| CLASS IV. | |
| £ | |
| Board of Education | 7,000,000 |
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, Item, Class 4 (Board of Education), be reduced by £500."—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
§ MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN,continuing his speech, said that some appeals had been made to the Welsh county councils to abstain from the policy which they had adopted, but no expectations had been held out that if they did the Act would be amended, although it was admitted by all that it required amendment in the two vital principles, public control and the abolition of religious tests. It had been said that the Act did not impose new religious tests. That was true, but the Act had made every school a public school, and had placed the whole charges of the maintenance of the schools on the public funds, and therefore for the first time imposed a religious test on public servants. That was one of the things 1063 about which they complained. The only other point was that of religious facilities. It was common ground that facilities should be given in all schools for religious teaching. If denominational teaching was to be given at the cost of the State that was a solution of the difficulty for which Wales was not ripe, and therefore the only alternative was that the cost of the denominational teaching must be borne by the various denominations. He felt confident that if each side would trust more to the good faith of the other, a settlement could easily be arrived at, as to the time at which such teaching should be given in the schools. If the Government would only take a broad and statesmanlike view of the matter it would not be impossible to amend the rules so as to enable the provided schools to be retransferred to their managers if the arrangement entered into did not work satisfactorily. If the Government, instead of taking a broad and statesmanlike view, continued to try this stupid plan of repression they would still in the end have to give way, and the only question was whether they should now try and make the Act workable by giving Wales what she desired, or be forced to consent after considerable mutual recrimination. The county councils had been charged with using the schools for political purposes but had not the Church party also appealed to politics. Everybody knew the fight was entered into with the utmost alacrity by the Church party in Wales. For his part he did not share in this censure as to the political agitation. He thought, if politics were to be any more than a battle of place and profit, every man ought to take part. But one of the fundamental rules of the political game was that the Party defeated should admit defeat and if in power should carry out the legislation necessary. Purely secular teaching was not within the realm of practical politics, and when he knew the only way in which the Bible could be brought within the reach of our child population he would be loth to take part in any administration which would prevent it. Those who advocated purely secular teaching rather than denominational teaching were doing a very 1064 dangerous thing and should consider well before they adopted a plan which might result in the total exclusion of the Bible from the schools.
MR. GEOPGE KENYON (Denbigh Boroughs)said there was no question on which he would like less to come into conflict with his Welsh friends than this. They in Wales had worked together and he had always been glad to back up Welsh ideas in national and educational questions. For many years they had been successful in keeping away what was called the religious difficulty and had managed to carry on their great University and the University Colleges without friction. The Church party had been much abused for the action they had felt it their duty to take with regard to what was called the concordat of the Bishop of St. Asaph, but he was present at the whole of the meetings, which were conducted with great urbanity and courtesy, at which, however, though principles were discussed, no decision was arrived at. In those days the hon. Member for Carnarvon was very friendly with the Bishop of St. Asaph and thought that he had captured him. The Bishop of St. Asaph, on the other hand, thought that he had captured the hon. Member. However that might be, the Bishop's position throughout the discussions was one of great moderation and his earnest desire was to promote a reasonable settlement of the difficulty. The concordat, however, broke down on what was called the Cowper-Temple Clause, which prohibited doctrinal teaching being given in provided schools in school hours. The hon. Member for Carnarvon on that point was asked whether he would give facilities for teaching dogmatic religion to the children in school hours, but the answer given was a diplomatic one, that he believed it was not possible under the law, but he would try and persuade his colleagues to take that course. It was on that that the negotiations broke down. The Church party had conceded the point that the teachers should be appointed by a joint body containing representatives of the county council and the diocesan conference, but they insisted that they must have adequate facilities for teaching the children in the schools, and not outside, and in school hours. But hon. 1065 Gentlemen opposite really conceded nothing. The schools were the property of the Church party which had built them and maintained them to a large j extent, and on every principle of fight and justice they ought to have facilities given to them to teach the children in their own tenets.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the Nonconformists gave a guarantee for general religious teaching in the non-provided schools, and were also prepared to give facilities for religious teaching in the board schools so long as that teaching was given technically outside school hours, surely that was something.
*MR. GEORGE KENYONregretted he could not quite follow the hon. Gentleman. He then quoted a letter written by the Bishop of St. Asaph, which he said meant that no facilities that could be offered to the Church party could be secured without the abrogation of the Cowper-Temple Clause, and, as the hon. Member for Carnarvon had stated, since he never dreamt for a moment of assenting to any arrangement which would have abrogated that clause. That was the whole history of the concordat in North Wales. He was free to confess he had gone to the conference with some reluctance. He did not think in the present temper of the people it was possible, in Wales, to arrive at any concordat which would be satisfactory to the Church and Nonconformists alike, but he hoped at no j distant day, when the turmoil and hubbub was abated, it might be possible to arrive at some solution of this difficulty, which was really a very small: part of the general education question. If the Church party were prepared to give so much, and the hon. Member was willing to go so far, in order to promote a fair and reasonable compromise, he did not despair of arriving ere long at a satisfactory arrangement. He congratulated the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs on his return from his triumphal progress through the Principality. The hon. Member could stand on one of the mountains in his native land and survey the whole of the county councils at his feet. As to Jupiter of old they bowed themselves to his nod. He admired the abilities and the invective of his 1066 hon. friend. They were one of the assets of that House. But was it really worth all the invective, all the trouble, all the motor-car journeys, merely to deprive the children in the schools of warmth and gas and a few elementary reading books? Supposing the scale of political fortune turned tomorrow and the hon. Member found himself where his abilities and talents entitled him to be would he still advocate a "no rate" policy on the part of the county councils of Wales? It would then be the hon. Member's duty to maintain the law, pending any alteration he might persuade his colleagues to make, and he would find some difficulty in adapting his present position with the really comfortable scat on the Treasury Bench.
There was not much heard about passive resisters in Wales; they were to a large extent obviated by the policy of the hon. Gentleman opposite. He only knew of one whom he saw before him, the hon. Member for Carmarthen. But there was more in these violent attacks on Churchmen, in the matter of the schools, than appeared on the surface. There was the latent idea that the present agitation would tend to the disestablishment of the Church in Wales by rendering her unpopular and making her responsible for the gathering of the rate. The present movement was only a step towards the greater and more acute controversy. The hon. Gentleman had doubtless secured for the present the support of the county councils, but throughout the Principality there were large numbers of Nonconformists who regarded this policy of illegality with dislike and even aversion. It might be that before long that feeling would gather strength, and then the action of the county councils would be as gall and wormwood to the hon. Gentleman and his friends. There was, at any rate, only one course open to those who believed that the sine qua non of education, in the interests of the children themselves, was a sound religious training—not undenominational, but dogmatic. This being so how could they do otherwise than separate themselves from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They would fight on until it was no longer possible to struggle, and 1067 they had to surrender to force. He congratulated the Government on having taken, some what tardily, after some hesitation, a line worthy of them in this matter. Without giving unnecessary offence, and in studiously moderate language, the hon. Baronet had shown that he believed it to be his duty to see that the law was carried out. That was the only consistent course open to the Government, and, if the present powers were not sufficient to enable them to pursue it, they must ask the House for further powers. He had never been a special lover of the Act in some respects, but he believed that, with all its defects, it would prove to be a great, judicious, and honourable landmark in the history of education.
§ *Mr. BAMFORD SLACK (Hertfordshire, St. Albans),after craving the indulgence of the House on this the first occasion on which he had presumed to address it, said he would not have risen but for his sincere desire to contribute if possible to the peaceful and lasting settlement of this vexed and vexing question. He thought that he might without presumption claim to occupy a position which peculiarly fitted him to speak as to the attitude of the people of the country with regard to the administration of the Education Act. He had carefully watched its working, and in the recent election in which it had been his privilege to take part the education question loomed very large before the electorate; consequently he felt that he could not allow the present occasion to pass without neglecting the duty imposed upon him by his constituents. There existed amongst the people the gravest anxiety as to the principles involved in the Act, the most serious apprehension as to its method of working, and already the most sincere dissatisfaction as to its effects in practice. The hon. Baronet had said it was very difficult to distinguish between popular objection and organised obstruction. If he had been in the recent fray in Mid-Hertfordshire he would have found no difficulty in drawing the distinction. There was no organised obstruction to the Education Act; it was a spontaneous agitation arising from the fact that the conscience of the people had been aroused and stirred. The main objections to the 1068 Act were, in the case of the non-provided schools, that the whole cost of elementary education was now thrown upon public funds, whilst the effective control remained in sectarian hands; and, in the case of the provided schools, that the directly elected boards had been replaced by an appointed committee not directly responsible to any electorate. The foundation managers presumed upon their position because it had been legalised, and in some cases they overrode in the most shameless manner the locally appointed representatives. The new system afforded the gravest opportunities for the exercise of clerical influence, even in the provided schools which formerly were unsectarian. Popularly elected, though small, School Boards had given place to boards of managers appointed by the distant county council, the great majority of whose members were Anglicans. The constitution of the county education committees themselves gave great dissatisfaction. To a large extent they had been chosen from outside the county councils. Secondary election was bad in principle; it was of the essence of popular control that those who controlled the public funds should be liable to dismissal by those whom they represented and whose money they spent, and in no matter was this more essential than in education. In Hertfordshire more than one-third of the education committee had been selected from outside the council; thirty-five of the fifty-one members were Anglicans, two were Roman Catholics, and only fourteen were Nonconformists, although quite one-half of the scholars in the schools were Nonconformist children.
With regard to the constitution of the boards of managers, a similar state of things existed in Hertfordshire as in Carnarvon. Out of 170 schemes relating to Hertfordshire, 148 contained the provision that the four foundation managers must be members of the Establised Church, and this though the whole cost was now thrown upon public funds. In one case the rector, the two churchwardens, and the rector's curate were the four foundation managers; the County Council representative was an Anglican, and the representative elected by the parish council was the local Nonconformist minister, whose election was apparently resented by the rector as an insult to himself. To 1069 call that representative management was a farce. The people's representative was in a helpless minority of one; he was brow-beaten by the rector on every possible occasion; and when it came to the appointment of a correspondent for the school the rector appointed his own butler, at a salary of £10 a year, although the parish representative offered to do the work for nothing. In the school itself, even before the Act came into operation, there had been serious difficulties. The assistant master asked to be relieved of the office of organist in the church, which he held at a salary of £30 a year, and he was thereupon dismissed from the school, being told by the rector that the two offices went together. In St. Albans before the Act a Progressive School Board existed. Notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the citizens, the city council last year decided to hand over the work of the board to the county council. The municipal elections in November turned upon the question, and for the first time in the history of St. Albans four Progressives were returned at the head of the poll for the four vacant places, as a protest against the action of the city council. Of the twelve managers of the provided schools in St. Albans, of whom eight were appointed by the county council, and four by the city council, seven were members of the Anglican Church and five were Nonconformists. This being the body which had taken the place of the Progressive School Board, could it be wondered at that the people of St. Albans resented the interference with the method by which they had managed their provided schools in the past? It was no matter of surprise that wide-spread dissatisfaction existed and passive resisters were to be found in that city.
The people of England were now realising how cunningly and with what subtlety the Act of Parliament was framed, how ingeniously and disingenuously it was contrived. It gave the semblance of popular control while the reality was absolutely denied. County councils could not effectively do the additional work imposed upon them. The divorce of taxation from representation and the permission to impose sectarian tests upon teachers whose salaries were paid by the State had 1070 revolted the conscience not only of Nonconformists, but of the majority of patriotic citizens belonging to all churches. He had found that farmers and others who had hitherto taken little part in national affairs had been aroused to indignation by the Act, and hon. Members opposite, when they came to face their constituents, would find that that was a fact with which they would have to deal. Conscience had been sneered at in this matter, but he thought those sneers were very misplaced. Was not conscience recognised as the religious authority in Protestant England as opposed to the authority of the Church in countries under the Roman communion? The solemn language so slightingly referred to by the hon. Baronet was the expression of a deep religious conviction, which no pressure, coercion, or jibes, would ever eradicate. The clerical party would find that the movement they had inaugurated would end in their own discomfiture; they had grasped after entire public support, and sooner or later they would have to submit to entire public control. Why should not all Parties in the House combine to establish a great homogeneous national system of educasion, whose first and only care should be the interests of the children? Why should they not remove all occasions for the unseemly strife which had arisen, and do all they could to quench the fires of religious persecution and bitterness which had been enkindled? Let them trust the people, who, after all, were the parents of the children in the schools, and let them not force particular theological tenets as elements of animosity into the elementary schools, which, it should never be forgotten, were really the nurseries of the nation.
§ LORD HUGH CECIL (Greenwich)said he observed that while they were often told that the main ground of the grievance of hon. Gentlemen opposite was the absence of popular control over elementary schools, the hon. Member opposite had found that element of popular control very strong, and had complained with great bitterness of the fact that the Hertfordshire County Council was composed mostly of members of the Church of England. He was amused to hear that, because the county council had appointed seven members of the Church 1071 of England to five Nonconformists, in substitution for a Progressive majority on the School Board, no one could be surprised that there were passive resisters. That was the consequence of the hon. Member's argument, and so they were to have passive resistance, not only whenever the foundation managers were in a majority and exercised the rights given them under the statute, but even in cases where the popular representatives controlled the provided schools. He had never had a strong objection to passive resisters. They were an interesting illustration of the right of the subject to rebel; but if principles of this kind were to be accepted, they ought to be applied on many other occasions. The cases of grievance which the hon. Member for Carnarvon had brought forward were all of the kind which he had always admitted—the grievance of the single school district. That grievance constituted a very hard case, but it was no remedy for it to substitute a Nonconformist for a Church majority in the management of the school. He must pass over those cases alleged by the hon. Member where Nonconformists had subscribed to schools without knowing that they were to be Church schools. Unless the parson had made a false declaration, the subscribers must have known. If the hon. Member could prove that—
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGECertainly.
§ LORD HUGH CECILThen it was nothing against the Education Act, however strong a case for action under the Church Discipline Act. The only way to meet the single school difficulty was to provide for the religious convictions of all the inhabitants of the district, and they must meet the conscientious, scruples of all sections of the community. The hon. Member opposite debated at some length the action of the county councils in Wales, and this question had been dealt with so elaborately that he would only touch very briefly upon it. The hon. Member for Carnarvon had played in Wales the part of what was called a missionary. The missionary was becoming quite a feature of modern politics. The hon. Member was the missionary of passive resistance. The function of a missionary was to induce constituencies 1072 to bully their representatives, and the hon. Member opposite hid been more successful than another person, for he found more amenable constituencies and more plastic representatives. There was no one corresponding to the Unionist free-fooders in the Carnarvonshire County Council. Perhaps things would have been different if there had been. But it was a fact, at any rate, that the local education committee rejected the hon. Member's view, and he believed that the chairman, who was a Nonconformist minister, strongly attacked the hon. Member opposite for his views. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman persisted in his agitation. He remembered that when he once suggested that the Welsh county councils might not treat the Church schools fairly he was indignantly assured that the Welsh people were the most law-abiding in the world. That was before the hon. Member undertook his mission. Since then the character of Carnarvon had gone down steadily. Now they took another view, and were prepared to starve the schools. He sympathised deeply with the hon. Member's grievance in regard to single school areas. The hon. Member said that there were many Nonconformist schoolrooms that could be used, but that were not used because of the reluctance to divide the children into sects. He thought that the hon. Member overlooked the fact that the division was made once for all when Nonconformity was established. No doubt it was true that schism was a great evil. It would be much better if they could all be of one mind, and if all the children went to one place of worship on Sunday; it would be better for the community and better for the religious life of the country. But the Nonconformists had deliberately chosen the other alternative, and they had separated from the single unity which once existed. If there was to be a distinction drawn they should endeavour to make their educational system conform to their religious system. The hon. Member said that it would be perfectly easy to draw this distinction.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEAt the ratepayers' expense.
§ LORD HUGH CECILsaid this was a question of conscience, and surely the case 1073 was an overwhelming one. By his argument the hon. Member really gave away the whole ground of passive resistance which he had placed before the Committee. They had always been told that it was a religious scruple. It was not a religious scruple at all; it was a doctrine of social unity, a political theory, not a religious doctrine. It seemed to him that this destroyed the grievance whether they could find a school building suitable for use under Section 10 of the Act. He disapproved strongly of the attitude of uncompromising resistance to the existing Act, but he did not disapprove on the ground that the law was always to be obeyed. He thought it was legitimate to say that there were grievances which justified disobedience to the law, but they must establish a very good case, otherwise they might return to a state of anarchy. It was sometimes forgotten that the exact business of the Executive Government was to insist on the observance of the law. If Parliament made an alteration, that was another question; but as long as the law existed the Government should require its observance. Resistance to the Education Act was in the nature of an act of war, and as long as war continued there was no use in waging it in a half-hearted way. They must press their views to the utmost of their ability, but this fact should not prevent them from welcoming pacification on equitable terms, in bringing to an understanding all the different conflicting religious elements on an elastic and fair basis.
The House had been told that the matter might have been settled by the acceptance of the St. Asaph compromise. He was not able to accept the view that facilities outside school hours were satisfactory in any degree. First of all there was the practical inconvenience that children might be kept away. There was another argument that had not received sufficient attention. All these suggestions involved the idea that Churchmen were to accept the proposition that undenominational religious teaching had the same claim on the State as denominational. He could understand people saying that the State should have nothing to do with religion at all. He could understand the State saying that it ought to do its best to 1074 meet the desires of all sorts of religious beliefs; but he could not understand any one maintaining that the State should create a new established religion, that it should create a new Established Church of the realm in respect of education, and favour the suggestion that undenominational teaching was a better and more necessary thing, and that the rest was a sort of spiritual luxury which those who were fastidious might insist upon. Anything which raised in any way the presumption that they should prefer undenominational to denominational teaching ought never to be accepted, and he hoped never would be accepted, by the House. He thought the hon. Member for Carnarvon had used language in the past which did suggest some suspicion as to the way his proposal would work In a speech delivered on 22nd January, 1903, the hon. Member argued that the school time-table should be arranged so that religious instruction might follow at the close of the school session and that those children desiring religious instruction should return and those who did not should continue to play. He thought that all the suggestions made by the hon. Member and his friends were devices to change for the worse the existing division between undenominational and denominational religion. There was a great difference between the point of view of Churchmen and Nonconformists in one respect. Nonconformists of undoubted convictions evidently attached more importance to the machinery of education than the Churchmen did. Churchmen, on their side, cared nothing for the machinery so that they should be assured of the result. They cared for the management of the school and the appointment of the head teacher, because these things enabled them to secure that the religious teaching should be of a particular character, and that the children should benefit by it. So far as he could judge, no machinery had yet been suggested which would afford to Churchmen and Roman Catholics an equal security for good religious teaching as the machinery that at present exists in non-provided or voluntary schools. This was not a Church of England question only. He should deprecate in the strongest way their separating in any degree their fortunes from 1075 their Roman Catholic friends, who had stood by them so loyally and so long. No settlement ought to be accepted by either party which was not satisfactory to both. Subject to that, he thought that on the lines his right hon. friend laid down there was a prospect of a settlement which might be not unacceptable to all parties. They had the power of appointing the teachers and he did not think that was an unreasonable provision. The teachers existed for the sake of the children, and if they wanted to teach the children a particular religion they must exact a certain religious standard. They must exact a certain standard of religious belief, or otherwise religious teaching would become a mockery.
Supposing they could adopt the system which he indicated in the Amendment which he proposed when the Bill was in Committee, supposing they allowed every local authority to teach any religious system they liked, supposing the parents expressed a wish for the religious system they preferred, and supposing they threw the duty on the local authority to carry out their wishes so far as it was practicable, he believed they would have gone a long way towards solving the problem. He did not believe local authorities would be unwilling to work such a system. It was worked in Germany and in the industrial schools of this country. The truth was the practical difficulties were grossly exaggerated. He knew what was in the minds of some hon. Gentlemen. They were afraid the system would be used for the benefit of a particular section of the Church of England, whom they regarded with great suspicion. They thought it was part of an elaborate propaganda by which it was desired to capture the children for the extreme High Church section. Surely, hon. Gentlemen mistook the signs of the times. There was a High Church movement, and a great many people whose zeal led them beyond the limits of discretion did injudicious things. The really formidable movement was a very different one. The real danger to be apprehended was from another quarter. The whole fabric of Christianity was in peril. He saw in every city and in every town growing indifference to religion. Public worship was notoriously much more neglected 1076 than it had been, and not only neglected, but where it was attended it was made as agreeable as possible in order that it might not be neglected. People attended church or chapel more for the music or the preacher than for worship. The whole Christian system seemed to be passing from the region of certainty into the region of doubt. People were not quite sure whether Christianity were true or not.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)Like free trade.
§ LORD HUGH CECILsaid that no religion which had arrived at that point could long survive as an active force. The danger which he feared was not to the theological system, but to the moral system, for when religion was gone morality would go with it. Was not that a state of things which the Nonconformist as well as the Anglican and the Roman should try to avert? Those who thought that that was a pessimistic view he would ask whether in 1504 a break with the See of Rome, or in 1750 a revolution in France, seemed more probable than a break with Christianity appeared to-day. Great movements came in that fashion. They were latent for years, then suddenly they burst forth, producing lasting effects. Therefore his appeal was not so much in the interest of the Church as in the interest of Christianity. He wished to give to Nonconformists all the protection against proselytism in the schools which their ingenuity could devise. Indeed, no one desired to use the national schools of the country to convert children from one religion to another. All he desired was to make each child as good a Christian of his father's denomination as was possible. He agreed that the springs of human conviction lay beyond the schools to a great extent; but still in the schools much good might be done for Christianity. Even if they could influence one child in that direction it was worth doing. The enemy outside was more to be dreaded than the opponent within. The differences which divided the extreme Nonconformist from the extreme Roman Catholic were trivial compared with the differences which separated the Christian from the non-Christian. He asked them to approach the question of 1077 education from that point of view, and to make the schools of the country the citadel of Christianity.
§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)said the noble Lord's speech was both amusing and suggestive. He noticed three admissions in the speech which seemed to him very valuable not only to this side, but to all parts of the House. He admitted that the Act needed amendment; and he was good enough to admit that the single-school district constituted a grievance for the Nonconformists, and that that grievance, if it were serious, justified resistance to the law. Their argument was that it was a serious grievance. He was, therefore, pleased to hear the noble Lord say emphatically that there might be justification for what used to be called the sacred right of insurrection. Lastly, the noble Lord expressed the hope that, on the lines indicated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University, some settlement might be arrived at. The noble Lord deplored the conditions which in Christian life were due to differences of belief. He ought to deplore them all the more, because it was a clear and palpable aggravation of these conditions if they began with children at the very first step, and taught them to regard one another with aversion. The noble Lord's argument appeared to be that things were bad and that it did not matter if they made them worse. It was not, as the noble Lord seemed to think, entirely a question of expense. It was a question of the worth of the education to be given. To set up two or three small schools in an area where there were only 100 or 150 children would be to make them absolutely useless—he meant by that, to make them ineffective—because they would not have the apparatus and the teaching which would enable them to do what was wanted for the children. That suggestion was really inadmissible. What was called undenominational religion consisted in matters on which all Protestant denominations were agreed in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. It was in the rural districts where the difficulty chiefly arose, and there the Catholics were a small portion of the population. It was in the large 1078 towns where the difficulty with the Catholics arose. Therefore, the noble Lord must pardon him if he did not take him as the exponent of the feeling of the laity of the Church of England, though he recognised that the noble Lord worthily represented one school of thought in the Church. He believed himself that the general feeling of the laity was in favour of undenominational instruction, as was shown by the large support they had given to School Boards. As to the latter part of the noble Lord's, speech, with the earnestness of which all who heard it must be impressed, he agreed both with his diagnosis of the age in which we lived and in the regret he had expressed at the tendency which was manifesting itself; but he differed from the noble Lord with regard to the remedy he proposed. It must not be supposed, however, that he regarded the tendency of which the noble Lord had spoken as a permanency. He saw no reason to entertain any grave alarm. That tendency might last for a generation or two and then disappear, as similar tendencies had done before. The noble Lord seemed to think that this tendency, which was in a certain sense a world movement, could be arrested by the simple expedient of giving children denominational teaching in the schools.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURHe said just the reverse.
§ ME. BRYCEsaid that if the noble Lord would look at what had been done by education in the forming of opinion where the applicances were more effective and universal than in England, he would have reason to reconsider his opinion. In Protestant Germany the children got Protestant instruction. Had that made them as devoted to Christianity as were the children of the Protestant United States, where no denominational instruction was given? The sectarian teaching on which the noble Lord laid so much stress, related to points which did not incorporate themselves in the child's life, and which were not guides to its moral conduct because in a great majority of cases the child did not understand them at all. He agreed that a school ought to implant moral lessons in the mind of the child; but that was not to be done by 1079 the denominational part of the teaching, but by that part which belonged to the essence and foundation of Christianity.
They had had a debate which had dealt partly with the resistance of the Welsh county councils and partly with the merits, or demerits, of the Act of 1902. He ventured to say that his hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon had made his case in a very moderate and temperate way, and his contention was that, in such circumstances as the Board of Education found in Wales, they ought to act with caution and conciliation. Wales had a right to bring the matter forward, because its case was a peculiar one, the vast majority of the people—probably three-fourths, or even a larger proportion in many parts — being Nonconformists. Could any one say that the Act of 1902 would have been passed for Wales if it had not been that it was being passed for England? Was it not a little hard that Wales, which was a country, for ecclesiastical purposes, so unlike England, should have to suffer merely because the Government of the day thought the Act a good thing for England? The Secretary to the Board of Education had ascribed what had passed in Wales to the agitation of the Welsh Members. It was not the Welsh Members who had roused Wales. They only went to Wales because Wales was roused. The inflammable material was there and took fire of itself. Feelings of the same sort were rampant in Yorkshire. It had been seriously discussed in the West Riding whether or not the Act should be set in force. An agitation could never be got up unless there was material on which it could work. This was true about the passive resistance movement, which had been in an eminent degree a movement springing from the rank and file. It was the people, too, who had usually been very languid in their political opinions who had been stirred by this question. They were a class who had been amongst the most law-abiding, quiet, steady-going citizens of this country. What had impressed them had been, first, the idea that this was an Act which had put a strain on their consciences, and in the second place the belief that it had not moral authority because it was an Act which had not been properly passed.
1080 [An HON. MEMBER: No.] He was telling the Committee what was their view. It might be wrong. They thought that the Act was not submitted to the people in the way Acts usually were. They said that the Act had not the stamp of popular approval on it. He did not recollect any Act which had been passed, rightly or wrongly, which had carried so little moral authority as this Act had done. If the Secretary to the Board of Education did not know the feeling about the Act, which was entertained even in his own Party, he stood alone in that ignorance. It was impossible to go about England without knowing that a more unpopular Act had seldom appeared in the Statute-book. Its first result had been to produce confusion in the county councils, who had found suddenly imposed upon them a mass of work with which they were unable to grapple. The Act had involved them in an enormous increase of expenditure. The managers, not being the servants of the councils, were not trusted with so much work as they had been, and were disappointed in consequence. It was said that not only in Wales, but also in the South of England, the Board of Education were making Orders for the creation of Church of England managers where there was nothing in the trust deed to justify this.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid this was the converse of the complaint made by the hon. Member for Carnarvon. The Board of Education had, in fact, endeavoured to carry out the existing practice and usage.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid it was difficult to discuss this matter without having a concrete case before them. He would like to know what length of time would justify the Board of Education in making a school sectarian which had not been sectarian by foundation.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that in each case they must go on the merits. The Board of Education had to consider the settled usage and practice of the schools.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he was informed that protests had been received by the Board of Education from local authorities against their Orders, and perhaps if he 1081 put a Question on the subject, the hon. Gentleman would be able to tell him how many protests had been received. There was another difficulty about the managers which he thought ought to be mentioned. Transfers were being made. Was it required in all cases that transfers should be made without the reserve of any rent to the persons who had the freehold of the school? It was very import ant to bearin mind, when terms were to be given to schools in private ownership, that in many cases such schools were not private schools in the ordinary sense of the term, but charities. He should like to know to what extent the new schools which were being provided were provided by the local authorities and by the organisations.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he answered that Question that afternoon.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he was sorry he had not heard the hon. Gentleman's explanation. Among other difficulties that had arisen in the working of the Act were those in relation to the terms of transfer, the use of school buildings out of school hours, the refusal of managers, to put the buildings in a proper state of repair for such use, and the use of school buildings for infants, boys or girls, according to the needs of the locality. He, was informed that there had been cases in which the managers, by insisting upon keeping up the school in a particular way, had obliged the local authority to incur the cost of providing another school. That was one of the cases which inflicted the country with a great deal of unnecessary expense. Another difficulty had arisen in connection with the appointment of teachers. He was told that the National Society had circulated a form of agreement for the appointment of teachers in voluntary schools and which it requested managers to use for all teachers. The terms of that agreement pledged the teachers to give religious instruction according to a syllabus or scheme to be approved of by the society from time to time. The local authorities denied altogether the right of the managers to submit such a scheme or syllabus to the teachers, and they contended that they had a right to demand that no embarrassing conditions should be 1082 attached by the managers to the engagement of teachers; that those conditions which the National Society desired to see imposed were improper conditions, and ultra vires of the managers. Was that so, and if so, what was the attitude of the Board of Education to it? Had the Board come to a decision on the point, and what was that decision? If the hon. Baronet desired time to consider the matter, good and well; but he did not wish to lose that opportunity of calling the attention of the Committee to it, because he was told it had given rise, to a great deal of friction between local authorities and the managers in some parts of the country.
Lastly, he desired to ask what was being done, to promote secondary instruction. Secondary instruction was most important at the present moment, and he feared that it would suffer from being associated with elementary instruction owing to the increased cost of elementary education. He was afraid that very little was being done by most county councils for secondary education, and that it was being allowed to fall altogether into the background. That was one of the greatest misfortunes attending the passing of the Act. He hoped the Department would urge the county councils to keep clown expenditure, on elementary education, so far as was consistent with efficiency, in order to have money to spare for secondary instruction. Secondary education, both general and technical, was one of the most important objects local authorities could have in England, and they should be constantly reminded of their duty by the Board of Education. When they were passing this Act, the First Lord of the Treasury had a favourite phrase by which he described it; he always spoke of it as being a great educational reform. Well, they had had some, experience, although not complete, of the working of this great educational reform; and he must say that its chief result had been additional expense, additional confusion, none of that unity of administration which they were promised, and a great exasperation of ecclesiastical controversy, coupled with neglect of the most urgent needs of the country. There had been some consolation in that debate. 1083 Everyone, except the Members speaking from the Treasury Bench, had admitted that the Act had been at fault, and required to be reformed.
He would not attempt to solve the riddle as to how the religious difficulty involved in the Act could be removed. Everyone had his own scheme. But there was a growing wish, and he regarded this with satisfaction, for an arrangement upon fair lines towards all denominations. They would only get a fair arrangement by admitting popular control. With popular control everything would be easy; without popular control everything would be difficult. He had been very glad to hear the Attorney-General give approval to the compromise suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University. There were moments during the debates on the Act of 1902 when they thought that such a compromise might be accepted; and therefore he could not feel too sanguine that it would now be carried out. But they all wished that Ministers would take the matter to heart at once, and try to bring about, through their influence on their own Party, some pacific arrangement; because it must be clear to everyone that the Act could not stand. He knew that the First Lord of the Treasury thought that the passive resistance movement was quite ridiculous; but it was a fact which the right hon. Gentleman could not deny. He was in the recollection of many hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman had scouted the passive resistance movement altogether, and did so because he thought it absurd. The right hon. Gentleman was a great dialectician, and nobody had ever admired the First Lord's dialectical powers more than he had done this session, because, unlike, the man in the play who endeavoured to persuade two ladies in separate rooms that each of them swayed his heart, he had endeavoured to persuade the protectionists in the presence of the free-traders that he was a protectionist—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Question"]—and had endeavoured to persuade the free-traders in the presence of the protectionists that he was a free-trader. [Renewed cries of "Question."] Hon. Gentlemen did not seem to like any reference to that; but he was only using it as an illustration, and not necessarily as an argument. 1084 With all his dialectical skill, the right hon. Gentleman could not argue facts out of existence. There were the facts—the facts that passive resistance existed, and that the Act was unpopular. He held that if they could see into the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, it would be found, at this moment, that all agreed that the Act must be amended; and he ventured to predict that whatever Government came into power alter the next general election, they would have to deal with this Act. It was perfectly impossible to allow it to stand as it now stood. Indeed, the, present Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education admitted that he would have to get greater power. The sooner they approached this work the better; and he hoped whoever did approach it would endeavour to give them a truly national and popular system, and would endeavour to set the country free from this ecclesiastical strife in order to make education a really progressive element in the life of the country.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI really should not have supposed that there were two speakers in this House more unlike each other, not only in their opinions, but in their style and methods, than the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and my noble friend who preceded him. I should have thought that they differed on almost every subject, but that, if there was a subject on which they differed more than any other, it was the subject of education. And yet I observe that neither of them could keep out the fiscal controversy when they were touching upon this apparently alien theme. There is something—in such studies of political economy as I have made I have, never been able to find out in what it consists—but there must be something closely connected between theological and economic controversy which makes it impossible for anyone to take a passionate interest in the one without going rather mad over the other. I do not say where the passion or the madness lies; but, at all events, they both have some intoxicating, and perhaps elevating, effect on the human mind, and when any gentleman passionately interested in the one begins to discourse upon one of these subjects, he 1085 seems insensibly drawn off into metaphors and arguments which pertain to the other. It is a psychological fact which I commend to those interested in the currents of opinion which sway this Assembly. The right hon. Gentleman, except in the latter part of his speech, sank very much below my noble friend in the breath of view and in the general treatment of the subject which he laid before the House. The right hon. Gentleman told me in particular, but the House in general, that in his judgment the Education Bill of 1902 was a very unpopular Bill and a very bad Bill. I did not know that it was a very popular Bill. I never brought it in believing that it would be a popular Bill. The Government, of which I was a member, never supposed that it was a Bill which would conciliate universal opinion or arouse great enthusiasm either among those represented by hon. Gentlemen opposite or among the general ratepayers of the country. What we did believe, and what we believe now, is that the time had come when a great educational reform was absolutely necessary, popular or unpopular. The right hon. Gentleman says the Bill is unpopular because it is increasing the rates.
§ MR. BRYCENo; I did not say that quite. That is an element also, but it is unpopular for other reasons.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am alluding to an element of unpopularity to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded. Does the right hon. Gentleman suppose that he could have brought in a Bill which would have done anything whatever for education and in which the ratepayer would have been wholly spared?
§ MR. BRYCEMy case is that it is the machinery of the Bill—the dual control of the Bill and the complications and unnecessary multiplication of schools—which has greatly added to the expense.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe right hon. Gentleman's panacea for expenditure is machinery, the economy of which would have been to maintain the School Board system universally, notoriously the most costly system this country has ever known, and to buy up at the ratepayers' expense 1086 all the voluntary schools of the country. That is the economy of the right hon. Gentleman. And the only mitigation I can see in the financial disaster which would have thereupon ensued arises from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman would have bought up the voluntary schools at much less than their proper value. I venture to submit to the House that in 1902 we honestly approached the great educational problem in no unworthy or sectarian spirit. Hon. Gentlemen may have disliked our particular solution. They may have preferred, I think the right hon. Gentleman does prefer, or would have preferred, a universal system of small School Boards all over the country.
§ DR. MACNAMARALarge ones.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThere was that plan; there may have been other plans. We adopted a plan large in its outlines, in conformity with the whole position in this country, and fitting in with our general system of local government. Of course there is some difficulty and some confusion, when you make a transition from the old system to the new, from the unreformed to the reformed system, but I believe it will be found, so far as secular education is concerned, that we have laid broadly and permanently the foundations of that which will hereafter be looked upon as the greatest educational reform this country has ever known. It was unfortunately impossible for us, as it would have been impossible for any Government sitting on this Bench, to deal with the general question of secular education without' touching on the question of religious education, and when people talk of the unpopularity of this Bill, when they talk of the educational friction which this Bill has produced in nine times out of ten, in ninety-nine out of 100, they refer not to the difficulty with regard to secular education, but to the difficulty with regard to religious education. And how, may I ask, could any Ministry, be their political complexion what it may, have avoided that? I see opposite my hon. friend the Member for the London University, who made a most interesting speech this afternoon, a 1087 speech which interested me particularly because he is keenly alive to the needs of education, and he is altogether outside these unhappy religious controversies. And yet even my hon. friend could not avoid charging the Government with having unnecessarily stirred up religious feeling, and he measured our iniquities by the amount of the passive resistance which the Bill aroused. Did my hon. friend for a moment reflect how dangerous was the argument he employed? If we are only to measure the sincerity of opponents to any Bill by the amount of illegality [Ironical laughter from the OPPOSITION Benches.]—in any case it is very cheap illegality, because in the history of the world there has never been a less expensive form of martyrdom than the present—if my hon. friend measures the faults of the Bill by the amount of that sort of illegality it arouses, does he not see he puts a great premium upon the same kind of illegality being practised when any change in the Bill is made in the direction which the right hon. Gentleman opposite desires? I do not approve of these methods and I shall not encourage them, but the people who encourage them are those who say, "Look at the dreadful results you have produced; here are Mr. A, Mr. B, and Mr. C, all respectable law-abiding citizens who have all got their rates paid by somebody else! Is it possible that you should still maintain a law which produces this disastrous result?" Well, then another Party conies into office, they carry out the reforms foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and then, instead of Mr. A, Mr. B, and Mr. C, getting their rates paid by somebody else, Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z will follow the same ingenious procedure. What then is my hon. friend to do? He will again have to measure the iniquity of the new law by the same standard as that by which he measured the iniquity of the old law; and each successive Government will be impelled to what is called reform the law by the amount of illegal resistance to which that law leads. I think my hon. friend—and I still refer to him because I think him one of the most impartial persons in the House on this subject—if he looks back on the history of this question, will see that you cannot avoid the religious question, and that the 1088 Government in dealing with the religious part of this great educational problem have dealt with it in a manner of which the Nonconformists had very little reason to complain.
I am aware that I was charged, I think by the right hon. Member for Berwick, with a "perverse ignorance" of the feelings of Nonconformists. That may be so; it is certainly through no want of good will on my part; it may be through want of natural capacity. Certainly neither by training, habit, nor education am I disposed to rate low or to think ill of any sect of Christians because they are non-Episcopal. But I honestly admit that there have been arguments used by Nonconformists in this great controversy which I have never, with the best will in the world, been able thoroughly to understand. In what, for instance, lies the conscientious distinction, the moral distinction, between contributing to schools in which denominational religion is given out of taxes rather than out of rates? There may be a reason, but I can truly say that neither in this House nor out of it, neither in conversation nor in literature, have I ever seen that reason, if it really exists, stated in explicit or intelligible language. I have never been able to understand this argument about tests applied to teachers. The point was dealt with by my noble friend, I thought fully, and with his argument I am in entire agreement. I will endeavour to summarise what he said, and at all events hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they do not agree with me, will see where my difficulty lies. If you hold that education should be secular and that teachers engaged in secular education should not have the duty of teaching religion in any form thrown upon them, then I agree to require their conformity with the creed of any particular denomination is the application of a religious test in the true and in the offensive sense of the word, because the application of tests in its historic sense meant this, and nothing more than this—that you should compel a man to go through some religious ceremony before he obtained a secular appointment, which religious ceremony was intended to show conclusively that he belonged to this or that religious denomination, and did not belong to this 1089 or that other religious denomination. These are tests. That is what tests have always meant historically; that is what they mean now in the minds of anybody who thinks clearly on these subjects. But who would think they were applying tests when they made inquiries as to whether a tutor of their own family was capable of teaching their own religion to their own children? [An Hon. MEMBER: But they pay.] I will come to the question of payment in a moment. I do not think the hon. Gentleman has got up his own case.
§ DB. MACNAMARAThey do it at their own expense.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe whole theory, as I understand it, of the Nonconformists is that you can teach religion—a religion common at all events to all Protestants in board schools. Is it or is it not a religious test to find out whether the teacher who is going to teach that religion common to all Protestants believes in the religion common to all Protestants and is capable of teaching it? The hon. Gentleman who interrupted is wisely silent, and in truth his interruption does expose the hollowness of the whole proceedings. It is logical to refuse any inquiry into a man's religious belief so long as he is not going to teach religion. But as soon as you require him or expect him to teach religion, be it Roman Catholicism, be it Anglicanism, be it Wesleyanism, or any other form of religion, or, above all, or not least, be it the London School Board syllabus, as soon as you require him to teach that you ought to find out formally or informally, but effectively, whether he is capable of teaching it or not. I know I am 1090 not at one with the Nonconformists of this country, with whom I would most gladly live at peace; but, do the best I can, I honestly say I have never been able to see an answer to the argument I have just ventured to lay before the House. If I have failed to understand, as I admit I have, these objections of my Nonconformist friends, have they on their part been fair to the efforts which the Government have conscientiously made to alleviate the difficulties of their position? I have read a great many leaflets and a great many articles and a great many speeches delivered against the Education Bill of 1902 in what professed to be the Nonconformist interest. I have seen a great many statements which seemed to me to be absolutely in conflict with notorious facts. I have seen leaflets in which I really could not detect one specific statement that was true, and I have been informed, rightly or wrongly, that these pamphlets, in which I was unable to detect one single true statement, had been left with every householder over large areas in the country. I think that is very unfortunate, especially when the interests supposed to be at stake are the interests of religion. But while I have seen a great many things that I regret, there are some things which I have never seen at all. I have never seen the smallest recognition in any Nonconformist's utterances whatever—except some private letters which I have received from Nonconformists—of what I conceive to be great changes in our education system made entirely in the interests of Nonconformists. I used to hear before the Bill of 1902 was passed that it was an iniquity, considering in how many parishes the only 1091 school was a Church school, that no Nonconformist in those parishes could get his child the first start on the educational ladder by allowing him or her to be introduced as a pupil teacher. I believe a complete remedy was provided by the Act of 1902.
§ MR. TREVELYAN (Yorkshire, W. R. Elland)A profession they cannot rise in.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am talking of the introduction into the profession. The complaint was that the parson of the parish restricted the choice to boys or girls belonging to his own communion. That has been completely changed. ["No."] It has been changed as far as statute can change it. ["No."] As a matter of fact, it has, and every boy and every girl has an absolute right, irrespective of religion, to become a pupil teacher. ["No."] The hon. Gentleman says he cannot rise in his profession. Before I come to that, let me say—there were a few dissentients from the statements I made just now, but there will not be one dissentient from the statement I now make—that the condition of things after the Act of 1902 became law was incomparably better for Nonconformists in that particular than it was before. Now I come to what the hon. Gentleman said about rising in the profession. Before the Act of 1902, in the voluntary schools, unless under special trust deeds, it was impossible for a Nonconformist to obtain a large number of teaching positions. I know hon. Gentlemen claim that the head teacherships in voluntary schools have not been thrown open by law. That is true, but the number of subordi- 1092 nate places is far greater than the number of head places, and the subordinate places have been thrown open. [An HON. MEMBER: If the managers think fit.] The hon. Member thinks there may be obstinacy on the part of the managers, but, supposing there is, is not this an enormous improvement on the condition of things that we found before we set to work to deal with this matter? Then is this the Nonconformist point of view—that the system under which the school was entirely in the hands of the parson, who could forbid any child becoming a pupil teacher unless he or she belonged to the same denomination was a better system? Well, I need not pursue that further. Then we used to be told, and told with a great deal of truth, that in a large number of parishes through no fault of the clergyman, but through his sense of public duty in most cases, the whole secular education was under his control, and that was made a matter of bitter complaint by Nonconformists. In the matter of managers they can no longer say that the one-man management of schools continues in any part of this country, and it is childish to say that from their point of view the Act of 1902 did not carry out a great reform in that respect also. Finally, the grievance I have always felt the Nonconformists had was in the matter of the education of teachers after the pupil-teacher stage was passed. It is the Act of 1902, and that Act alone, which has made provision by which Nonconformist teachers should get the teaching in their profession which would enable them worthily to carry out its high functions. I am not going to discuss all the questions raised by these points; but do critics opposite, who heard all these 1093 debates in 1902 and know that the account I have been giving of that Bill is an accurate account, think it fair controversy to come nigh to the spreading, or to make no protest against the spreading, of these amazing falsifications of the Act which have been thrown broadcast over the land, and never once in any speech, in any pamphlet, in any article, to suggest that in every particular the Act of 1902 is far more favourable to the Nonconformist than its predecessor? I was roused to make this protest by the remarks of the Member for Berwick-on-Tweed, I hope I have shown, at all events, that if I, with the best will in the world, have failed in some part to find myself in harmony with them, they have not acted with perfect justice towards the Government of which I am a member.
With that observation the last touch of controversy, so far as I am concerned with it, shall be put aside from the remainder of what I have to say. I concur absolutely with my noble friend in the speech he made this evening that there are interests before us, interests which we have got to safeguard, interests which are imperilled, incomparably greater than the relatively insignificant fights between this or that Protestant sect. I entirely agree—perhaps here my noble friend will not agree with me—I entirely agree with those who think that there is a body of truth common to all Protestant sects—I would venture to say common to all Christian sects—which may be most profitably and usefully taught to the children of this country. But are you going to settle what the common body of doctrine is by Act of Parliament? Do you think this House, do you think the 1094 late London School Board, or the present London County Council, or any other educational authority you please to name, is qualified by tradition, by learning, or by any gift except that of good will, to settle what is this common body of doctrine which is to be taught to the children of tins country, and in which they may all agree. The task is impossible; and, if it were possible, this is not the age of the world in which a House situated like this House can undertake it. You must leave it, and you can only leave it, in logic, to the parents of this country to decide how that should be taught. If there be, as there may be, great difficulties in bringing to bear upon the problem the actual will and intention of the parents of each child, your solution is not, ought not to be, and cannot be, to say that, as the parents are incapable of saying in what denomination their children are to be brought up, it is to be left to the School Board or their successors to settle for them. And yet, although I see all these difficulties before us, I concur with those who think that there are symptoms that religious men in this country, be their denomination what it may, are becoming sick of these disputes, which do infinite harm to education, and, I would venture to say, do still greater harm to religion. But if the controversy is to be approached in the spirit of some Gentlemen I have heard to-night or on previous occasions, I do not see how this embittered strife is to be brought to an end. It cannot be brought to an end, I am confident, as long as one element in the Nonconformist programme is that in no circumstances shall you trench upon the Cowper-Temple Clause. You cannot work the Cowper-Temple Clause. I can imagine many systems which would be just, though 1095 do not say that they would always be practicable; but I can conceive of no system which would be just and which would absolutely deprive the parents of the children of every provided school in the country of the opportunity of having those children taught in school hours the religion which they desire. That cannot be. It is not on those lines we can find any solution. Nevertheless I do feel that even as regards the Cowper-Temple Clause there is some change of feeling among those who have hitherto supported it, and that to obtain a really national system of education in which all sects might join, even this ancient prejudice—or, if they will allow me without offence to say, this ancient superstition—might be abandoned for a greater end. However that may be, I have no solution, here and now, even to suggest or hint to the House. On the solution of the question of the Welsh difficulty I have nothing to say in connection with the religious difficulty. All I have to say is in connection with the administrative difficulty. There I am convinced that, however much the hon. Member for Carnarvon—that missionary of peace and good will to all men—may differ from my opinions, he will at all events admit that the education of the children of Wales is a duty which devolves upon the Government of this country, and that, if it is not effectively carried out by those who are legally responsible for it, some remedy for such a state of things must be devised. I think he will allow, speaking as an educationist, and not as a Nonconformist, that to allow the children of Wales to go
§ without their proper books and without the necessary machinery of education, to make it doubtful whether the teachers will be paid, and to leave the schools unheated and unrepaired is a state of things which no man, whatever his religious views may be, can contemplate with equanimity, and in which no Government can acquiesce. I hope that without any legislative interference on our part this lamentable state of things can be brought to an end. But if it cannot be brought to an end by those primarily responsible, then it seems to me that a clear duty lies before us, and we must take some measures which shall be effectual to see that the children of Wales do not lack the education given to the children in every other part of His Majesty's dominions.
§ MR. ALFRED DAVIES (Carmarthen Boroughs), said he could not help telling the House that he was a passive resister, and that he was in good company. They had with them ministers of the Gospel, prominent citizens and well known members of society. He did not refuse to pay the rate in order that some one should pay it for him. At any rate he was honest in this matter. He refused to pay the rate because he considered that the Education Bill of 1902 was unjust, and he held that no man who had any conscience ought to agree with it.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee Divided:—Ayes, 128; Noes, 248. (Division List No. 53).
1099| AYES. | ||
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Asquith, Rt Hon Herbert Henry | Bell, Richard |
| Allen, Charles P. | Barran, Rowland Hirst | Black, Alexander William |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Barley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Brigg, John |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H | Robson, William Snowdon |
| Brown, George M. (Edinburgh) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Rose, Charles Day |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E) | Runciman, Walter |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Holland, Sir William Henry | Russell, T. W. |
| Burns John | Horniman, Frederick John | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Caldwell, James | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Shackleton, David James |
| Cameron, Robert | Jacoby, James Alfred | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Joicey, Sir James | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Cawley, Frederick | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) |
| Cremer, William Randal | Kearley, Hudson E. | Slack, John Bamford |
| Crombie, John William | Kitson, Sir James | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Dalziel, James Henry | Lambert, George | Smith, Samuel (Flint) |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan | Leese, Sir Joseph F(Accrington | Spencer, Rt Hn C R (Northants |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Leng, Sir John | Stevenson, Francis S. |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Levy, Maurice | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Tennant, Harold John |
| Dunn, Sir William | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | Thomas, Sir A. Glamorgan E.) |
| Edwards, Frank | M'Kenna, Reginald | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr) |
| Elibank, Master of | M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin | Toulmin, George |
| Ellice, Capt EC(SAndrw'sB'ghs | Mansfield, Horace Randall | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Ellis, John Edward (Notts.) | Markham, Arthur Basil | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Emmott, Alfred | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Eve, Harry Trelawney | Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N. | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Morley, Charles (Breconshire) | Wason John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Fenwick, Charles | Moulton, John Fletcher | Weir, James Galloway |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro(Leith) | Newnes, Sir George | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund | Norman, Henry | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Whiteley, George (York, W. R. |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Partington, Oswald | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Paulton, James Mellor | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Freeman-Thomas, Captain F. | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Perks, Robert William | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Gladstone, Rt Hn Herbert John | Price, Robert John | Woodhouse Sir J T(Huddersf'd |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Priestley, Arthur | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Grant, Corrie | Reckitt, Harold James | |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick | Rickett, J. Compton | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Haldane. |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Rigg, Richard | |
| Harmsworth, R. Leicester | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham William (Cork N. E.) | Bousfield, William Robert | Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Bowles, Lt.-Col H F (Middlesex | Cripps, Charles Alfred |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton |
| Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden | Bull, William James | Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Burdett-Coutts, W. | Dalkeith, Earl of |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn Hugh O | Butcher, John George | Dalrymple, Sir Charles |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Davenport, William Bromley |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn Sir H. | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Delany, William |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Cautley, Henry Strother | Dickson, Charles Scott |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cavendish V. C. W.(Derbyshire | Dimsdale, Rt Hon. Sir JosephC. |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Doogan, P. C. |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manc'r | Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Dorington, Rt Hon. Sir John E. |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Chapman, Edward | Doughty, George |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W(Leeds | Clancy, John Joseph | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Clare, Octavius Leigh | Doxford, Sir William Theodore |
| Bartley, Sir George C. T. | Clive, Captain Percy A. | Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin |
| Beach,Rt Hn Sir Michael Hicks | Coates, Edward Feetham | Dyke, Rt Hon Sir William Hart |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Coghill, Douglas Harry | Esmonde, Sir Thomas |
| Bignold, Arthur | Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Faber, George Denison (York) |
| Bigwood, James | Colomb,Sir John CharlesReady | Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J (Manc'r |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole | Ffrench, Peter |
| Bond, Edward | Compton, Lord Alwyne | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith | Condon, Thomas Joseph | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Lawson, John Grant(Yorks. NR | Redmond, John E. (Waterford |
| Fison, Frederick William | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N S. | Ridley, Hon M.W. (Stalybridge |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Forster, Henry William | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Foster, Philip S. (Wariek, S. W. | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Fyler, John Arthur | Long,Col. Charles W.(Evesham | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Gardner, Ernest | Long, Rt Hn. Walter (Bristol S. | Roche, John |
| Garfit, William | Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale) | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft | Rothschild Hon. Lionel Walter |
| Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | Lundon, W. | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Gordon, Hn J E (Elgin & Nairn) | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Gordon Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets | Macdona, John Gumming | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool |
| Gore, Hn G R C Ormsby-(Salop | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Gore, Hon. S F. Ormsby-(Linc. | Maconochie, A. W. | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Samuel, Sir Harry S(Limehouse |
| Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | MacArthur, Charles (Liverpool | Seton-Karr, Sir Henry |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | M'Kean, John | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury | M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs. | Malcolm, Ian | Skewes-Cox, Thomas |
| Grenfell, William Henry | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East |
| Gretton, John | Maxwell, W.J.H.(Dumfriessh.) | Smith, H.C (North'mb. Tyneside |
| Hall, Edward Marshall | Milner, Rt Hon Sir Frederick G | Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.) |
| Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | Montagu, G. (Huntington) | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Hambro, Charles Eric | Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants) | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Hamilton Marq of (L'nd'nderry | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy | Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs. |
| Hammond, John | Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart |
| Hare, Thomas Leigh | Morpeth, Viscount | Stock, James Henry |
| Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th | Morrell, George Herbert | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Harris, Dr. Fredk.R. (Dulwich | Morrison, James Archibald | Sullivan, Donal |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley | Mount, William Arthur | Talbot, Rt. Hn J G (Oxf'dUniv |
| Heath, James (Staffords, N. W. | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Helder, Augustus | Murray, Rt Hn A Graham(Bute | Tollemache, Henry James |
| Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W. | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Myers, William Henry | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Hoare, Sir Samuel | Nicholson, William Graham | Tuff, Charles |
| Hobhouse, Rt Hn H(Somers'tE | Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway,N. | Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward |
| Hogg, Lindsay | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Hope, J F. (Sheffield Brightside | O'Brien, Kendal(TipperaryMid | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Hozier Hon. James Henry Cecil | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Hudson, George Bickersteth | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | Walrond, Rt Hn Sir William H |
| Hunt, Rowland, | O'Dowd, John | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Jameson, Major J. Eustace | O'Malley, William | Welby, Sir Charles G E (Notts.) |
| Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd |
| Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred | O'Shee, James John | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Parker, Sir Gilbert | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Joyce, Michael | Peel, Hn Wm Robert Wellesley | Wilson, A. Stanley (York E R. |
| Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T.(Denbigh | Percy, Earl | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop | Platt-Higgins, Frederick | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E.R(Bath |
| Kerr, John | Plummer, Walter R. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Keswick, William | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H. |
| Knowles, Sir Lees | Pretyman, Ernest George | Young, Samuel |
| Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward | |
| Laurie, Lieut.-General | Rankin, Sir James | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir |
| Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow | Rasch, Sir Frederick Carne | Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes. |
| Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Reddy, M. |
Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ And, it being after Midnight, the Chairman proceeded, in pursuance of Standing Order 15, to put the Question necessary to dispose of the Vote.
1100§ Resolution to be reported upon Wednesday; Committee to sit again tomorrow.
§ Adjourned at twelve minutes after Twelve o'clock.