance between schools so great, the appointment of managers should be compulsory. The right hon. Gentleman now suggested that the provision should be worked by the school board appointing themselves managers. How could that bring in the control of, and the close touch with, the schools which the Committee desired? He contended that the provision did not carry out the principle of local control in any way whatever. The school board for the whole of Sutherlandshire, for instance, might constitute themselves managers of all the elementary schools in the county. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman intended to do so, but in effect he was misleading the Committee. ["No, no!"] At any rate he was misleading a number of the Committee.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

Only the Englishmen.

DR. MACNAMARA

said that so long as this country remained a United Kingdom he claimed his right, as a Member of the British Parliament, to speak on this matter. He was not alone in the position he had taken up. Many Members desired that in the county areas there should be local managers, and he had certainly understood from the right hon. Gentleman that the power to appoint managers, while optional in the enumerated districts, should be compulsory in the non-enumer- ated. The provision was now to be got round by the school board for the whole county constituting themselves the managers of all the elementary schools within the county. That was not carrying out the spirit of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman at the outset of the proceedings.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that in making the difference between the enumerated and the non-enumerated districts there was the feeling that, whereas in the enumerated districts there should be no obligation to appoint managers, in the non-enumerated districts that duty should be laid upon the school boards. He believed that the new educational authorities would be animated by a proper public spirit, and that on the question of appointing managers they would feel that the persons appointed should be real managers who could properly discharge the duties attaching to the office. The whole question would depend upon the circumstances of each particular case. For instance, if Sutherlandshire remained undivided, and the people who were elected to serve on the school board were not able fairly to undertake the duties attaching to the management of the different schools, in his judgment it would be a wrong thing for the school board to appoint their own members as managers. If, on the other hand, they had members who in sets of three or four said they could manage the schools in particular divisions there would be nothing improper in their being appointed as managers. It was really a question which depended on the circumstances of each particular case, and he was perfectly prepared to trust to the good sense and the proper feeling of his fellow-countrymen.

MR. THOMAS SHAW

thought that the extreme case of an entire school board simply turning round and resolving itself into a committee of managers would be an evasion of the Statute. On the other hand, he thought the cases which most Members had had in their minds were those in which scattered over a school board area were townships and communities which had representatives on the school board. In such cases he submitted that the school board could do no better thing than elect those members of its own body to manage the schools in the particular localities they represented, and that substantially was what was meant by the Amendment.

MR. MCCRAE

said he entirely accepted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the provision would now be optional.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed— In page 8, line 32, after the word 'school' to insert the words 'or schools.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Amendment agreed to.

MR. BLACK (Banffshire)

thought it ought to be provided that the managers should not hold office beyond the period of office of the board by which they were appointed, and he moved an Amendment to that effect.

Amendment proposed— In page 8, line 37, at end, to add the words 4 Provided that no manager or managers shall be appointed for a period beyond the term of office of the school board making the appointment.'"—(Mr. Black.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

MR. A.GRAHAM MURRAY

said that as a lawyer he believed the words were unnecessary, but as they certainly carried out his intention he would not object to their insertion.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 20.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said the object of the Amendment he now moved was to allow schools to be grouped for the purposes of management.

Amendment proposed— In page 8, line 41, after the word 'charge' to insert the words 'either singly or in conjunction with other schools.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. DOBBIE (Ayr Burghs)

asked whether there was any minimum number of managers prescribed.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

Not in this clause.

Question put, and agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 9, line 1, after the word 'school' to insert the words 'or schools.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 9, line 2, to leave out from the word 'shall' to the end of the clause, and insert the words 'include a member or members of the school board representing each electoral division or burgh, as the case may be, in which any such school is situated. Such managers shall observe such rules, conditions, and restrictions as the school board shall from time to time prescribe.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 9, line 22, at end, to add the words 'provided that no manager or managers shall be appointed for a period beyond the term of office of the school board making the appointment.'"—(Mr. Black.)

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 20, as amended, agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 9, to leave out Clause 21."—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 9, to leave out Clause 22."—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 9, to leave out Clause 23."—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 24.

MR. DOBBIE

said the Amendment he had placed on the Paper was one more of draftsmanship than of substance. As the Bill stood, the clause read that the expenses of the school board in each education district "including the expenditure incurred in the performance of their duties by the managers of schools under the charge of the school board, in so far as such expenditure is approved by the school board," should be paid out of the school fund. The Amendment proposed to insert the word "lawfully" after the word "expenditure," and the effect would be that the school boards would be bound to pay all expenses lawfully incurred by the committees of management. The Bill made it clear that the managers were not to be entitled to incur any capital expenditure. It had been brought to his notice that, if the Bill passed in its present shape, the managers would not be a really responsible body. They would not be what the right hon. Gentleman wished them to be—a real live body—unless they had the right, subject, of course, to the conditions laid down by the board under a previous clause, to incur the expense necessary for the efficient conduct of business. The danger against which the Amendment would guard was the crippling of the action of the managers in the matter of incurring expense, not because it was improper or unlawful, but because, under the clause as it stood, a majority of the board might refuse to approve of the expenditure. So long as the expenditure by the managers was covered by the mandate given by the board their action should not be crippled by the risk of finding that they were individually surcharged for the expenditure.

Amendment proposed— In page 10, line 13, after the word 'expenditure' to insert the word 'lawfully.'"—(Mr. Dobbie.)

Question proposed, "That, the word 'lawfully' be there inserted."

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said this Amendment was thoroughly unnecessary. Who knew whether expenditure was unlawfully incurred or not? There was no definition either in statute or common law of what expenditure the managers of a school might incur. The only practical way was to trust the managers not to run up bills except for purposes which would be approved by the school board. He took it that they would not spend any money unless they knew that it would be approved. That was a workable scheme. The hon. Member's scheme was not workable, and therefore he could not accept it.

Question put, and negatived.

Amendment proposed— In page 10, line 19, after the word 'Act to insert the words 'all fees received from scholars.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. THOMAS SHAW

said he assented to the words going in because it appeared to him that the school fund which was now to be transferred to the new school board would not be complete unless provision was made for secondary education. On the other hand he thought it was extremely regrettable that in an Education Bill for Scotland there should be any reference to school fees at all. He hoped the time was not far distant when the charge for school fees would be obliterated altogether from the Statute-book in Scotland. He was glad they had now a workable area upon which he hoped they would at some early date impose the duty of presenting its bill for secondary education to the Exchequer in the same way as the school boards now presented their bills for elementary education. He thought the whole system was defective by the fact that fees were charged for secondary education in Scotland. There were no fees for elementary education, and now on account of a munificent donation there were no fees for University education. He was sure he was speaking the mind of many in Scotland when he said that their education system would not be complete until the Treasury granted this award which Scotland so justly deserved.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. HALDANE (Haddingtonshire)

moved an Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs, in regard to endowments specially appropriated for the promotion of education in particular schools.

Amendment proposed— In page 10, line 25, at end, to add the words, 'Provided that any endowment, or part thereof, which prior to the passing of this Act has been specially appropriated under any educational endowment scheme or otherwise for the promotion of education in a particular school shall continue to be so appropriated by the school board.'"—(Mr. Haldone.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

MR. WALLACE (Perth)

Does the word "endowment" in this Amendment cover the case we were discussing yesterday?

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

No.

MR. WALLACE

said he was told it did, but he did not think so himself. Was it intended that the grant made from the "Common Good" of Royal burghs should be appropriated to the school fund.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said his hon. friend would see, as he explained yesterday, that it would do him no good even if it was.

Question put, and agreed to.

DR. MACNAMARA

had given notice that he would move the following addition to Clause 24— Provided that any deficiency incurred by any school board prior to the fifteenth day of May one thousand nine hundred and five in respect of annually recurring charges on account of school maintenance shall be chargeable on the parish or parishes administered by the said school board.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said he had been carefully considering this matter, and he thought it would be very much better that the hon. Member should not move this Amendment. He promised to bring up a clause on the subject, and to move that it be included in Part VI. containing the "transitory provisions."

The suggestion was agreed to.

Question proposed, "That Clause 24 stand part of the Bill."

MR. DOBBIE

called attention to the remarks made yesterday by the hon. Member for North Camberwell in regard to the action of Forfar School Board. The hon. Member's suggestion was that the board was financing this year in their own interest by not imposing a rate in view of the new Act coming into operation. The fact was that Forfar School Board was in the happy position of having financed so well in the past that they had a full year's grant in hand to enable them to begin the new year with. Even if they levied no rate this year they would still have a surplus, and they, therefore, decided that it was quite superfluous to impose a rate.

DR. MACNAMARA

said he must apologise if he had said anything distasteful to the Forfar School Board. What he said was that last year they had an 8d. rate, that this year they had no rate at all, and that it was likely they were building up a debt for some other body to pay.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)

said he was surprised to hear of a Scotch school board having a surplus. He was quite sure that could not happen south of the Tweed. He should like to ask one question. This clause dealt with education expenses. Was there no sort of limit to the amount of money that could be spent on secondary education. [Cries of "No."] In the English Bill there was a limit, but in the Scotch Bill there was no limit at all. He thought he ought to move a limit, because Scotch Members voted for a limit when the House was dealing with English and Welsh matters which they knew nothing about. Now they voted for unlimited power when they were dealing with matters which, he supposed, they did know about. He thought it was exceedingly unfair that this should be done.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 25.

Amendment proposed— In page 10, line 31, to leave out the words 'allocate and.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

MR. A. GEAHAM MURRAY

said that this was only a drafting Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment proposed— In page 10, line 33, to leave out from the word 'district' to end of line 43."—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that this Amendment was carrying out what the Committee quite well knew he proposed to do, viz., as to the pooling of the debt. The Bill, as originally drafted, provided that if there was a particular debt applying to any parochial area, that parochial area had to take over the interest of that debt although it became merged in the general area of the new and larger district. So far as he could gather the general feeling on the subject, he was inclined to think that his present Amendment was in consonance with that general feeling. It had to do with the present debt and that debt alone. He thought the feeling which prevailed was that although the pooling of the debt meant in practice that those who had been alert in their duties suffered and that those who had been supine gained, on the whole it was better that the debt should be spread over the whole area.

MR. McCRAE

said that he agreed with the Secretary for Scotland that the method now proposed as to pooling the debt was the right one.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said his Amendment had a double effect. First of all, it took out of Sub-section 1 words as to the pooling of the debt in order to introduce his substantial Amendment which proposed that instead of dividing the debt between the various parishes according to valuation alone, it should be divided according to valuation and population.

SIR CHARLES RENSHAW

said that he was against the proposal in the new provision, because it would really make a very large addition to the burden of the rates in the rural parishes. He was quite aware that there was a general feeling in favour of symmetry and that this proposal would make it easier to carry out the financial division. But those who had studied the figures in their own counties knew, in the first instance, that the amount of outstanding debt in burghs was much larger than in the rural districts; and in the second place, that the period of unexpired loans was much larger in the burghal than in the rural districts. The rural districts since 1872 had carried out most of the provisions as to increased accommodation; and since then, in some parishes, the population had actually decreased, and the result of the proposal now made would be to throw a much heavier burden on the rural rates. For instance, at present the lowest amount paid by any parish in his county in respect of the repayment of debt and interest was ¾d. in the £ per annum, and in a few years the debt would be extinguished; while in some parishes the amount was 4.89d. or nearly 5d. per £, and it would be a considerable period of years before the debt was extinguished. If there was so great an inequality as that, was the Committee prepared to say that it was fair to spread the whole of these debts over the new area? If it was done, it would do considerable injustice to the rural parts of the country, and put a heavy burden on them in respect to which they got no corresponding advantage. For his part he should have very much preferred the original proposal in the Bill.

SIR WALTER THORBURN (Peebles and Selkirk)

said that in one of the counties he represented,—Selkirk—there were two secondary schools which had incurred a considerable amount of debt. The population of the burghs was 20,000. while that of the rural districts was only 4,225. The rental of the burghs, where these schools were, was £61,349, while the rental of the rural districts was £63,638. Under the Bill, as originally framed, the rural parts were not responsible for the debt incurred for the secondary schools in the burghs; but under the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman they would have to contribute their share of the whole expense although they had got no good out of the secondary schools, and they were not likely to have in the future, because there were no railways to take the rural children to these schools. He protested most emphatically against the new proposal of the Secretary for Scotland without the counties having had an opportunity of considering the matter.

SIR ROBERT REID

said he did not want to enter into any controversy as between burgh and county if it could be avoided; but he thought the proposal of the Government was perfectly fair. He represented not only burghs but other districts which would share the debt on the secondary schools. The position was that these secondary schools had been largely maintained at the charge of the burghs while the benefit of them had been largely obtained by the country districts; and it was really too bad to say, as the hon. Member for Peebles and Selkirk had said, that the rural parts ought not to bear any share of the burden of debt on the secondary schools.

MR. BUCHANAN

said that it was only on last Saturday morning that they knew the Government were going to abandon this part of their scheme and he agreed with the hon. Baronet opposite that the counties in this respect were placed at a considerable disadvantage. If the people in the counties in Scotland had known that there was any chance of the Government abandoning their position there would have been a much stronger expression of opinion from the rural districts in regard to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman. There could be no doubt that the proposal of the Secretary for Scotland would operate seriously against the country districts.

He did not know whether, at that moment when so many microscopic changes were being made in the Bill at the hands of the right hon. Gentleman and others, from day to day and from hour to hour, it was possible for them to make any effective protest. Short of that, the right hon. Gentleman ought to allow that this was a matter which might fairly be brought up again on Report. The case ought not to be finally decided against them now; and a further opportunity of expressing an opinion on it ought to be given.

SIR WALTER THORBURN

said he I regarded the proposal as a gross injustice; and, as a protest, he would certainly vote against the Amendment.

MR. JOHN STROYAN (Perthshire, W.)

said he would suggest to the Secretary for Scotland that the matter be postponed until they had further information from the country in reference to it. Many excellent Amendments had been brought in by the Secretary for Scotland in connection with the Bill; but he thought that this Amendment had been rather sprung on the Committee.

MR. CORBETT (Glasgow, Tradeston)

said that very few of the Scottish Members would join in the protest against the Amendment. It was very satisfactory that the Secretary for Scotland should have been so willing to give expression to Scottish feeling in connection with this measure; and he was sorry that his right hon. friend had been exposed to so many attacks from that side of the House. He would support the proposal of his right hon. friend.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 54; Noes, 233. (Division List No. 153.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)	Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond	Horniman, Frederick John
Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)	Furness, Sir Christopher	Jacoby, James Alfred
Barlow, John Emmott	Gilhooly, James	Joicey, Sir James
Burt, Thomas	Gladstone. Rt. Hn. Herbert John	Kitson, Sir James
Causton, Richard Knight	Gordon, Hn. J.E.(Elgin&Nairn)	Leng, Sir John
Cremer, William Randal	Harmsworth, R. Leicester	Lough, Thomas
Dalkeith, Earl of	Hay, Hon. Claude George	M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)
Delany, William	Hemphill, Rt. Hn. Charles H.	M'Kenna, Reginald
Edwards, Frank	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)
Elibank, Master of	Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.	M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin
Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)	Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)
Morpeth, Viscount	Spencer, Rt. Hn. C.R.(Northants	Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Nussey, Thomas Willans	Stevenson, Francis S.	Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Rea, Russell	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine	Stroyan, John	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir
Rigg, Richard	Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)	Walter Thorburn and Mr.
Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)	Thomas,David Alfred (Merthyr	Buchanan.
Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)	Tomkinson, James
Russell, T. W.	Weir, James Galloway
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Dobbie, Joseph	Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel	Donelan, Captain A.	Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.
Ambrose, Robert	Doogan, P. C.	Lawson, Jn. G. (Yorks., N. R.)
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Doughty, George	Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham)
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers	Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington
Arrol, Sir William	Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)	Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage
Asher, Alexander	Duncan, J. Hastings	Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbt. Henry	Dunn, Sir William	Lloyd-George, David
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Dyke,Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart	Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.
Aubrey - Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.	Ellice,Capt. E. C(S. Andrw'sBghs	Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas	Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.)
Balcarres, Lord	Emmott, Alfred	Loyd, Archie Kirkman
Baldwin, Alfred	Farquharson, Dr. Robert	Lucas,Reginald J. (Portsmouth
Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r	Fenwick, Charles	Lundon, W.
Balfour, RtHnGeraldW.(Leeds	Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)	Lyell, Charles Henry
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Fergusson,Rt. Hn. Sir J.(Manc'r	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.	Field, William	Macdona, John Cumming
Bignold, Arthur	Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.
Black, Alexander William	Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne	Maconochie, A. W.
Blundell, Colonel Henry	Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Boland, John	Fisher, William Hayes	M'Crae, George
Bowles,Lt.-Col.H.F.(Middlesex	FitzGerald,Sir Robert Penrose-	M'Iver,Sir Lewis (EdinburghW.
Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn	Flower, Sir Ernest	M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John	Forster, Henry William	Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe
Brown, Geo. M. (Edinburgh)	Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S.W.)	Maxwell, W.J.H. (Dumfriessh.)
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James	Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)	Middlemore, John Throgmorton
Burke, E. Haviland	Galloway, William Johnson	Milvain, Thomas
Caldwell, James	Gardner, Ernest	Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)
Cameron, Robert	Gore, Hn. G.R.C. Ormsby-(Salop	Morrell, George Herbert
Campbell, Rt. Hn. J.A. (Glasgow	Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon	Mount, William Arthur
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)	Goschen, Hon. George Joachim	Murnaghan, George
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.	Goulding, Edward Alfred	Murphy, John
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Grant, Corrie	Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute)
Cavendish, V. C.W.(Derbyshire	Greene,Henry D. (Shrewsbury)	Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)
Cayzer, Sir Charles William	Gunter, Sir Robert	Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Myers, William Henry
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.A(Worc.	Hammond, John	Nannetti, Joseph P.
Chapman, Edward	Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford)	Newdegate, Francis A. N.
Charrington, Spencer	Haslam, Sir Alfred S.	Nolan, Col. J. P. (Galway, N.)
Coates, Edward Feetham	Haslett, Sir James Horner	O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Hayden, John Patrick	O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.)
Coghill, Douglas Harry	Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Heath,Arthur Howard (Hanley	O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Heaton, John Henniker	O'Connor, James (Wicklow,W.)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Hoare, Sir Samuel	O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.)
Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)	Hobhouse, RtHnH.(Somers't,E	Pemberton, John S. G.
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Hogg, Lindsay	Percy, Earl
Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)	Hope,J.F. (Sheffield, Brightside	Pierpoint, Robert
Crombie, John William	Hornby, Sir William Henry	Pirie, Duncan V.
Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)	Hunt, Rowland	Platt-Higgins, Frederick
Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile	Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.	Plummer, Walter R.
Cullinan, J.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire	Power, Patrick Joseph
Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Joyce, Michael	Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward
Dalziel, James Henry	Kennedy,Vincent P.(Cavan,W.	Pym, C. Guy
Davenport, William Bromley-	Kenyon,Hon.Geo.T. (Denbigh)	Randles, John S.
Denny, Colonel	Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop.	Rankin, Sir James
Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway	Kerr, John	Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne
Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)	Kilbride, Denis	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Dickson, Charles Scott	Kimber, Henry	Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries
Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-	Knowles, Sir Lees	Remnant, James Farquharson

Ridley, Hon.M.W.(Stalybridge	Soames, Arthur Wellesley	Walrond, Rt.Hn.Sir William H.
Ridley,S.Forde (Bethnal Green	Soares, Ernest J.	Warde, Colonel C. E.
Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)	Spear, John Ward	Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)
Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)	Stanley.Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)	Wason, Jn. Cathcart (Orkney)
Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)	Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart	Welby,Lt.-Col.A.C.E.(Taunton
Roche, John	Stone, Sir Benjamin	Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Round, Rt. Hon. James	Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley	Wills, Sir Frederick
Royds, Clement Molyneux	Sullivan, Donal	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)
Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)
Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G.(Oxf'd Univ.	Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh.,N.)
Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)	Tennant, Harold John	Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Sharpe, William Edward T.	Thornton, Percy M.	Wyndbam, Rt. Hon. George
Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)	Tollemache, Henry James	Wyndham Quin, Col. W. H.
Sheehy, David	Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.	Young, Samuel
Simeon, Sir Barrington	Tritton, Charles Ernest
Smith, H.C (North'mb.Tyneside	Tufnell, Lieut. -Col. Edward	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir
Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)	Tuke, Sir John Batty	Alexander Acland - Hood
Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)	Wallace, Robert	and Viscount Valentia.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that now the matter had been settled by the division just taken, he should move to strike out the other words in order to insert the words upon the Paper. Everyone would recognise that this was a very important change which represented so far as it went the acceptance of an Amendment put down by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire. It was part of the whole financial arrangement of the Bill, and, therefore, it would perhaps be proper to say not only what influenced him in putting down this Amendment, but what he was doing elsewhere, because all these financial arrangements hung together. He was aware when moving the Amendment which had just been carried that in the long run it would operate against the counties. He was also face to face with the proposition of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire that there should not be parochial rating at all, but county rating. That was the first proposition which had to be considered, and he came to the conclusion that the method of the Bill was the better of the two, and the opinion was backed up by a number of representations he had received from Scotland. He doubted whether many I people knew that, so far as the instructed opinion was concerned—that was to say, the opinion of those who had followed the whole of the Commissions, and who had examined this matter—the whole consensus of opinion was that the most equitable form of rating was on net rentals rather than gross rentals. Successive Commissions had been appointed by successive Governments, and not one had come to the conclusion that the gross valuation was the proper basis. The last Commission came to the conclusion that the ideal system was the net rental. There was also the fact that in Scotland they had become well accustomed to the practice of levying the school rate with the parish rate, and it would be somewhat inexpedient to change it. Here a school rate was being levied to which the people of Scotland were quite accustomed, and therefore it was better to leave it where it was, and leave the questions of net and gross rental and other questions of the sort until one Party or the other were able to take up and deal with the whole question of local taxation. These were the reasons which led him to stick to the parochial instead of the county assessment.

This led him to the next step, namely, if they had a larger area, which must be in the nature of an agglomeration of parishes, it was necessary to assess each parish for the amount required. Originally the Bill did that by valuation alone, but when the figures were got out it was perfectly evident that it would press very hardly on the rural as against the urban districts, for the simple and sufficient reason that the rural valuation bore a larger proportion to the rural population than did the urban to the urban population. There were more people to an estate of £100 valuation in the urban district than there were in the country. This question did not affect the enumerated districts at all because his Amendment cut them out. In this matter his philosopher and guide was the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, who some years ago adopted this principle when distributing a grant. He then suggested that the grant should be distributed according to valuation and population, and he (Mr. A. Graham Murray) submitted that what was good in distributing a benefit was also good in distributing a burden. The same result would be attained if he took the view of the hon. Baronet behind him, who proposed that the deficiency to be apportioned to the various parishes should not be apportioned according to valuation alone but should be divided into two, and one half apportioned according to valuation and the other according to population. It was practically that proposal which this Amendment made before the Committee. No doubt it was very difficult, in taking in the whole arrangements of the Bill, for hon. Members to disassociate themselves from their constituents, but the Member in charge of the Bill had necessarily to try and take a wider view. If the last Amendment bore against the county, this bore against the burgh, but there was another Amendment put down upon the Paper which, if carried, would permit the burghs to retain the substantial sum of £100,000 out of the equivalent grant. Hitherto the burgh and county had been separate and now they were going to bind the two together, and if this had been according to valuation alone the county would be very heavily handicapped.

Amendment proposed— In page 11, to leave out lines 1 to 6, both inclusive, and insert the words 'in the case of an enumerated district according to their respective valuations in the valuation roll last available, and in all other cases one-half according to their respective populations as ascertained at the last preceding census, and one-half according to their respective valuations in the valuation roll last available; provided that in the case of portions of parishes the populations shall be taken as may be agreed upon between the school board and the parish council, or failing agreement as may be determined by the Secretary for Scotland.'"—(Mr. A. Graham Murray.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."

MR. THOMAS SHAW

said the Committee would agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the present Amendment proposed a very important change. It was so important that he considered it quite out of place in an Education Bill. The present measure was not a Rating Bill, or one intended to change the incidence of taxation, and he deeply regretted that the right hon. Gentleman should have introduced this most contentious matter into what was practically a non-contentious Bill. He had endeavoured to ascertain from the right hon. Gentleman's speech the origin of his Amendment, and he gathered that certain proposals brought forward by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire had made the subject a matter for grave consideration. That being so, he wanted to ascertain whence the hon. Baronet got his idea. The representation of the county council of Renfrewshire upon the subject of the imposition of rates was as follows— That the total amount necessary to meet the instalment of the previous loans contracted by existing school board should be chargeable against the whole education district, and that the school rate should be imposed as a rate on all owners and occupiers equally, on the valuation as appearing in the valuation roll. The county council of Renfrewshire had thus recommended that the time-honoured system of Scotland should be adhered to, but their representative in Parliament had brought in an Amendment which might shortly be described as an Amendment in favour of the landed interest.

The next point he had endeavoured to find out was the ground on which the Secretary for Scotland had been induced to give the proposal his favour. The right hon. Gentleman said that they were face to face with a proposal for county rating, and that he preferred not to have county rating. That was perfectly true, but it had nothing whatever to do with a proposal of this kind, which was really for differential and preferential rating in certain localities. Further, there was, doubtless, a good deal to be said in favour of the net rental as against the gross rental, but that again had nothing whatever to do with the present proposal. The right hon. Gentleman also urged that the school rate should be left where it was, and that the whole question of rating should remain untouched. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman, and that was just the reason why he opposed the Amendment. The whole question of rating ought to be left over, but instead of that the right hon. Gentleman had chosen to introduce this disturbing and confusing element into the Bill. It was said that there was advantage to the burgh and detriment to the country district. When burghs and towns and country districts were being linked together in school board areas no such cause of jealousy or friction between urban and rural populations ought to be introduced. This proposal would introduce a perpetual division in the matter of local rating, and produce the maximum of confusion and irritation. By use and wont the burghs had contributed from time to time large sums for the benefit of the burghs themselves. Under a Resolution agreed to yesterday it had been decided that all burgh contributions and burgh endowments applicable to the subject should go into the common fund for the benefit of the enlarged area. County Members all supported that proposal in order to get the benefit from the burghs. But to-day, backed by the force of the Government, after obtaining the benefit of the endowment from the towns for the landed interest, they were endeavouring to secure a perpetual relief from taxation, which, on the same principle as that under which they shared in the endowment, they ought to bear. There was not the slightest justification for such a revolution in taxation in favour of the landed interest.

He objected altogether to the theory that the country would be harmed and the towns benefited under this Bill; such a proposition introduced jealousies which ought not to be allowed to exist for one moment. Some of the best provisions in the Bill were those which enabled school boards to bring up promising pupils to the towns from the remote districts at the expense of the general school fund. But if the country districts were to contribute on the basis now proposed he thought it was very likely that the school boards would say that they must take care of their own promising children. No Royal Commission had ever reported in favour of such a proposal. There were in Scotland large areas over which there existed the system which might be describe in Tennyson's words as that of "allowing the man to be less and less and the beast to be more and more." In deer forest districts a large rental was derived practically at the price of making a large area into a solitude. The interest of the country was that the population should be equally spread instead of being congested in certain districts. Under this proposal, however, it would I be to the advantage of the landed interest to drive the people more and more into the towns, because by so doing they would impose the rates to a greater, degree upon the towns, and thus the heaviest educational burden would fall upon the most congested districts, namely, the towns, which were already so heavily rated.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

pointed out that the effect of the Amendment would, in almost every case, be to lower the town rating and to increase the country rating.

MR. THOMAS SHAW

did not think that that was a legitimate or useful consideration to bring in. The object of the Bin was to give the whole country central secondary and technical educational facilities. The country districts would derive large benefit from that, and they would also get the special benefit, defrayed to a large extent by the town rating, of having their promising children transported to the towns. It was really too bad, in such a matter, to create jealousies which would last as long as the rates were imposed, and which would do no good to anybody. The proposal was solely for the benefit of the landed interest; it would do much educational harm, and it would tend to make school boards unwilling to benefit outlying districts by bringing their promising children to the towns. The parochial area had been abolished for many purposes in this Bill, and he failed to see why it should be kept up for the purpose of establishing this inequitable incidence of rating.

SIR CHARLES RENSHAW

agreed that the present proposal was a very important one. The resolution of the Renfrew County Council to which the hon. Member had referred was undoubtedly come to upon the consideration of certain aspects of the case, but it was not correct to say that it was a resolution in favour of the present system. It was a resolution in favour of county rating on the county basis and not on the parochial basis. If it had been possible to secure that in the Bill it would have given a uniform rate throughout the new educational area, and that would have been a great advantage. A strong objection to the parochial system of rating in connection with this Bill was that as various parishes would be grouped together in an educational district, the rate would vary in different parishes in the same group. Some parishes had varying systems of taxation; all had an optional system of deductions, and the rates varied so much that in one parish there would be a 3d. rate, in another a 4d. rate, and in another a 6d. rate, although these parishes would be in the same district. Such a condition of things would be prejudicial to the economical administration of the fund, and it was from that point of view that the county of Renfrew desired to see adopted the system of county rating rather than the system of parish rating. He reminded the hon. Member for the Border Burghs, who had objected to this matter being dealt with on the ground that the present Bill was not a Rating Bill, that in 1892, when the Local Taxation (Scotland) Act was passed, the grants were distributed on the basis of population and valuation; that was to say, on the very principle which the Secretary for Scotland now proposed to apply to the distribution of the burden over parishes grouped together for educational purposes.

The system established under the Bill must necessarily be a new system, because new areas were being created. As long as the parish system was adhered to under which a certain amount of money was raised to be spent in the parish, that was one thing; but a totally different state of matters would be set up when a number of parishes were grouped together. The hon. Member had made statements of a very general character, but he had not attempted to substantiate by figures the assertion that the original system was a fair system. The total amount of the contribution by the burghs from the "Common Good" to educational funds—to which the hon. Member had referred—was a little under £6,000 a year, whereas the total amount raised from the rates for education was about £1,250,000, or, outside the enumeraated districts, about £750,000. That appeared to meet the remark with regard to the generosity of the burghs. There was great force in the argument of the Secretary for Scotland as to the necessity for finding some more equitable basis than that of valuation alone upon which to distribute the burden between the grouped parishes. In Renfrewshire the average valuation per head of the population in a burgh was about £5, whereas in the upper district of the county it was £8 10s., and in the lower and more rural area it was £9. He did not believe that the new system would create any such rankling feeling of unfair treatment as the hon. Member suggested. It might be worked up to a certain extent for political purposes, but it would not be supported by those who were authorities on the rating question, because they would see that the proposal was a slight effort in the direction of equalising the burden on a fairer basis than that of mere valuation. It would be altogether unfair for the population in the rural districts of Renfrewshire to have to pay a rate of about 9d. as against a rate of 5d. in the burghs.

MR. THOMAS SHAW

did not think per head of population was the proper basis for reckoning in this matter. Education had been a burden upon the heritors for a great many years, but as legislation had developed they had gradually edged out of it and this was the last step in the process.

SIR CHARLES RENSHAW

said that the burden of the rates still fell very heavily upon the heritor, and whereas it was formerly voluntary it was now obligatory. A further instance of how the matter would work was afforded by the county of Forfar. The relative percentage of school children in the burghal and landward parts respectively was fifty-seven and forty-three; but the relative percentage of cost on the basis of valuation alone would be twenty-nine on the burghal and seventy-one on the landward parts; while on the basis of one-half by valuation and one half by population, the percentage would be forty-two and a half on the burghal and fifty-seven and a half on the landward parts.

MR. BLACK

asked whether the figures given by the hon. Baronet were in reference to the education rate only or to the whole of the municipal rate.

SIR CHARLES RENSHAW

said he was speaking of the basis upon which the education rate would be distributed as between various parishes under the apportionment valuation. Unless the proposed basis were adopted the effect of the changes would be to cause the rural districts to resent the burdens placed upon them as being altogether disproportionate to the benefits they would derive. According to the educational returns the average rate at present was 2¾d. in the £ higher in the burghal districts than in the rural districts, so that if the rate were equalised as proposed it would mean the imposition of an additional 1d. or 1½d. upon the rural districts, and that would enormously add to the burden they already had to bear.

MR. McCRAE

said if he could imagine an opponent of the Bill looking about for an obstructive; Amendment he could not conceive one more suitable for the purpose than the one moved by the Secretary for Scotland. It was quite foreign to the object of the Bill, and he should have asked the Secretary for Scotland, if he had been in his place, to give the Committee a reference to any authority on rating, Royal Commission or otherwise, which would support him in making the proposal in the Amendment. He had quite a Platonic interest in this so far as his constituents were concerned. This did not apply to the enumerated districts, and therefore his interest in the question was entirely connected with his interest in having a sound principle of rating. This was a most extraordinary proposal, and he could not think that the Secretary for Scotland had really gone into the matter with any great care. He was afraid the right hon. Gentleman had simply adopted the suggestion of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire without really looking where this was going to lead him. The Secretary for Scotland started with the assumption that they could get no responsible rating authority to say that they should rate on the gross valuation. No such proposal was in the Bill. The education rate was to be nine-tenths of the gross valuation, so that the right hon. Gentleman's argument there was quite superfluous. It had really nothing to do with the case, and the right hon Gentleman forgot, when denouncing gross rating, that in Scotland all municipal burghs rated on gross valuation. That was really throwing dust in the eyes of the Committee, and it had nothing whatever to do with the question before them. The great object of the Commissions which had reported on the question of rating in the past had been to have a uniform system of rating. Now they had in this Bill, which was not a Rating Bill, a proposal to introduce a totally new system so far as rating was concerned. He would ask the Secretary for Scotland or the Lord Advocate to give any authority for such a revolutionary proposal. A Royal Commission had recently reported on the subject of taxation, but the Secretary for Scotland was going behind the Commission in attempting to deal with the question of rating on a side issue in this Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman had put forward the plea that the rural districts required special treatment. They must remember that the education rate was divided equally between the owner and the occupier. They must also remember that the rural districts had special treatment so far as local taxation was concerned, and that if they were in a burgh they were only rated on a fourth of their rental. More than that, they got a dole under the Agricultural Rating Act to, as the promoters of the Act said, equalise any anomaly involving injustice. If this were given it would only be another dole in the same direction, and it would be bound to come out of somebody's pockets. The Secretary for Scotland was attempting in this proposal to alter the basis of assessment. The only argument on which great stress was laid was that stated by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire that this must be a very good principle because it was the principle adopted by the Government in giving certain grants to local authorities. The Secretary for Scotland and the hon. Member for Renfrewshire were either talking with their tongue in their cheek when they gave such an illustration or else they had not looked very closely into the matter. The reason why that principle was adopted in the distribution of those grants-in-aid was that it was Imperial money which had been raised from the individual taxpayer, and, on the plea that personalty should contribute to local taxation, it was given to the local authorities as having come from that particular source and not from rental.

What the Committee should bear in mind was this. So far as he was aware there was no such system at the present time of taking population into account in levying any assessment. The example of this principle being adopted in connection with grants-in-aid did not help the Secretary for Scotland at all in the matter now under discussion. He knew that the right hon. Gentleman understood this question perfectly well, and he was astonished at his having brought it forward at the present time. It was entirely in opposition to the principle which he supported the Secretary for Scotland in adopting, namely, that the debt should be pooled and that there should be equality of treatment. He ventured to say that if this principle were adopted it would give rise to great friction and inequality between the different districts, and make the question of education not the main issue at all. It would give rise to great resentment. The last and he thought the weakest reason the Secretary for Scotland gave for the proposal was that he was going so far to redress the balance by the fact that he was not going to take £100,000 of the equivalent grant which he had proposed in the Bill to take from the burghs. The burghs and the counties at present received £150,000 a year from that source, and if the Secretary for Scotland was only going to take £50,000 he could not at all see how that was going to redress the balance with regard to this proposal. He hoped the Committee would not pass the Amendment. If they did it would be a blot on the Bill. He really hoped that the Secretary for Scotland, after full consideration of the matter, would withdraw this Amendment, because if they were to touch the question of rating, which was a very difficult question, let them do it not by a side wind but on those principles which ought to guide them in levying assessments. He did think that the right hon. Gentleman was setting at defiance the sound principles which ought to guide them in levying assessments.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said he was very anxious that the Committee should not have any misconception about this clause. He thought the view put forward by his hon. and learned friend the Member for the Border Burghs, backed up by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, really put an entirely wrong complexion on what was being done. First of all, the general purport of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for the Border Burghs, to any person who did not understand the subject, would tend to the belief that the Amendment was in some way or other to disturb an existing system. It was doing nothing of the sort. The hon. Member asked why they could not leave things alone. He did not know that he used that expression, but what he said practically amounted to that. They could not leave things alone for this simple reason, that they were face to face with a problem which they must solve, and which had never been solved before, because they never had precisely the same conditions. They were aggregating together a set of areas which were separate for rating purposes, and from these areas conjoint expenditure had to be collected; at the end of the year a certain amount had to be met, which was commonly called the deficiency in the school fund. This could not be raised by the ordinary rate, because there was no common rate over the whole area, no rating authority to rate the new school board area as such. They might take the parochial rate, and then levy a sum of money over the area conglomerate of the rating authorities of A, B, C, and D, and go separately to each authority. Necessarily, they must face the question how much should be asked from each. Obviously there must be a division in some way. Should it be according to proportion, one to the other, on the basis of valuation or population, or should the division be half in proportion to valuation, and half in proportion to population? If he could, he would make the financial arrangements such that the rating of the past should not be disturbed; but that could not be done. If the Amendment were passed the rating of the future, so far as the individual was concerned, would be far nearer to the rating of the past than it would be if the Bill remained as it stood, in which case it would be much further away from the rating of the past. There would be more inequality, not less, if the Amendment were rejected. That was the only thing that the individual practical Scotsman looked to. As to the sentimental side, the hon. Member said that it would cause resentment. Where was the resentment to come in? He did not want to take sides in this matter, but surely the resentment could not come in the case of the burghs, for as far as the burgh ratepayer was concerned—and he had looked into the case in great detail—in almost every every case the burgh ratepayer would find that the school rate was lower. He would not resent that. And although there would be a little resentment on the part of the non-burgh ratepayer in finding that his rate went up, his resentment would have been greater if the Amendment had not been passed, because then he would have had to pay a still greater rate.

MR. McCRAE

said he thought this Amendment had been proposed for the benefit of the whole of the ratepayers.

MR. A.GRAHAM MURRAY

said that that was just what he had been saying. What he wanted the Committee clearly to understand was that he was not disturbing anything. The hon. and learned Member for the Border Burghs was quite mistaken when he said that he was bringing in a thorny problem of rating. He would much sooner not bring in rating at all; but he could not take the existing system and he was bound to bring forward a system which would be equitable and cause the least disturbance to the present state of things. Therefore he proposed to stick to his Amendment.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee)

said that whatever the merits of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment might be he had introduced into this discussion an enormously difficult question. He was in the enumerated districts and his constituents would not be affected by the right hon. Gentleman's proposal at all. Therefore, he could take an impartial view of the question and approach it without any feeling of jealousy as between burgh and county and without any feeling of resentment of any kind. He wanted to put one or two Questions in further elucidation of the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to certain inquiries that had been made. He supposed that these inquiries were public and that the results had been made public.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

was understood to say that the inquiries had not been made coram publico. What he meant was that, speaking roughly, the burgh rates were always higher than the rural rates, except in a few cases where a particular rural district was suffering under a load of a very large debt for a particular school.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said he had presumed that there had been some public inquiry. As to the first portion of the Amendment, he agreed with the hon. Baronet opposite for two reasons. First, because, on the whole, he thought it was right that the locality, having incurred the debt, should continue, notwithstanding this Bill, to be responsible for the debt; and, second, because he could not help thinking that the two Amendments, now dissevered, were originally one, and that the first was a quid pro quo for the other. Now, the last speech of the Secretary for Scotland was really an admission that this was a complete novelty in the law of rating in Scotland. Was there any precedent for what the right hon. Gentleman proposed? He took it from the right hon. Gentleman's last frank statement that there was no precedent.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that there could not be, because the same circumstances had never arisen.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said then this proposal was an unprecedented novelty in the distribution of public burdens, and the justification for taking that course was that the problem itself was new. But the fact that the problem was new did not justify a new allocation of burdens unless that commended itself to the judgment of the Committee. Why should half of the burden be divided according to population and the other half according to valuation.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that that was the only way to do it. He contended that if it was equitable to bestow a benefit in that way, it was equally equitable to impose a burden. The author of the whole matter was the right hon. Gentleman who sat beside the hon. Member.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

said that because his right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition proposed that a grant should be distributed, not according to valuation alone, or population alone, but partly on one and partly on the other, that was no reason why the same proposal should be made as regarded public burdens. That would go to the root of nearly the whole of our financial system. Were they to accept this, that public money distributed from the Imperial centre might be divided exactly in the same fashion as the public burdens were. Grants ought to be distributed according to the needs of the locality which was measured by the population. Burdens were imposed according to ability to pay. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman would gain much by his new proposal. At present they were dealing with the question whether the words in the Bill should remain in the Bill. He invited the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the destroying effect on his own proposal. He never knew of a Minister, except the Prime Minister himself, who was prepared to throw over his own proposals with such readiness. The Amendment he would support would be to leave out of the Amendment the words "according to their respective valuations in the valuation roll last available."

SIR CHARLES RENSHAW

said that when he was last speaking he quoted figures as to the burghs in his own constituency in regard to the average valuation per head of the population. He should have said that in Paisley it was £5 per head, in Greenock £6 per head, and in the smaller burghs £4 per head.

SIR ANDREW AGNEW (Edinburgh, S.)

said that the hon. Member for East Edinburgh had alleged that the Amendment dealt with a matter foreign to the Bill. He did not agree. The Bill when originally introduced dealt unfairly with the ratepayers in the landward parts of the country, and the Amendment was an attempt to remedy that inequality. It had been pointed out that a rate spread over the whole area would produce considerably less per head in the burghs than in the counties. He presumed that the proportion of children according to population was the same in the burghs as in the country districts. What would be the result? It would be that two sets of people in the same district would be paying two different prices for the same article. This would obviously be unfair. Then it was suggested that the contributions out of the "Common Good," to be paid by the burghs, could be accepted as some sort of a set-off for this inequality; but, as his hon. friend had pointed out, the total amount of that fund was only £6,000, which was considerably less than the amount of the rates they were discussing. It should also be remembered that the tendency of population now was in the direction of the towns; and that the country districts were provided with all the schools they required, or, probably, they would require in the future; whereas the towns were continually growing. Therefore, all schools that would have to be built in the future would have to be built in the towns, and to the building of these schools the country districts would contribute. These were matters the Committee ought to remember. He did not know whether the Amendment entirely redressed the inequality which appeared in the Bill as originally drafted; but, at any rate, it would considerably reduce that inequality; and he would, therefore, vote for it.

MR. JOHN DEWAR (Inverness)

said he wished to draw the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to one feature of this matter which had, up to the present, escaped notice. He was rather favourably impressed with the proposal when he saw it first; but after looking into the figures, and the results it would have in many parts of Scotland, he was inclined to think it would cause injustice in some very poor districts. In the Highlands particularly the very poor had been confined to certain districts which were in a very congested condition, and the larger areas given up to the purposes of sport. He was anxious to direct the attention of the Committee not so much to the relative position of county districts as against burghs as to the difference which existed between parishes in the same educational district. Looking at the valuation per head of the population, they found some interesting comparisons. In one educational district in Inverness-shire it was only £4 per head in one parish whereas in another parish in the same district the valuation was £17 per head. One was a congested district, and was in receipt of benefits under the Congested Districts Act; the other was a district of deer forests inhabited by very rich men. If the rate were put on the valuation, the result would be that the rich men would bear a very much larger share, and would let the poorer districts off more easily as ought to be done. To show the incredible poverty of some parts of the Highlands of Scotland there were many districts in the West of Scotland where the valuation was only £1 per head. Those districts were, however, included in one area, and would not be injuriously affected. But the inequality he drew attention to was true of the whole Northern counties of Scotland. In Perthshire, for instance, one district contained a parish the valuation of which was £5 per head, while another parish in the same district had a valuation of £18 per head. One was a very poor parish; the other was inhabited by men who could well afford to pay their share. Another district in Perthshire contained a parish with a valuation of £7 per head, while another parish in the same district had a valuation of £20 per head. That was true of many districts all over the North of Scotland; and in those cases the proposal of the Secretary for Scotland would act most unfairly. He merely wished to draw the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to that feature of the matter, because he knew that the right hon. Gentleman did not wish that any injustice should be done. In those circumstances, he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman to postpone the clause until its effect could be ascertained.

SIR MARK STEWART (Kirkcudbrightshire)

said that there were great difficulties connected with this matter, which he thought had been met in a very fair and courageous manner. The Bill, as originally drafted, would not have been fair. There were great changes going on in the counties and burghs; but he considered that any difficulty that might arise would be met by the Amendment.

SIR ROBERT REID

said it was to be regretted that the Secretary for Scotland should have announced, in the most extremely positive terms, his determination to adhere to his Amendment without waiting to consider the arguments against it. The position was this. Certain deliberate proposals were made in the Bill to which no sort of widespread opposition was offered that he knew of. Then the Secretary for Scotland put down an Amendment to his own Bill, and proceeded to argue with great warmth against his original proposals. He was seized with a kind of holy zeal; repudiated his own proposals, and insisted on those other proposals. The right hon. Gentleman would admit that it was a matter of very grave importance. The Amendment was not a light matter; and the principle involved was a very serious one. He wished to ask, in the first place, whether justice as between burghs and counties required this Amendment to be made. The right hon. Gentleman had not informed the Committee as to that; although he admitted that so far as the matter lay between burghs and counties, it favoured the counties. The right hon. Gentleman had not given any figures; but it was not an easy matter, and probably the right hon. Gentleman had not had time.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said that if the hon. Gentleman asked him about any particular county or burgh he could answer him at once; but no general answer was possible. The matter did riot depend on valuation and population alone; it also depended on the existing school rate in a particular place. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Inverness gave an illustration. The hon. Gentleman was comparatively right, but he was really almost wrong. He referred to a district the rate in which would be represented by 1s. 1¾d. That was not the exact rate, because for purposes of comparison he did not take the exact rate, but the rate which would be the produce per £1 of the rateable value. The hon. Gentleman then referred to another district the rate in which would be 7¾d.; but the rate for the whole district would be only 8¾d., which would be an advantage to the poorer district.

MR. JOHN DEWAR

said that the reduction should be greater still.

SIR ROBERT REID

said he doubted whether English Members would appreciate the subtlety of the right hon. Gentleman's statement. He said that his hon. friend was comparatively right, but that he was really almost wrong. He understood the nicety of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks; but it might not be generally intelligible to those who had not had a legal training. There were no figures before the Committee to show the degree of advantage the counties would obtain under this Amendment as compared with the burghs. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that the advantage was transferred to the counties, but he said it was balanced by other considerations. No attempt, however, had been made to appraise any of those considerations. They did not know the bearing of the Amendment in that respect; and that was very unsatisfactory in dealing with a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, especially as people in the country who would be Able to supply arguments, had not had any notice of it. The Committee did not know the bearing of the figures or how the counter-balancing of the different equivalents would work out. That was not an unfair observation to make to the right hon. Gentleman. The people of Scotland should be given an opportunity of enlightening the Committee; but the right hon. Gentleman had done nothing in that direction. Rating was not a novel problem at all but an old one, but this principle of rating by valuation and population was entirely new. He had faith in the wisdom of our ancestors, and believed that if there had been anything in it this system would have been adopted long before the right hon. Gentleman hit upon it. It was true that valuation differed considerably in the burghs and in the counties; it was also true that valuation was enormously greater on one part of the population than on another in the same burgh. In the East End of London valuation was very low, but the population was more dense, and the result, if this principle were introduced, would be that the burden would fall very heavily on those who lived in the overcrowded and poorer districts. If they departed from the principle of payment according to ability they at once descended to a poll tax in rating, and that principle had been discarded long ago because it fell upon the poor and not upon the rich. The effect of this, to the extent to which it operated, must necessarily be not only to induce people to alter their course of conduct, but to deplete the rural districts, because the effect of its universal application would be that when people employed in the country districts became chargeable to the poor rate they would be told by the farmers and others, "We do not want you here, you must go to the burgh," and there would be a shifting of people into the burghs to save the rates. Such places as deer forests, upon which there was a large valuation, would get off free, while the congested districts inhabited by crofters would be very heavily taxed.

SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL (Glasgow, College)

said the Secretary for Scotland had pointed out that what was called a shooting parish would bear a larger proportion of the expense. The hon. Member opposite should remember that it would receive less benefit than a crofting parish because a shooting parish contained very few children to educate. And there was this consideration to bear in mind, that in the parish the hon. Gentleman alluded to, many children at the present time would receive no education whatever unless the proprietor of the parish met the school board halfway. He did not regret that a shooting parish would bear a larger proportion of the expense than other parishes.

MR. MCKENNA (Monmouthshire, N.)

said he intervened in this debate only because it touched the question of rating, which did not affect Scotland alone. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland had based his argument in favour of this proposal first of all on an old precedent created by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition when distributing a grant. The right hon. Gentleman said if it was equitable to divide a benefit on the principle of valuation and population, it was also equitable to divide a burden in the same way. Had he considered the matter a little further the right hon. Gentleman would have seen that the reason why the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition adopted this principle on that occasion, was the very reason why this proposal should not be made now. For the purposes of dividing a benefit, valuation and population was a valid guide, because congested and overcrowded districts were generally poor with a very low rateable value, and therefore it was, when the question of relief was concerned, the principle of valuation and population was applied. But when it came to imposing a burden, the burden should be imposed heavily on the rich districts and lightly on the poor, and the argument in favour of valuation and population would not apply. When asked for a precedent for this proposal, the Secretary for Scotland said it would be impossible to show a precedent because this condition of things had never arisen before. That might or might not be so so far as Scotland was concerned, but it was the normal condition of the local taxation of this country. It was the problem which faced our Poor Law unions every year, and although the problem was being dealt with every day in this country, it had never been suggested that the burden should be distributed on a valuation and population basis. If the right hon Gentleman looked into the Report of the Commission, he would not find a single instance of such a proposal as that which he had made to the House, and if this proposal had been made in the Bill itself and Members had had an opportunity of considering it for a longer period, it would have raised such a storm of protest that it would have had to be withdrawn. He should vote against it.

SIR WALTER THORBURN

said if the figures he had quoted on the previous Amendment had any meaning at all, a very great injustice would be done unless this Amendment were carried, because, as he showed them, his constituency, which had a population of 4,200, had a larger amount of valuation than two of the burghs represented by the hon. Member for the Border Burghs, which had a population of nearly 20,000 inhabitants. He did not wonder that those who would derive a benefit from, its not passing should be desirous that this proposal should be defeated, but he, at all events, desired to see justice done. Although, as the hon. Member for the Border Burghs had said, this was not a Rating; Bill, it was nevertheless a Bill that would considerably raise the rates, and the urban populations would get much greater advantages under the Bill than the rural populations, because there were five times as many children in the burghs as in the country districts. Inasmuch as the proposal would in many cases relieve tenants who could ill afford to pay any increased rate, he thought it was one that ought to be supported.

MR. ASQUITH (Fifeshire, E.)

said that, having listened to the discussion with a perfectly open mind, he desired to state the reasons which had driven him to the conclusion that the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman ought to be opposed. On questions of this kind there were two possible standpoints—that of abstract justice and that of the interests of one's own constituents—and he had noticed in the discussion that the consideration of abstract justice had been somewhat tinged by a colouring drawn from the manner in which the matter would affect various constituencies. The only persons who could be strictly impartial were the representatives of the enumerated districts, and so far as they had contributed to the debate they had been unanimously in favour of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman.

SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL

dissented.

MR. ASQUITH

said it was true the right hon. Baronet spoke as a representative of an enumerated district, but he thought his heart was rather in the Highlands. County Members in the strict sense, representing the rural districts, were naturally in favour of the right hon. Gentleman's proposal, while the interests of the burgh Members was rather the other way. Under these circumstances he had been thinking how he should stand in the matter as representing East Fife. He was not certain how the figures worked out, but in that district burgh and rural communities were intermixed with an amount of impartiality, both in intelligence and in comfort, that was not to be paralleled in any part of Scotland. Therefore, so far as it was possible for anyone to be who did not represent an enumerated district, lie thought he was in a position to approach the consideration of the matter with an impartial mind, from the point of view not only of justice but also of policy.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said the division, both in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency and in his own, was almost equal.

MR. ASQUITH

said that in that case both the right hon. Gentleman and himself could look at the matter apart altogether from any consideration of how it affected their constituents. It was agreed that so far as rating was concerned this was an entirely novel precedent, which was not dreamt of by the framers of the Bill in the course of their long deliberations on the subject, and which was not in the least degree supported by the precedent cited by the right hon. Gentleman of the basis on which grants were distributed. Being a member of the Liberal Party, he did not say it was any objection to a proposal that it was novel or had not been dreamt of before, but it did necessitate, especially in so well-worn a subject as that of rating, that it should be approached with a certain amount of suspicion. It was idle for the right hon. Gentleman to say that it was not a rating question. It was perfectly true that what the Committee were primarily considering was how the gross burden was to be apportioned between the different constituent members of the newly created areas, but the rating must depend upon how the apportionment was made, and the apportionment must necessarily lead to consequential changes in the incidence of the rating. He had not heard any sufficient argument to justify this entirely unprecedented change in the principles of the law of rating.

His next objection was still stronger. On the ground of policy he considered that this matter was pre-eminently one which ought not to be introduced into a Bill of the kind now before the Committee—a non-contentious measure not dealing primarily with rating at all—until the opinion of Scotland had been clearly ascertained. He had received more representations in relation to this Bill, and more arguments upon its various clauses, than had been the case in regard to any other Scotch measure which he could remember, and yet not one of them had any reference to this point. Scotland was satisfied with the system as it stood, and they had no idea that this revolutionary proposal was going to be made. As to the equity of the case, he agreed with his hon. friend behind him that population was not a fair criterion in this matter. A comparative congestion of population might be an indication not of wealth, but of poverty. They could not possibly argue from the fact that there was a larger number of human beings aggregated over a particular area than over a corresponding area, that the one community was better fitted to bear the burden than the other. On all these grounds, though he did not desire to impute to the right hon. Gentleman anything else than an honest attempt to deal equitably with a very difficult problem, he should oppose the Amendment.

MR. MACONOCHIE (Aberdeenshire, E.)

said he should support the Amendment, which, he understood, placed the burghs in no worse position than they were at present, and the counties in the position of not having their rates unduly raised. He hoped they would be able to take a division as early as possible otherwise he was afraid that they would not get as far with the Bill as they were expecting.

MR. EUGENE WASON (Clackmannan and Kinross)

said that, like his right hon. friend the Member for East Fife, he had received a large number of communications in regard to this Bill, not one of which had any reference to this Amendment. He supported the Government most cordially in regard to their last Amendment, because he thought that this pooling of the debt was a right and proper thing to do. As to the present Amendment, he had not the remotest idea what its effects would be. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give them some information as to how the Division he represented would be affected by this Amendment. If he knew exactly how it was going to work he should support it. This was the wrong time and place to endeavour to introduce this absolutely novel application of the principles of rating. He thought the Secretary for Scotland would do well to postpone the Amendment for the moment in order that the constituencies might be consulted as to its effect.

CAPTAIN BALFOUR (Middlesex, Hornsey)

said he was very much surprised to hear the hon. Member opposite state that this was a proposal which had never before been heard of in Scotland. He should have thought that anyone familiar with local government in Scotland would have known that the principle of this Amendment was not novel in Scotland, where it had frequently been adopted in regard to the erection of hospitals. When several districts combined for the erection of a common hospital they often did so upon the basis of this very principle which was now being proposed by the Secretary for Scotland. They were generally supposed to be business men in Scotland who knew how to manage local affairs. Agreements upon this principle were made between different districts in Scotland because it was found to be a fair and beneficial arrangement to all concerned.

MR. McCRAE

asked if the right hon. Gentleman could give him the figures as to the result which the working out of the plan of this Amendment would be likely to produce.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said he was not prepared to give specific figures, but the general result of the Bill as the clause stood would be that the burgh rate would come down, and in the counties the rate would rise, and by the Amendment the result would be the same, but not to such a great extent. He did not think that he could usefully add anything to what he had said before upon this question, but he would like to point out that he had not introduced this proposal in order to launch his barque on some unknown sea of rating. What he had to do was to face a new problem which was not of his own creation, but which had been forced upon him by the form which the Bill had taken. He had got to apportion this burden somehow, and he had done it by the Amendment in a way that would make less disturbance from the existing state of matters than any other method which had been suggested. That was a part of his argument for this Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife failed to notice at all. He was under the impression that he had the honour of having the right hon. Gentleman as one of his auditors when he replied to this point before, and therefore he concluded that the right hon. Gentleman had ignored that point because he did not see any particular answer to it. Though there would be little difference in Fife, there would be more difference in the constituent units there. What they wished to do in making a new arrangement of this kind was to have as little disturbance as possible of the existing state of things. The ordinary ratepayer did not think of theories of taxation. What he thought of was the question—What is the school rate I have to pay? Under the arrangement proposed in this Amendment there would be less difference between the rate he would have to pay in future and the rate he paid at present than if they stuck to the proposal in the Bill. There would toe no injustice under the proposal made on the Amendment, and it would cause less disturbance of the existing state of things. It was quite true that the county councils had met since. Among the many deputations which had waited on him was one from the County Councils' Association after the Amendment was put on the Paper, and they warmly supported the Amendment.

MR. CALDWELL

said the Secretary for Scotland had looked upon this matter with the view of keeping to the existing state of things. He asked the Committee to recollect that a new area was to be created from the first. It was to be composed of eight or ten distinct parishes. Upon what principle was the school rate to be levied in that new area? They would necessarily levy the rate according to valuation so that every part of the area would bear its quota according to the extent of the valuation. What was the proposal, not in the Amendment but in the Bill? The proposal in the Bill was that before they began to subdivide the amount throughout the different local authorities they should first of all determine the amount which each of these parishes ought to bear. What was the amount which each parish ought to bear? Obviously valuation would be the principle upon which the assessment would be levied if the area were taken as one area alone. Why did this matter of subdivision come in here at all? It was simply owing to the fact that there were six or eight different parishes combined in the new area. It was proposed that these parishes should collect within their area the school rate in the same way as they were doing at present. In Scotland they had the anomaly that certain parishes had a classification—that was to say, certain deductions in some parishes and certain deductions in others. It would be seen, therefore, that if they were to assess the area as a whole everyone would be assessed equally according to his valuation. The Secretary for Scotland said, "Look at the existing state of things." That had nothing to do with the matter. The Government were creating a new area altogether for taxation purposes.

MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)

said he was sorry the Secretary for Scotland had made the proposal in the Amendment now before the Committee. He had done his best to help the right hon. Gentleman to get the Bill through by keeping his mouth shut hitherto, but there was a time when one could no longer be silent. He could not believe that the right hon. Gentleman in his heart desired to have the whole of the Highland population cleared out. If that was his policy he could only say that he had been badly advised. The right hon. Gentleman should go up to Ross-shire and Inverness-shire, and see the vast tracts of land from which the people had been cleared out to make room for deer forests and sheep farms. He was sorry to find the right hon. Gentleman by his Amendment assisting the landlords in clearing the Highland people still further out of their native glens. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was a premium on depopulation. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was applauded by the hon. Member for Kirkcudbrightshire, who said it did not affect the South; but it affected very seriously the North. The owners of deer forests, sheep farms, and salmon fisheries ought to bear the burden, and not the poor fishermen and crofters who had been crushed down to the edge of the sea. He had never heard of the Highland landlords bearing the whole education rate; their policy had been to keep down the rates as much as possible, and if the Amendment was carried they would do their utmost to clear the people out in order that they might escape their share of the burden for the education of the people. The Amendment would put an unjust burden on the poorest of the poor in the Highland crofting counties whose conditions of life were such as he had never witnessed in any part of the British Empire except India. He was much disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman should have adopted this course. He hoped the Secretary for Scotland would consider this matter in a spirit of generosity and justice to these poor people. The right hon. Gentleman must know that the people were quite unable to pay any further rates. They were too heavily burdened already.

MR. A. GEAHAM MURRAY

said that the effect of the words would be to lower the rates in the very districts of which the hon. Member was speaking.

MR. WEIR

said he listened very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, and he distinctly understood him to state that the country districts would be more heavily burdened than at present, and that the taxation in the burghs would be lighter.

MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY

said it was quite the other way. Under the Bill as drafted the burden would be heavier in the counties than in the burghs, but the Amendment would operate in quite the other way.

MR. WEIR

said he contended that the burden should be imposed on the landlords and the landlords only. An hon. Gentleman opposite suggested that hospitals are in some districts provided by the landlord; but that was purely voluntary. They might find a landlord who would not give a cent to a hospital, or another landlord who was so precious hard up that he would be unable to give anything, having lost his all at Ascot or Monte Carlo. The effect of the Bill would bear very seriously on the Highland districts; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would find some way out of the difficulty, and impose the whole of the education rate on the landlords, the owners of deer forests and salmon fisheries in the Highland crofting counties.

MR. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs)

said he wished to ask whether it would be possible to move a further Amendment in the event of the present Amendment being accepted.

THE CHAIRMAN

It depends very much on what the Amendment is. It would not be possible to move to re-insert words which had been struck out. The words now proposed to be inserted, however, will be open to amendment.

MR. DALZIEL

said there would, no doubt, be other opportunities of speaking on the question. He only wished to say that the Amendment would bear more hardly on his constituency than, perhaps on any other; and, therefore, he wished to protest against it. The Amendment had been brought forward so suddenly that it had been impossible for Members to consult their constituents. The Bill had been practically accepted on all sides as a non-contentious measure, which, however, would require a great deal of consideration. Now a question totally foreign to the Bill was introduced. There was no more troublesome question than the question of rating. It was settled in a certain way as the Bill was originally drafted, and there was no protest against it from any part of Scotland. Now the right hon. Gentleman, at the very last, moment, dragged in this question, and wished to establish a precedent for the future. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would regret the responsibility of making the Bill a contentious measure. Hundreds of thousands of pounds had been spent in inquiries into the rating question; but there was not even a Minority Report in favour of the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had made this important departure. It would not make it easier for him to get his Bill through; the whole weight of opinion in Scotland, so far as could be judged from the speeches in this Committee, were against it, and this was a matter which ought to affect Scotland alone, and for that reason he should vote against the Amendment.

SIR JAMES JOICEY (Durham, Chester-le-Street)

said this Amendment introduced a principle which he thought was very important and which should not be settled without some discussion. It proposed to make a complete change in the method of assessing rates in Scotland. He was always told by his Scottish friends that what Scotch people did to-day England and Wales were expected to do to-morrow; and he could not help thinking that, if this principle were admitted in this Bill, it was quite possible they would shortly see it put into an English Bill. He agreed that the Amendment proposed to relieve the rating in country districts and put it upon burghs, because if they attempted to put the whole of the rating upon valuation as it had always been the custom to do, of course the same principle would be carried out in Scotland as existed in England at the present time; but they could not overlook the fact that already the agricultural interest had a special advantage in regard to rating, and he did think English Members should hesitate before they accepted the principle of the Amendment in the Scotch Bill. What was its effect with regard to Scotland? Supposing there was a large deer forest, of course if the rates were upon valuation alone the valuation of the deer forests would be extremely high; but, if half were put upon population, the actual rating of the deer forests would

be reduced. He could not see any justice whatever in putting this principle in the Bill, and he thought the Secretary for Scotland in making such a vital change in the method of apportionment of the rates ought to have given more notice to the House so that the question could have been more fully considered. He protested against the principle being introduced, and he should vote against it.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 113; Noes, 169. (Division List No. 154.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Eve, Harry Trelawney	O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Farquharson, Dr. Robert	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Fenwick, Charles	O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)
Asher, Alexander	Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)	O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Field, William	O'Malley, William
Asquith, Rt. Hon Herbert Henry	Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)	O'Shee, James John
Atherley-Jones, L.	Gladstone, Rt. Hn. HerbertJohn	Partington, Oswald
Barlow, John Emmott	Goddard, Daniel Ford	Pirie, Duncan V.
Bignold, Arthur	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick)	Power, Patrick Joseph
Black, Alexander William	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Reddy, M.
Boland, John	Hammond, John	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Bolton, Thomas Dolling	Harmsworth, R. Leicester	Reid.Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries
Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)	Hayden, John Patrick	Rigg,Richard
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James	Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.	Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.)	Runciman, Walter
Burt, Thomas	Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)	Russell, T. W.
Caldwell, James	Horniman, Frederick John	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Cameron, Robert	Joicey, Sir James	Schwann, Charles E.
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)	Jones William (Carnarvonshire	Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)
Camphell-Bannerman, Sir H.	Joyce, Michael	Sheehy, David
Cawley, Frederick	Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan,W.	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Kilbride, Denis	Soares, Ernest J.
Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)	Labouchere, Henry	Spencer, Rt. Hn. C.R (Northants
Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)	Law, Hugh Alex.(Donegal, W.)	Sullivan, Donal
Cremer, William Randal	Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)	Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)
Crombie, John William	Leamy, Edmund	Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr)
Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)	Leigh, Sir Joseph	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Cullinan, J.	Leng, Sir John	Walton,John Lawson (Leeds,S.
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)	Lloyd-George, David	Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)
Delany, William	Lough, Thomas	Wason, Jn. Cathcart (Orkney)
Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway	Lundon, W.	Weir, James Galloway
Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Dobbie, Joseph	MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Wilson, Henry J. (York.W.R.)
Donelan, Captain A.	M'Kenna, Reginald	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)
Doogan, P. C.	M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)	Wilson, John (Falkirk)
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Young, Samuel
Duncan, J. Hastings	Murnaghan, George
Dunn, Sir William	Murphy, John	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.
Edwards, Frank	Nannetti, Joseph P.	M'Crae and Mr. Dalziel.
Elibank, Master of	Nolan,Col. John P. (Galway,N.
Ellice,Capt E.C (S.Andrw'sBghs	O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)
NOES.
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel	Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H	Balfour, RtHnGerald W.(Leeds
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Bain, Colonel James Robert	Banbury, Sir Frederick George
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Balcarres, Lord	Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.
Arrol, Sir William	Balfour, Rt. Hon. A.J. (Manch'r	Bigwood, James
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)	Blundell, Colonel Henry
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith	Henderson, SirA. (Stafford, W.	Randles, John S.
Brassey, Albert	Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.	Rankin, Sir James
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John	Hogg, Lindsay	Ratcliff, R. F.
Brotherton, Edward Allen	Hope, J.F. (Sheffield, Brightside	Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine
Bull, William James	Hornby, Sir William Henry	Renwick, George
Butcher, John George	Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil	Ridley, S.Forde (Bethnal Green
Campbell, Rt. Hn J. A. (Glasgow)	Hunt, Rowland	Ritchie, Rt Hon. Chas. Thomson
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse	Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)
Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire	Jeffreys, Rt. Hon.Arthur Fred.	Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)
Cayzer, Sir Charles William	Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop	Round, Rt. Hon. James
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Kerr, John	Royds, Clement Molyneux
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	King, Sir Henry Seymour	Rutherford, John (Lancashire)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.A (Worc	Knowles, Sir Lees	Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)
Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton	Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow.	Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford
Chapman, Edward	Lawson, Jn. G. (Yorks., N. R.)	Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)
Charrington, Spencer	Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham)	Sharpe, William Edward T.
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage	Skewes-Cox, Thomas
Coghill, Douglas Harry	Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.	Smith, H.C. (North'mb Tyneside
Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas	Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine	Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.)	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile	Loyd, Archie Kirkman	Spear, John Ward
Dalkeith, Earl of	Lucas, ReginaldJ. (Portsmouth)	Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk
Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.
Davenport, William Bromley	Macdona, John Cumming	Stewart, Sir Mark J.M'Taggart
Davies, Sir HoratioD. (Chatham	Maconochie, A. W.	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Denny, Colonel	M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)	Stock, James Henry
Dickson, Charles Scott	M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh,W	Stone, Sir Benjamin
Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-	M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)	Stroyan, John
Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir JohnE.	Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.	Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Doughty, George	Middlemore, John Throgmorton	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers	Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir FrederickG.	Talbot, Rt Hn. J.G. (Oxf'd Univ.
Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas	Montagu, Hon.J. Scott (Hants.)	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r	Morgan, DavidJ. (Walthamstow	Thorburn, Sir Walter
Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst	Morpeth, Viscount	Tritton, Charles Ernest
Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.	Morrell, George Herbert	Tufnell, Lieut-Col. Edward
Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne	Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Fisher, William Hayes	Mount, William Arthur	Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir WilliamH.
FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-	Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.	Warde, Colonel C. E.
Forster, Henry William	Muntz, Sir Philip A.	Webb, Colonel William George
Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S.W.)	Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute)	Welby, Lt. Col. A.C.E. (Taunton
Galloway, William Johnson	Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)	Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts
Gardner, Ernest	Myers, William Henry	Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Gordon, Hn. J.E. (Elgin & Nairn)	Parker, Sir Gilbert	Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Gore, Hn G.R. C. Ormsby-(Salop	Peel, Hn.Wm. Robert Wellesley	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon	Pemberton, John S. G.	Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Goschen, Hon. George Joachim	Percy, Earl	Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart
Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford)	Pierpoint, Robert	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Harris, F. Leveiton (Tynem'th	Platt-Higgins, Frederick
Haslam, Sir Alfred S.	Plummer, Walter R.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir
Hay, Hon. Claude George	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp	Alexander Acland - Hood
Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley)	Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward	and Viscount Valentia.
Heath, James (Staffords.,N.W.	Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

And, it being after half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progess; to sit again this evening.