Commons Sitting of 11 December 1906

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.
PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Hugglescote, against; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  Petition from Liverpool, against alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour; from Nuneaton; and, Wem; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ARMY.
  Copy presented, of Reports on the Sanitary Condition of Piershill Barracks Edinburgh [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SEAMEN'S SAVINGS RANKS (MONEY ORDERS AND TRANSMISSION OF WAGES).
  Accounts presented, of all Deposits received and repaid during the year ended 20th November, 1905, and Statement as to Money Orders issued and paid from 1855 to 31st March, 1906, and of Receipts and Payments in connection with the Transmission of Seamen's Wages from 1878 to 31st March, 1906 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 374.]
  LONDON (EQUALISATION OF RATES) ACT, 1894 (ACCOUNTS UNDER SECTION 1 (7) OF THE ACT).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 21st November; Mr. Runciman]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 375.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Report, Annual Series, No. 3738 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
  Copy presented, of Report on the Decline in the Agricultural Population of Great Britain, 1881–1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES

  Payment of Cunard Subsidy
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the first payments of the Cunard subsidy in respect of the two new liners will fall due next financial year; and what is the anticipated amount in that and following years.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The first payments will fall due in 1907–8,
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  and, assuming that the vessels commence their first voyages at the beginning of August and in the middle of December respectively, the amount to be paid in that year will be about £59,000. In following years the payment to be made I will be £150,000.

  Protection of Devon and Cornwall Fisheries.
  MR. MILDMAY: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will consider the advisability of shifting the headquarters of H.M.S. "Julia," engaged in the work of protecting the fishing industry on the south-west coast, from Falmouth to Plymouth s as the more central point from which to protect the Looe, Plymouth, and Brixham boats.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) While no doubt Plymouth would be more central for the protection of the Looe, Plymouth, and Brixham boats, Falmouth is found to be the more central place for the Devon and Cornwall fishery work generally.

  American Mails and the Fishguard Route.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: To ask the Postmaster-General if his attention has been directed to the new harbour on the North Pembrokeshire coast at Fishguard; is he aware that the opening of this new harbour makes it possible for the American and other mails to be delievered in London in some six hours less time than is now the case; and is he prepared to take any steps in the direction of securing to the public in the matter of the delivery of incoming mails the advantages which the opening of Fishguard Harbour renders possible.
  (Answered, by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I am fully aware of the recent development of Fishguard Harbour and the possible advantages it offers. I must point out, however, that in most cases the selection of ports of call by homeward Atlantic liners is not under my control; and that the question of the route for the conveyance of mails landed at Queenstown must be considered from the point of view of the country as a whole, and not of London alone.

  New Year's Holidays in Cork Post Office.
  MR. A. ROCHE: To ask the Postmaster - General whether, in view of the fact that the Select Committee on Post Office Servants has not yet presented its report, he will consider it advisable to withhold the arrangements which have already been made at Cork for the holidays of 1907 until the Report is issued.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) It would be impossible to do as suggested. The holidays in Cork are spread over the whole year, and arrangements must be made this month for the coming year.

  Security for Loans to Volunteer Corps.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether loans made by the Public Works Commissioners to Volunteer corps for the purpose of erecting drill halls are secured on the capitation grants or on the buildings erected; and whether, if the latter, such loans constitute a mortgage on such buildings.
  Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The buildings are included in the security authorised to be given for such loans by The Military Lands Acts, 1892, Sections 5 and 7, and The Military Lands Act, 1897, Section 1. The loan is also upon the security of any grant to the corps out of money provided by Parliament. This includes capitation grants. The loan so secured constitutes a mortgage on the buildings and on the land on which the buildings are erected.

  Retiring Allowances to Clerks to Inspectors of Taxes.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a clerk to an inspector of taxes has been compelled to retire on attaining the age of sixty-two years; is he aware that he served thirty-nine years in the Department, and only received a gratuity of £78 on retirement; and whether, seeing that writers with less service and doing less confidential work, receive £100 gratuity, he will reconsider the case of such clerk with a view to granting him further assistance.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The hon. Member has stated the facts correctly. The position of the writers referred to is different, because they are directly employed in the public service and are entitled, under a Treasury Minute of 1886, to certain stated gratuities, while the clerks to the inspectors of taxes are in the personal employment of those inspectors, and have, strictly speaking, no claim to any gratuity whatever. I see no reason, therefore, for reconsidering this case.

  Position of Clerks to Surveyors of Taxes.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that, the opposition of the Treasury to placing the clerks to surveyors of taxes on the establishment is stated to be that the present system is preferred, not only on the grounds of economy, but also for adaption to the requirements of localities, he is aware that the present system grades the clerks in seven classes; that promotion to a higher class invariably means moving to other localities, precisely the same as it would under establishment; and will he state what obstacle there is to placing on the establishment clerks of approved service and ability, on the existing classification and rates of pay
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I fear it is not possible to discuss this subject fully within the limits of a reply to a Question; and I can only say that, after full consideration of the matter on more than one occasion, the Treasury and the Board of Inland Revenue are satisfied that the balance of advantage lies on the side of the existing system.

  Supplying of Seamen to British Ships at Hamburg.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he is aware of the discontent existing amongst the British seamen at the port of Hamburg owing to the fact that certain shipping masters, who are recognised by His Majesty's Consul at that port, refuse to give employment to British seamen on British vessels requiring men; whether he is aware that the whole supplying of seamen to British ships is in the hands

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  of the so-called shipping masters, and that those shipping masters refuse to accept Britishers because they object to paying shipping fees to obtain berths; and whether he will make inquiries with regard to this matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) Complaints have reached the Board of Trade that British seamen at Hamburg have found difficulty in obtaining employment on British vessels there, and I am aware that the difficulty has been attributed to the action of the local shipping masters. The shipping masters are in no way connected with or under the control of His Majesty's Consul-General at Hamburg, who, I am assured, gives British seamen every assistance in his power to secure engagement, and I would point out that the selection of a crew rests with the master of the ship. I hope that the provisions of Clause 13 of the Merchant Shipping Bill now before Parliament, which prohibits the engagement, in the British Islands or on the Continent of Europe between the Elbe and Brest, of seamen who do not possess a sufficient knowledge of the English language to understand necessary orders, may, if the clause becomes law, to some extent, at all events, meet the case.

  Treatment of Seamen on S.S. "Madawaska."
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the drowning of a seaman from the British s.s. "Madawaska" at Galveston, Texas; whether he is aware that the seaman in question was handcuffed and locked out in the chart room and, after the vessel left the port of Galvaston, this man was missing from the chartroom, and his body was picked up in the water with the handcuffs upon him; whether any inquiries have been made by the Board of Trade with regard to this matter; and whether any other complaint has reached the Board of Trade with regard to the master of the "Madawaska" placing men in custody in irons on board of the ship on previous voyages.
  (Answered by MR. Lloyd-George.): My attention has been called to the disap-
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  pearance of a seaman from the "Madawaska" at Galveston, and inquiry has been made into the matter. The facts of the case appear to be as stated in the Question. The seaman had attempted to desert, and, having been brought back to the ship by the police, was handcuffed and locked up to prevent his repeating the attempt. No other complaint appears to have reached the Board of Trade with regard to the master of the vessel placing men in irons.

  Education Grants—Training Colleges.
  Sir WILLIAM ANSON: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether, under the regulations of the Board as to grants in aid of the cost of building and sites of training colleges, grants can be made for the building or purchase of hostels in connection with existing colleges; and whether, if the regulations are not so framed as to enable local authorities to avail themselves in this manner of existing training college accommodation, he will consider the desirability of amending the regulations so as to effect this object.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Answer to the first paragraph is in the negative, and to the second paragraph that the matter is receiving careful consideration as to how far it will be expedient to allow building grants in respect of hostels to be provided by local authorities for students in attendance at certain kinds of training colleges.

  Gun Licences in the Ballymacarberry District
  MR. POWER (Waterford, E.): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state on what grounds MR. Orr, R.M., persistently refuses licences to carry firearms to farmers in the Ballymacarberry petty sessions district of the county Waterford for the protection of their crops, though some parts of the district are infested by rabbits.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I understand that Mr. Orr, R.M., is at present absent from the country on leave. I shall not, therefore, be in a position to obtain, his

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  observations on this Question for some little time.

  Ireland and the Ground Game Act, 1880.
  MR. POWER: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland if he will consider the advisability if extending the provisions of The Ground Game Act, 1880, to Ireland.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Ground Game Act 1880, extends to Ireland.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Navy Carpenter Warrant Officers.
  MR. BRAMSDON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether their Lordships have come to any decision with reference to the question of dispensing with carpenter warrant officers in the Royal Navy, as recommended by the Douglas Report, or whether the matter is under consideration.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. Edmund Robertson, Dundee): The matter is still under consideration.
  MR. JENKINS: Will the House have an opportunity of considering this matter after it has been dealt with by their Lordships?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Oh, yes.

  German Battleships—Corrected Answer.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON (Lanarkshire, N.W.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that in the Official Reports of Parliamentary Proceedings for 14th November he is reported to have stated that only five German battleships have been laid down or are projected for the period 1905–7, inclusive, whereas the number given should have been six; and whether he will cause an amended Answer to be circulated.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The error mentioned was due to a slip of the pen in the original Answer. It was corrected in a letter to the hon. Member who put the Question, which appeared in the
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  Press early in August. As the Answer was not printed in The Parliamentary Debates at the usual time, I anticipated that no report would be printed, and that no further correction was necessary. I am informed by the official reporter, however, that by the personal intervention of the hon. Member for King's Lynn—who put the Question in the first instance—some three months after he had received my correction, the belated and inaccurate report was actually printed on 14th November, without reference to me. Under the circumstances I do not see that any further notice is necessary.

  H.M.S. "Montagu."
  MR. MITCHELL - THOMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the "Montagu" should now be deducted from the number of British battleships laid down for the period 1895–9, which has been stated by the Admiralty to be nineteen.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The figures in question give the number of ships laid down during the period 1895–1899, and I am unable to see that the loss of the "Montagu" alters the fact that she was one of the ships laid down in that period.

  Officers' Certificates of Sobriety.
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty propose to continue the regulation forcing captains of ships to give certificates of sobriety to the officers under them; and whether the Admiralty have considered the advisability of presuming that all naval officers conduct themselves with sobriety unless the contrary is proved by such misconduct.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Article 812 of the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions requires every commanding officer to give a certificate as to the conduct of officers, serving under him; and the Admiralty see no reason why the certificate should not, as at present, include a statement as to sobriety.

  Tenders for Warship Construction
  MR. BELLAIRS: t beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether it has not been the established custom to

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  secure competitive tenders for the construction of warships from firms whose premises have been declared suitable, and whose financial position is satisfactory; and whether, in the case of the three cruisers of the "Invincible" class, this custom was departed from and three firms selected for contracts of several millions sterling, without any opportunity being given to other firms to tender.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: This question was settled by the late Board.
  MR. BELLAIRS: Is there any continuity of policy?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I am not responsible for the action of the late Board.
  MR. BELLAIRS: But are not the same Sea Lords at the Admiralty.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The hon. Member can answer that for himself.
  MR. JENKINSasked if contractors to the Government could complete the ships in the yards or places where they are built?
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONasked for notice.

  Ship Joiners' Wages.
  MR. W. T. WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware of the fact that shipjoiners working in the Royal dockyards are on the average paid 33s. 6d. per week, whilst in private shipyards for doing the same class of work they are paid at the rate of 38s. 6d. per week; and whether he can see his way to grant such an increase of wages to them as will bring their wages nearer to the standard rate of wages paid in private yards.
  *MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The Admiralty are of opinion that the rates now paid to joiners represent the wages which would be paid for the same class of labour by a good employer in the several districts in which the yards are situated. If the hon. Member will refer to the Standard Time Rates of Wages issued by the Board of Trade (Cd. 3245) he will see that the rate paid in the Royal dock-
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  yards (8⅜d. per hour) compares favourably with the rates in force in the private trade. The difference in the total weekly earnings is due to the fact that the Dockyard week is 48 hours, while in the private trade it is 53 or 54 hours.

  Naval Courts Martial.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the powers of the Board of Admiralty, with reference to the review or revision of the proceedings and sentences of the recent courts martial, extend not merely to the cancelling or reduction of sentences, but to the expression of opinion in the case of findings or of sentences which seem under all the circumstances to be unsatisfactory; are there any instances of expressions of opinion on the part of the Board of the unsatisfactory character of findings of courts martial or of sentences, and of action taken by the Board in consequence.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The powers of the Admiralty in relation to courts martial are defined by Section 53 of the Naval Discipline Act. As regards the second part of the Question, there have been several occasions on which the Admiralty have criticised the findings of a Court.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the memorandum of the Board of Admiralty, whose issue with reference to the recent courts martial at Portsmouth has been promised, will be the work of the Naval Lords, who do not vacate office with a change of administration, or will likewise be the work of the First Lord of the Admiralty and of the Civil Lord; whether the Secretary to the Admiralty is himself a member of the Board of Admiralty, and has he a consultative voice, as of right, at Board meetings; whether the First Lord of the Admiralty has a supreme authority at the Board of Admiralty or a mere co-ordinate authority, and, in the event of differences of opinion arising between him and the Naval Lords with reference to the terms and conclusions of the memorandum, is his opinion controlling and decisive; and on whom will the responsibility to Parliament and the

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  liability to Parliamentary criticism appertain for this memorandum, and will it be published before the prorogation of Parliament.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Admiralty Minutes issued in the name of the Board are the work of the Board collectively, including the secretaries. The position of the First Lord in relation to Parliament and to his colleagues is defined by Order in Council of the 10th August, 1904.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: But surely the First Lord is supreme. He is responsible to this House, and his opinion should prevail over that of his colleagues.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Board of Admiralty, in considering the memorandum with reference to the naval courts martial, will have regard to the fact that nine stokers were sentenced to terms of imprisonment, amounting in the aggregate to nine years, seven months, and eleven days, in consequence of a disturbance originating by the giving of the on-the-knee order, which is not permissible if given as a punishment, but which is permissible as a disciplinary measure; and whether, owing to the difficulty of making a distinction between a punishment and a disciplinary measure, the Board will consider the propriety of the abolition of the on-the-knee order in all cases except for She purposes of instruction or drill.
  I beg also to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the on-the-knee order, formerly given to delinquents at the Bar of the House of Commons, was abolished by a Standing Order of this House so far back as 1772; and whether the Board of Admiralty will consider the propriety of incorporating a similar order in the King's Naval Regulations.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Both these Questions raise points which will be dealt with in the Admiralty Minute, the contents of which I am unable to anticipate.
  MR. JOHN WARD: May I ask whether, in view of the unsatisfactory decisions of naval courts
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  martial, the right hon. Gentleman will consider the advisability of introducing a civil legal element?
  *MR. SPEAKER: Notice should be given of such a Question.

  Brigade Majors of Volunteers.
  MR. AINSWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the increased duties and expenses falling on brigade majors of Volunteer brigades under the new scheme, he will consider the advisability of increasing the remuneration, especially when the duties extend over a large district and the brigade includes a large number of battalions.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE, Haddington): There is no intention of making any alteration. The remuneration is not regarded as pay but as a grant to cover all out-of-pocket expenses so as to ensure that an officer taking one of these posts shall not be a loser by it. The general officers commanding have been asked to furnish reports on the working of the present system early in the new year.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the question of camp, travelling, and forage allowances for adjutants serving under the same conditions?
  MR. HALDANE: The question will come up for consideration.

  Volunteer Camps
  MR. WALSH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, having regard to the approach of the season in which Volunteer recruiting is most effective, he will permit those Volunteer battalions, who have hitherto taken the fifteen days training, to continue the same for the ensuing year.
  MR. HALDANE: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on the 21st ultimo to my hon. friend the Member for East Edinburgh,† to which I have nothing to add.

  Industrial Instruction for Soldiers.
  MR. CLYNES (Manchester, N.E.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for
  †See (4) Debate*, clxv., 814.

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  War whether the circular sent to general officers on the subject of instructing soldiers, with a view to their acquiring skill to fit them for various trades and occupations in civil life, will be issued as a Parliamentary Paper; whether he will, by recommendation or otherwise, take stops to prevent the employment of ex-soldiers at less than the standard rates in the particular trades; and whether he will announce his decision respecting the issue of certificates of trade proficiency when such decision is arrived at.
  MR. HALDANE: The Answer to the first and third parts of my hon. friend's Question is in the affirmative. The point raised in the second part of the Question will not be lost sight of.

  Cavalry Stations in Scotland
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the claims of Stirling to be a cavalry centre, in view of the impossibility of extending the inadequate accommodation at Piers-hill and Mary hill, and of the circumstance that the country around Stirling affords facilities for military training, and that already Stirling is a military centre midway between Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee, with complete connections by land and water.
  MR. HALDANE: I am well aware of the claims of Stirling to be a cavalry station, but I am none the less obliged to my hon. friend for so emphatically reminding me of them.

  Fort St. George—Punkahs for Troops
  *CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the native babus in the Madras secretariat office have electric punkah fans, whereas the British troops serving in the same fort, Fort St. George, have no punkahs at all between 1st September and 1st April, and when they do have them are only allowed coolie-pulled punkahs which give little or no relief; and whether he will see that this difference of treatment is rectified.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE for INDIA (Mr. MORLEY, Montrose Burghs): The provision of electric punkahs in barracks and military build-
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  ings was begun in 1903, and, if continued on the lines originally contemplated, will lead to the provision of electric punkahs for the British troops at Fort St. George, if they have not already been provided.

  Indian Schools and Temperance Teaching.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS (Denbighshire, W.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether representations have been made to the Government of Bengal and other provincial Governments in favour of the inclusion of temperance in the curriculum of schools; and whether he can state what reply has been given to these representations.
  MR. MORLEY: I am not aware what, action, if any, has been taken in this matter, but I will inquire.

  Arbuthnot & Company's Affairs.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to a petition of the Mahajana Sabha, of Madras, praying the Government of India to constitute a special board to realise the assets of the late firm of Arbuthnot & Company; and whether, looking to the distress occasioned by this failure and the inadequacy of the existing law to deal with such a case, he will advise the Government of India to initiate legislation to protect the interests of the thousands of small depositors whose savings, amounting to about four crores of rupees, are involved in the present crisis.
  MR. MORLEY: I have seen the memorial referred to. I am advised that the statute provides for the appointment by the Court of special assignees, and also, empowers the creditors to apply to the Court for the appointment of assignees to be elected by them. I understand that this course would answer the purposes, which the memorialists have in view, and I have no doubt that the question whether it should be adopted has been, or will be, placed before the Court by the parties interested and carefully considered by the Court. I see no reason for special measures for the purpose of taking the matter out of the Court's jurisdiction.
  *MR. REESasked whether the right hon. Gentleman,

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  was aware that the distress occasioned by this failure was very widespread and exceptional, and that if he could see his way to take any action in the direction indicated by his hon. friend, or to associate the Government with the bankruptcy proceedings it would have a good effect in restoring confidence in Southern India.
  MR. MORLEYsaid he was giving his attention to all the circumstances connected with this unfortunate failure, but he doubted very much whether he could assent to the course proposed.

  Indian Factory Inspection.
  SIR CHARLES SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will consider the advisability of appointing as a colleague to Sir Hamilton Smith in his inquiries into Indian factories an Indian gentleman experienced in the conditions of Indian mill labour.
  MR. MORLEY: The object of Sir Hamilton Freer Smith's mission is to bring to bear on the management of Indian factories the knowledge and experience gained by him in the administration of the English factory law. I do not propose to associate any colleague with him; but he will have every facility for ascertaining and reporting on the views of Indian gentlemen, to which I am confident he will attach due weight.

  Indian Frontier Defence.
  SIR CHARLES SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether His Majesty's Government is aware that, in connection with Viscount Kitchener's scheme for extensive redistribution of garrisons and forces on and beyond our Indian frontiers, due northward from the Pesham, Hoti-Murdan line, it is intended to strengthen the fortifications of Chitral and other defences on the mountainous routes beyond, leading to Gilgit and the Pamirs; that these proposed extensions purport to be prompted by alleged rumours of some Russian railway being designed to be taken through the defiles of the Hindu Kush; and that General Barrow proceeded with the recent annual reliefs to Chitral, being deputed to report to the Commander-in-Chief on the measures to carry out the proposed extensions of military preparation in these
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  remote regions beyond the borders of British India; what, if any, of the proposals included in draft redistribution scheme (drafted early in 1904) sanctioned, apparently, by the then Secretary of State in Council, for establishment of outposts or military stations in the tribal territories outside the statutory borders of British India or the external frontiers of His Majesty's Indian possessions are still under consideration; and (amongst others) is the proposal for establishment of a cantonment at or near Torseppah, in the mountainous country above Ali Musjid, definitively abandoned.
  MR. MORLEY: I know of no intention to strengthen the defences of Chitral or of the mountainous routes beyond leading to Gilgit and the Pamirs. Chitral is for military purposes included in the Peshawar divisional command and General Barrow visited it on inspection duty. No outposts or military stations in tribal territories outside the statutory border of British India or the external frontiers of His Majesty's Indian possessions are contemplated. As I stated in the House last month a proposal for placing a permanent cantonment at or near Torseppah has, as I believe, been abandoned.

  Industrial Survey of India.
  MR. NUTTALL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the Report of the Indian Industrial Conference, held at Benares last Christmas, and to the plea for an industrial survey on the lines pressed on the Government by Dr. Forbes Watson in 1872, and supported by Sir Louis Mallet; and whether, looking to the fact that the need for such a survey for the industrial development of India was recognised by the Government in 1888, by the Committee on Industrial Education, and by the Member for Commerce and Industry in the Viceregal Council last March, he will cause early steps to be taken so that accurate information as to industrial products and means of production may be made readily available to agriculturists, manufacturers, and men of business generally.
  MR. MORLEY: I have seen the Paper read before the Indian Industrial Conference in which the need for an industrial survey of India was urged.

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  As the hon. Member is aware, the proposal has received the general approval of the Government of India, and the local governments have been urged to make a survey of the state of indigenous industries within their territories. I trust that this may result in the collection of much valuable information.

  West African Concessions and Native Rights.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, having regard to repeated assurances given by the Colonial Office as to the maintenance of the rights of natives to land, property, and freedom of labour, and to the fears expressed by many Members that these may be violated by recent or future concessions and grants of trading rights in West Africa and elsewhere, the Secretary of State will lay down publicly general minimum conditions respecting the issue of territorial leases by governors or administrators, upon which alone the Secretary of State can approve such leases or allow them to be made.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR the COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL, Manchester, N.W.): In West Africa there is very little land at the disposal of the Government, but the land generally is in the ownership of native chiefs or tribes. Laws have been passed in each Colony regulating the grant of rights over land by natives; and it may be observed that the effect of these laws was to render invalid a great part of the concessions by native chiefs in Sierra Leone which have recently attracted attention. In East Africa where all land is held to be Crown land, there are provisions in the Crown Lands Ordinance governing the grant of leases of Crown lands by which the rights of natives are protected; and there are similar provisions in the Uganda Ordinance, although there the land at the disposal of the Crown is limited. Having regard to the laws already in force in East and West Africa, it does not seem necessary to lay down any fresh conditions respecting the issue of leases by Government.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: Perhaps my hon. friend will consider the recent concessions in the Pacific Islands as showing
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  the necessity for a wider extension of the principles.
  MR. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir, and if my right hon. friend will speak to me on the subject I will see that his points are brought to the notice of the Secretary of State.

  Gambling in the Malay States.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will lay the enactments and proclamations by which the Government of the Federated Malay States prohibit gambling in certain districts of the Federated Malay States upon the Table of this House.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The enactments and proclamations will be placed in the Library of this House as soon as received.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonic whether he will state the dates upon which the leases of the gambling farms in the Federated Malay States terminate, and why gambling should be forbidden in the non-mining districts and permitted in the mining districts; and whether he will state when the prohibition of gambling will be extended throughout the Federated Malay States.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The leases of different farms expire at different dates, and I cannot give any full or exact figures at present. I explained to the House on 3rd December, † in reply to the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, the position adopted by His Majesty's Government in this Question, and the reasons which have influenced them. I shall be glad to send the hon. Member a copy of that Answer if he desires it.

  British Guiana.
  SIR WILLIAM BULL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if it is proposed to present further Papers on British Guiana.
  MR. CHURCHILL: No, Sir, not at present.

  Development of British Guiana.
  MR. J. WARD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the
  †See (4) Debrtes, clxvi., 580–582.

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  Colonies if he can state what measures have been adopted in British Guiana to improve the condition of the labouring classes; and whether, in view of the recent strike disturbances, he will consider the expediency of placing the Crown lands within the easy reach of the working population, and so encourage the general development of the Colony.
  MR. CHURCHILL: In view of the agitation that occurred last year in Georgetown, the Governor of British Guiana in March last appointed a representative Commission to inquire into the best means of inducing the unemployed in the Colony and those who have not the means to obtain land in the ordinary way, to settle upon the land and ultimately to acquire ownership in it. The Colonial Government have recently voted funds for carrying out experimentally the proposals of that Commission. The Secretary of State is advised that every facility is given to those desirous of obtaining Crown lands by purchase, and that no amendment of the existing Crown Land Regulations is necessary to enable the working population to obtain such lands on reasonable terms.

  Persian Frontier Delimitation.
  MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the frontier line between Persia and Turkey, extending some 700 miles from Mount Ararat to the head of the Persian Gulf and between twenty and forty miles in breadth, which was the subject of an understanding between England and Russia in 1865, and as to which an identic map was delivered by England and Russia to the Governments of Persia and Turkey, has yet been settled; whether, since 1865, any further steps have been taken to mark the frontier line within that region; and whether His Majesty's Government consider that the time has now arrived when representations might properly be made to the two Governments concerned with a view to a final settlement of the question.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY, Northumberland, Berwick): The Answer to the first Question is in the negative. The Answer to the second Question is in the affirmative, and I have
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  to refer the hon. Member to Article 60 of the Treaty of Berlin, and to the Convention between Turkey and Persia signed at Constantinople on August 3rd, 1869 (see Hertslet's Persian Treaties, 1891). Since 1869 and 1870, when maps of the frontier zone, twenty to fifty miles broad, were communicated to the Ottoman and Persian Governments respectively, several attempts have been made to reach an agreement in regard to the whole frontier, and a Commission of British, Russian,. Turkish and Persian delegates discussed the subject in 1875–1876, but no final arrangement has been reached. A Turco-Persian Commission is shortly to meet to endeavour to arrive at an agreement in regard to the districts of Vazné and Lahidjan. It is already known that His Majesty's Government, in concert with the Russian Government, would be willing to facilitate the progress of the negotiations, if it was necessary and desired by those who are interested.
  MR. BOWLESinquired if there was any objection to placing in the Library a copy of the map and any correspondence necessary to elucidate it?
  SIR EDWARD GREYsuggested that, the hon. Member should confer with him privately.

  Embassy Chapels Abroad.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the universal custom in British Embassy chapels in foreign countries, other than in Turkey, that prayers are offered up for the ruling sovereigns; and, if so, what is the reason; for the exception in the case of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan of Turkey.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The question, of offering up prayers for the ruling sovereigns is a part of the spiritual administration of British Embassy chapels and is left to the discretion of the chaplain in each case. (Regulation 13, Act 6, George IV, cap. 87.) I have, therefore, not inquired into what the existing practice may be in any of the chapels.
  MR. BOTTOMLEYasked whether he was to understand that it was left entirely to the discretion of the chaplain as to what sovereign he was to pray for at the expense of the nation.
  SIR EDWARD GREYsaid it was left to his discretion. High ecclesiastical authorities were, he reminded the hon. Member often very reluctant to interfere in a question of ritual, and he had no intention of rushing in where high ecclesiastical authorities feared to tread.

  Bucharest Consul's Report.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the date of the last Consular Report issued by the British Consul at Bucharest.
  SIR EDWAKD GREY: There has been, up to the present, no British Consular officer at Bucharest, except the translator to His Majesty's Legation, who had the rank of Vice-Consul, and the reports on the trade and commerce of Roumania have been hitherto furnished by His Majesty's Consul - General at Galatz. The last Report, for the year 1905, was issued early in June of the present year, (3618, Annual Series). A British Consulate has now been established at Bucharest, and Reports will in future be furnished by His Majesty's Consul at that capital.

  Hague Conference.
  *MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the date of the next Hague Conference has yet been settled; and whether the Powers have agreed to include the question of disarmament or the arrest of armaments in the discussions of the Conference.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: His Majesty's Government have not yet learned that any date has been settled for the meeting of this Conference. With regard to the latter part of the Question, I have nothing at present to add to the Answer given by the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for North Salford on 9th April last, † and to my own statement in the House of Commons on the 9th of May, which explain the attitude of His Majesty's Government.
  *MR. BELLAIRS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the proposed increase of the Japanese and American Navy Estimates has been the only out-
  † See (4) Debates, clv., 984.
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  come of our example to the Peace Conference?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  The Karajovo Massacres
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will cause inquiries to be made into the credibility of the statement that, during the massacre and incendiarism at Karajovo, the Turkish troops quartered in the neighbouring villages neither saw nor heard anything of what was going on; and whether the military greatly exceeds the civil expenditure in Macedonia, and is therefore mainly responsible for the deficit in the Macedonian Budget, which it is proposed to defray out of new revenues to be derived from increased customs duties.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The statement is taken from the report of a gendarmerie officer. I do not see how any better information can be obtained. His Majesty's Government have already made strong representations to the Turkish Government urging the suppression of Greek bands. As regards the second part of the Question, it is true that the military exceeds the civil expenditure in the Macedonian vilayets. But both have been increased, the latter to a greater extent than the former, so that it cannot be said that the military expenditure is solely responsible for the deficit in the Budget.

  Increase of the Japanese Army.
  MR. LYNCH (Yorkshire, W.R., Ripon): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any official information showing that the strength of the Japanese army is to be increased by nearly 50 per cent; and, if so, whether he can give the House any information as to the causes which have prompted this step.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: I have received no official information in the sense indicated in the hon. Member's Question. The matter is not one on which any other Power could make public statements, as it concerns the Japanese Government.

  Peers and Income Tax.
  DR. HAZEL: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the advisability of proposing a substantial tax on all holders of hereditary titles, to be graduated according to the rank of such holders, together with a surtax on all those holders of such titles who receive a writ of summons to Parliament.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. Asquith, Fifeshire, E.): This, like all other suggestions for tapping new reservoirs of revenue, shall receive my consideration.

  Income-Tax—Rebates for Families.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the principle that the Income Tax is based upon ability to pay, he will arrange in future graduations of the Tax to carry out this principle more thoroughly by granting special rebates for large families.;
  MR. ASQUITH: I am afraid I can add nothing to the reply which I gave to my hon. friend upon this subject on the 4th instant.†

  Powers of Chief Constables.
  *CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, considering that a chief constable can at present dismiss any constable without appeal within a few weeks of his pension, even upon mistaken information, he will consider the advisability of any constable being allowed to appeal to quarter sessions, provided that such a man has served over three-quarters of the time necessary for pension.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Gladstone, Leeds, W.): I have no reason for thinking any amendment of the law in the sense suggested by the hon. Member is desirable. No case is known at the Home Office of any constable being dismissed by a chief constable within a few weeks of becoming due for pension. There seems on the contrary some reason to fear that chief constables may be sometimes tempted to deal too leniently
  † See (4) Debates, clxvi., 748–9.
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  with misconduct on the part of their men when the offenders have served nearly long enough for pension.

  Chinese Settlers in Liverpool.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the recent increase in the number of Chinese settled in Liverpool and Birkenhead; whether he is aware that there are some seventy Chinese laundries in Liverpool and Birkenhead; will he say whether the Chinese who work in these laundies have brought with them any Chinese women; whether he is. aware that these Chinese maintain a number of opium and gambling dens which are the resort of the Chinese sailors and firemen who come into the Mersey on certain lines of steamers; and whether he proposes to take any, and, if any, what, action in the matter.
  *MR. GLADSTONE: I understand that there has been some increase in the number of Chinese settled in Liverpool but none in Birkenhead. There are altogether sixty-three Chinese laundries in the two places. It is not the practice of the Chinamen who resort to Liverpool and Birkenhead to bring women with them. As regards the last part of the Question I am informed that, since the cases to which I referred in my reply to the hon. Member on the 5th April last.† the police, though they have kept strict watch, have not been able to get evidence on which proceedings under the Gaming Acts could be instituted. In the circumstances there is no action that I can take.

  Houldsworth Pit Accident.
  MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been, called to the inquiry into the causes of the accident at Houldsworth coal pit, in the parish of Dalrymple, whereby two men lost their lives; whether he has received any report on the defects in the machinery, as disclosed in the evidence, and on the fact that the man in charge of the engine had worked thirteen hours when the machinery failed to act properly; and whether he can take any steps to prevent excessive
  †See (4) Debates, clv., 330.

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  hours of work in the case of such men having the lives of others in their charge.
  *MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, Sir. I have received a Report on the proceedings at the inquiry into this accident, which I greatly regret to hear of. I am informed that no defects in the machinery were disclosed at the inquiry. The cause of the accident was not definitely ascertained, but the engineman attributed it to an unavoidable flow of water from the boiler into the engine. As to the hours worked, I understand that the engineman had been thirteen hours on duty during the night, but I am not informed how much of that time he was actually at work. The hours of the shifts is a matter of arrangement among the men—the work at night is usually very much lighter than the work during the day. The question of winding accidents and their causes is now before the Royal Commission on Mining. I have called their attention to this case.

  Cruelty to Children—Halesowen Prosecution.
  MR. J. WARD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a case tried at Halesowen police court on 27th November last, in which a man was charged with flogging and ill-treating a little girl named Emma Turner, who was under his care; whether he is aware that the evidence showed a long list of extremely cruel acts committed on a defenceless infant; and whether, in view of the fine of £4 inflicted by the magistrate, he proposes to take any action to enable more severe penalties to be inflicted in such cases.
  *MR. GLADSTONE: My attention having been called to this case by the hon. Member's Question, I have obtained a copy of the notes of evidence, and I find that the child was subjected to what seems to me cruel and excessive punishment; but the justices inform me that in inflicting only a fine of £4 on the defendant they took into consideration the fact that the child whom he had taken into his family out of kindness, had committed repeated acts of dishonesty, that the defendant held a good character, and had a wife and family dependent upon his weekly earnings, who would
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  have no means of support if he had been committed to prison. The maximum penalty for the offence is six months imprisonment or a fine of £25; but, subject to that maximum, it is for the justices to determine in their discretion what penalty should be inflicted in each individual case, having regard to the circumstances. I have no power to interfere in the direction of increasing penalties with the discretion of the justices.

  Colonial Railways.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state the British Colonies in which railways are managed by the State; the total mileage, original capital, and annual revenue of the State railways in each of those Colonies; the average earning per train mile in the Colonies where there is State management; the average earning per train mile in England, Ireland, and Scotland; the percentage of revenue that goes to shareholders in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and in Colonies where railways are State-owned the percentage which is free for State purposes.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs): On the 7th instant I had forwarded to the hon. Member a copy of the Return granted on the 13th November, on the Motion of my hon. friend the Member for North Paddington, showing the cost of building, or acquisition, the financial results (revenue, working expense, net loss or profit, etc.), etc., etc., of certain railways in foreign countries and British possessions. This Return is still in process of compilation, as the particulars have had to be asked for through the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office from the different Governments concerned.

  Railway Department of the Board of Trade.
  MR. CHIOZZA MONEY (Paddington, N.): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the salaries of the Railway Commissioners amount to £15,000 a year, and their expenses to £6,000 a year, and that the Railway Department of the Board of Trade, including salaries, travelling and legal expenses, but excluding rent and printing, costs nearly £13,000 a.

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  year, making a total expenditure of about £34,000 a year almost entirely on account of railway regulation; whether he is aware that British traders are constantly complaining of high rates and insufficient regulation; and whether he will consider the advisability of converting State regulation into State control, as practised in British India, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am unable to understand how my hon. friend has arrived at his figures. The total of £6,140 which I gave as the expenditure of the Railway and Canal Commission includes salaries. I may point out that the three Commissioners ex officio, who are Judges, receive no addition to their judicial salaries in respect of their work on the Commission. My hon. friend has further given insufficient weight to the fact, to which I called his attention, that a considerable deduction must be made from the cost of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade in respect of work not connected with railways. Such deduction should probably be at least two-fifths of the total cost of the Department. I fear I cannot undertake to deal with the large question of policy which he raises in a reply to a Question.

  Infant Mortality.
  MR. BRAMSDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, considering the high death rate amongst infants under one year, some of the causes of which are preventable, he is taking any steps, and, if so, what, to deal with the matter; and, in particular, whether it is suggested that a Royal Commission should be appointed to examine into and report upon the whole question of infantile mortality, with a view of legislation being introduced at an early date.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. John Burns, Battersea): My right hon. friend has asked me to reply to this Question. The Government fully realise the importance of the subject of infant mortality, and I am collecting information with reference to the influences affecting it. A suggestion has been made as to the appointment of a Royal Com-
  136
  mission to inquire into the matter, but I do not think it would be desirable to appoint such a Commission at the present time.
  In reply to a further Question, Mr. John Burns said that the possibility of dealing with some of the questions involved by administrative means was under consideration, but there was no intention at present to appoint either a Commission or a Departmental Committee.

  Vagrancy Laws.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether it is proposed to introduce a Bill next session for the purpose of giving effect to the two main recommendations of the Report of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, viz., the transfer of the superintendence of vagrant wards from the Poor Law authorities to the police, and the establishment of labour colonies to which habitual vagrants may be sent for detention.
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I am in communication with my right hon. friend the Home Secretary on this subject, but I am not in a position to give any intimation as to legislation next session with regard to it.

  Post Office Weights and Measures.
  MR. RENDALL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General why the weights and measures used by the Post Office are not subject to inspection by the official inspectors of weights and measures; what system exists for checking Post Office weights and scales; whether the Post Office checks its own weights and scales; and whether he will consider the advisability of arranging that a Government department which carries on business in competition with private traders should be subject as the latter to have their weights and scales inspected by inspectors appointed by the ordinary authorities.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar): Post Office weights and scales are not liable to inspection by the official inspectors because, although the question

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  was raised in this House, the Weights and Measures Acts have not been made binding on the Crown. The weights and scales are periodically tested by officers of the Post Office who are furnished for this purpose with standard weights. The existing arrangements are found satisfactory, and I see no reason for adopting the suggestion made in the latter part of the hon. Member's Question which would involve considerable additional cost.

  Portsmouth Postal Dispute.
  MR. RENDALL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been drawn to a packet posted at Portsmouth to a Mr. J. J. Young, J.P., of Portsmouth, and which was surcharged 1d. on the ground of the same exceeding two ounces in weight; whether he is aware that Mr. Young on receiving the packet immediately took it to the Portsmouth General Post Office, where it was weighed by the officials and found to be under two ounces, and that other packets containing the same document were posted at the same time and were not surcharged; and whether, seeing that any moisture (if any) absorbed may have been absorbed by the packet whilst in custody of Post Office officials, he will arrange for the return of the 1d. surcharge and will consider the advisability of allowing the return of such surcharges on reasonable proof being given to the local postmaster.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I find that eight of the packets to which the hon. Member refers weighed more than two ounces each when tested in the Portsmouth Post Office soon after posting, and that all of those were surcharged. The contents of the packets are stated to have left the printer's hands only a short time before the packets were posted; and the packet in question no doubt lost weight, through the drying of the paper, while it was in the Post Office. A packet stated to be a facsimile of the one sent to Mr. Young has since been obtained and is found to weigh more than two ounces; and in these circumstances I do not see my way to returning the amount of the charge collected from Mr. Young.

  Strelly and Bilborough School Holidays.
  MR. RICHARDSON (Nottingham S.): I beg to ask the President of the Board
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  of Education whether he is aware that the children in the public elementary schools of Strelly and Bilborough, in Nottinghamshire, were given holidays on the 6th, 7th, 21st, and 26th November, and that the reason for such holidays was that Mr. F. Kekewich Edge had shooting parties on such days, and used certain of the boys as stops and beaters of game; and will he take such measures as shall prevent boys being withdrawn from the school in future.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Birrell, Bristol N.): I have no information in regard to the incident referred to in the Question. In reply to the concluding paragraph, I must remind the hon. Member that, subject to the opening of a school for the minimum number of times in the year required by the Code, the closing of a school on a particular day rests with the managers subject absolutely to the consent of the local authority. It is to the local authority therefore that the hon. Member should in the first instance address his inquiry. I may add that the practice of closing a school and thus stopping the education of the children merely for the convenience of shooting parties is in my view highly reprehensible, and I shall be glad to take whatever steps may be in my power to put a stop to it.

  "The Times" Book Club.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that The Times newspaper is issuing from week to week a black list of publishers, and is inciting the public to boycott all volumes issued by such publishers; and whether it is his intention to institute proceedings against the proprietors and managers of The Times newspaper for criminal conspiracy to injure other publishers, or to ask for an injunction to restrain them from continuing to publish the black list referred to.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir JOHN WALTON, Leeds, S.): This matter is not being officially brought to my notice, and I have formed no opinion on the legality of the proceedings referred to. Some of the elements of criminal conspiracy seem to be lacking, and I do not as at present advised propose to take any action.
  MR. MACVEAGHasked whether the hon. and learned Gentleman was not aware that to this criminal conspiracy the manager and proprietor of The Times were parties, and was he not also aware that proceedings had been taken in hundreds of cases against persons in Ireland for far flimsier reasons.
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Ecclesiastical Commission Yorkshire Estates.
  MR. FERENS (Hull, E.): I beg to ask the hon. Member for East Bristol, as Church Estates Commissioner, the number of licensed houses owned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the number of leases granted or renewed to licensed premises during the past ten years, and the number of leases which will fall in during the next five years, and where, in the latter case, such houses are situated.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE (Bristol, E.): So far as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are aware, there is no licensed house upon any of their estates in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It may be that there are licensed houses on some of the land, held upon beneficial leases for lives granted by the Commissioners' predecessors in title still outstanding, or upon copyholds of inheritance in manors belonging to the Commissioners, but such properties are not under the control of the Commissioners.

  British Agriculture and Imported Food Stuffs.
  *CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture whether during the last thirty years, the dependence of the United Kingdom on imported food has increased from 124,000,000 sterling to 205,000,000; whether the area of corn crops has diminished in the last thirty years by 3,000,000 acres; and whether any other European country shows such a marked decline in agriculture.
  MR. JOSEPH A. PEASE: May I answer this for my hon. friend. The total value of articles classified as food in the Trade Returns (including tea, coffee, cocoa, wine, beer,
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  spirits and mineral waters) imported into the United Kingdom was £126,000.000 in 1875, and £208,000,000 in 1905. The area under all corn crops in the United Kingdom was 11,399,030 acres in 1875 and 8,350,796 acres in 1905. Similar Returns for the same period are only available for certain European countries, but in no case do they indicate so great a reduction in the acreage under corn.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many agricultural labourers have been thrown out of employment by the reduction of the corn area?
  MR. CATHCART WASON: How much of the land has been taken out of cultivation and applied to sporting purposes?
  MR. JOSEPH A. PEASE: Obviously I cannot answer such Questions without notice.

  Doonaha Drainage Charges.
  MR. HALPIN (Clare, W.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Board of Public Works has taken any steps to collect the drainage charge upon the farm now held at Doonaha East by Thomas Liddane; whether he is aware that this Thomas Liddane borrowed £130 from the Board of Works for the drainage of his farm at Rehy, and how much of this loan has been paid; why has the Board of Works, with its experience of Thomas Liddane at Rehy, neglected to demand payment of the loan on the Doonaha farm; and whether the Board will immediately press for the loan.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Runciman, Dewsbury; for Mr. McKenna): I am informed that the hon. Member is mistaken in supposing both these farms to be held by the same individual. The tenant in possession of the farm at Doonaha East is not Thomas but James Liddane, and the loan for drainage on that farm was not made to him, but to one Connor Haugh, who was not James Liddane's predecessor in title. I learn that Thomas Liddane borrowed £120 from the Board upon the security of his interest in the farm at Rehy, and of this sum £20 0s. 7d. has been repaid.

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  I am able to give no further information to the hon. Member beyond assuring him that the Board of Works are acting strictly in accordance with legal advice.

  Estimates.
  SIR WILLIAM BULL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if any Supplementary Estimates are to be presented during the Autumn Session.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: No, Sir.

  Motherwell Holidays.
  MR. SEDDON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware of the.action of the Motherwell Town Council, who on Tuesday, 4th December, by resolution, suspended the operation of the closing order for shops during Christmas and New Year weeks; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any and, if any, what action in the matter.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND, (Mr. SINCLAIR, Forfarshire): No information on the matter referred to by my hon. friend has reached me.

  Judicial Rents.
  MR. GINNELL (Westmeath, N.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether having regard to the fact recently given in official evidence by one of the Estates Commissioners that, in the case of poor holdings, judicial rents are habitually fixed upon the tenant's property in spite of the statutory provision forbidding that to be done, he will consider the desirability of promulgating a rule on the subject in accordance with the law for the guidance of Commissioners and valuers and the protection of the people.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,): The Estates Commissioners inform me that they do not know to what particular statement the Question refers. It may, however, be pointed out that judicial rents are fixed by the Land Commission Court under the provisions of the Land Law Acts. The matter is entirely within the jurisdiction of the Land Commission, and the Government have no power to interfere, by rule or otherwise, with the discretion which Parliament has vested in that body.
  MR. FLAVIN: The Government surely can interfere by putting an end to the appointment of the nominees of Irish landlords as sub-commissioners.
  MR. BRYCE: I am not aware that that is the case.
  MR. FLAVIN: Yes, of the sub-commission recently re-appointed the great majority were landlord nominees.
  MR. BRYCE: Each case is carefully considered when the time for re-appointment comes.

  Future Tenants.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will obtain, through the Department of Agriculture, a Report on the condition of typical future tenants and of the farms they occupy, with a view to showing the effects of excessive rent, insecurity, and exclusion from the Land Courts except with the unobtainable permission of the landlord; and if he can hold out any hope of legislation next Session of admitting the 70,000 tenants of this class to the benefits of the ordinary law applicable to other tenants.
  MR. BRYCE: The operation of the Land Law Acts is not a matter with which the Department of Agriculture have any official concern; and the Land Commission inform me that they have no information which would enable them to make a report upon the subject of the Question. The Act of 1881, which provided for the judicial fixing of fair rents, deliberately excluded future tenants from its operation, and, as I have repeatedly stated, I am not prepared, in answer to a Question, to discuss the difficult and intricate subject of the possibility or desirability of legislation in regard to these future tenants.

  Untenanted Lands.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland having regard to the fact that he was asked last May for a Royal Commission to inquire into uneconomic holdings and untenanted land in Ireland on the express condition that it should report before the end of 1906, with a view to legislation next session, can he

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  say approximately at what date the Commission appointed will report.
  MR. BRYCE: I would remind the hon. Member that on 18th July † he asked me whether the Royal Commission on congestion in Ireland would be required to report within the present year; and I replied that the Commission would, it was hoped, report at the earliest date at which it could do so consistently with the proper consideration of the matters referred to it. I may add that it was never contemplated that a time limit could be imposed on the very important labours of the Commission. I understand that the Commission have already held a large number of sittings, but a great deal of important evidence remains to be taken, not only from the departments concerned, but also from witnesses in the congested districts, where sittings are to be held.
  MR. FLAVIN: The Government can take steps to prevent large tracts of untenanted land being sold back to the landlord.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners are doing their best to acquire all the untenanted lands they can.

  Major Hickman's Rehy Estates.
  MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will inquire of the Estates Commissioners when they propose to divide Major Hickman's land at Rehy, near Carrigaholt, West Clare, between the tenants, who purchased their holdings on the distinct understanding that the farm, over 300 acres in his own hands, should be divided amongst them; whether Major Hickman offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners this farm; and, if they have purchased it, what is the cause for the delay, seeing that it is nine months since Major Hickman offered the farm for sale to the Estates Commissioners.
  MR. BRYCE: As I informed the hon. Member on 5th March last, ‡ the originating application in respect of this estate includes 305 acres of land which the vendor proposes to sell to the Land Commission for distribution among the
  † See (4) Debates, clxi., 212–3.
  ‡See (4) Debates, cliii., 101.
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  tenants of small holdings who are purchasing the remainder of the estate. The inspection of the lands has not yet taken place, and the sale, therefore, has not been completed. The inspection will take place as soon as the estate reaches its proper turn.

  Congested Districts Commission Report
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state when the first Report of the Congested Districts Commission will be published; and whether it will contain the evidence given on the proposed institution of a Government brand for cured fish.
  MR. BRYCE: The first Report of the Royal Commission on Congestion, with an appendix of evidence, was presented to Parliament on 27th November, and will, I understand, shortly be circulated. It contains evidence on the subject of a Government brand for cured mackerel. I am informed that the second Report and appendix will be presented to Parliament during the present month, and this also will contain evidence on the subject. If further evidence as to a Government brand for fish should be received by the Commission it will doubtless appear in subsequent Reports.

  Government Brand for Cured Fish.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at the recent meeting of the Council of Agriculture in Dublin a resolution was carried in favour of holding a conference with reference to the proposed institution of a Government brand for cured fish; can he say when and where it is proposed to hold this conference; and will steps be taken to facilitate the attendance of representatives from the small curing stations as well as of large curing firms and others engaged in the fish trade.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed that a resolution to the effect stated was passed by the Council of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture will arrange for the holding of a series of meetings in the different curing districts in order to give persons interested an opportunity of expressing their views.

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  Due notice of the meetings will be given as soon as the dates have been fixed.

  Galbraith (Longford) Estate.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the agreements to purchase the Galbraith (Ballinamuck, county Longford) estate have yet been lodged; and, if so, will the Estates Commissioners insist that the 200 acres of bog and plantation on this property will be handed over for the sole use of the tenants.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform mo that no purchase agreements in respect of the Galbraith estate, county Longford, have yet been lodged with them.

  Seafield Pier and Wild Rock.
  MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, knowing that there is £130,000 to the credit of the Agricultural Board which is unallotted for any purpose, he will use his influence with the Board to get the £3,000 that the engineers stated it would take to deepen the passage to Seafield pier and blast the Wild Rock so as to make the passage safe for the fishermen and trading vessels.
  MR. BRYCE: If the hon. Member will refer to my Answer to the Question of the hon. Baronet the Member for North Wexford on 3rd December, † he will see that the unallocated balance of £130,000 which stands to the credit of the Department's endowment fund is required to meet the present excess of annual expenditure over normal income on the purposes mentioned in that Answer. I informed the hon. Member on 29th November ‡ that the expense of deepening the channel and removing part of the rock opposite to the entrance would amount to about £3,000, and that this work would be of little use unless a breakwater were constructed at a considerable further cost. the Department of Agriculture are of opinion that so large an expenditure would not be warranted by any fishery development which it would be calculated to promote, and they would, therefore, not feel justified in contributing
  † See (4) Debates, clxvi,, 552.
  ‡ See (4) Debates, clxvi., 311–312.
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  to such a scheme. They are, however as I have already indicated, prepared to consider, in co-operation with local authorities, whether some loss costly work may not be devised with a view to making the place safer. The Department desire to emphasise their view that the approach to the Seafield pier must always be dangerous in bad weather, such as prevailed on the occasions of the accidents referred to in the hon. Member's previous Question.

  Irish Police Patrols.
  MR. BRIGG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state in how many districts in Ireland there is such an absence of crime that he has felt justified in allowing the police to patrol singly; and what number of new districts have been so dealt with during the present year.
  MR. BRYCE: I understand that the system of one-man patrols by day was introduced into certain counties in Ireland in October, 1903, and that since June, 1904, that system has been in force in all counties without exception. County inspectors, however, are given the discretion of detailing two-men patrols for duty by day in any locality in which they may consider it requisite. This course has, I am informed, been found necessary in but few localities. The system of one-man patrols does not apply to night duty.

  Longford Evictions.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many cases of eviction under the seventh section of the Act of 1887 were registered in county Longford during the year ending 31st March, 1906; and in how many eases was the decree executed, and total evictions carried out.
  MR. BRYCK: During the year ending 31st March, 1906, fifteen notices of eviction were filed in county Longford under Section 7 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887. I am informed that in none of these cases was eviction carried out.

  O'Beirne Estate—Evicted Tenant
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement, from Michael Baxter, Corrabeagh, on the O'Beirne estate, in county Leitrim, and if the same will be considered.
  MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received the application mentioned in the Question and have referred it to one of their inspectors for inquiry and report.

  Butter Grading.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state at how many Irish ports stations for grading butter would be required.
  MR. BRYCE: Butter is exported from at least eleven Irish ports, and the Department of Agriculture consider that grading stations would be required at about eight of these ports.

  MR. Walter Long's Speech in Dublin.
  MR. CLANCYasked the Attorney-General for Ireland whether his attention had been called to the speech delivered by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland at a Unionist meeting in Dublin on Friday last.
  THE ATTORNEY - GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY, Liverpool, Exchange): My attention has been called to a newspaper report of the speech to which the hon. and learned Member refers, and if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin is correctly reported he appears to have discussed at considerable length the merits of a case tried at the Sligo Assizes in which the jury had disagreed. In the ordinary course of events that case will come up for trial at the next assizes of county Roscommon or county Leitrim—there were two cases, one from Leitrim and one from Roscommon, and I am not quite sure which of them the right hon. Gentleman commented upon. The only thing I can say in reference to this matter is that the right hon. Gentleman thought fit to adopt a course which has been over and over again condemned by the highest
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  judicial authorities in Ireland. Inasmuch as the Government do not consider that the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman will affect the jurors who will try the case next March, we do not propose to take any action in the matter.
  MR. J. REDMOND: Is it not a fact that in many similar cases people have been brought up for contempt of Court and sent to prison?
  MR. CHERRY: I believe that has occurred.
  MR. HAYDENcalled the attention of Mr. Speaker to the fact that there were three Questions upon the Paper for to-morrow relating to the cases which had been referred to, and in these Questions the statement was made that in one of the cases the facts were not denied. He asked whether Questions of this character, discussing questions which were still pending, were in order.
  *MR. SPEAKER: I am obliged to the hon. Member for calling my attention to these Questions. I have not seen them on the Paper, and even if I had seen them I do not think I should have been much the wiser. In consequence of what has occurred this afternoon, and as I understand the case of this man is likely to come before the Court, I think that no statement should appear upon the Paper which pronounces any opinion upon the case that is to be brought forward. I will take care that the Question is corrected in such a way that this statement of opinion shall not appear. The hon. Member who has put the Questions on the Paper is entitled to ask the Attorney-General what course he proposes to take or whether any further action will be taken in the case. That is perfectly legitimate.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: Has your attention been called to the fact that the Judge who tried the case made most severe comments to the jury? [NATIONALIST cries of "Order."]
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must see that it is impossible for me to read all the Irish Papers.

  Earl of Annesley's Fishing Rights.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he has given his consideration to the fact that the Earl of Annesley began only last year to pay rates on his alleged rights to the fishing in the Shimna river, Newcastle, county Down; and whether he will advise the Dundalk Board of Fishery as to the validity or invalidity of Lord Annesley's claim.
  MR. CHEERY: It is not the duty of the Attorney-General to advise boards of conservators as to private rights. It is open to them to take legal advice in the ordinary way. If, as I gather from the Question, Lord Annesley's title is contested, the matter can only be decided by a Court of law. I have no knowledge of the facts, and cannot say for what period Lord Annesley has paid rates on the right of fishing which he claims; but the payment of rates will not confer any right or title upon him that he would not otherwise have possessed.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Is it not the function of the Law Officers of the Crown to advise Government Departments?
  MR. CHERRY: Yes, privately, but not in this House.
  MR. MACVEAGH: How is it when questions of law are addressed to a Law Officer of the Crown he always answers, "It is a question of law which I am not supposed to know anything about." What is he there for?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Irish Provident Assurance Company Inquiry.
  MR. HUGH LAW: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether the inquiry regarding the Irish Provident Assurance Company has been completed; and, if so, whether he is now in a position to give any information as to the status and financial position of this company.
  MR. CHERRY: I regret that I cannot give the hon. Member any information as to the status and financial position of the Irish Provident Assurance Company. I understand that some dispute has arisen between this company and the National
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  Standard Life Assurance Corporation' and that legal proceedings are pending between the two companies in an action in London. Full inquiries have been made by the Irish Government into the matter, but so far no facts have been disclosed which would justify any interference on the part of the Government.

  Sligo Assize Jury Panels.
  MR. DILLON: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Sligo, I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he is aware that 200 jurors have been summoned to attend the winter assizes in Sligo, at which only 9 cases are to be tried; will he state who fixed the number at 200, and by what authority; and will he see that Sligo jurors are not in future subjected to needless inconvenience and expense.
  MR. CHERRY: I am informed that the facts are as stated in the Question. The number of jurors summoned to attend assizes in any county is in the discretion of the high sheriff. He is bound by law to summon what he considers to be a sufficient number. The High Sheriff of the County of Sligo informs me that, having due regard to the number of jurors summoned who fail to attend, to those who are excused for various reasons, age, infirmity, etc., by the Judge, and to those who cannot serve by reason of the fact that they are also summoned on the grand jury, he did not consider 200 an excessive number to summon for the recent winter assizes. I have no power to interfere with his discretion.

  Irish Land Purchase—Justice Wylie's Judgment.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland if his attention has been directed to a judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Wylie, sanctioning the payment of a full price based upon value, with a bonus, and an addition of one year's arrears of rent, with a further bonus; if the purchaser is prevented by private reasons from appealing against this decision, on whom does the duty devolve of appealing, in the interest of the public, against this unprecedented use of public money; and can he say if an appeal will be taken or the validity of the decision be tested in any way.
  MR. CHERRY: My attention has been called to the judgment in question which was that of the Master of the Rolls in a case heard by him when Judicial Commissioner. It was decided that under the Land Act of 1903 the purchase money of a holding might include arrears of rent actually due not exceeding one year's rent. On the hearing of the case counsel appeared on behalf of the Treasury and for the landlord. The question of appealing is one for the Treasury, and is, I believe, at present under their consideration.

  Crosbie Estate—Appeal.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland if he will state the gross value of the holding and the deductions, if any, made from that value to arrive at the price in the case on the Crosbie estate upon which the Judicial Commissioner gave his decision last Tuesday.
  MR. CHERRY: I understand from the Estates Commissioners that the parties to the case in question intend to appeal from the Judicial Commissioner's decision. The case is, therefore, sub judice, and the Commissioners do not think it desirable to discuss it in its legal aspects while the, matter is pending. I may add that I quite concur in this view. Public discussion of cases which are about to come before legal tribunals is most undesirable.

  Royal Hibernian Academy.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the work carried on by the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin; and whether, in view of the fact that this Committee was appointed as a result of a debate in this House on the 10th May, 1905, and that some opportunity of considering the Report should be given to this Parliament before the Estimates for next year are presented, he will give facilities for a discussion on the subject at an early date.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. Campbell - Bannerman,): Yes, Sir, my attention has been called to the Report and I quite appreciate its importance, but, the hon. Member
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  will, I am sure, quite understand that it is impossible to promise an opportunity for its discussion.

  Eslin Bridge (Leitrim) Letter Delivery.
  MR. THOMAS F. SMYTH: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he has received a memorial from the inhabitants of the district of Eslin Bridge, in the county of Leitrim, asking for a daily delivery of letters instead of a three-day delivery, as at present; and, if so, will he say what action he proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I have not yet received the memorial referred to. I will, however, make inquiry on the subject and acquaint the hon. Member with the result.

  Canadian Cattle.
  MR. CAIRNS: I beg to ask the Prime Minister, whether, with a view to removing apprehensions as to the effect of the free importation of Canadian cattle into this country, he will cause to be sent to Canada as promptly as possible a Commission to inquire into the condition of the Canadian herds and other circumstances bearing upon the question, and so accede to the oft-repeated request of the Dominion Government, who, along with the people of Canada, resent the stigma cast upon their herds by our present prohibitive law.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Is it in order for an hon. Gentleman to make a statement of fact in a Question as in this case—viz., that the "people of Canada resent the stigma."
  *MR. SPEAKER: I take it to be merely the opinion of the hon. Member for Newcastle, not an authoritative statement.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Government do not think it is necessary to adopt my hon. friend's suggestion. They are quite prepared to accept the official reports of the Canadian Government as to the health of the herds of the Dominion and consequently they do not consider that any investigation on their own account is required. My understanding is that the statutory prohibition of importation is regarded as a precautionary measure, the justification

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  for which does not depend entirely upon whether or not any particular country is free from disease at any particular time.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. A. J. BALFOURasked for an indication of the proposed course of business.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid he could only speak conjecturally as to future business because he did not know what the course of the discussion on the Lords Amendments to the Education Bill would be or how long it would take. But to-day the debate on the Motion he was to propose would be followed by the Second Reading of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill and the Land Tax Commissioners' Bill. To-morrow, after the Education discussion, there would be the Procedure resolutions as to divisions, and the Committee stage of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill; and on Thursday, the Third Reading of that Bill and the Committee stage of the National Galleries (Scotland) Bill. The Third; Reading of the Workmen's Compensation Bill and the Report stage of the Education (Provision of Meals) Bill would be taken on Friday.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsuggested that it would be more convenient to take the Provision of Meals Bill on Thursday and the National Galleries (Scotland) Bill might be taken on Friday.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid if that were so he should be glad to make that arrangement.

HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence.
Special Report brought up, and read.
Report and Special Report to lie upon the Table and to be printed. [No. 376.]

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL (CONSIDERATION OF LORDS AMENDMENTS).
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs)moved—"That the question of agreement or disagreement with the Lords Amendments to the Education (England and Wales) Bill be put with respect to the Amendments as a whole." He said,—I think I may with advantage first of all take notice of an argument which has been used in regard to our conduct of this business, and which I think, though not a weighty argument, deserves some little attention. We have been accused of inconsistency because yesterday we first of all invited the House thon and there to take the Lords Amendments to the Education Bill into consideration, and afterwards moved the adjournment of the proceedings with a view to having the opportunity which I now take of moving the Motion which stands in my name. There is no inconsistency there. Hon. Members are perfectly familiar with the practice of a Member in charge of a Bill to move that "Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" merely for the purpose of instantly reporting progress in order to obtain a stage when there is some necessity or expediency in delaying the further progress of the Bill. That is exactly the circumstance in which we were placed yesterday, because the Motion which I now make, when it is on the Paper, takes precedence of any other Motion, and therefore it could not come on yesterday; nor could we have given any notice of it that would not have superseded the whole question of taking into consideration the Lords Amendments. Now, at any rate, we come to the Motion which indicates the manner in which we believe these Amendments ought to be treated. There were two courses obviously open to the Government. They might have proposed that the House take into consideration one after another all the many Amendments which have been made in another place; or they might have moved in ordinary form either that these Amendments be considered on this day three months or that they be laid aside. If we had listened to the dictates of hasty temper, or of any desire or hope of a conflict between the two Chambers, we should have taken the latter of those two courses. But we were restrained from doing so by several considerations. It would have involved the waste of a year's work upon this great subject, the abandonment of an honest attempt on our part to find a solution for our hot and

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difficult problem. It would have involved the continuance of a bitter struggle which, I am afraid, does no good to the cause of education in this country. It would have hampered most seriously the administration of education in England and Wales, and it would have complicated to a great extent reforms upon which this country had set its heart in respect of other matters. Well, these considerations of themselves were enough to make us shrink from taking the violent course to which I have referred. We desire not to shut the door against compromise. We do not desire to see the coup de grace given to this measure, however imperfect different people may think it, until we are certain that coup de grace is intended in any quarter. For those reasons, as well as for other reasons, which I will presently refer to, seeing another course which has many advantages, we resisted the temptation, if we ever were tempted, to treat the Lords Amendments in that summary manner.
Then the alternative, according to precedents, was that the House should be invited to consider these Amendments seriatim—one by one through the whole list. Now let me point out to the House that this is not a usual case. It is not the case of one or two, or half-a-dozen Amendments which we thought objectionable, which we thought blemishes upon the Bill. It is not the case of a Bill which we considered was marred and damaged by what had been done to it. It is the case of a Bill which has been altered in tone and spirit, and purpose and intention, and which has been perverted to a purpose directly antagonistic to those purposes for which it was sent up from this House. Let the House bear in mind the fundamental difference that has prevailed in this country for many years between those who are in favour of a national system of education and those who care for a! denominational system. What has been the traditional policy of the Liberal Party in regard to this great subject? There are some of us old enough in Parliamentary age to remember the Act of 1870 when it was discussed in this House. Then it became clear, I think, that the great body of the Liberal Members of Parliament wished to have as large a step taken as possible towards the establishment of a national system of education.
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And if the other system was recognised, I will even say tolerated, it was because of its existing already and its doing, no doubt, in its detailed work useful service to the country. We pass on, and anyone who carries his mind back will remember that on every occasion that the question was dealt with legislatively the Liberal idea came nearer and nearer to a national system; and it was, I am afraid, the desire of others who did not belong to our Party to promote and foster the denominational system. Then, when we came to the Bill of 1902 we regarded it as an attempt on the part of denominationalism to capture national education, and they accomplished it to a great extent by what I think was the dangerous, and may ultimately prove the disastrous, policy of obtaining support from the rates. As Archbishop Temple said, they placed themselves on the slippery slope of the rates. But we opposed it. These events show a consistent purpose on this side of the House, and our desire in that direction has been continued and intensified down to this date. Our Bill as it left this House did not profess for a moment to be a symmetrical or a logical system of educational government. It could not be with the material we had to deal with, and with the circumstances in which the educational system of the country was placed. But it was an honest endeavour to bring it back as nearly as we could to the national ideal, with an indulgent, and I will even say a generous recognition of the interests and desires of those who worked upon and favoured the sectarian model. The object of our Bill was to increase and develop the national ideal in national education. What have we before us now? We have that Bill penetrated by Amendments nearly every one of them in the direction opposed to that ideal, and bringing us back near and nearer to the other system and theory of educational organisation. How are we to deal with a Bill which comes to us in a form diverted, or perverted, I will say, from the purpose of those who introduced it and passed it through the House? Precedents point, no doubt, to dealing with these Amendments seriatim, one after the other. But these Amendments, taken separately, might have a very different complexion from what they present when we view them all together. In order to understand the change that has been made in the Bill you cannot

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take one Amendment here and one Amendment there. You must look at the effect of the whole scheme. As I say, precedents are in favour of dealing with these one by one. But whose precedents were they? They were the precedents of the Liberal Party, because it has always been the Liberal Party on whom has fallen the brunt of the work of maintaining such conflict as was necessary with the pretensions and attempts of the House of Lords. But it is the business, not only of a new Parliament, as my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the other day, but of the Liberal Party, especially in a matter in which they themselves are the most experienced persons, to establish new precedents rather than follow the old in all cases. The Leader of the Opposition has had a different experience altogether. I have sometimes thought that he speaks in reference to this subject, both inside and outside the House, as a sort of unrecognised mouthpiece of the House of Lords. Nay, he goes a little further. We have seen him quite recently assuming the character of a sort of director-in-chief. He is a man having authority over Houses; and he says to the one, "Go," and he goeth; and to the other, "Do this," and he does it. Therefore I decline altogether to be lectured on proper constitutional conduct in matters between the two Houses by the right hon. Gentleman. It is we and those who went before us who always have had to maintain the constitutional protest against any encroachment, or any approach to encroachment, upon what we think constitutional practice by the House of Lords.
But how would this method of dealing with the Amendments seriatim work in practice? I find that there are at least forty Amendments of substance to which we could not possibly agree, and they are related and inter-related one to another, they overlap each other and play up to each other, and give accumulative effect to each in such a way that you cannot deal with them separately. I take the very first Amendment to Clause 1 as an example. It says that in every school there shall be an opportunity for religious instruction. This proposal in itself is alluring to many people—to most people, probably. It is so innocent, too. It has a good, wholesome, convenient,
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respectable flavour about it. No definition of the religion. Something or other! But that Amendment which seems so innocent and even attractive in itself assumes a different character altogether when you read into it all the other Amendments made in the Bill, which show what was meant by those who made them. We therefore invite the House to deal with this matter in globo, and consider the Amendments as a whole, for that is the only way in which we can judge of their full effect. For my part I am still not without hopes that an accommodation of our differences may be found. But the chances of such an accommodation would be imperilled, if not destroyed, if we launched on the consideration and the discussion of individual Amendments when still unaware what concessions may after all satisfy the wishes and the opinions of those who control matters in another place. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite is going to object to this mode of dealing with those Amendments, I want to know—does he wish to save the Bill or to destroy it; does he wish to slam the door upon conciliation, or does he wish to keep the door open? If he does wish to save the Bill and to keep the door open, then the best thing to do is that which we have adopted—namely, to clear the Bill of those Amendments. Most of them are familiar to the House. Most of them were moved in Committee in this House. Therefore they are not new or strange Amendments. We have seen them, and the House has rejected them. It is my honest belief that those who voted for them in another place voted for them one by one, thinking what nice, charming, innocent Amendments they were, and had no opportunity until the last moment of realising what their cumulative effect might be. Then I say that if we get rid of these Amendments what we should like to see done would be to take the Bill as it left this House as a basis, and build into it certain alterations, certain Amendments, such as were indicated by my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Education yesterday, which would bring the Bill into closer harmony with the wishes and desires of those who favour a system of denominational education. I repudiate the idea of any want of consideration for the House of Lords. We hear of the Amendments being flung back in the face

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of the House of Lords. I believe, as I have said, that they have been led on little by little to this impasse to which they have brought us. Let them look ahead at the whole field, and I believe they will be startled to find what is the true nature and bearing of their work, and even now, therefore, I firmly believe that it is not only possible, but even probable, that counsels of moderation and peace will prevail. I beg to move.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the question of agreement or disagreement with the Lords' Amendments to the Education (England and Wales) Bill be put with respect to the Amendments as a whole."—(Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.)
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Before the Prime Minister got up to propose the Resolution he has placed on the Paper I not only hoped, but expected, that I should be spared the task and the House the weariness of hearing me say anything more upon the subject of education and the principles which ought to govern the House in dealing with it. I had hoped he would confine himself to the terms of the Motion and that I should thereby be enabled to follow his example. But I must preface some comments on the more strictly relevant part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech by one or two observations on the extraordinary version which he has given of Liberal policy, as he calls it, in regard to education, and the extraordinary theory which he has laid down as to the general educational scheme at which this country ought to aim. He has told us in so many words that there are two ideals of education—one which he is pleased to describe as denominational, and the other as national. I need hardly say it is the national system, whatever that may be, which he conceives himself to be supporting; it is the denominational system which we on this side are supposed to be advocating. If by a national system he means a system that, as far as secular instruction is concerned, is put -upon a broad basis, fitted in its primary and secondary parts as a carefully articulated whole and placed under competent local authorities acting in conjunction with the Board of Education and this House—why, Sir, we are all in favour of that, and it is the Party on
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this side of the House who have established it. If he means by a national system, as he must mean, in connection with this religious controversy, a scheme in which the nation, acting either through this House or through the local authorities appointed by this House, are to settle the religion of each child, then I say that is not the ideal of my friends, and I do not believe, if they would examine their hearts and consciences, that it is really the ideal of hon. Gentlemen opposite. The ideal which we ought to have in regard to religious matters is not the national ideal as expressed by the Prime Minister now, but the ideal he expressed not long ago—namely, that every child should be brought up in the religion—that is to say, the denominational religion—of his parent until he is old enough to select his own form of creed for himself. That is my ideal. When hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the right hon. Gentleman in particular, talk in this glib fashion they are really going back to the ideal of a national Church held in the time of Laud—a Church which was to be set up by the nation, and which, when it was set up, was to see that every child in the nation was brought up according to its tenets. Sir, that is two centuries old. It has been abandoned by every thinker of every school of thought in this country, and now we are going to have the same ideal, rejected in the form of a Church for adults, brought back in the form of a system of education for children. We are all agreed in our desire for a national system as far as secular learning is concerned, and some of us have done a good deal to institute such a system; but we are not agreed and ought not to move a single step in the direction of making it more difficult for the parent to have his child educated in his own religion. All our efforts should be devoted to the attempt, so far as practicable, to make it possible that every child should be brought up in the voluntary schools of the country in the religion which its parents desire. Let that be repudiated formally by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite if they please. That is our ideal. As far as I am able to trace any single scheme in the Lords' Amendments, it seems to me that the connecting thread of policy running through them is to give that parental freedom. The House will forgive me for having again after the long speech of yesterday

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gone into the educational aspect of the education controversy.
I now refer to that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech which was not concerned with our ideas of education, either on this side of the House or on that; I come to the actual procedure, the unexampled, and, I think, wholly unjustifiable procedure which the right hon. Gentleman is recommending to the House as its responsible leader in the controversy which has now unfortunately arisen between the two Houses. He does not deny that it is entirely novel, but the patent for it he jauntily claims on the ground that it has been the business of his Party to manufacture hitherto all the expedients by which this House has been able to deal with the House of Lords, and that improvements upon those methods naturally fall to those who have so long practised them. Let us examine what this new method is. In the first place it is a now form of gag. The House is not to be allowed, as it always has been allowed, to discuss the Amendments in the only form in which they can be discussed—that is, seriatim. It is to treat them in globo. The good and the bad alike are to be rejected by one common operation, to meet with one common fate, and to carry out the idea of the Roman emperor who desired that the citizens of Rome had one neck that he might cut it. Even if all the Lords Amendments were bad such procedure could not be justified. But these Amendments are not all bad, at least I suppose not, because a great many of them were proposed by Lord Crowe in behalf of the Government. You are going to reject all these without discussion. You are going to lump them up in globo, with all the more peccant portion of the House of Lords Amendments, and all of them you are going to condemn by one summary and unheard of process. And what is the justification for this course? The right hon. Gentleman says the alternative open to us, if we are not to kill the Bill ourselves by parricidal hands, is to take the Amendments one by one, and that that is a process which will take so long that we cannot undertake to embark upon it. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there is no such difficulty. I recognise now, as I have always done, that the four days which were suggested
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by the right hon. Gentleman himself were as much as, with one solitary exception, has over been devoted to the discussion of Lords Amendments. I made it perfectly clear through the ordinary channels of communication, that, as far as my friends were concerned, we were quite content to confine our attention to the small number of Amendments we thought really elementary and vital, and to let go without discussion the incomparably larger mass of Amendments which crowd the Order Paper. The nine or ten Amendments which we desired to see discussed were exactly the Amendments on which from an opposite point of view the attention of hon. Gentlemen opposite would have been concentrated, and exactly the same Amendments on which from their special point of view the Irish representatives would desire to speak. I do not believe there were more than nine or ten or eleven questions on which the House would have desired to say a word, and there would have been no difficulty. I do not think it is any breach of Parliamentary confidence to say that when I left town late on Friday I believed an arrangement had been come to between the two sides on the basis of a four days discussion on these Amendments. I learned with the profoundest astonishment on Saturday morning that the four days indicated in an answer to a Question had been abandoned and a wholly new method of procedure adopted. I am justified in sweeping aside as wholly irrelevant to this discussion the shallow plea put forward by the Government that this plan, with all its defects, was forced upon them by the material impossibility of getting through the discussion on the Lords' Amendments within the four days allotted to them. What other motive, can we imagine, has animated the breasts of right hon. Gentlemen opposite? My firm belief is that they were most reluctant to embark on the kind of debate that would have been forced upon them. The whole scheme of the Lords Amendments, which seems so appalling to the Prime Minister and so strange and terrible to the Minister for Education, can be defended point by point out of their own speeches. This wickedness which the Lords have committed they committed at their instigation. the Lords have founded themelves on the utterances of the

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most responsible Minister for all the broad principles at the bottom of their Amendments. [An Hon. Member—"Quote."] I am not going to quote all the speeches; I do not suppose the hon. Gentleman desires it; but if he is so very anxious to deal with this point, I will give him one or two examples, if he likes. I will take one on which I understand there is a really stronger feeling than on any other—I mean the Amendment of the Lords which in single-school areas permits Church children, or Roman Catholic children, or any other children whose parents desire some kind of teaching not contemplated by the Cowper-Temple clause, to be obtained if the children are in sufficient number and no other school is available. That, I infer, is almost the wickedest thing the Lords have done. Well, I listened, with a sympathy, which grew ultimately from mere repetition into weariness, to the interminable speeches made to me during the Bill of 1902 on the hardship suffered in the single-school areas by the parents of children who did not happen to approve the religious education given in that single school. [An Hon. Member: What did you do with the clause?] If the hon. Member will not interrupt me, but will look at the Act of 1902, he will see I did a great deal. But we are not now on the Act of 1902. That grievance has, and I am glad it has, been totally repealed, so far as the children of Nonconformist parents are concerned, by the Bill of the present Government. There is now no area in the country where the children of Nonconformists cannot obtain the religion which the parents desire in the public elementary schools at the public expense ["No, no"], and I am glad of that. But what you are grudging is that at the denomination's expense, or at the parents' expense, liberty to obtain the education desired by the parents should be given in the school area where the only school is a provided school. The view of the Minister of Education goes far beyond the Lords Amendments. Both in his speeches and his writings up to a very recent date he has frankly admitted that, so far as the equities of the case are concerned, he would like to see facilities given not merely in single-school areas, but throughout the whole country. The House of Lords have not gone that length; they have not gone half that length; they have not gone
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within a measurable distance of that ideal; but that ideal to its whole extent was the ideal that commended itself to the Minister for Education. If the hon. Gentleman is not content with that illustration I can give him another. It relates to the Clause 4 schools. The Government have said over and over again that they want to make Clause 4 a reality, a really genuine concession to those who want denominational education. As Clause 4 went to the Lords it was a mere sham. It did not even begin to carry out this object. We were all in the happy position of hearing soft words spoken by Ministers to the Nonconformists behind them, and who then turned round and spoke equally soft words to the Irish Members below the gangway. That kind of negotiation is one which can be carried on successfully and effectually in two separate chambers where they are no reporters. It cannot be carried out effectually and successfully across the floor of the House, when any Member of this House can come down upon the Minister and ask "Do you mean this or do you not—do you allow in Church schools the teacher to be chosen with a view to giving religious instruction?" I do not wonder that the Government do not want to face the debate on the whole series of points arising on Clause 4. And what fell from the Leader of the Irish Party yesterday more than ever convinces me that the last thing they ought to want is to face that debate. The hon. Member was, indeed, extremely obscure in his indications of policy; but while it was obvious that he was dying to come to some kind of understanding with the Government, it was equally obvious to me that the basis did not exist for it and that it was impossible, for the Government, in the open, and obliged to answer plain questions about plain matters of fact connected with the Bill, would be obliged to quarrel either with their friends behind them, or with their friends below the gangway on this side. Without asking hon. Members to conform to too high a standard of public virtue, I confess I must think they are justified, from their own point of view, in trying to escape from an impossible and most embarrassing position by an expedient which will effectually enable them to escape, whatever damage it may do to the constitutional procedure of this House. The right hon. Gentleman who

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has just sat down is good enough to say that he thinks I have spoken here an elsewhere as if I had some title to interfere in the management by the House of Lords of their own affairs and in the policy which that House is to adopt. No charge can be more unfounded. I do not come here either to say what I think the House of Lords ought to do or how this particular procedure will affect them or ought to affect them in connection with this and other Bills. That is their own affair. He said, as the Minister for Education yesterday said, that he would speak of the House of Lords with all courtesy; and indeed he laid it down as a universal rule that Ministers in this House ought always to speak of the House of Lords with courtesy. That is a critical maxim which, like all important critical maxims, I presume is to be deduced from the practice of the best authors; and, I take it, when he laid down the proposition that all Ministers of the Crown ought always to speak of the Lords in courteous terms it was after a careful and minute study of the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. But, in truth, I should have thought that a more insulting procedure could not be adopted by one House in regard to the other, and I think that may be another reason why it commends itself to hon. Gentlemen opposite. I think that if a thing is to be done they probably prefer doing it in a manner which is plainly and obviously offensive to those against whom it is directed rather than to take the more usual and, I should have thought, the far more courteous and conciliatory method.
That was a very astonishing declaration which the Prime Minister made when he said that his object really was to pursue a policy of peace. Conciliation is what he has been aiming at. This Motion, whatever it may look like on the surface, is, if you look at its interior meaning, really an olive branch sent to the House of Lords. It is moved with the object of producing harmony between the Houses. Let me examine whether there is the smallest plausability in that contention. We send back the Bill to the House of Lords, with three or four vaguely sketched points on which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education says that he and
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his colleagues are open either to reason or to pressure. If he wants the House of Lords to enter into this plan, why does he not tell us frankly what he wants to do? Is the leader of the majority in the other House to call at Downing Street and say he has studied carefully the suggestions of the Minister for Education, but for the life of him he cannot see what it is that is to be done, but if the Minister will be courteous enough to give him the necessary information he will consider the matter? Or is the Prime Minister going to Lansdowne House to ask how far the Lords will give way? What is this adumbration of a treaty between the high contracting parties in this case? Is it not manifest that the House of Lords will not be in a position to know what the view of this House is if you refuse to allow this House to discuss the matter? The Government have changed their minds already, whether in deference to Members behind them or not, in regard to procedure, and their policy of last Thursday is not the policy of to-day. What security has anybody got that if the House of Lords were to introduce an Amendment it would be accepted by this House? There might be some security if the Amendments were by the Government here laid down in plain terms which would give their exact intention, for then we should hear what is thought of them by the Nonconformist Party, by the Irish Members, by various Members of the House, even by the Opposition, if they count for anything in that matter at all. But I venture to say there is no human being in the House who can tell with regard to any kind of arrangement between the Houses, whether, if adopted by the Lords, it would be accepted by this House. You refuse to us the only means of obtaining information on that point by passing this Resolution, and having refused information on this, the only vital point, you ask in obscure words others to come into obscure consultation with you.
The right hon. Gentleman asks me whether I want the Bill to survive or not. I do not want it to survive in the form in which you propose to send it back to the House of Lords by your Resolution. Rather, far rather, would I see the Bill perish and the country given further time to consider upon what lines we should deal with

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parental rights in regard to the education of children than I would allow this most crude, most unjust measure to be placed on the Statute-book. The Lords Amendments have been described by hon. Members opposite as having introduced a leaven which has utterly destroyed the original methods of the Bill. In my opinion the Amendments have done something materially to mitigate the evils in the Bill. They have done a great deal to preserve parental rights where they exist and to restore them where they do not exist. I think it would be a lamentable calamity if it were understood that the interpretation to be placed on the result of the general election was that parents in this country were henceforth to find themselves bound hand and foot, so far as the religious education of their children is concerned, in the trammels of what the right hon. Gentleman calls this national system of education. No man can say what will be the fate of a measure treated in this tyrannical, irresponsible fashion by the great majority sitting opposite. They have, of course, the power to carry the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman; they can if they please start this new precedent, and which I doubt not will in future be frequently called up if once started, to regulate the relations between the two Houses; we will have no part or lot in starting a precedent which may have such calamitous consequences. Quite apart from the evil results of the precedent as regards the future, I say the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman deprives us of a legitimate opportunity for discussing in detail points upon which sections of the House are divided and which the House would deal with in the only fashion they should be dealt with, and which would give the House of Lords the knowledge it must have, if it is really to survey with effect the situation with which it has to deal. Above all, the right hon. Gentleman has shown by his speech that the ideals of education cherished by himself and his friends are ideals tainted at their source, and are utterly inconsistent with any sound plan by which we may hope to educate the youth of this country in the religion of their fathers. I shall oppose the Motion.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,): Many ingenious interpretations have been
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placed, at different times, and by different people, upon the results, of the late general election, but it has been reserved for the right hon. Gentleman to discover that what the people really wanted when they returned the present majority to Parliament was not popular control, but parental control, in relation to public elementary education. The right hon. Gentleman has by some lapse of memory quoted some words as having been said by the Prime Minister, at some time, somewhere, that a parent ought to have the right to bring up his child in the religion in which the parent believes until the child is old enough to form his own opinion. Well, so say all of us. But that is not the question: the question is whether the parent is to have that right to such education for his child in a school provided and maintained at the public expense.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: But does not pay for religious teaching.
MR. ASQUITH: He pays for the maintenance of the school. It is that point, as the Prime Minister has said, which constitutes the turning point between a national and a denominational system, and if on that point the general election can be said to have turned at all, the decision was in favour of a national system and public control. But this is only indirectly relevant to the Question before the House. My complaint against the speech we have just heard is that the right hon. Gentleman has ignored, or it seems to me he has ignored, the central dominant fact of the situation distinguishing this case, so far as my knowledge and research goes, from all preceding cases in which the House of Lords has refused to acquiesce in legislation passed by this House. What is this case? If you take the Amendments made by the House of Lords, if you look at them in their number, complexity and character, they amount, not so much to a reconstruction, but to a reincarnation, an absolutely now Bill, which goes by the old name. It is not, therefore, a mere question of considering this or that clause, or of accepting or rejecting an Amendment of any detail; here under the guise of Amendments we have proposals which completely alter the spirit, purpose, aid effect of the Bill. The whole picture is altered, the whole landscape is changed,

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the whole scene is submerged so that not the most discerning eye can trace any of its original features except here and there in a broken and mutilated form. Apparent rari nuntes in gurgite vasto. We should have been perfectly justified in the circumstances if we had asked the House either to discharge the order for considering the Lords Amendments, or had recommended the postponement of consideration for three or six months. We should have been perfectly justified, I say, if we had wanted to do as has been suggested, to flout or insult the House of Lords or to kill the Bill, and if we desired to shut the door to any possible agreement, that is the course that undoubtedly would have been taken. But we do not want to kill the Bill.
May I, in all candour, state to the House why we do not want to kill the Bill? In the first place, because, apart from all these religious difficulties which encumber the earlier clauses and the first part, the Bill contains invaluable provisions for the betterment of our system of national education. There is the medical inspection of the children; the enlarged powers for the provision of play centres; elastic means for the delegation of powers from county councils to local bodies; improvements in supervision—these are provisions which anybody really interested in the development of our educational system and willing to put the welfare of the children beyond the controversies of sects would be sorry to see sacrificed. In the next place, as regards the religious difficulty itself, so far as it is dealt with by the Bill, we believe now, as we believed in the summer, that the Bill as sent up to the House of Lords—susceptible as we knew and always said it was to modification and amendment within the scope and operation of its general provisions—was a Bill which offered a solution—not a very logical solution, I do not think we shall ever get that—but a workable.settlement of religious controversies. Further, we on these benches feel, and so I am sure do a great many Members opposite feel, that a time has come for a truce in this barren, desolating warfare, which for so many years has hampered all proposals for educational progress. An additional and final reason for desiring, earnestly desiring, that some legislation on this subject should this year pass into law, is that from an ad-
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ministrative point of view, whatever the decision of the House of Lords may be upon the West Riding case, now sub judice, from an administrative point of view legislation is urgently needed, not only to soothe the consciences of passive resistors, but in order, as I fear will very soon be found out if the Bill does perish—to promote and maintain the interests of the non-provided schools. On all those grounds, which traverse the whole field of controversy, the Government are most anxious to keep the Bill alive, and that is the reason we did not take the course, tempting as it was to the natural man, of asking the House to postpone consideration of the Lords Amendments, thereby killing the Bill on the floor of the House of Commons.
As to discussing the Amendments seriatim, I think, having regard to their number and character and the time at our disposal, such a discussion would be a sheer waste of time. It is quite true that some of the Amendments, like that to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, could be wiped out in a moment us with a sponge, and to them we should not have hesitated to apply that summary and drastic process. But as regards the bulk of them, as my right hon. friend the Prime Minister has said, they are so co-related and interdependent one upon another that to discuss them seriatim would be nothing short of a squandering of time and energy. We gave much consideration to the subject, and we were of course influenced by the unbroken course of precedent. The more we examined the Amendments the more we felt clear that it would be perfectly idle to proceed by any form of compartmental closure, for it would have had to come to that. It is ridiculous to say there are only nine or ten Amendments on which attention would have been concentrated, and that with the general consent of the House discussion on all others would have been foregone. The right hon. Gentleman might have been speaking for himself; did he speak for the noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes. I was speaking for all those Gentlemen who follow me.
MR. ASQUITH: In that case I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on

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the excellent and novel state of discipline that prevails. Although on the present occasion we shall not be able to put it to the test, I hope that on some future occasion he will be able to show that he exercises dominating and undisputed sway.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course, I quite agree that occasions on which it is possible to answer for a Party are not very numerous, but I made myself acquainted with the views of my friends, and I was able to assure the Government that, as far as we were concerned, the discussion could be compressed in that way.
MR. ASQUITH: I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman gave that assurance in perfectly good faith. But he could not speak for hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, and they are entitled to be heard. He could not speak for my hon. friends who sit behind me. Surely it does not rest with the Opposition to determine which are and which are not the most important Amendments. It does not rest with the Opposition to say upon which of those Amendments the House should come to a decision. There are all sections and bodies of opinion here, and each one of them on a matter of this kind is entitled to make its own case. I say on behalf of the Government that, without prejudice one way or the other, and after most careful consideration of the possibility and even probabilities of the case, we came deliberately to the conclusion that there could be no security that by any system of compartmental closure Amendments of great importance would ever be reached at all, or that anything like an adequate proportional amount of time would be given to the various Amendments.
If that was the case, there was only one other course open to us, and that is the course we ask the House to adopt—namely, to consider the Amendments as a whole. I think all the arguments I have been endeavouring to submit to the House point directly and indirectly to that end and conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman says he would much have preferred, I dare say he would, the discussion of these Amendments point by point because, as he tells us—it
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is a bold statement—in that way they could all be defended by points out of Ministers' speeches. Well, if they care, the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, who have got these speeches in their memories or in their pockets, can in the course of the general discussion confront Ministers who sit upon this bench with their utterances in the past, and they can point out inconsistencies, if there be such, between what they have said and what they have done; and they can convict my right hon. friend of having found for the first time in the House of Lords gentlemen who could put into adequate English and statutory form his concealed and disguised intentions. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman and his friends that any oratorical or dialectical advantage which they could have gained by the successive discussion of particular Amendments will be equally open to them in the general discussion to which we invite the House. In these circumstances the Government have come to the conclusion which they ask the House to adopt. Having regard to the number and character of the Amendments and the conditions of time which dominate our present discussion, we have taken the only possible course. If there be a desire to come to a reasonable accommodation on this matter, that it will in any way prejudice the prospect of such an accommodation I entirely deny. On the contrary, I think a discussion of this kind, ranging over the whole field and bringing into prominence points of possible agreement, as well as of actual difference, may afford a most valuable indication as to the direction in which we may ultimately come together. Be that so or not, it is our intention to ask the House to send back these Amendments to the House of Lords with the distinct intimation that if they will propose Amendments in place of them which are within the spirit and compass and purpose of this Bill, which do not mock its spirit, transcend its compass, and defeat its purpose—if they will do that those Amendments will receive from us most respectful consideration.
LORD EDMUND TALBOTsaid that with reference to the adoption of the three-fourths majority instead of four-fifths in regard to Clause 4 it had been stated that only about thirty Catholic schools would be

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excluded. That was not the case, because a three-fourths majority would exclude the extended facilities from 170 schools. Some vague phrases had been used in reference to teachers—
*MR. SPEAKER: I fail to see how the arguments which the noble Lord is using are relevant to this Motion. They may be relevant to the next Motion to disagree with the Lords' Amendments, but they are not relevant to the Motion that these Amendments be considered en bloc.
LORD EDMUND TALBOT: Then I will, subject to your ruling, reserve my remarks until the next Motion is made.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid it would be for the convenience of the House if Mr. Speaker would lay it down that the discussion on this Motion must be confined to the question of procedure.
*MR. SPEAKER: That is obviously the more convenient course. On the second Motion there will be very wide latitude, because all the Amendments of the Lords are included.
LORD R. CECILmoved to insert after the word "Bill," the words, "except with respect to the Amendments on page 1, line 10, of the Lords' Amendments." The object of the Amendment was to admit of a discussion on the Lords' Amendment which provided that no school should be recognised as a public elementary school "unless some portion of the school hours of every day is set set apart for the purposes of religious instruction." The policy which he and some of his friends recommended to the House might be stated in a very few words. Their contention might be stated in the form of a syllogism. Their major premise was contained in the Lords' Amendment to which he was now referring. It was a proposition which had the support of the House as a whole, because, by an overwhelming majority, they rejected a proposition that there should be no religious instruction given in the schools. The minor premise was that the parents had the right to select the religious instruction to be given to their children. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that no one
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disputed that proposition. Did not the conclusion follow that the religious instruction given in the public elementary schools must be religious instruction of which the parents approved. That was the whole contention which they had tried over and over again to put before the House. If he had made the point clear to the House, he did not think any hon. Member, wherever he might sit, would find it very easy to controvert either the major or the minor promise, and he was certain that if the premises were admitted the conclusion must also be accepted. He hoped the Government would allow the House to discuss the Lords' Amendment to which he referred. He could not believe that a majority of the House were against the proposition contained in the Amendment. The Prime Minister said, "Oh! but that proposition involves a great deal else." He agreed that it involved the whole position for which they were striving. It involved the proposition that an educational system was on a wrong basis which persisted in the theory that it was the ratepayer who was to select the religious instruction, whereas in all conscience and justice it ought to be the parent. It only involved that conclusion because it was the natural and logical outcome of the first proposition. If they were not prepared to deny the first proposition, then the rest of their case followed logically and necessarily from it. It was for that reason he was particularly anxious that this question should be submitted to the discussion of the House.
*SIR PHILIP MAGNUSin seconding the Amendment, said the fact that it had been moved illustrated the disadvantage of pursuing the policy suggested by the Prime Minister. They had before them in this Amendment of the House of Lords a distinct affirmation of the policy with respect to which it was very desirable that they should have the opinion of the whole House. In the course of the discussion it had been stated more than once that the Amendments made by the House of Lords were absolutely opposed to the principle of the Bill as it left this House,

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Not a single instance, however, had been quoted in which an Amendment made by the House of Lords could be considered as opposed to the intentions of the Bill as frequently expressed in the House of Commons. Having carefully considered the Amendments, he thought that, while it might not be possible for this House to agree to them all, it must be admitted that the House of Lords had endeavoured to put into the clauses what was intended by the Minister of Education and others who had spoken on the Bill. The Amendment referred to by the noble Lord seemed to follow directly and logically from the Resolution of this House when they were asked to consider whether secular or some form of religious instruction should be given in the public elementary schools. The Prime Minister had made a strange contrast between national and denominational teaching. He could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman considered these two words were in any way in opposition to each other. National education was the education approved by the nation, and if the nation decided that what was called "denominational instruction" should be introduced into some of our schools, surely then denominational teaching would become a part of a national system of education.
Amendment proposed—
"After the word 'Bill,' to insert the words 'except with regard to the Lords' Amendment in page 1, line 10."—(Lord R. Cecil.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. Birrell,): I imagine that any observations now in order are those which give reasons, for or against why the Amendment to which the noble Lord refers should be exempted from the operation of the Resolution we are discussing. Therefore, I cannot, of course, go into the merits of the Lords' Amendment. I see no reason why it should be exempted. The noble Lord began by putting his argument in the form of a syllogism, and that would rather puzzle us if it were to become general in Parliamentary practice. He starts with the major premise that religious instruction ought to be given in the public elementary schools. Well, as an ex-
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pression of desirability, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, but I am by no means sure that it is in the interest of the object which we both desire that religious instruction should be made compulsorily to be given by the local authority. Therefore, I am afraid that in the noble Lord's major premise there lurks a certain ambiguity which so often makes the logical form of no particular use in public debate. I see no reason why this particular Amendment should stand by itself. I see no reason why it should not be discussed by the noble Lord or by any person who feels very strongly on it when we come to the discussion of the Amendments as a whole. It is an Amendment which, I confess, I have always had difficulty in understanding, and I hope very much it will receive consideration and that it will be carefully explained to us by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. It seems to me to be our old friend with the long name—pan-denominationalism. Without going the length of saying, as my hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell did, that pan-denominationalism means pandemonium, I am by no means satisfied that it would receive the general support of the people of this country or the managers of schools if it were really put in force. I am by no means satisfied that it would be received with the general approval of the people of the country or of the managers of the schools. I am not at all sure that a Unitarian child or a Baptist child would receive in the village schools to be transferred under this Act the religious instruction which the parents would desire. I doubt whether in the present state of feeling in the country it would be found tolerable or possible to follow this pan-denominational teaching. There had been ample discussion on the point in the House before the Bill went to the Lords, and it was felt that it would be physically and morally impossible. I hope that an opportunity will be afforded in the lengthy debates which we may have on this subject to have full information as to what this clause as it now stands really means.
SIR. A. ACLAND-HOODsaid he wished to point out the great difficulty in which the House was involved by the course which the Government intended to adopt.

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He understood that in his unavoidable absence from the House the Chancellor of the Exchequer hinted that there would be no attempt to come to an arrangement after this debate.
MR. BIRRELL: Nothing of the sort was said.
SIR A. ACLAND-HOODsaid that the course proposed to be followed, which at one time the right hon. Gentleman had agreed to, was that the Lords' Amendment should be taken and a decent opportunity afforded to discuss, not all the minor Amendments, but each important Amendment. He regretted that that arrangement had not been carried out. They understood from the Prime Minister last Friday that this week the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education would appear before the House in the character of Hercules struggling with a hydra; but yesterday the President of the Board of Education had appeared in the character of Tarquinius Superbus and wished to cut off all the Lords' Amendments with a stroke of his cane. He thought that the character of Hercules was far more appropriate to the right hon. Gentleman.
*COLONEL WILLIAMS ()said that the local education authorities were very important bodies, but, after all, they were only local authorities who had their own local duties to discharge. The House of Commons was a much bigger authority, for that Assembly spoke for the nation as a whole. He hoped that the House of Commons would speak once for all and say that in the opinion of the country it was right and fitting that the nation should declare itself as a Christian nation and one which believed in religion. They ought to lay down to the local authorities that, while they could manage their local affairs as they thought best, they must not forget that as a Christian nation Parliament insisted that the children of the nation must be brought up as Christian children. He thought that this was an Amendment which might well be accepted. An hon. Member on the Ministerial Benches had exhorted the House to follow the example of the United States and say that no religion
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should be taught in the schools. He had returned from a visit to America only a fortnight ago, and he had been assured that many thoughtful men there were coming to believe that a purely secular education in the primary schools was not for the advantage of the nation, and that some sort of religion should be taught in their schools. In several British Colonies definite religious instruction was given in the elementary schools, and some Colonies, which had adopted a purely secular system, were returning to the old system in which religious instruction was given, while in others strenuous efforts were being made to that end. It was for that reason that he hoped the Government would accept the Amendment.
MAJOR SEELYsaid that, although he agreed on general terms that the majority of the House desired that some religious instruction should be given in the primary schools, yet it seemed to him that it was perfectly impossible for the Government to take any other course than they had adopted. His only excuse for rising was to protest against the suggestion of the late Chief Whip that it was possible for the Government to make an arrangement by which the multitudinous Amendments made by the Lords on the Bill could be discussed in three or four days. Although, with all the varying opinions on the Ministerial side of the House, many disapproved of some portions of the Bill, they disapproved vehemently of the reasons which hon. Gentlemen opposite gave for opposing the Bill. He should oppose the Motion of the noble Lord and other Amendments which were designed to break up the system which the Government proposed.
*SIR FRANCIS POWELLsaid that, when he saw the Amendment on the Paper, he could not help feeling that it was to be regretted that they had passed away from the old system of mentioning the intention of the Legislature in the preambles of Bills. He was certain that the words now objected to would have been unanimously accepted in such a preamble. There was a feeling abroad in our Colonies and in the United

179
States in favour of more religious teaching and that a pure secular education led to national deterioration. He believed that a secular education in schools would be a great calamity, not only to this country, but to civilisation and that the omission of the words in opposition to it would be a reactionary Anendment.
*SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid he would not have intervened in the debate, but for the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Dorset and the hon. Baronet the Member for Wigan. He had had the advantage of visiting America on more than one occasion and had recently spent some weeks in. the United States, where he came in contact with many people deeply interested in education. He neveronce heard any sentiment expressed in favour of religious instruction being introduced into the primary schools. On the contrary, educationalists in the United States rejoiced that they had escaped from the religious difficulty which had haunted and hurt our education system for the past thirty-six years. His own opinion was that in this country we should have the same system as in the United States, where the public authority carried on the secular instruction, leaving it to the churches to carry on the religious teaching. Ever since the Act of 1870 and throughout the whole thirty-six years of its working we had example after example of the evil wrought by the religious question. He hated the controversy, because it checked and crippled education. When school boards were created he was asked to serve, but declined because of the religious bitterness introduced in the contests. It was this which had handicapped us in our competition with other nations, by impairing education and diverting our thoughts from that which we ought to think about first—the education of the children. On that ground he never became a member of a school board, but with many other Members of this House he had tried to bring about a finish of this squabble. He voted with many misgivings against the Amendment of his hon. friend the Member for Burnley in favour of secular education, as he was willing to make one more attempt to settle this difficult and
180
vexed question. He believed that there were scores of hon. Members who would vote for the secular solution to settle it now. Surely it was a scandal to the name of Christianity that after thirty-six years we were unable to arrive at any common method of teaching its fundamental truths. That was a scandal that rested upon all the churches of this country; it rested more heavily upon some than upon others. He had gone on for thirty-six years watching this struggle hoping that it might cease, and he hoped the time might come soon when it would cease. The Government had behind it one of the largest Liberal majorities ever seen, and he urged them to use it to secure a settlement. He hoped that the Government would send the Amendments back to the House of Lords for their re-consideration, for only very small additional concessions could be accepted if a settlement was to be arrived at.
*MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. Member was not confining himself to the Amendment, but was speaking at large.
*SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid that, having been privileged to unburden his soul on the Motion generally, for which he was grateful, he wished to say, as to the Amendment, that it was one to which he should give his most vigorous opposition.
*MR. BUTCHERwas never more surprised than when he heard the contempt which was thrown upon this Amendment both by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education. The Prime Minister talked of it as innocent, but meaningless, and the Minister for Education dealt with it in even stronger terms. The main criticism which was passed upon it was that it was inconsistent with the Act of 1870. Judging by the speech of the Minister of Education anything which was inconsistent with that inviolable statute was bad, and yet that measure had been torn to tatters by the Bill of the same right hon. Gentleman. He did not think that the House ought to be afraid at the point which they had now reached of passing Amendments to a statute which in many respects had become obsolete. In regard to this

181
particular Amendment, there was none in the whole list of the Lords' proposals upon which one would more gladly go to the country and find out the will of the nation than upon this. He believed that the ordinary man, whether he was religious himself or not religious, wished that some religious teaching should be given to his children. The question had been put whether they should upset the Act of 1870, but he thought the answer to that was, first of all that this Bill already upset that Act, in shattering the great voluntary school system and with it destroying a great religious organisation and corporate attachment binding the scholars to their respective communions.
*MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. Member was now discussing the Lords' Amendment which he was not entitled to do. He could, however, show cause why the Lords' Amendment particularly referred to in the Amendment should be excepted from the general rule which they were discussing.
*MR. BUTCHERsaid he would try to confine himself within the narrow limits which Mr. Speaker had laid down, but he would point out that not only were the whole of the arrangements of 1870 upset, but there was now in the country a new force consisting in a growing body of secularists. At present it was true they were in a minority, but they were a militant minority, and although small were well organised. It seemed to him that the real issue before the country in this Bill was whether education should be secular or religious. It was religion itself that was in jeopardy under this Bill. The Bill as drafted halted between two opinions.
*MR. SPEAKERsaid he was afraid he did not make himself clear to the hon. Member when he last spoke. The hon. Member was trying to discuss the Lords' Amendments, but that he could not do at the present stage. There would be a further stage at which he might do that. The hon. Member was confined to discussing whether at the future stage this particular Amendment might be discussed. At the present stage he
182
must confine himself strictly to the Amendment before the House.
MR. BUTCHERsaid in that case he would reserve his further remarks.
*MR. BRIDGEMANsaid it had been objected by the right hon. Gentleman that the proposals made amounted to Pan-denominationalism, but he thought that this Amendment did not necessarily introduce Pan-denominationalism, because it would be quite possible to pass it and yet for teaching to go on under the section, and the same Cowper-Temple teaching to be given as before. Those who had spoken on behalf of the Government had said that they were particularly anxious to get the Bill through. He asked whether their chances of getting the Bill through would be endangered if they allowed this Amendment to be considered by itself, and if they allowed the House to agree with the least contentious of the Lords' Amendments.
MR. BOWLESsaid the Minister for Education had stated that he saw no reason why this particular Amendment should be exempted from the ordinary operation of the Resolution of the Prime Minister, and that they need be under no apprehension, because it would be competent for them, as soon as the proposal before the House was disposed of, to discuss this as well as the other Amendments which had come down from the other House. That was true, but the scheme of the Government would only enable them to discuss this Amendment as well as others, and they would not be allowed to come to a decision upon it. The Government was not afraid of discussion in the House, but apparently it was afraid of a decision, and that seemed to be the reason which had actuated them in adopting the policy they had pursued. Nearly everyone who had spoken had intimated in the plainest possible terms that he saw nothing to object to, and indeed agreed with the Amendment, and the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had said the same. The Amendment met with general acceptance in all quarters of the House, and

183
he believed that if it were excepted from the ordinary operation of the Resolution it would be adopted. He regretted that the Government had not had the courage to allow them to discuss this particular question and to decide upon it, and if his hon. fried went to a
division he should certainly go into the Lobby with him.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes,104; Noes, 306. (Division List No. 487.)

AYES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Faber, George Denison (York)

Nield, Herbert

Anstruther-Gray, Major

Faber, Capt. W.V. (Hants, W.)

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Fardell, Sir T. George

Parkes, Ebenezer

Balcarres, Lord

Fell, Arthur

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

Baldwin, Alfred

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Percy, Earl

Balfour, Rt Hn. A.J. (CityLond.

Fletcher, J. S.

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Forster, Henry William

Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Haddock, George R.

Remnant, James Farquharson

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Hambro, Charles Eric

Roberts, S.(Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Hamilton, Marquess of

Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

Bowles, G. Stewart

Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashford

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Boyle, Sir Edward

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Saltor, Arthur Clavell

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Healy, Timothy Michael

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Heaton, John Henniker

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

Butcher, Samuel Henry

Helmsley, Viscount

Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton

Carlile, E. Hildred

Hervey, F. W. F. (Bury S. Edmds

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

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Hills, J. W.

Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk)

Cave, George

Hornby, Sir William Henry

Starkey, John R.

Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W.

Houston, Robert Paterson

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffs'h.)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Hunt, Rowland

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

Kenyon-Slaney, Rt Hn. Col. W.

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Keswick, William

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Wore

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Thornton, Percy M.

Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm

Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareh'm

Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.)

Courthope, G. Loyd

Liddell, Henry

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)

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

Craik, Sir Henry

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N

Lowe, Sir Francis William

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

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

Younger, George

Doughty, Sir George

Magnus, Sir Philip

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

Du Cros, Harvey

Morpeth, Viscount

Alexander Acland-Hood and

Duncan, Robt. (Lanark, Govan

Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

Viscount Valentia.

NOES

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Beck, A. Cecil

Burnyeat, W. J. D.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Bellairs, Carlyon

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Benn, W.(T'w'rHamlets, S. Geo.

Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Chas.

Agnew, George William

Berridge, T. H. D.

Byles, William Pollard

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd

Cairns, Thomas

Alden, Percy

Bethell, T. R, (Essex, Maldon)

Cameron, Robert

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Billson, Alfred

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Armitage, R.

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Black, Arthur W.(Bedfordshire

Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

Chance, Frederick William

Astbury, John Meir

Brace, William

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Atherley-Jones, L.

Bramsdon, T. A.

Cheetham, John Frederick

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Brigg, John

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Bright, J. A.

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Barker, John

Brodie, H. C.

Clough, William

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Brooke, Stopford

Clynes, J. R.

Barnard, E. B.

Brunner, Rt. Hn. Sir J. T. (Chesh.

Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W.)

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Beale, W. P.

Bryce, J.A.(Inverness Burghs)

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Beauchamp, E.

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W

Beaumont, Hn. W. C. B. (Hexh'm

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Corbett, CH. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

Cory, Clifford John

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Perks, Robert William

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Hudson, Walter

Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'th'mpton)

Cowan, W. H.

Hutton, Alfred Eddison

Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Hyde, Clarendon

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Cremer, William Randal

Idris, T. H. W.

Pollard, Dr.

Crombie, John William

Illingworth, Percy H.

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central

Dalmeny, Lord

Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E

Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

Jardine, Sir J.

Radford, G. H.

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Jenkins, J.

Rainy, A. Rolland

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

Johnson, W. Nuneaton)

Raphael, Herbert H.

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro)

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Kearley, Hudson E.

Rees, J. D.

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Kelley, George D.

Kendall, Athelstan

Dobson, Thomas W.

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Renton, Major Leslie

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Richards, Thos. (W. Monm'th)

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Kitson, Rt. Hon. Sir James

Richardson, A.

Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

Lambert, George

Rickett, J. Compton

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Lamont, Norman

Ridsdale, E. A.

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Langley, Batty

Roberts, Chas. H. (Lincoln)

Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Elibank, Master of

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

Lehmann, R. C.

Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee

Erskine, David C,

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd

Essex, R. W.

Levy, Maurice

Robinson, S.

Evans, Samuel T.

Lewis, John Herbert

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Everett, R. Lacey

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Roe, Sir Thomas

Faber, G. H. (Boston)

Lough, Thomas

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Fenwick, Charles

Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

Rose, Charles Day

Ferens, T. R.

Lyoll, Charles Henry

Rowlands, J.

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Lynch, H. B.

Runciman, Walter

Findlay, Alexander

Macdonald, J. M. (FalkirkB'gh

Russell, T. W.

Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Maclean, Donald

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Freeman, Thomas, Freeman

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Fuller, John Michael F.

M'Arthur, William

Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

Fullerton, Hugh

M'Callum, John M.

Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne

Gibb, James (Harrow)

M'Crae, George

Seaverns, J. H.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Seely, Major J. B.

Glover, Thomas

M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Gooch, George Peabody

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick D.)

Grant, Corrie

M'Micking, Major G.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Maddison, Frederick

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Greenwood, Hamar (York)

Mallet, Charles E.

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Griffith, Ellis J.

Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Markham, Arthur Basil

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Gulland, John W.

Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston

Snowdon, P.

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Marnham, F. J.

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

Massie, J.

Soares, Ernest J.

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore'r.)

Masterman, C. F. G.

Spicer, Sir Albert

Hart-Davies, T.

Micklem, Nathaniel

Stanger, H. Y.

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Molteno, Percy Alport

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.

Harwood, George

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Montagu, E. S.

Strachey, Sir Edward

Haworth, Arthur A.

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Morley, Rt. Hon. John

Summerbell, T.

Hedges, A. Paget

Morrell, Philip

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Helme, Norval Watson

Morse, L. L.

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Hemmerde, Edward George

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Myer, Horatio

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Henry, Charles S.

Napier, T. B.

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw

Thomasson, Franklin

Higham, John Sharp

Nicholls, George

Tillett, Louis John

Hobart, Sir Robert

Norman, Sir Henry

Tomkinson, James

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Toulmin, George

Hodge, John

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Holdon, E. Hopkinson

Nuttall, Harry

Ure, Alexander

Holland, Sir William Henry

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

Verney, F. W.

Hooper, A. G.

Partington, Oswald

Vivian, Henry

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

Paul, Herbert

Walsh, Stephen

Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset N.

Paulton, James Mellor

Walters, John Tudor

Horridge, Thomas Gardner

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds S.).

186

187

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent

Whitehead, Rowland

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

Ward, W. Dudley (South'mpton

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Wardle, George J.

Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

Winfrey, R.

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Yoxall, James Henry

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n

Watt, H. Anderson

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

Whitbread, Howard

Wilson, Hn. C.H.W. (Hull, W.)

Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

White, George (Norfolk)

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.

Pease.

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

*MR. C. J. O'DONNELLmoved to add at the end of the Question the words "except in regard to Clause 4." He said he intervened in this great controversy with considerable hesitation. He sincerely accepted every portion of the Bill and had voted for every clause. After the Minister of Education granted the right of appeal under Clause 4 that clause might be regarded as a fair compromise. It was quite true that half the Roman Catholic schools were excluded from its operation. but he supported it because he had greater confidence in the local authority than hon. Gentlemen opposite. He knew that in London, and in South London particularly, they had acted with great generosity to the Roman Catholic schools. He welcomed any suggestion of concession. After the speech of the Minister of Education yesterday it was manifest that there was in the mind of the Government some consideration, which would admit of these small poor Roman Catholic schools being brought within the operation of the clause. It would in his opinion be peculiarly becoming if these concessions were made, not at the suggestion of the House of Lords, but by this House to hon. Members representing Ireland. It was as well to remember that the Irish Party in past years had been the comrades of English Liberals in many a hard-fought battle for English reform. This year they had been fellow workers with the Liberal and Labour Parties on social questions, and it would therefore be becoming for the Liberals in this House to meet them at once. The Leader of the Irish Party yesterday had stated plainly his desire to support the Government, and if they would put down their proposed concessions in an absolutely clear form they would carry with them the whole of the Irish Party. The Bill would then go to the House of Lords with double the strength it otherwise would have. If the Govern-
188
ment proposed changes in Clause 4, why should they not do it at once with the assistance of hon. Gentlemen representing Irish constituencies? In regard to the homogeneous schools, he considered the difference between urban and rural to be unreasonable and unworkable. The figure of 5,000 was an arbitrary one. What town in England with half that population would not be insulted if it were called a village? In this connection he wished to call attention to the moderation of the Irish demands. They plainly said they did not want the Clause 4 special facilities in single school areas. Another point of importance with regard to homogeneous schools was that of the influence of parents.
*MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is not entitled to discuss the Amendment. All he is entitled to do is to give reasons why the Amendment should at some future time be discussed.
*MR. C. J. O'DONNELLsaid he would merely say that it was advisable for the Government without delay to introduce Amendments. He would ask them to observe what had been the result of not introducing Amendments which they were known to be in favour of. At Huddersfield the Conservative roll was increased by 500, while the Liberal poll was decreased by 500, and that was entirely due to the transference of 500 Catholic votes. He was afraid that if concessions were not made Nonconformists would hurry their Party on to the rocks—certainly in Lancashire and Yorkshire seats would be lost if there were any by-elections. In East Manchester there were 1,800 Irish Catholic voters, and at the last election they voted solidly for the Liberal candidate and put him in at the top of the poll. If these concessions were not made and there were a by-election in East Manchester to-day there was no doubt that the

189
Irish Catholic votes would go over to the Conservative candidate, and he would be returned by a large majority. As an Irishman and a Catholic, he would refuse to accept any advantage for his own religion that would injure the Nonconformists of England. He knew that all the civil rights possessed by Catholics were owing to the good will and justness of heart of the Free Churches of England; but he begged his friends on that side of the House to hesitate before they drove the large Irish electorate of Lancashire, South London, and other places where they mostly congregated, into the arms of the Tory Peers. That was a fate from which he was anxious to save his fellow-countrymen. He desired to see the alliance between the Liberals and the Catholics in this country maintained, and with that object he begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
MR. WALSHseconded the Amendment. He said he did so with some hesitation, first of all because of the high constitutional issues that were involved in that day's proceedings, and, secondly, because of the exceeding difficulty of keeping in order. Men of high medical attainments, men of legal attainments, and some professors in Universities had all fallen, not exactly under Mr. Speaker's ban, but under his gentle admonition. He seconded the Amendment on quite other grounds than had been advanced by the mover. A great deal had been said both on the Second Reading and in the Committee stage about concessions to Roman Catholics. Time after time he had heard the Minister for Education avow that Clause 4 was frankly denominational—recognising as he did certain existing conditions from which it was difficult to get away—and they with equal frankness ought to recognise that fact and to disavow the terms of Clause 4 as being in the nature of a concession. It did not extend merely to Roman Catholics. He knew very many schools in the Church of England which had just as much claim as Roman Catholic schools, and, indeed, to the credit of Clause 4, it would give them the same measure of justice as the Roman Catholics. It
190
would also give to Wesleyans the same rights wherever the clause was brought into operation, and therefore he refused to consider it as a concession to Roman Catholics at all, but a concession to that condition of things described by the Minister in charge of the Bill as frankly denominational. Let them consider the appeals made on that side of the House. During the debates he had felt how strong, convincing, and sincere were those appeals. As to the clause being made mandatory, he absolutely agreed with all his associates and a large number on the other side. He felt certain that the appeal for the parents' committee ought to have been granted. He himself had been for many years engaged in the work of negotiation, and did not believe in the policy of bluff. A thing, if it were right, ought to be done for itself and because it was right, and not because of the possibility that might hereafter come into existence of making arrangements or bargains with other people. He was convinced from the speeches made by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench that they believed the appeals made from each side of the House were based upon moderation and right, and it was upon those lines and not upon those of political expediency, that they ought to recognise the inherent justice of the clause and deal with it. No Member of this House more recognised the high constitutional issue and the gravity of the issue involved in these proceedings than he did. On the general principles of the Bill he and his friends had been heartily in support of the Government, but he believed they ought to put themselves right in this House and meet their friends as far as they possibly could, not merely the Roman Catholics, but every case in which Clause 4 could be brought into operation. He held that the further extension of Clause 4, which might very well result from the discussion of these Amendments, would have the effect of strengthening the hands of the Government in the conflict in which they might possibly be engaged. The Government, if it was to enter into that battle, should enter into it as a strong man armed, having done its best to meet every possible appeal for fairness, and knowing that the chances of success were much greater

191
because it had its quarrel just. On these grounds he seconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Question, to add the words 'except in regard to Amendments to Clause 4."—(Mr. C. J. O'Donnell).
Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
MR. BIRRELLsaid the hon. Member of course knew that in pleading on behalf of Clause 4 he was preaching to the converted. He had never been unwilling to see that clause strengthened; but, anxious to be in order, he was not entitled to deal with the subject except in so far as reasons had been urged for exempting this clause from the purview of the Resolution now before the House. But Clause 4 would be as likely to receive discussion upon the Resolution as if it were separated from the Resolution. There would be nothing to prevent that discussion, and there would not be the restrictions that accompanied the Committee stage. He would do his best to deal with the various points presented in the course of the general discussion, but it was not advisable to make this exception.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he should vote for the Amendment, for he recognised the advantage of discussing a particular question isolated from a number of others. If they were asked to deal with nine or ten important questions at the same time it was manifest they could not divide upon a distinct issue or obtain a definite answer upon it. They did not all know what was the policy of the Government in regard to Clause 4 or how far they would be willing to modify their original proposal to meet the views of the House of Lords, or whether they intended to modify them at all. He saw no chance of having a clear, precise, sharply-cut discussion upon what was the most important clause in the Bill, and this could not be had unless it was isolated from the vague, general, and necessarily loose discussion which must take place if they embodied in one Resolution all the complex questions contained in the Lords' Amendments. For those reasons he should support the Amendment.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 106; Noes, 306. (Division List No. 488.)

AYES.

Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex F.

Craik, Sir Henry

Liddell, Henry

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

Long, Col. (Chas. W. (Evesham)

Anstruther-Gray, Major

Doughty, Sir George

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Lowe, Sir Francis William

Balcarres, Lord

Du Cros, Harvey

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

Balfour, Rt. Hn. A T.(CityLond.

Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

Magnus, Sir Philip

Balfour, Capt, C. B. (Hornsey)

Faber, George Denison (York)

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

Fell, Arthur

Morpeth, Viscount

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Nield, Herbert

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Fletcher, J. S.

O'Brien, William (Cork)

Benn, W. (T'w'rHamlets, S. Geo.)

Forster, Henry William

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

Bowles, G. Stewart

Glovor, Thomas

Percy, Earl

Boyle, Sir Edward

Haddock, George R.

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Hamilton, Marquess of

Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

Bull, Sir William James

Hardy, Laurence (Kent. Ashford

Rawlinson, John Frederic Peel

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Remnant, James Farquharson

Burnyeat, W. J. D.

Healy, Timothy Michael

Roche, Augustine (Cork)

Butcher, Samuel Henry

Heaton, John Henniker

Rothschild, James Farquharson

Carlile, E. Hildred

Helmsley, Viscount

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Hervey, F. W. F. (Bury S.Edmds

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Cave, George

Hornby, Sir William Henry

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C.W.

Horridge, Thomas Gardner

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Houston, Robert Paterson

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

Hunt, Rowland

Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

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

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Wore

Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

Starkey, John R.

Clynes,, J. R.

Keswick, William

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh)

Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Lane-Fox. G. R.

Summerbell, T.

Cox, Harold

Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareh'm

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Wardle, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

Thornton, Percy M.

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

C. J. O'Donnell and Mr. Walsh.

Valentia, Viscount

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

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

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Younger, George

NOES

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Crombie, John William

Hodge, John

Acland, Francis Dyke

Crooks, William

Holden, E. Hopkinson

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Dalmeny, Lord

Holland, Sir William Henry

Agnew, George William

Dalziel, James Henry

Hooper, A. G.

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Davies, David (Montgomery Co

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

Alden, Percy

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset N.

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Armitage, R.

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Hudson, Walter

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Hutton, Alfred Eddison

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Dickinson, W.H. (St. Pancras, N

Hyde, Clarendon

Astbury, John Meir

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Idris, T. H. W.

Atherley-Jones, L.

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Illingworth, Percy H.

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Dobson, Thomas W.

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

Baring, Godfrey(Isle of Wight)

Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

Jardine, Sir J.

Barker, John

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Jenkins, J.

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Barnard, E. B.

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Elibank, Master of

Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

Beauchamp, E.

Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Beaumont, Hn. W. C. B. (Hexhm

Erskine, David C.

Kearley, Hudson E.

Beck, A. Cecil

Essex, R. W.

Kelley, George D.

Bellairs, Carlyon

Evans, Samuel T.

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Berridge, T. H. D.

Everett, R. Lacey

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd

Faber, G. H. (Boston)

Kitson, Rt. Hon. Sir James

Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

Fenwick, Charles

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Billson, Alfred

Ferens, T. R.

Lambert, George

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Lamont, Norman

Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshire

Findlay, Alexander

Langley, Batty

Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Brace, William

Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington)

Bramsdon, T. A.

Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

Lehmann, R. C.

Brigg, John

Fuller, John Michael F.

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

Bright, J. A.

Fullerton, Hugh

Levy, Maurice

Brodie, H. C.

Gibb, James (Harrow)

Lewis, John Herbert

Brooke, Stopford

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Brunner, Rt. Hn. Sir J. T. (Chesh.

Gooch, George Peabody

Lough, Thomas

Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen

Grant, Corrie

Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

Bryce, J. A. (Inverness Burghs

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Lyell, Charles Henry

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Greenwood, Hamar (York)

Lynch, H. B.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Macdonald, J.M. (FalkirkB'ghs

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Griffith, Ellis J.

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Chas.

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Maclean, Donald

Byles, William Pollard

Gulland, John W.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Cairns, Thomas

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

M'Arthur, William

Cameron, Robert

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

M'Callum, John M.

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore'r)

M'Crae, George

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Hart-Davies, T.

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

M'Micking, Major G.

Chance, Frederick William

Harwood, George

Maddison, Frederick

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Mallet, Charles E.

Cheetham, John Frederick

Haworth, Arthur A.

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

Clough, William

Hedges, A. Paget

Markham, Arthur Basil

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Helme, Norval Watson

Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Hemmerde, Edward George

Marnham, F. J.

Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras,W

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Massie, J.

Corbett, CH (Sussox, E. Grinst'd

Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.

Masterman, C. F. G.

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Henry, Charles S.

Micklem, Nathaniel

Cory, Clifford John

Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.)

Molteno, Percy Alport

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Cowan, W. H.

Higham, John Sharp

Montagu, E. S.

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Hobart, Sir Robert

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Cremer, William Randal

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Morley, Rt. Hon. John

194

195

Morrell, Philip

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'd

Tillett, Louis John

Horse, L. L.

Robinson, S.

Toulmin, George

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Myer, Horatio

Roe, Sir Thomas

Verney, F. W.

Napier, T. B.

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Vivian, Henry

Newnes, F. Notts (Bassetlaw)

Rose, Charles Day

Walters, John Tudor

Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

Rowlands, J.

Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.)

Nicholls, George

Runciman, Walter

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Norman, Sir Henry

Russell, T. W.

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent)

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Wardle, George J.

Nuttall, Harry

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

Partington, Oswald

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney)

Paul, Herbert

Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyd )

Waterlow, D. S.

Paulton, James Mellor

Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

Watt, H. Anderson

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Perks, Robert William

Sears, J. E.

Whitbread, Howard

Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton

Seaverns, J. H.

White, George (Norfolk)

Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke

Seely, Major J. B.

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Pollard, Dr.

Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

Whitehead, Rowland

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh.Central)

Sherwell, Arthur James

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Price, Robt John (Norfolk, E.)

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford, E.)

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Radford, G. H.

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthn

Rainy, A. Rolland

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Raphael, Herbert H.

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Wilson, Hon. C.H.W.(Hull, W.)

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

Soares, Ernest J.

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Rees, J. D.

Stanger, H. Y.

Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

Rendall, Athelstan

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.)

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

Renton, Major Leslie

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Richards, Thos. (W. Monm'th)

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Winfrey, R.

Richardson, A.

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Yoxall, James Henry

Rickett, J. Compton

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Ridsdale, E. A.

Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Pease.

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Thomasson, Franklin

Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee)

Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E

Main Question again proposed.
LORD BALCARRESsaid he wished to make an appeal to the President of the Board of Education before the main question was put. In his speech yesterday the right hon. Gentleman adumbrated two or three possible changes which the Government might adopt. Would he take the House of Commons as well as the House of Lords into his confidence, and put those Amendments upon the Paper?
*MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member seems to be wandering from the Motion now before the House. What he says may be perfectly relevant to the next question, but it is hardly relevant to this one.
MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHsaid there were two reasons why they should deal with these Amendments en bloc. The first was the nature of the Amendments, and the second was the
196
nature of the Assembly that made them. To deal with these Amendments otherwise than en bloc would be impracticable. To go through them one by one would be to fall into the trap which had been laid for the Government and their supporters.
LORD BALCARRESsaid he did not think any trap had been laid.
MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHsaid that at any rate he did not think that was the way they should approach the discussion of the Lords' Amendments. It would not only be impracticable to deal with them otherwise than en bloc, but it would be a most dangerous precedent. The House of Lords practically adopted the principle of the Bill by giving a Second Reading, and then they introduced Amendments which interfered with that principle. In deciding how they were going to discuss this matter the House must take into consideration the character of the Assembly with which they were dealing.
*MR. SPEAKER: Of course I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is going to say, but I rather fail to see the relevancy of that to this particular Motion.
MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHsaid their decision whether they would consider the Amendments in detail or en bloc depended on the question whether the institution with which they were dealing had given a guarantee of its good faith in the past. If the House of Lords accepted the Second Heading of a Bill, and then, as in this case, introduced an entirely new Bill, it was a matter for comment how this House was going to deal with the House of Lords in the future negotiations. He would take the Speaker's ruling as to whether that was out of I order.
*MR. SPEAKER: I would like to hear what the hon. Gentleman is going to say.
MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH: In answer to your invitation, Mr. Speaker—
*MR. SPEAKER: I gave no invitation. The hon. Member began a statement which was possibly disorderly, and I said that I did not see the relevancy of it to the Motion.
MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHsaid the Motion of the Prime Minister dealt with the way in which they should conduct their negotiations with the House of Lords. If they were dealing with the House of Lords, acting in good faith, that was a reason for discussing the Amendments in detail; but if the House of Lords were not acting in good faith, that was a reason for dealing with the Amendments en bloc. He had the authority of a right hon. Gentleman who was still a Member of this House upon the character of the House of Lords. He said—
"You are dealing with a vast, overwhelming, preponderating, huge dead-weight of prejudice, of passion, of interest, of bigotry, of blind class and party spirit, impenetrable by argument, immovable by discussion; beyond the reach of reason, and only to be driven from their hereditary and antiquated entrenchments, not by argument, or by reason, or by discussion, but by force."
If that were a true description of the other place, he suggested that they should deal with that other place en bloc
198
and not in detail. If the other place was not amenable to argument, discussion, or reason, surely there was no point in discussing this matter in detail.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid nobody had been more anxious than he had been for years for a conflict with the House of Lords, and he agreed that an outsider not possessed of information must always hesitate to give an opinion adverse to the Government on a question of procedure in a conflict between the two Houses. But he asked himself, as an opponent of the House of Lords, was this good card-playing? When they made a move in a game it was a bad move unless they remembered what their opponents would do next. It must be remembered, however, much as they were opposed to the House of Lords, that it contained a number of men who, to say the least, were not fools. He would recall some of the men they had known in the House of Commons for twenty-five years, who, he would assume, were now coaching the Conservative Party and were considering the question of the great conflict that was apparently looming before them. He would take Lord St. Aldwyn, Lord Goschen, and the Duke of Devonshire. They were all opposed to the Government and to this Bill. There was a legion of men behind them of equal capacity. But the Government made a move in the game. It seemed a very simple move. It seemed a very simple move to get rid of all the Amendments by sending them back to the House of Lords with an intimation that the Commons could not accept them. The course of procedure between the two Houses, he took it, would be that the House of Commons would send up a message to the Lords saying that they were unable to acept their Lordships' Amendments to the Education Bill. The Lords, of course, had not read the White Paper or the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education in which he suggested that there were certain Amendments which the Government would be happy to accept. Now, could any one suppose that the three or four gentlemen who were leaders in another place, could not concoct a message which would euchre the Government? And that was what the Lords

199
would do if they had any sense. Was it to be supposed that there were no men in the House of Lords who were as skilful, eager, and watchful as the occupants of the Treasury Bench at this game? He himself could draw out fifty respectful messages which would throw the responsibility of the loss of the Bill on the Minister for Education. He maintained that though the House of Commons had been flouted many times in the past by the House of Lords they had never been made ridiculous before. Care should be taken that they were not making the Commons the door mat of the Peers. He presumed that the Peers took notice of the Journal of the House of Commons, and they could note that this was the first time in the history of the British Constitution that this House refused to pass Amendments moved by the Government themselves, and accepted not by a majority of Conservatives in another place, but by the entire Peers—Radical, Liberal, and Conservative. Suppose then that the Peers sent back a respectful message that they had always been most happy to consider any Amendments on their Amendments, but that they were unable to deal with the rejection of their Amendments in the shape in which they saw them noted in the Journals of the House. It should be remembered that there was a plain and constitutional way of meeting the Peers and that was by a Motion put from the Chair that the Lords' Amendments be now considered. It was open to the House to say "no" to that Motion. That was done in 1881. But the Government had not adopted that constitutional way of rejecting the Peers' Amendments; and they had put the Peers on the side of the English Constitution, and it was the Government who had made an inroad upon it. But that was not all. A lurid light had been thrown on the position by the rejection of the two Amendments moved that night—the Amendment dealing with Clause 4, and the Amendment about religious education. It must be remembered that the Government must go to the country some day on these issues. He took it that the supporters of the Government were serious in their Radical heart in their declaration that they wanted a conflict
200
with the Peers. He himself was aching for a conflict with the Peers, but he wanted to choose the ground for that conflict. There was great force in the speech made the previous day by the hon. Member for Waterford who said that on this Bill they would go into the conflict with the Peers with their hands tied. Supposing they did that and agreed to the rejection of the Amendments, they might take another course and send another message stating that they concurred with the Commons in the rejection of all their Amendments, including the Government Amendments, except the one to which the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone referred, viz., that the children of England should have half an hour every day in the week to hear the Word of God taught—would the Government and their supporters go to the country on such an issue? Therefore, when he heard hon. Gentleman opposite approving and applauding the course the Government was about to take he asked himself why all those Amendments had been passed in an Assembly in which were some of the most capable Englishmen of the day. The Government, in his judgment, by adopting the course they had taken might have saved time but had lost the day. Did the Government imagine that all their opponents were fools? Were they going into this war with the Peers on the suggestion that all the generals in the Peers were like the generals which the late Government sent out to South Africa? Looking at this matter as an opponent of the Peers and an opponent of the Bill he could not commend the generalship of the Government in their endeavour to carry their measure. Of course, they would all be wiser in the course of the next few days; but it often happened that when all these matters had been arranged and squared the proceeding was like a conflict on the stage when one of two combatants fell down to slow music. As an opponent of the Bill he wished to express his regret that the Government had chosen this battleground for their controversy with the House of Lords. Everybody knew that there was force in the argument addressed to the House by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford as to the desirability of passing some measure which

201
would get this thorny question out of the way. But suppose this Bill was lost where would they be next session? The Nonconformists would appeal to the Government to bring in the Bill again in some shape or form. The Irish Nationalists would demand some satisfaction for their position. Two big Bills could not be run in the same session, and there was a big Budget to be considered and discussed at length. Then, they knew that in the third session a Welsh Disestablishment Bill was promised. Therefore he thought that the advice given by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford was sound from the point of view of Parliamentary tactics, and even from the point of view of those who were in favour of the passage of this Bill. He had said nothing on the merits of the Lords' Amendments, but confined himself solely to the question of procedure; and he had to submit that as there still remained a fair modicum of sense in the Upper House, the Government had not yet said "check" to the Lords.
*MR. CAVEsaid he desired to point out that the question mainly considered by the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken was, what would be the next card to be played by the Government. Supporters of the Government on both sides of the House were not at one as to the card to be played; but from their speeches it was clear that the game which the Government were playing was not the game of education, but the game of securing some kind of triumph over the House of Lords. The House of Lords in making these Amendments were absolutely within their constitutional rights. Some of the Amendments had been actually proposed by the representative of the Government in the other House; there were others of them which the Minister for Education had expressed himself willing to consider, and there were some which he was not willing to consider at all. If the Government were desirous of carrying the Bill he did not see what was to prevent them from taking the Amend-
ments one by one, adopting those which were their own or which they were prepared to accept, and asking this House to reject those to which they entirely objected. Then the Lords would have something before them to go upon and some compromise might be arrived at. But if the Government said, "We reject the whole of the Amendments, then it was probable that there would not be any compromise and that the Lords would return the Amendments to this House. Was that what Ministers wanted? Did they want to kill the Bill and throw the blame for its destruction upon the other House? If so, he thought that this poor device would not avail the Government when the question came to be submitted to the country.
*MR. CARLILEasked how it arose that these Amendments were to be thrown back at the heads of the Members of the House of Lords. When the Bill passed out of this House and went to another place and when it came back it had an inscription upon it which was significant. The hon. Member for Northampton made some observations upon Clause 1, but he apparently did not notice the words at the commencement of the Bill—
"Be it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, etc."
He ventured to say that if His Majesty desired them to act with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal they ought to do so, and that when that advice was given it ought to be received with something like courtesy and not treated with contumely as the Government proposed. The hon. Member for Northampton last night by his speech would have despoiled the House of Lords of its prerogative. It seemed to him that this was another attempt on the part of the Government to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Question put.
The House divided. Ayes, 317; Noes, 89. (Division List, No. 489.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Agnew, George William

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Acland, Francis Dyke

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Armitage, R.

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Alden, Percy

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Kelley, George D.

Astbury, John Meir

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Atherley-Jones, L.

Dobson, Thomas W.

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Kitson, Rt. Hon. Sir James

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

Laidlaw, Robert

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Barker, John

Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

Lambert, George

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Lamont, Norman

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Elibank, Master of

Langley, Batty

Beale, W. P.

Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Beauchamp, E.

Essex, R. W.

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington)

Beaumont, Hn. W. C. B. (Hex'm)

Evans, Samuel T.

Lehmann, R. C.

Beck, A. Cecil

Eve, Harry Trelawney

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

Bell, Richard

Everett, R. Lacey

Levy, Maurice

Bellairs, Carlyon

Faber, G. H. (Boston)

Lewis, John Herbert

Benn, W. (T'w'rHamlets, S. Geo.

Fenwick, Charles

Lloyd-George. Rt. Hon. David

Berridge, T. H. D.

Forens, T. R.

Lough, Thomas

Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

Findlay, Alexander

Lyell, Charles Henry

Billson, Alfred

Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

Lynch, H. B.

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs)

Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshire)

Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Bottomley, Horatio

Fuller, John Michael F.

Maclean, Donald

Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

Fullerton, Hugh

M'Arthur, William

Brace, William

Gibb, James (Harrow)

M'Crae, George

Bramsdon, T. A.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Brigg, John

Glover, Thomas

M'Micking. Major G.

Bright, J. A.

Goddard, Daniel Ford

Maddison, Frederick

Brocklehurst, W. B.

Gooch, George Peabody

Mallet, Charles E.

Brodie, H. C.

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Brooke, Stopford

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

Brunner, Rt. Hn. Sir J. T. (Chesh.

Griffith, Ellis J.

Markham, Arthur Basil

Bryce, Rt. Hon. James (Aberdeen

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston

Bryce, J.A. (Inverness Burghs)

Gulland, John W.

Marnham, F. J.

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Massie, J.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

Masterman, C. F. G.

Burnyeat. W. J. D.

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

Micklem, Nathaniel

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

Molteno, Percy Alport

Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Chas.

Hart-Davies, T.

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Byles, William Pollard

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Montagu, E. S.

Cairns, Thomas

Harwood, George

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Cameron, Robert

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Morley, Rt. Hon. John

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Haworth, Arthur A.

Morrell, Philip

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Morse, L. L.

Causton. Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Hedges, A. Paget

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Helme, Norval Watson

Myer, Horatio

Chance, Frederick William

Hemmerde, Edward George

Napier, T. B.

Cheetham, John Frederick

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Henry, Charles S.

Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

Clarke, C. Goddard

Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.)

Nicholls, George

Clough, William

Herbert, T. Arnold Wycombe)

Norman, Sir Henry

Clynes, J. R.

Higham, John Sharp

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Hobart, Sir Robert

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Nuttall, Harry

Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W

Hodge, John

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

Corbett, CH. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

Holden, E. Hopkinson

Partington, Oswald

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Hooper, A. G.

Paul, Herbert

Cory, Clifford John

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

Paulton, James Mellor

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

Cowan, W. H.

Howard, Hon, Geoffrey

Perks, Robert William

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Hudson, Walter

Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton)

Cremer, William Randal

Hutton, Alfred Eddison

Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke

Crombie, John William

Hyde, Clarendon

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Crooks, William

Idris, T. H. W.

Pollard, Dr.

Dalmeny, Lord

Illingworth, Percy H.

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)

Dalziel, James Henry

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)

Davies, David (Montgomery, Co.

Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

Jardine, Sir J.

Radford, G. H.

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

Jenkins, J.

Rainy, A. Rolland

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Raphael, Herbert H.

Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro)

Dickinson, W.H.(St. Pancras, N

Kearley, Hudson E.

Rees, J. D.

204

205

Rendall, Athelstan

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent

Renton, Major Leslie

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Ward, W. Dudley(South'mpt'n)

Richards, Thos. (W. Monm'th)

Simon, John Allsebrook

Wardle, George J.

Richardson, A.

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

Rickett, J. Compton

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Ridsdale, E. A.

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Waterlow, D. S.

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Watt, H. Anderson

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Soares, Ernest J.

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Roberts John H. (Denbighs.)

Stanger, H. Y.

Whitbread, Howard

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

White, George (Norfolk)

Robinson, S.

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Roe, Sir Thomas

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Whitehead, Rowland

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Rose, Charles Day

Summerbell, T.

Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palme

Rowlands, J.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Runciman, Walter

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Williams, Llewelyn(Carmarth'

Russell, T. W.

Tennant, Sir Edw. (Salisbury)

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Williamson, A.

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Thomasson, Franklin

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Thompson, J.W.H.(Somerset, E

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Tillett, Louis John

Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

Toulmin, George

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

Schwann, Sir C.E. (Manchester)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

Scott, A.H.(Ashton under Lyne

Verney, F. W.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Sears, J. E.

Vivian, Henry

Winfrey, R.

Seaverns, J. H.

Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

Yoxall, James Henry

Seely, Major J. B.

Walsh, Stephen

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Walters, John Tudor

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

Shaw, Rt. Hn. T. (Hawick B.)

Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.)

Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Pease.

NOES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Faber, George Denison (York)

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

Anstruther-Gray, Major

Fell, Arthur

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Percy, Earl

Balcarres, Lord

Fletcher, J. S.

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (CityLond.

Forster, Henry William

Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

Haddock, George R.

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Hamilton, Marquess of

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Bowles, G. Stewart

Healy, Timothy Michael

Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East)

Boyle, Sir Edward

Heaton, John Henniker

Smith, F.E. (Liverpool, Walton

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Helmsley, Viscount

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

Bull, Sir William James

Hervey F.W.F.(Bury, S.Edmd's

Starkey, John R.

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Hornby, Sir William Henry

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.

Butcher, Samuel Henry

Houston, Robert Paterson

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Carlile, E. Hildred

Hunt, Rowland

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw.

Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

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

Cave, H. George

Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C.W.

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Thornton, Percy M.

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin,S.

Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Wore

Lowe, Sir Francis William

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Corbett, T. L. (Down. North)

Magnus, Sir Philip

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

Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Younger, George

Craik, Sir Henry

Morpeth, Viscount

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Nicholson, Win. G. (Petersfield)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES. Sir

Du Cros, Harvey

Nield, Herbert

Alexander Acland-Hood and

Duncan, Robt. (Lanark, Govan

O'Brien, William (Cork)

Viscount Valentia.

Bill read a second time, and committed for to-morrow.

Ordered, "That the question of agreement or disagreement with the Lords Amendment to the Education (England and Wales) Bill be put with respect of the Amendments as a whole."

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Order read, for further consideration of Lords Amendments.
Lords Amendments read a second time.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. Lough,):moved formally "that this House doth disagree with the Lords' Amendments."
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendments."
*SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid this was a somewhat strange episode in the procedure on this great question. The House first decided not without remonstrance, to deal with the Lords' Amendments as a whole. Now they were invited, without a word of comment, to disagree with those Amendments as a whole. It reminded him of a proceeding familiar in his school days. When a boy showed an exceedingly bad exercise to the master it was torn in two and given back to him without a word, except a direction to produce a better and more satisfactory copy. He did not ask whether it was respectful or courteous to the House of Lords, for he did not believe such a consideration would weigh for a. moment on the benches opposite. But was it fair so to treat Amendments on which the Lords had spent exceeding care and study? If the Lords had acted on purely Party considerations, if they had really desired to do a service to the Unionist Party, to which the majority of them belonged, they would have declined to make a. single Amendment in the Bill, and sent it to the country for administration in the form in which it left the House of Commons. They all knew the history of this Bill. It was prepared so hastily that the Minister in his opening speech read out, as part of the Bill, extracts from an earlier draft. It was so ill-considered that every clause as it came under the Committee's eye appeared to be a revelation to the Minister in charge of it. The Bill was so crudely planned that in the course of its progress the House was introduced to such trifling novelties as the ballot, the State-aided school, a delegation clause as long as an ordinary Act of Parliament, and three separate constitutions for the Welsh education authority. The Bill was discussed under the guillotine, which necessarily made it impossible to discuss, not merely the crude Bill itself, but the Government Amendments to that Bill,
208
to say nothing of the Amendment which the Opposition desired to press upon the House. Supposing this Bill, patched and mended and doctored, this ill-conditioned offspring of the Government, had gone to the country as the first fruit of Radical legislation, what would have been the situation in a year's time of the Minister of Education, with the disappointed Nonconformist on one side, the betrayed Catholic on the other, the injured Church and the overwhelmed ratepayer, all hostile? But the Lords took a more patriotic course. They had made a workable Bill of an almost unworkable Bill. They had made a radically unjust Bill as just as it was possible to make any Bill that was brought in, not in the interest of education, but at the bidding of the passive resister and a section of religious opinion bitterly hostile to the Church schools. The Lords had undoubtedly introduced large and important Amendments into the Bill. But a study of these Amendments would show that they made no departure from the general principles of the Bill, but simply gave some effect to the repeated assurances of the Minister of Education, that the denominations would be fairly treated. The Lords accepted the principle of popular control, which brought Cowper-Temple teaching within the reach of every child, and they accepted the principle that the denominations should pay for their own religious teaching. This Bill had merely been extended in its provisions, and it did not lie in the mouth of any one to say that it was a different Bill from that which was sent up to the House of Lords. The main purpose of their Amendments was to secure as far as possible the opportunity for religious teaching for all, and special religious teaching for those whose parents desired it and were ready to pay for it. This was the purport of the Amendments on Clauses 1 and 7 which provided that such instruction should be given in the schools where it was possible. Were these issues upon which the Government would care to go to the country? He should have thought not. As regards the alteration in Clause 7 which brings religious teaching within the school hours, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education said that the clause as it stood was very near to his heart, but that some of his colleagues voted against

209
him; that the clause was carried by a bare majority in this House, and that in the House of Lords, the Leader of the Government voted against him. It could not, therefore, be said that the House of Lords had done any harm there. As regards the Amendment to Clause 7, which ensured the making of some provision for religious instruction in every school, the right hon. Gentleman had referred to Pan-denominationalism. Pan-denominationalism in this connection could only arise in fancy. Then the right hon. Gentleman said it interfered with public control and brought the local authorities under the Board of Education in a way in which they had never been brought under before. In that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong. The question of giving religious teaching in the school hours was a matter of by-law and time table. That was common knowledge at the Board of Education, and to say that a subject must not be excluded by by-law and must be included in the timetable was no new thing. Then was the Amendment unnecessary? It was well known that some local authorities discountenanced religious instruction in their schools. There were some Welsh counties who acted thus. There was the case of Huddersfield, where the local authority said it desired to eliminate religious teaching from the schools. They were told that in one of the Welsh counties in which there was no religious teaching in schools there was no crime, and that elsewhere such crime as there was emanated from children brought up in voluntary schools. If that sort of thing proved anything it proved too much.
MR. BIRRELL: In Huddersfield they do have religious instruction.
*SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid there was religious obvervance, but that it was desired there to have no religious instruction. They had frequently heard, and with pleasure, the right hon. Gentleman in tones of genuine conviction insist upon the importance of religious instruction in our elementary schools.
MR. BIRRELL: Not so much for Nonconformist children as for perfectly indifferent parents.
*SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that under the Government Bill no local education authority need make any provision for religious instruction whatever in the council schools, and therefore the only security for religious instruction would be in the transferred voluntary schools in which facilities were given, and the local authority need not accept a transfer of a single voluntary school. No local authority need provide any religious instruction to the children; no parent need send his child to school during that part of the school hours devoted to religious instruction; and no teacher need give it. That was the position of things. The facilities which were given in schools under Clause 3 would be nugatory in many cases if the teacher habitually employed in the school was not allowed to teach the children religion, and the facilities under Clause 4 might be refused or taken away if a single child demanded separate school accommodation which was not forthcoming. Such was the Bill as it stood and it pointed towards secularism, and he ventured to say the Lords were quite right when they put into the Bill that which the right hon. Gentleman approved and the country desired—namely, that elementary education should not be divorced from religious instruction. It was complained that the Lords had put in frequent appeals to the Board of Education, but the right hon. Gentleman himself when he introduced that half-hearted bilateral clause put a very heavy burden on the Board of Education, and there was nothing in the Lords' Amendment putting anything like the burden on the Board of Education which the Board of Education had to bear when the Act of 1902 came into operation, and which it bore, he thought, without coming into collision to any serious extent with the local authorities. The right hon. Gentleman talked about trusting the local authorities, but in fact he was afraid of them. He confessed he did not think it was a desirable thing that the Minister for Education should go about saying, "For heaven's sake don't put this power into my hands, because it may bring me into conflict with the local education authorities." Surely the business of the Board of Education was to enforce the law and advise the local authorities, and it was not right that a Government Department should flinch

211
from the reasonable exercise of such powers as the Legislature entrusted to it, simply because the Minister dreaded a possible conflict with a local authority. The Amendments of the Lords, then, in no way interfered with popular control. As to the question of tests for teachers, that was not wholly unconnected with popular control, because the management of the schools, whether council or voluntary schools, would be henceforth entirely in the hands of the local education authority, who would have not only the power of appointing all the managers of every school, but the absolute appointment and dismissal of the teachers. How, then, could the employment of the teachers under Clause 3 amount to a test? The right hon. Gentleman said last night that a test was a difficult thing to define, but that if the teacher in the school were allowed to give denominational religious teaching it was impossible to prevent people ascertaining whether the teacher could give it, and would give it, and then inviting him to give it, and in that way we came to imposing a test. The answer to that was clear. The teacher was appointed by the local authority, and if the teacher were willing to give denominational teaching and the local authority allowed it, to forbid it was to infringe the rights or limit the discretion of the local authority. If the local authority disapproved of the teacher giving such instruction the remedy was in their own hands, and they could give the teacher notice to quit, and appoint a teacher who would not be willing to give the religious teaching required under Clause 3. The vexatious provision which forbade the teacher who was accustomed to the children, and respected by the parents, from giving religious instruction to the children whom he was teaching every day, so far as it was based on the ground of no tests for teachers, was absolutely without foundation. He thought that provision in the Bill was a real hardship imposed upon the transferred schools in the rural areas. The right hon. Gentleman said truly that a test was difficult to define. What were tests? They were told constantly that the demand of the country expressed at the last election was for the abolition of tests. He dared say it was in a certain light. Any hon. Member who stood on a public platform at the general election and put the question, "Are you in favour
212
of tests for teachers?" would be certain to get the answer "No," and he thought the answer would be welcome to both sides. But if the further question had been put, "Are you in favour of letting a man give religious instruction who is disqualified by his ignorance or unbelief?" surely the answer in that case also would have been "No," and it would have commanded respect on both sides. What the Lords had done was to secure the freedom of the teacher. They had not gone so far as the Government themselves had gone in imposing tests, because in Clause 11 of the Government Bill the local authority was directed to see that the teacher appointed to a school coming under that clause was capable, and certainly willing, to give the religious teaching required in the school. So far as the Lords had dealt with the teacher and the giving of religious teaching they had not gone so far anywhere as Clause 11 of the Government. All that they had done in the way of novelty was to introduce the parents' committee, and the reference to it in the case of Clause 4 schools, and he thought the President of the Board of Education had said he was prepared to consider this proposal favourably. As regarded popular control and tests for teachers, he hoped he had established the entire concurrence of the Lords in both these propositions. In regard to the Salisbury Amendment, which was said by the right hon. Gentleman to be wholly inconsistent with popular control, he would point out that by the very terms of that Amendment a wide discretion was left to the local authority, while it met the case of the single school areas, an admitted gap in the Act of 1902. The case had always been spoken of as purely a Nonconformist grievance. It was a two-sided grievance. There had always been Church children who only had access to a Council School. He admitted that the Government Bill entirely remedied one side of that question. Cowper-Temple teaching had been brought within the reach of every child, but the very provision which did that also created a very serious grievance on the other side, because it must be borne in mind that 14,000 voluntary schools would be turned into council schools, and that the children in them would no longer be sure of the religious teaching they used to get. A good many things

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might happen. The local authority might decline to take a transfer of the schools or the owners might withdraw them, or they might sell the schools to the authority. The remedy proposed by the Lords' Amendments put no hardship upon the local authority, it imposed no cost upon them, and only called upon the local authority to make certain inquiries and allow certain things to be done. He would endeavour to summarise the general purport of the Lords' Amendments. Under those Amendments religious teaching in school hours was to be available for all, and definite religious teaching was to be given to all those who desired to have it, but not at the expense of the local authority. The facilities given under Clauses 3 and 4 were ensured as real substantial facilities by the changes which had been made by the Lords instead of being the illusory things they were under the original Bill. The teachers were to be free from religious tests but also free to teach. And lastly no school which was structurally suitable and which was necessary for giving the religious instruction desired by parents for their children was to be rejected by the local authority without cause shown to the Commission. He ventured to think that those principles were worthy of the consideration of the Government. No doubt the President of the Board of Education would say that they were already embodied in the Bill, but if they were, his opinion was that they were so embedded in other matters as to be hardly discernible in many cases. He thought the Lords might very well stand on those principles which he ventured to assert would be found underlying all their Amendments. He did not desire any prolongation of those weary discussions which had taken place in the past. He supposed there was no one in this House except the President of the Board of Education who was more sensible than he was of the weariness to everyone concerned, the injury to education, and the disastrous effect upon religion of this unsettled state of the education question, but with all his desire for a settlement he did not wish for a hollow peace. He hoped that the Lords would not recede from the great principles on which their Amendments were based. He trusted that
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those great principles would remain in the Bill, and if this measure was lost on that account, the fault would not lie with the Opposition, who had laboured to give effect to those principles, or with the House of Lords, who had throughout enforced the main principles of the Bill by their Amendments and emphasised the assurances of the Government, but with those supporters of the Government who had, above all things, desired to see the Church schools disappear from our national system of education, and who had tried to enforce with a tryanny which appeared to him to amount to a grave form of religious persecution one form and one form only of religious teaching throughout the elementary education of this country.
COLONEL HERBERTsaid he would only refer to the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman in relation to that part of the United Kingdom to which he belonged, namely Wales. The hon. Baronet the Member for Oxford University had exercised his wit and what he presumed by courtesy must be called his humour, on the little Principality to which he belonged by referring to the clauses which set up a special education Council for Wales. If he took upon himself the task of criticising the hon. Baronet he should say that he knew everything about education except that which was most human. He had shown this conclusively in his remarks on the absence of religious instruction, for he had declared that there were schools in Wales in which no religious instruction whatever was given. The truth of the matter was that there was a large and increasing feeling in the Principality in favour of the elimination, not of the religious feeling, but of the denominational teaching. He could speak from a personal knowledge of the condition of Wales in regard to its religious teaching. He knew those places where it was said that there was no religious teaching in the schools, and he wished to inform the House that in those very places the children were better instructed in their Bible than probably any children in the whole of England. In those schools, under the national spirit, they had developed a love for this form of education, and they undertook their religious

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instruction in their own Sunday schools. He thought that was a lesson which a good many hon. Members might learn with advantage from these Nonconformist communities, from which the denominational dogmatic instruction was eliminated. In his opinion that system alone would provide the ultimate solution of this difficulty. The education council for Wales had been made the subject of a little gibe, but it should not be forgotten that in the Principality there was a distinct and separate feeling with regard to educational matters. The Lords who drew nothing from Wales except their revenues and some of their titles were not in touch with the Welsh people, and they did not realise that there existed amongst the people of the Principality a desire to see their country leading in the educational race and leading in a strictly national direction. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the Lords' Amendments tended towards popular control, but how could that statement be justified when their tendency was deliberately to stifle the desire of the Principality to conduct its education in a national way? He believed he expressed the feelings of the Welsh Members when he said that the treatment of Wales alone by the House of Lords was sufficient to make them reject the whole of the Amendments.
LORD EDMUND TALBOTsaid that earlier in the evening he criticised the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, because that speech was understood by hon. friends of his to show a sign of the weakening of the Catholic position in regard to this Bill. Before he was called to order he had made allusion to the fact that in that speech the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that he and those who thought with him were prepared to accept as a concession with regard to Clause 4, a three-fourths, instead of a four-fifths majority, and he ventured to point out to him that he thought that when the Bill was in Committee in this House, the hon. Baronet who was associated with him had on the Paper an Amendment for a bare majority. What he particularly wished to criticise with reference to the
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speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman was the fact that where is he appeared to assume that if they had a three-fourths majority of those voting, there would be only something like thirty Catholic schools left out of the extended facilities, whereas the real fact was that there would be no less than 170 Catholic schools left out. He was only venturing to criticise the statement that the Amendment now in the Bill, put in in another place, and which they might call the new sub-sections (b) and (c) of Clause 4, was, in the opinion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, too stringent, and one which, speaking for himself, he was not prepared to accept. He seemed inclined favourably towards the Amendment of the Lord President of the Council which was an alternative to the Amendment now on the Paper. He (Lord Edmund Talbot) wished to point out that that Amendment would not be accepted by his co-religionists, who had given this matter very careful study, and who represented Catholic opinion on this point. Even if the number of ten were raised, as the hon. and learned Gentleman suggested it ought to be raised, to twenty or thirty, it would not be acceptable to Catholics, because, among other reasons, under that Amendment the whole arrangement might be upset at any moment by an overflow of children from neighbouring schools. The hon. and learned Gentleman had used rather a vague phrase with reference to the appointment of the teacher. He had seemed to suggest that he would be satisfied provided the parents' committee had a voice in the selection of the teacher. He himself did not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman really meant it to be as weak as that; what he probably had in his mind was the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for East Mayo, but which, owing to the drastic and unprecedented action of the Government to-day, that hon. Member would not have an opportunity of moving. The words in that Amendment were that no teacher should be appointed without the concurrence of the parents' committee. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education had indicated certain concessions he was prepared to make with regard to the Amendments inserted

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in another place. Might he ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether that Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for East Mayo was one which the Government were prepared to accept?
MR. LOUGH: What the right hon. Gentleman said was that he would consider certain Amendments.
LORD EDMUND TALBOTsaid this was a particular Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for East Mayo, and he ventured most respectfully to ask whether they might have a definite answer "Yes" or "No" to the question: Were the Government prepared to accept that Amendment? The hon. Member shook his head. He gathered that he would not give an answer. Then they knew where they were. While there were Amendments suggested they were unable to get from the Government any definite announcement whether they would accept them or not. He would like to point out that this was an important question for Catholics. Even if the words of the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo were accepted by the Government they would not be quite strong enough to secure what the Catholics of this country demanded, viz., the statutory right to the appointment of teachers in their schools. The schools were built with the money of Catholics, and in many cases with the money of the very poor. He ventured to assure the Government that if this Bill passed into law and Catholic teachers were not appointed in Catholic schools, there would be serious trouble in the country and for the Government. With reference to the point that some of his hon. friends seemed to think that the Catholic opposition to this measure was not quite so strong as it was, he could assure them that it was stronger than ever because of the fact that in another place the Amendments which had been passed and which were now on the Paper were not considered by the Catholic body as sufficient to meet their requirements. A few days ago an important deputation waited on Lord Lansdowne. That deputation was composed, with two or three exceptions, entirely of laymen.
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They were representative of all the great industrial towns in the north, the midlands, and the south, including representatives from Durham, Liverpool, Birmingham, Derby, London, and right away down west as far as Bristol and Cardiff. They were unanimous in urging upon Lord Lansdowne the importance of, if possible, bringing in on the Report Stage still stronger Amendments on behalf of the Catholic schools than those which had already been inserted. They laid special stress on the question of the appointment of the teacher. Since that deputation a resolution had been passed by the Catholic Education Council, of which he had the honour to be a member, and which was representative of every Catholic diocese in this country, that the Bill as amended by the House of Lords still remained unsatisfactory to Catholics. That resolution was unanimously approved by the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, and he would remind the House that in all matters affecting religious education in the Church to which he belonged, the opinion and approval of the Bishops was not to be ignored. It was not surprising that as a result of that expression of opinion the Catholic Peers in another place decided to take the somewhat strong step of voting against the Third Reading of the Bill. They did so in spite of the fact that the Bill as amended contained many Amendments favourable to the Catholic schools, and in doing so they were only following the example of the hon. Member for Waterford and those who took similar action on the Third Reading in this House. He would like before he sat down to call attention to the resolution passed by the Liverpool City Council one day last week in which they decided to send a petition asking this House to accept the Lords' Amendments. That resolution was very significant. It was passed by sixty-one votes to four, and the four members in the minority were members of the Liberal Party, but the rest of the Liberal Party, belonging to the city council, walked out and did not vote. He thought that was very significant for this reason, that Liverpool understood the Catholic side of the question and, if he might venture to say so to hon. Gentlemen opposite, was far more sympathetic than the

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Government was with regard to the Catholic position. He would like to quote a short extract from the speech, the remarkable speech delivered the other day by the Catholic Bishop of Liverpool. He quoted it with all possible respect as a warning to His Majesty's Government as to what might possibly happen if in the future Catholic chools were not given what Catholics demanded as justice. This was what he said—
"As to the future it seemed to him dark. It might be that they would have to resist the law, not in any passive sense, but in an active sense, for passive resistance did not count. The present was a time for plain speaking and a time for them to decide whether to obey God or the law. If their opponents thought they would take over Catholic schools, they would find Catholics ready to fight."
He would remind the Government that there were in Lancashire alone 150,000 Catholic children in the Catholic schools, and he would suggest to them before any action was taken which would affect the Catholic welfare of these schools, it would be well for them to pause.
MR. T. RICHARDSsaid he wanted to congratulate the Government upon the course they had taken in this matter. He had been a silent but sincere admirer of the President of the Board of Education who had honestly attempted to hold the balance of justice fairly between the contending Parties in the House. If he had tilted it to one side it was in favour rather of his opponents than of his friends. He was anxious that this religious question should be settled finally, and he hoped the Government in any compromise would not weaken the measure of popular control in the Bill, or do anything which would impose tests on teachers, and that they would insist upon the retention of the clause giving Wales a national council. Whatever might be said as to the influence that had been at work in the Lords with respect to other Amendments, he thought he would be right in stating that the Amendment of the Lords deleting this clause had been dictated by the Welsh Bishops in the House of Lords. And he supposed the only reason that could be advanced for that by the Bishops was that they were afraid to entrust the
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people of Wales with the religious education of their children. The Leader of the Opposition in several speeches had said that they ought to insist upon full parental control of the religious education of the children. If that was so, then here were the people of Wales—a whole nation—unanimously asking to be entrusted with the religious education of their children. There were differences in the Welsh Party upon many things. He supposed it would be a very difficult thing to assimilate the collectivism of the junior Member for Merthyr with the individualism of the senior Member for Merthyr, and there were many other differences in the Party. But whatever differences of opinion in other matters there might be, the whole of the Welsh Members were unanimous in their desire that the Government should insist upon the retention of this clause. Given this Welsh national council, the religious question would not arise, or if it did he was of opinion that it would be amicably arranged. He had had some experience of education both as regards school boards and intermediate education, and on one occasion he remembered all the members of a school board on which he served were Nonconformists with the exception of the vicar of the parish. The only religious instruction given to the children consisted of a prayer, the singing of a hymn, and the ordinary observances of that kind, but the vicar proposed that they should give simple Bible teaching. Strange to say, the whole of the Nonconformist members of the board agreed to that without any quarrel or difficulty whatever, and the agreement was still in force. He was in favour of religious teaching in the schools, and he was therefore pained that some of his closest friends on that side of the House had swallowed the bait so carefully laid for them by the hon. Member for Burnley in his "secular" Resolution. He had heard it said on Labour platforms—"Look at the economic condition of this country, the poverty on the one hand, and the riches on the other, notwithstanding that you have had twenty centuries of the Christian religion." He agreed that the Christian religion did not exercise the power it might, but he was horrified to contemplate what the economic condition of the

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working people of the country would have been were it not for those twenty centuries of the influence of the Christian religion. The question which naturally occurred to a Welshman was why the Welsh Bishops were afraid of trusting the religious education of the children to the Welsh people. After a careful survey of what was said in the House of Lords it occurred to him that one reason was that the Welsh Bishops wished to punish the Welsh people for the sins of the President of the Board of Trade. It was told—he thought it was in Shakespeare—that Edward the Fourth was persuaded that someone whose name began with the letter C was to be the cause of his downfall, and, as the result of that, he sent the poor Duke of Clarence to the Tower. He thought the President of the Board of Trade would have preferred that the Welsh Bishops should have sent him to the Tower rather than expunge from the Bill the clause giving Wales a Welsh Council. The real reason why the Welsh Bishops were opposed to entrusting the religious education of the children to the people was because in the long past their predecessors so neglected their duty, and allowed not only the education of the children, but all religious observance, to fall into such a state of degradation, that they lost, and had never regained, the control and influence they should have in religious matters with the Welsh people. For a hundred years after the Reformation, dissent in Wales was unknown, and then a few stalwarts, who felt that the fetters of the Established Church bound them down, and that its practices were not for the elevation of the people, commenced a religious campaign in the Principality, with the result that places of worship sprang up until there was a place for every man, woman and child. Men coming from the mine, the forge, or the shop, built up with their own hands the little places of worship on the hillsides, and these were the people to whom the four Welsh Bishops refused to entrust the religious education of the children. He was glad to believe that the activities and the purity of the Church had much improved of late years; but what had occurred in the little village he was born in and where he lived might be taken
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as typical of what had taken place all over the principality. Long ago, before he was born, Nonconformist places of worship provided seats for every man, woman and child. The Established Church was there, and worshipped in a small long room above a public house; while the vicar had a large mansion and extensive grounds on a most beautiful site. A new vicar came, and perhaps felt the qualms of conscience which David experienced on one occasion, that he should dwell in a splendid mansion while the ark of God was dwelling in a tent. The vicar put a lot of activity into the matter, collected money from his few members, and built a little church in the village.
MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERsaid he did not see what this had to do with the question before the House. The hon. Member must keep to the paint.
MR. T. RICHARDSsaid he was sorry: if he was out of order, but it had occurred to him that the refusal of the Bishops to trust Welshmen with the education of the children called for some indication of their work in the past. He would only add, to show the religious intolerance they met with sometimes, that the Bishop in consecrating the building, said, "Thank God, the little village had a church at last!" He hoped that whatever the Government did with other matters they would, in compliment to the unanimous desire of the Welsh representatives in the House, insist that the clause entrusting to the Welsh people the control of education in Wales should be retained. It came to this, that the voice of thirty-four publicly elected Members of the House of Commons were to be ignored, and the voice of four Bishops, who were never seen nor heard by 90 per cent. of the people, were to dictate the policy with regard to education in Wales. He hoped the Government would not be led away by those Bishops who had tasted the sweets of privilege, and like the followers of Ulysses, had forgotten their country and their homes.
*MR. CARLILEsaid that on that side of the House they regretted the reception which had been accorded to the Amendments of the House of Lords, because they

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believed that they were reasonable They believed that the religious instruction of the school ought to be given within school hours, and they did not consider that it was a reasonable thing that that religious instruction should be fixed to be given out of school hours and be placed in such a position as to convey to the children's minds the idea that the subject was of a secondary character and was of so little importance that the instruction in regard to it might be imparted at times outside school hours. For their part as Churchmen they believed that religious instruction ought to be an integral part of the child's education. They did not believe in any education which did not rest upon a religious basis. They would rather that children in whom they took an interest should be without any education at all than that they should have merely secular education, and, therefore, they believed that religious instruction should be given in the school hours. They thought that the provision inserted by the Lords was eminently reasonable, and that it was reasonable was shown by the attitude of the President of the Board of Education himself. The right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well, and he had not hesitated to state it, that the country and he himself were in favour of religious instruction in the schools. If such instruction was believed by the people to be essential why should it be given outside of school hours? Any parent who desired that his child should not receive religious instruction could withdraw his child from it. The President of the Board of Education had reminded the House, he was sure quite rightly, that references to Huddersfield might be misleading in some respects. It would be a great mistake for hon. Members to suppose that during the whole of the school hours in Huddersfield the name of God was excluded. Such wild statements had, however, been made, but some of them who knew something of the West Riding were aware that that was not the case in Huddersfield. They knew that in Huddersfield at the opening of the schools there was the singing of a hymn and the reading of a passage from Scripture and the Lord's Prayer. All of those pro-
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ceedings were very devoutly carried out, but he did not think that anybody could contend that that was religious instruction. [Cries of "Why not?"] He would ask whether in the case of geography or arithmetic or any other secular subject it would be considered that the children were receiving instruction in those subjects if the teacher merely read a chapter of arithmetic or geography and the matter ended there. It was not religious instruction, especially in view of the fact that no examination of any kind in religious knowledge was permitted in these council schools. He, therefore, thought they were justified in saying that in Huddersfield there was no religious instruction. It was a deplorable thing that among the eight or nine thousand children attending the council schools there, there should be a large number of children who, so far as the week-day was concerned, never got any religious instruction. The hon. Member for West Monmouth had spoken of Sunday schools. He had the greatest respect for the Sunday school teachers and for the work they did, but, after all, they were not trained to impart knowledge with the aptitude of the regular teacher in the school. It was, therefore, a fallacy to suppose that Sunday school teaching could take the place of the religious instruction given in the denominational schools. In some of the schools in the large boroughs where religious instruction was not given, the books of moral maxims which were used in place of religious instruction were, he thought, somewhat mischievious. For instance, Hackwood's book of moral maxims, which was used in the West Riding, commenced with the maxim that honesty was the best policy; but the man who was honest only so long as it was the best policy was a rogue, and he would be sorry to let him have the run of his pockets. There was not the power behind these moral maxims that lay behind Holy Scripture to fasten on the mind of the child, and character could not be built up upon them. Therefore, they were glad that the Lords had put the religious instruction in the school hours. They also approved that trustees should execute their trusts, and that the wishes of the pious founders should be considered. Power was given by a special

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Amendment proposed by the President of the Board of Education, at the suggestion of hon. Members who sat in Opposition, to private owners to carry out the reconstructions of their own schools, and it was only reasonable that in another place that power should have been extended to trustees who were in a position analagous to that of the private owners. It was only right that they also should have the opportunity to submit a scheme to the local education authority, who should if they approved the scheme, sanction the necessary payments. By the Lords' Amendment the concessions made in this House had been made real instead of their being only the intentions and good wishes of the President of the Board of Education. The right hon. Gentleman, when they desired to be assured that the local authorities would be reasonable, had always replied that it could not be supposed that the local authorities would be unreasonable. But they could not trust the local authorities, and they should not be asked to do so; he was glad that another place had taken that view, and instead of leaving the local authorities the power of granting or refusing the facilities had made it mandatory on them to grant them. With regard to religious tests, he did not believe that real tests had ever existed. The so-called tests still existed under this Bill. Everybody knew that if a teacher was to give religious instruction in a school of a particular denomination those who had the appointment of the teacher ought to exercise the right of ascertaining that the teacher believed in the religion the doctrines of which he was to expound. Nothing could be more destructive of religious faith in the minds of the children than the knowledge, which they would soon acquire, that the teacher was not a believer in the faith he or she taught. If there was to be religious instruction in the schools there should also be inspection in religious knowledge. But while religious instruction was now given in some schools, no attempt was made to focus the religious knowledge of the children by means of inspection, and it was only reasonable that there should be some provision which should admit of examination in this matter. For these and other reasons he ventured to express the hope
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that the House would adopt, if not as a whole at least to some extent, the Amendments made in another place.
*MR. HAY MORGANheartily congratulated the Government on the strong action they had taken in regard to the Amendments sent down from another place. He knew very little about the technical side of the question as to how these Amendments ought to be dealt with by the House, but his general experience taught him that the first thing to do was to make up one's mind as to the right line to take, and, that being done, go as strongly on that line as possible. The Government, having made up their mind to reject the Lords' Amendments, could not go too strongly in that direction. They should have no fear of their action. He knew statements were being made outside about the risk which was being run by the course they were adopting, but he thought they could afford to wait with equanimity until they saw what the Lords would do in the matter. The other House had completely transmogrified the Government Bill. They had knocked it completely out of recognition. The Bill was now far more sectarian than even the Act of 1902. The Lords had completely changed the tone, spirit, and intention of the Bill. A Resolution was proposed in this House at the commencement of the session in favour of secular instruction in public schools. He was one who voted against that Resolution, and he did so because he hoped it was possible to find a way out of the difficulty. He thought it was of the highest importance that the children should have the Bible placed before them, and he had hoped it was possible to devise some means of still retaining the Bible instruction in the school, but he was bound to say that at the present time the action taken by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite and by Members of another place had thoroughly convinced him there was no chance of educational peace in the public elementary schools in this country until secular instruction alone were given in them. In 1870 the Nonconformist leaders of the country championed that course, and they were only

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drawn to Cowper-Templeism as a compromise. If the Lords refused to accept this Bill, he believed that Nonconformity as a whole would revert to the battle for secular instruction and would insist on no interference on the part of the State with anything connected with religion. The Bill as it came down from the Lords retained the tests for teachers. The hon. Baronet, the Member for Oxford University had said the Government had introduced into the Bill a clause with regard to religious tests far more drastic than anything that had been put in by another place. That was somewhat unfair, and indeed ungracious on the part of the hon. Baronet. Clause 11 was only brought in for the purpose of dealing with a temporary condition of affairs. At most the schools dealt with there could only be in existence two years, and more than that, the very part of the clause which the hon. Baronet charged the Government with having inconsistently introduced was accepted by the Government as an Amendment from the other side, and a few malcontents, including himself, voted against the Government on the point. Under the Bill as it had come down from the Peers the teacher was to have liberty to volunteer to give denominational instruction. So far as his experience and observation went, that meant that in the villages, at any rate, it would be equal to compulsion—not compulsion in law, of course, but compulsion by circumstances. He believed that under this method in the villages they would have teachers doing lip service to a faith which their mind and conscience did not approve. The trustees would have money which they would be able to use in the payment of the teachers for giving religious instruction. To his mind that would become a bribe to the teachers. It ought not to be, but they were dealing with human beings, and those who were sometimes in a condition where £10 or £20 made all the difference between finding it difficult to make both ends meet and being in a state of comparative opulence. It was placing in the way of the teacher a temptation which the State had no right to sanction. No one had any objection to the teacher getting £10 or £20 above
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his usual salary, but he did strongly object to that money being paid for the purpose of getting him to profess a certain faith. He believed it was a fond fallacy of some members of the Church of England that by these means they were increasing the number of adherents to their faith. [Opposition cries of "No."] That had been said, though he would put a charitable construction upon it. They could not have believers who were created either by bribery or coercion. Hypocrites were made by that means—never true converts. He agreed that in certain senses the religious test would be difficult absolutely to abolish. There were insidious methods of finding out the religious faith of a teacher. But if they could not altogether abolish tests they could at least prohibit the teachers from giving denominational instruction, and so give them the best protection possible. Clause 7 was to his mind a very important clause, and he very much regretted that the President of the Board of Education feared it would be necessary to drop it. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that the old conscience clause was not used to any great extent, because the burden fell not upon the right shoulders, but upon the shoulders of the children. Those who pushed these little children into the forefront of the religious battle, making their sensitive minds and affectionate hearts—always yearning for sympathy—the mark for the sarcasm of the village parson or, still worse, the mark of the public opinion of their little world, were guilty of one of the meanest, most cowardly, and contemptible things he knew of. Let the burden fall upon the right shoulders. Let it fall on the parents, as it would fall if Clause 7 were retained. The Government was divided upon this point. He understood the President of the Board of Education to say there were three Cabinet Ministers who voted against this clause. He wondered who this trinity of powerful personalities could be that they could master the Cabinet and override and overrule a majority of forty-seven in this House. Could they not sink their powerful personalities for a time and let the House decide this matter? Surely the President of the Board of Education had worked hard enough, and he had told them this was his own

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pet clause. The right hon. Gentleman had worked while the others had slumbered, and if they were there that night he would like to ask them to assist in passing this clause. The hon. Member for Mid Herts made out that if Clause 7 were retained some children would receive no religious instruction at all. There were a couple of very significant figures in that connection. There were in the public elementary schools to-day under the whip-hand of the school attendance officer and the compulsion of the magistrates acting upon the parents, nearly 5,000,000 scholars, whereas in the Sunday schools, an absolutely voluntary organisation, there were nearly 8,000,000 scholars. Making every allowance, the difference between the two figures was very large indeed. There were very few children who were not attached to some Sunday school. The Government Bill was a great advance from an educational point of view in that it improved the machinery for education, and for that reason he devoutly hoped it would pass. He had no expectation that it would settle the religious difficulty, and he had no particular desire that it should do so, although he agreed that the State schools should not be made the battle-ground for contending sects. The President of the Board of Education had hinted at concessions. He regarded the suggestion as a rope that was thrown to a drowning man. He hoped the House of Lords would take hold of the rope and save themselves. Personally he had no desire to save them, but they had got the Education Bill in their pockets, and he wanted to save that. If they clutched the rope they would be brought dripping, but safe, to land and the Bill would be saved too.
SIR JOHN KENNAWAYsaid the issue between the different parties in the House was very clearly defined on this question. He thought it was important that those sitting on the Ministerial side should realise what were the feelings and motives which actuated the Opposition in the line they were taking. The speech of the hon. Member for Truro had proved to be a valuable contribution to the debate, and had made it clear what principles were at stake. Some months ago the Secretary
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to the Board of Education pointed out that the churches were unable to give religious teaching which was at all adequate to the needs of the children, and as the parents were either incompetent or unwilling to do it themselves he argued that the State must come in and connect religious teaching with the teaching in the schools. He believed that it was necessary and desirable that the State should, at all events, if it did not undertake religious instruction itself, encourage it in the schools and lay down the principle for the guidance of local authorities that there should be religious teaching every day in every school. If they looked across the Channel, they would at once see what the separation of religion from the teaching in the schools was leading to. In France at the present moment they were carrying out to the full the principles of some hon. Members opposite. They had recently resolved to delete from the coins of the State in France the words "God protect France," and the same country gloried in the fact that their educational policy had destroyed a belief in the supernatural and prayers to an Almighty Being. Those were the things which made them fight earnestly for religious teaching in the schools. When the action of the House of Lords in regard to this Bill was understood, the country would say that they were right, and the people would refuse to follow such examples as he had indicated, and would insist upon maintaining a high standard of religious teaching. That was what they were now contending for, and he believed that in the end they would win.
*MR. ADKINSsaid in these days of acute crisis he addressed the House with a sense of diffidence and a consciousness of how easy it was on such an occasion to render a difficult position still more difficult by words of provocation or words not carefully considered. He regretted, though he frankly acknowledged the necessity, that the imperative demands of time and procedure had made it impossible for the Government to accept the Amendments which the Earl of Crewe had

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accepted in the House of Lords, because he believed those Amendments would indicate to the country the moderation of the Government's position and the desire which was felt by many of the Government's supporters that some settlement of this great and difficult question should be reached as soon as possible. He most cordially and loyally supported the Government in their decision as to procedure and as to the rejection of those Amendments, which individually were plausible, but collectively impossible. He thought it was very doubtful whether many of those Members of the other House who were responsible for this sinister sequence of Amendments realised how urgently a solution of the problem was required and what extreme difficulty there would be if the education question was not advanced by legislation. It had been in many parts of the country the tolerant and wise policy of the local authorities to exhibit perhaps an undue laxity in the way they had allowed the owners of privately managed schools to neglect their duties of putting their fabrics into proper order and of fulfilling the very mild demands of the Act of 1902. He knew that in one county, of the education authority of which he was a member, there were many schools in a condition quite unsuitable for the proper conduct of education, which had been allowed to remain in an unsatisfactory condition because of the tolerance and consideration of the authority who had waited for Parliament to deal with the matter. When Members were tempted to reject the Bill because they thought the Government would be landed in administrative difficulties passing the wit of man to solve, he would remind them that many of these administrative problems were due to the extreme tolerance and consideration of local authorities, and that the desire of practical men, who were merely concerned for educational efficiency, would not be too long delayed, and the perils of rejecting the Bill would be felt by the owners of these unsuitable schools even more than by the Government. They were all interested in the difficult problems connected with religious education, but those who had spent a good deal of time in trying to carry out Acts of Parliament knew that other aspects of the education problem were just as pressing
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as that connected with religion. He wished to thank the Government for all they had done in Part II. of the Bill, and he thanked the President for the whole tone of the speech which he delivered yesterday, which showed that he realised, what practical men of all Parties realised, that local education authorities were not hotbeds of fanatical dissenters or coteries of obscurantist churchmen, but were really representative of the whole community, and must be trusted if the education of the country was to be carried on efficiently and vigorously. He was not very sanguine, but he hoped that at any rate in regard to Part II. of the Bill, embracing matters of extreme importance under the heads of delegation, medical inspection, development of secondary education, and matters of administration that pressed for solution, no conflict between the two Houses on theological grounds would prevent that part of the Bill from speedily becoming law. He was one of those who had never been hostile to the Bill as introduced, and still less had he been hostile to it in the form in which it went to the other House. If further concessions were to be made, they should be concessions in matters of detail which would not affect the principles of the measure—principles which had been affirmed over and over again at many elections. The principle in the Bill to which they on that side were determined to be loyal was that there should be within the reach of every child in the country an elementary school absolutely and entirely under local popular control—one in which the religious teaching was of that general kind which appealed to all except the great religious bodies to whom special treatment was given in the Bill; unless there was such a school within the reach of every child there was no room for concessions, but when such schools were universal he welcomed every effort made to give honest and considerate concessions. But the Lords had destroyed that universal school of the civic type, which was absolutely essential if the system of education was to be really national. The moment they had this system firmly established in single school areas, then, and not till then was the way clear for exceptional and special treatment for those who required it. Everyone of the concessions which the President of

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the Board of Education had declared he was prepared to consider appeared to be consistent with the maintenance of a national system, but no one on that side of the House could be expected to give a complete and wholehearted adhesion to any of these adumbrated Amendments unless they knew how they were to work out under a final settlement. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken, for instance, of reducing the four-fifths majority under Clause 4 to three-fourths. On the question of principle there was little room for difference of opinion. The policy of the Government was to give exceptional treatment wherever there was a community within a community—a body of persons who, having made sacrifices according to their conscientious convictions, were separate and distinct from the community as a whole—and that might well be achieved by a throe-fourths majority. But he for one trusted that the Government, even at the price of losing the Bill, would say that it should be a three-fourths majority of all the parents of the children attending the schools, and not a three-fourths majority of those who could be induced by any persuasion to vote. The real test should be whether a community within the community really desired the special treatment. It had been suggested that it was possible that under certain circumstances the teachers who were appointed by the local authority without any religious test might be allowed to teach the specialised religion in the schools in which they were employed if the local authority permitted them. The essential thing was that such permission should really be a permission to genuine volunteers, and should not be an oblique method of exerting pressure and imposing a test. He hoped the procedure of the House of Commons would be interpreted elsewhere in the spirit in which the Prime Minister spoke—a spirit neither of defiance nor insult, but a spirit of moderation and of keeping the door open for a settlement. If it was interpreted in that way elsewhere there was yet a possibility of settling this great question. On the question of the fundamental principle they and hon. Members opposite must agree to differ, and respect each others conscientious convictions, but within those wide limits there were infinite possibilities of agreement. He
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hoped those on that side of the House would do all they could to support the Government, with loyalty to those great principles and in the moderation of temper and method by which they still hoped the Bill might become law, and by which he believed the great problem of national education would be advanced a long step for the benefit of all sections of the community and to the satisfaction of all who cared for the better education of the children of the country.
*MR. BRIDGEMANsaid the hon. Member for the Truro Division had stated that while they all recognised that differences of opinion prevailed in regard to religious matters they ought to respect one another's opinions, though they could not all agree. It was because he believed that, that he had come to the conclusion that the only possible solution of the question was to respect whatever religious opinion everybody held. The hon. Gentleman opposite spoke with very great feeling in regard to Clause 7, and the right hon. the Minister for Education had addressed to the House many touching words on that particular point; but both spoke as if the conscience clause was one which affected the children, and not the parents. Neither of them seemed to have sufficiently grasped the point that the people who had to make up their minds on the question of religious instruction were not the children, but the parents. He wished to save the children from such a position as had been described by the hon. Gentleman opposite; and he was quite sure that he represented the views of every one on those benches in admiring all who had the courage of their opinions. He did not believe in a picture that had been drawn of the danger which existed in the country schools. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the children were biassed by being offered school treats.
MR. BIRRELLsaid that what he had stated was that the children did not get the school treats unless they got the religious instruction.
*MR. BRIDGEMANsaid there were treats on both sides, and his argument would have more weight if

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there were no such things as chapel treats. The argument for rejecting all these Amendments had been based mainly on the contention that they violated in some way, not explained, the mandate given by the country to the Government. He believed that the mandate was that in single school districts where the Church teaching was the only teaching which could be received, the Nonconformists believed that it was unfair to compel them to choose between Church teaching and no religious teaching whatever. What they demanded was that if they objected to Church teaching, they should be allowed to have Cowper-Temple teaching rather than no teaching at all. There was nothing in the Amendments in the House of Lords to contravene that mandate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told the House that no one voted at the general election on the education question with the idea that the parents would have anything to say in the matter. He was in a position to say that that was not the case in the division which he represented. His opponent had said that the State should confine itself to giving secular instruction, and if the parents chose to do so they could let teachers go into the schools and impart religious instruction. That was what the Minister of Education called pan-denominationalism, and what the hon. Member for North Camberwell described as pandemonium. On another occasion his opponent said that there should be no denominational teaching in. the school against the wishes of the parents of the children. That was exactly what the Bill as it came from the Lords provided. The right hon. Gentleman had also claimed a mandate for popular control and no tests for teachers, but there was no mandate for popular control which could only be exercised on one side of the question. What sort of popular control was it when the whole number of parents in a parish might desire one kind of teaching and not be able to get it? One might just as well say that a person could have either beef or mutton, but there was no beef. It was as if when he wanted to dine in this House, and he went into the dining-room, he was told by the hon. Member for West Derbyshire that he could only have Resurrection pie or weak
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soup, while the Jews might have their Kosher meat and the Catholics their fish, because the hon. Member for Louth, who was a shining light of the Nonconformists, had decided, however, that what was good enough for him was good enough for everybody else except the Jews and the Roman Catholics. What was the use of calling it popular control when it was only popular control so long as it suited the hon. Member for Louth? It was nothing of the sort. In the same way the cry about the abolition of tests for teachers was only useful for platform speeches and was not a reality. The Government had said that they were giving freedom to teachers in this matter. He said that they were doing the reverse, and so far from giving them freedom they were compelling them to decide in only one way. He would give an illustration. Only a few days before they had had under consideration the Provision of Meals for Children Bill, and it was urged that the teacher should be relieved from the necessity of presiding at those meals outside the school hours, and words were put in providing that no teacher in a public elementary school should be required as part of his duties to supervise or assist, or abstain from supervising or assisting, in the provision of meals. That was claimed as giving freedom to the teachers in this matter He had moved an Amendment to this Bill exactly to that effect, that the teacher should not be compelled either to give or to abstain from giving any particular form of religious teaching in the schools, and that it should not be a condition of their employment. That Amendment was not, however, accepted, but if such a provision constituted freedom in the case of a Provision of Meals Bill why was it not freedom under the Education Bill, which involved much more important questions? He could understand people appointing teachers and the teachers saying, "We are not going to help you with regard to the provision of meals." In that case he could understand the managers saying that they would rather have someone who was more willing, but he could not believe it likely that after a man said, "My conscience does not allow me to do this," he would be compelled to do it. If a man had conscientious objections there were thousands of other places

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where he could obtain a situation. It was said that the teachers wished for this, but he believed that there was no greater fallacy than that the voluntary school teachers wished for it. What they wished for was freedom in the matter, and in his constituency they had petitioned the House of Lords that they might be allowed to give this teaching, and said that it was insulting them to deprive them of the privilege. He believed that that represented the views of the vast majority of the elementary school teachers, and he did not believe that the resolution of the National Union of School Teachers represented their view. Another reason given for opposing the whole of the Amendments of the House of Lords, which was emphasised very much in the speech of the President of the Board of Education at Bristol a few weeks ago, was that the House of Lords was interfering with the freedom of the local education authority, and they had been told what an insult it was not to leave these matters to the local education authority, who were perfectly competent to deal with them and should not be hampered in any way. If Ministerialists were going to carry that argument to its logical conclusion, why did they not allow the local education authority to settle the time table, the code, and at what age children should be allowed to leave school? Were these things of more importance than the religious teaching of the future generations of the country? He would very much like to know what arguments could be adduced in favour of trusting the local education authority on this point and not trusting it on the others which he had mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman did not trust the local education authority fully. He was merely trusting them to do what he and those who supported the Government said was in the interest of the particular cause they advocated and of the mandate which they professed to have got from the country. The Government were not giving the local education authority a free hand, and until they did so he could not see that they had any right to claim that there should be no appeal to the Board of Education in this matter. Another point which the President of the Board of Education complained
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of bitterly at Bristol was that there would be appeals on the ground that, although the schools were structurally fit, the local education authority would not take them over. But it had always been part of the duty of the Board of Education to see that the sanitary condition of the schools was kept up, not to the standard of the local education authority, but to the standard of the Board of Education. It was said that there would be 7,000 appeals in regard to structural questions but how did that add to the work of the Board of Education if that Board had already satisfied themselves that the structures were so built as to come up to modern requirements? It did not add one jot to their work, and to say that the local education authority was entirely free from the jurisdiction of the Board of Education was to say what he did not believe one-tenth of hon. Members opposite wished, because these authorities were to be free on this point only, namely, to carry out the views which hon. Members wanted to enforce. It was very difficult indeed to discuss Amendments of the House of Lords under existing conditions because they had not the slightest idea of what hon. Members opposite would agree to; they had not the slightest idea of what would satisfy them in the way of alteration in the Amendments made in another place, because the Government had deprived them of any kind of knowledge of the reality of their pretended concessions and of the possibility of testing the reality of those Amendments which they desired, or of discussing anyone of them. If they had intended to give way they might have said so before; they might have said so even to-day, and he took as a sign that they did not wish to confirm the concessions they had made the extraordinary course they had adopted in this debate. The fact was that they wished to avoid the dilemma in which they would be put by having to discuss Clause 1 and Clause 4 as separate questions. Up to now they had tried to speak with a double voice to different sections in this House and in the country. Now, having found it impossible to continue to speak with a double voice, they had made up their minds not to speak at all.
MR. MASSIEsaid, that in opposing these Amendments in this manner, the Government had taken the only course open to them to take with due respect to themselves and to this House whose executive they were. It remained for the House of Lords to take the next step, and they in this House could look forward to the step without any apprehension. The constitutional question had been raised in a way which embittered half the religious population of the country, which re-enforced political conviction with religious fervour, and which, therefore, brought the end nearer, and would make the revolution, when it came, more complete. Outside the circle of the different religions and churches, there were many who had keen political conviction and who, if they had no religious fervour, had a substitute for it in the feeling of genuine contempt with which they looked upon ecclesiastic manœuvring and churches fighting for the spoil. They did not understand the conscience that in the last resort meant the demand for public money and for power to persecute; the conscience, not governed by any settled and universal principle, but by the squeezableness of Governments and the prospects of success. But they did understand the principles of those religious people who sought nothing for themselves but equal rights with their fellow-citizens and equal for child, parent, and teacher. And they could understand the resentment felt by these religious people when it was proposed that a school should be handed over to a church provided that one-third of the children could find accommodation elsewhere, somewhere, anywhere; for what mattered it, so long as the children were, like Tom Hood's unfortunate, "anywhere, anywhere out of the world"? It now remained for the Lords to say whether they would withdraw from their attitude of wanton disregard of the general election and of the majority the election had sent to this House. The President of the Board of Education had plainly left the door open; it might be that the door was not opened wide, but it was open wide enough. The question was whether in fact it was not opened too wide. To open a back door to the
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test on teachers was a delicate and dangerous operation If the teacher, with all his influence upon the children, and with all the outside influences that could be brought to bear upon himself was still to remain the teacher of the Church the rural electors who had returned the Government, to power would say they had been sold. If the committee of the parents was to have power equal to that of the local authority or perhaps greater, having the power of veto; if they could put a spoke in the wheel of the local authority, then there would be, as the snuff-taking Highlander said, "grand accommodation," grand accommodation for canvassing, misleading, manipulation, and intimidation, especially in those districts, where the powers that were held sway. And if women were to be eligible for the committee elected by parents they might have a repetition of that quartet of foundation managers: the vicar, the vicar's wife, the vicar's daughter, and the late vicar's housekeeper. There would then be lively times for those who were advocates of real public control and who desired to free our villages from the sinister influence of sectarianism. But supposing the Lords were obstinate and the Bill was dropped, that would be only one of the penalties to be paid for the state of the Constitution as it was, and which would always have to be paid until that state was changed. However, the Government with their support could still do a great deal to improve the education of the country. They could repent of their long neglect. They could fall back upon the strong recommendation of the Conservative Royal Commission of 1888 which had not yet been carried into effect, and which was that the measurement basis per child should be raised from seven, eight, or nine feet to ten feet. That was the rule in all new schools, and the health of the children in the old schools was as important as that of the children in the new schools. It might mean the extension of buildings at the cost of the denominations. It might mean the diminution of numbers in attendance and the diminution of grants, at the expense of the same defaulters. It might also mean the building of new council schools in many districts, but it

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need not mean the raising of rates. A money Bill could divert the £1,000,000 set apart in. this Education Bill to purposes other, and perhaps even better, than the extravagant tenderness of the promoters of the Bill originally designed. That £1,000,000 could stand for the interest and sinking fund of a capital sum of some £28,000,000 to £30,000,000 lent to the local authorities to build people's schools where sectarianism would for ever cease from troubling. All on the Ministerial side of the House, at any rate, were looking forward to that day, and the Government could easily hasten its dawn. That expedient would largely case the situation. It would relax what was really an intolerable strain. The rejection of this Bill would not only raise in a bulkier form the question of the constitutional abuse, but also the spectre of a religious quarrel whose issues might finally be as drastic as those in France—a quarrel not between Nonconformists and the Church, but a quarrel between the State and clericalism. The English people were said to be not so quick as the French in seeing what the logical outcome of a process was, but though they were slow, when once they were on the move they were steady and sure. They would destroy no Church, but they would deliver the State. They would set the Church free, without any overwhelming pecuniary encumbrance, to go on its way rejoicing in the fulfilment of its spiritual destiny within the bounds of civic justice and civic safety. When that day came those who, unlike himself, had the larger part of their work before them might be alive to look back without regret to the not unmixed misfortune of the loss of this outmanœuvred, metamorphosed, perverted Education Bill.
MR. LANE-FOXappealed for more breadth of view, so that the feelings which he believed a great many Members of the Opposition were ready to allow to hon. Members on the Government side, should be allowed in part to them. Surely the only chance of putting the question upon a permanent basis was to admit that all Parties and all creeds had strong convictions which called for respect. The hon. Member for Middleton had told them that he saw great dangers to the Church
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of England and to education in the rejection of this Bill and how much he admired certain provisions of the Bill. There were certain provisions which all Parties were anxious to pass, and if they were put into a Bill and brought before the House there ought to be no difficulty in passing them. It was because of the wholly impractical religious difficulty imported, and which was in part removed by some of the Amendments of another place, that it had been impossible to accept the Bill on the Opposition side of the House. The perils to education he fully granted, but, it seemed to him, they had far better imperil the cause of education a little longer if as a result they could have a final and permanent settlement. He did not believe the policy adopted by hon. Gentlemen opposite was one that would secure such a settlement, and he hoped in his heart that they were not going to persist in this uncompromising attitude to the Amendments which had come down from the Lords. When hon. Gentlemen spoke of the sinister influences of sectarianism and used other rounded periods of a similar nature it appeared to be impossible to expect a final settlement. If hon. Members would put their heads together and realise that there were convictions on both sides he believed that in course of time, if not now, they might achieve a better result. He did not see the force of the argument that it would not have been possible to consider these Amendments seriatim or in detail. He could not believe that if an ageement were entered into between the great Parties of this House to carry a certain business in a certain time that business could not be carried out satisfactorily. What were they to expect from the attitude of the hon. Gentleman who said the reason for refusing these Amendments en bloc was because of the place whence they came and in order to shew their contempt for the other House? Was that an argument that was likely to be listened to by the other House? It seemed to him that if the Government desired deliberately to provoke a conflict with the House of Lords they could not find a more certain way of doing it than the course they were adopting in regard to these Amendments. What was the real intention of the Government? They wanted to

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know what they were prepared to accept, and what they were prepared to stand firm upon. The most important questions to be dealt with were the Amendments dealing with the facilities to be given in provided schools and whether the teachers were to be allowed to give that instruction. When every child in the country could obtain Cowper-Temple teaching free of cost, surely it was not a great deal to ask that those parents who required some different form of religious instruction for their children should be allowed to obtain it at their own expense. That concession was considered to be a breach of a great principle. The hon. Member for Louth had told them that the one question on which he was prepared to resist was the question of extra facilities in schools outside urban areas. It had been pointed out time after time that the urban area was the most ridiculous and most useless distinction they could possibly make. What they had always complained of was that there should be this inequality of treatment between one school and another, and what they wanted was fairness all round. He thought the parents of the children in rural districts would value religious instruction as highly as the parents of the children in urban districts. They also desired to know what was the position of the Government in regard to the question of the three-fourths majority. They wanted to know what was going to happen in regard to facilities for Cowper-Temple teaching in Clause 4 schools and what safeguards were going to be adopted. All that the Lords had done by their Amendments was to make the safeguards in the Bill realities instead of shams. The speeches which had been made by hon. Members on the Ministerial side had done nothing to make a compromise on this question any easier, and unless they got a more satisfactory expression of opinion from the Government the House of Lords would be doing a great injustice to those people who believed in denominational teaching if they did not stand firm by their Amendments and maintain the position they had taken up. Two great cardinal principles appeared to underlie the speeches of hon. Members opposite. One of them was a
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very strong hatred of the House of Lords and the other was an equally strong hatred of the Church of England. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh!"]
DR. MACNAMARAmoved the adjournment of the debate.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he would like to ask what were the intentions of the Government in regard to this debate. He presumed that if the adjournment of the debate was agreed to now it would be on the distinct understanding that if there was any desire to continue the debate on Thursday the Government would offer no opposition to that course. He was not at all sure that that course would be necessary, but he should like to know, if there was a desire to continue the discussion of the Lords' Amendments on Thursday, whether the Leader of the House would offer any objection.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANthought that this debate might have gone on a little longer, but perhaps it would be most convenient to adjourn it now and resume it to-morrow. If they found that the debate was not exhausted by to-morrow night there would, of course, be no objection to the debate's going over.
Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for the Second Reading read.
MR. W. LONGsaid he rose to call attention to the omission from the Bill of a particular Act, namely, the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, though he did not propose to debate the subject at present. He conceived that the proper time to discuss the question would be in Committee. Last year the present Under-secretary for the Colonies made a direct Motion against the Second Reading of the Bill upon the ground that, although it was possible to drop an Act of Parliament out of this Bill without notice, it was obvious that time and notice ought to be given to the House to consider this question. It was one thing to use this Bill

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for the purpose of continuing an Act of Parliament; it was quite another thing to use it for the purpose of repealing an Act of Parliament. Would it be thought proper to repeal the Ballot Act by dropping it out of this Bill? He held it would be wiser, rather than to repeal the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, to apply it to the whole country. He did not propose to ask the House to reject the Second Reading, contenting himself for the present with this formal protest.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,)thought the right hon. Gentleman had followed the proper and regular course. He had nothing to say at this stage except that the only way in which this matter could be dealt with was by omitting the Act from this Bill. It was not a case for repeal, because the Act itself lived from year to year only by being continued in this and similar Bills. He was sorry that earlier notice was not given.
CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid that in the circumstances he would not press to a division the Motion standing in his name for the rejection of the Bill. When this Bill was first distributed he and his friends were under the impression that the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act had been dropped out in error, and that he error would be rectified afterwards. The Government having acknowledged making one mistake might make another. The Bill aroused great interest in Ireland, and they naturally looked about for the reason why this particular measure had been dropped out of the schedule. Last year the hon. Member for North Louth, speaking on this same measure, stated that the Irish people were not permitted to carry arms, even for the protection of their crops. Was that the reason why the strong pressure had been brought to bear on the right hon. Gentleman to drop the Arms Act out of the Schedule? After what had fallen from his leader, the right hon. Member for South Dublin, he would not press the Motion standing in his name for the rejection of the Bill to a division. At the same time he would say that if this measure were excluded from the Expiring Laws Continuance Act, it would lead to a bloody war in Ireland.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he gathered from the peroration of his hon. and gallant friend that his feelings had been roused to a point which might lead to a Parliamentary Irish row, not of the sanguinary character predicted, but of a less disastrous complexion. He did not rise to discuss the merits of the particular Bill proposed to be left out of the schedule; there was really a much more important question to which he earnestly invited the attention of the Leader of the House, and his observations would not be couched in a controversial spirit. The Government, without giving any notice at all of their intention, proposed to leave out one particular Bill from a very long schedule. He could not think that that could be regarded as a justifiable Parliamentary procedure. In the schedule to the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Act many measures of enormous importance touching the public life of the country were embraced. He would mention only one, viz., the Ballot Act. Suppose the Government said that they did not approve of the ballot and dropped that Act out of the schedule, they might get rid of it without discussion of any kind. Everybody admitted that the procedure of the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill required revision. He had made the same admission before from the Treasury Bench. He was quite certain that if they wanted the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill to pass as a non-controversial measure, that result could only be obtained if, instead of dropping an Act out of the schedule sub silentio, they brought in a repealing Bill, so as to allow the House to discuss the whole of its provisions. He hoped the Prime Minister would make a note of the respectful protest he now offered that no attempt should be made, no back door or secret attempt, to modify the legislation of the country by the process of simply omitting important Acts from the schedule to the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill. There was a big principle involved, but all that he could do at the present moment was to enter his protest. He thought the Government were not very happy in the course they had taken, and he hoped that it would not be repeated.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that this was not a new procedure.

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It was a procedure which had been followed year after year by the right hon. Gentleman himself.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he thought there was no precedent for dropping a Bill of this character out of the schedule sub silentio.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Yes, there was a precedent—the Peace Preservation Act of 1875.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that the Act referred to was in the category of those which came to an end at a specified date, unless they were renewed under the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Act, passed every session. This was a procedure which had been followed by all Governments over and over again, as could be seen by any hon. Member comparing the Acts passed from year to year. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that in two respects the whole method of continuing legislation was bad. It seemed to him to be somewhat slovenly; but the present Ministry were not to be blamed for that. They had not had charge of the country for twenty years, like the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who had suddenly discovered that the method of continuing legislation should be reviewed. He thought perhaps it would make matters more clear to the ordinary Member of Parliament, so that he might find out what was going on, if a memorandum was issued with the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill showing the changes that would be made; a little bit of paper would show what was happening and no great mischief would be done by issuing it. Therefore on these two points, that this was a mode of legislation that ought to be considered and that a memorandum should be issued, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid the right hon. Gentleman had spoken on the spur of the moment, but if he had been able to refer to Hansard he would have found that his position was the constitutional position, and that of the Leader of the Opposition was not. Having briefly reviewed the operation of the Act in regard to Irish legislation, the hon. Member appealed to the Tory Party not
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to lend themselves to that little gang of malignants behind them, and to take a broader and larger view of the Irish cause. That cause had been going forward by leaps and bounds. If any one in Ireland wished, he could purchase a revolver for 10s., and yet he challenged the right hon. Gentleman to say that there would be a single crime in Ireland the more if this Act were not passed. He congratulated the Government on their position and thought that any other than that which they had adopted would have been absolutely repugnant to their principles. If in their first year of office they had refused to consider this question in regard to Ireland, they would have been false to their pledges and untrue to the position which they had taken up in the past. Let them not be untrue to the position they had always taken up. Irish liberty was sure to come and the Government would not help themselves in Ireland by backing up this exceptional legislation. He would remind hon. Members of a remark of Robespierre that it was not by the criminal law that they regenerated a country.
MR. T. L. CORBETTsaid the Prime Minister had given no notice to the House why this Act should be omitted from the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill, and very few of them gathered what the explanation of the Chief Secretary was. Although he and his colleagues ought to be experts upon this subject the right hon. Gentleman had failed to make it clear to the House what the reason for that omission was. He thought he could make the cause clear, and that was the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Waterford in opposition to the Bill. This had led to the Government surrender. It was one more of these surrenders to which they were becoming accustomed.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid that if they had a Government in office who wished to take in hand legislation of a useful character, the schedule of this Bill would afford them scope for their activity in regard to the well-being of the people. There were thirty-five Acts of Parliament in the schedule, and he was

249
opposed to dealing with legislation in this objectionable and slip-shod manner. It would hardly be realised by Members who had not been in previous Parliaments that taking one of the mere temporary Acts included in the schedule, there had been an amending Bill passed to it of a most complicated and remarkable character. The Libraries Act of 1883 was a very complicated measure, and although it was included in this schedule by an amending Act, it had been changed. That was the way in which these temporary Acts intended as experiments, and passed for a short period, were dealt with. They were actually amended, while they were still continued as temporary measures. It seemed to him like building upon what Ministers must know to be a temporary and a shifting foundation. He found that no less than fourteen of the Acts in the schedule were in the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Act of 1875. If they really intended to deal with practical legislation here was an opportunity for the Government. Let them take these fourteen Acts and make them permanent. He ventured to make these few remarks because he intended in Committee to propose that several of the Bills contained in the schedule should be made part of the permanent legislation of the country. There was very little to be said against an Act which had received approval on thirty-one occasions. By loading the schedule with the fourteen Acts he had referred to, it made it impossible to say that a particular Bill should be read a second time this day three months, because if that was carried they would lose all these fourteen Acts that had been proved to be so beneficial. Lord Salisbury in 1873 said that this Bill was merely a means to enable Parliament and Ministers to cheat themselves and the country by smuggling through critical Acts to which there was often serious objection. That statement particularly applied to all the twenty-one Bills which he had mentioned. Of the Bills in the schedule the fourteen and perhaps two of the twenty-one ought to be made permanent, and the balance, or at least a considerable portion of the balance, ought not to be re-inserted. In the Committee it would be the endeavour of some Mem-
250
bers to see that principle carried out. He protested against this sort of legislation most earnestly as he thought it very objectionable.
MR. LUPTONwas understood to say there were Acts in this schedule which in the light of modern events certainly ought to be discussed, but no opportunity was given to discuss them. Many of them would not stand the test of a full dress debate. He objected to the Bill because it allowed Acts to be continued that ought not to go through at all. If the Government would let him discuss one Bill which was in this schedule at the Committee stage he would not delay the House further, but what would happen would be that when they commenced to discuss Irish measures the closure would be moved and the debate brought to a close.
*MR. SPEAKER: The proper course would be for the hon. Member to move to omit the objectionable Act from the schedule. He would then have the opportunity he desired. He could not have that opportunity now.

NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND (EXPENSES).
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
Motion made, and Question proposed "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of the Cost of Maintenance and repair of the National Gallery and other buildings in Scotland, and of all Expenditure incurred in connection therewith under any Act of the present session to establish a Board of Trustees to manage the National Galleries of Scotland, and for other purposes; and to authorise the charge on the Consolidated Fund of an Annuity of £2,000 presently payable out of moneys provided by Parliament in pursuance of such Act"—(Mr. Sinclair.)
MR. MORTONasked the Secretary for Scotland what this was all about, what was the meaning of it, and whether the Government intended to pass it through the House if objection was taken to it.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. Sinclair,)said that this was money which had hitherto been voted annually. It was placed on the Votes in accordance with the Act of Union. Part of the work the National Gallery proposed to carry out would be carried out by means of moneys that would be placed on the Consolidation Fund, and the Resolution now before the Committee was to carry that out.
LORD BALCARRESsaid the Secretary for Scotland in his reply had only referred to the £2,000 paid under the treaty of Union, and no Resolution was necessary for the continuance of that. The reason this Resolution was brought in was because funds were going to be authorised out of the Treasury which now came from another source. In view of the very serious financial statements which were on the Paper to-day he would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he could say what was the total charge involved.
MR. SINCLAIRsaid he was unable to give either the total charge or the details. Under the Bill the Treasury had
undertaken certain expenses hitherto borne by Scottish money. Part of the new arrangement come to was that the expenses of maintenance of building should now be borne entirely by the Treasury. This Resolution was to make good that arrangement, and to enable the consideration of the Bill to be proceeded with on Friday next.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDcomplained that the right hon. Gentleman had moved a Resolution involving a considerable amount of public money, and had had the audacity to admit that he could neither state the total amount involved nor give the details. In order to protect the House against this method of legislation, and to ensure that when a responsible person on behalf of the Government came forward with a Resolution to commit the House of Commons to the payment of a large sum of money he should at all events be able to give the rough total and some ideas as to details, he begged to move to report progress, and ask leave to sit again as a protest against this way of conducting the business.
Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do report progress; and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. William Rutherford.)
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 31 Noes, 210. (Division List No. 490.)

AYES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Starkey, John R.

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Hamilton, Marquess of

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Hunt, Rowland

Thomson. W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Balcarres, Lord

Keswick, William

Valentia, Viscount

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N)

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Marks, H. H. (Kent)

Younger, George

Carlile, E. Hildred

Morpeth, Viscount

Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C.W.

Nield, Herbert

Tellers for the Ayes—Mr.

Courthope, G. Loyd

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Watson Rutherford and Mr.

Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Claude Hay.

Craik, Sir Henry

Smith, F.E. (Liverpool, Walton

NOES

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Burke, E. Haviland-

Acland, Francis Dyke

Beaumont, Hn. W.C.B.(Hexh'm

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Agnew, George William

Benn, W. (T'w'rHamlets, S. Geo.

Burnyeat, W. J. D.

Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

Bertram, Julius

Byles, William Pollard

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Billson, Alfred

Cairns, Thomas

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Boland, John

Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Brace, William

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Brodie, H. C.

Cheetham, John Frederick

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Brooke, Stopford

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Barnard, E. B.

Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Clancy, John Joseph

Hudson, Walter

Rainy, A. Rolland

Clough, William

Illingworth, Percy H.

Reddy, M.

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Redmond, John E. (Waterford

Cogan, Denis J.

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Redmond, William (Clare)

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Jowett, F. W.

Renton, Major Leslie

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Joyce, Michael

Richards, Thos. (W. Monm'th)

Corbett, CH.(Sussex, E. Grinst'd

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Richardson, A.

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Rickett, J. Compton

Cory, Clifford John

Laidlaw, Robert

Ridsdale, E. A.

Cowan, W. H.

Lambert, George

Roberts, Chas. H. (Lincoln)

Crean, Eugene

Lamont, Norman

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Dalziel, James Henry

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

Robinson, S.

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Levy, Maurice

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Lewis, John Herbert

Russell, T. W.

Delany, William

Lough, Thomas

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Lundon, W.

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Lupton, Arnold

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Dobson, Thomas W.

Lyell, Charles Henry

Scott, A.H.(Ashton under Lyne

Dolan, Charles Joseph

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Seely, Major J. B.

Donelan, Captain A.

MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

Shackleton, David James

Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness

MacVeigh, Chas. (Donegal, E.)

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

M'Arthur, William

Sheehy, David

Dunne, Major E. Martin(Walsall

M'Callum, John M.

Sherwell, Arthur James

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

M'Crae, George

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Elibank, Master of

M'Kean, John

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Erskine, David C.

M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Simon, John Allsebrook

Essex, R. W.

M'Micking, Major G.

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Evans, Samuel T.

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Smyth, Thos. F. (Leitrim, S.)

Farrell, James Patrick

Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

Soares, Ernest J.

Fenwick, Charles

Meagher, Michael

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Ferens, T. R.

Meehan, Patrick A.

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Ffrench, Peter

Micklem, Nathaniel

Sullivan, Donal

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Mooney, J. J.

Summerbell, T.

Findlay, Alexander

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Morrell, Philip

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Fuller, John Michael F.

Morse, L. L.

Thompson, J.W.H.(Somerset, E

Fullerton, Hugh

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Toulmin, George

Gilhooly, James

Murnaghan, George

Ure, Alexander

Gill, A. H.

Murphy, John

Verney, F. W.

Ginnell, L.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Walsh, Stephen

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent

Goddard, Daniel Ford

Nicholls, George

Ward, W. Dudley(South'mpt'n>

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Nolan, Joseph

Wason, John Cathcart( Orkney)

Gulland, John W.

Norman, Sir Henry

Watt, H. Anderson

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary Mid.

Whitbread, Howard

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

White, George (Norfolk)

Halpin, J.

O'Doherty, Philip

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Haworth, Arthur A.

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Healy, Timothy Michael

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

Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n

Hedges, A. Paget

O'Grady, J.

Williamson, A.

Helme, Norval Watson

O'Hare, Patrick

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.

Hemmerde, Edward George

O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.)

Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

Henry, Charles S.

O'Malley, William

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.)

Paul, Herbert

Winfrey, R.

Higham, John Sharp

Paulton, James Mellor

Hobart, Sir Robert

Pirie, Duncan V.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

Hogan, Michael

Power, Patrick Joseph

Whiteley and Mr. J. A.

Holland, Sir William Henry

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh.Central)

Pease.

Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset N.

Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford, E.)

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Radford, G. H.

Original Question again proposed.
MR. MORTONsaid he asked just now whether before getting the money the Government intended to press this Bill through at al costs.
*THE CHAIRMAN: We are merely on the Resolution now, and not the Bill.
MR. MORTONsaid this was the Resolution asking for money, and he would ask if he were not entitled to ventilate grievances.
*THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must take notice of the rules of order.

255
In this case we are not considering the Bill but a money Resolution.
MR. MORTONsaid that without that money they could not get on, and he objected to getting this money to-night until the questions he had put had been answered. They had not yet had a chance of discussing the matter. They had never had a Second Reading debate, and now apparently there was an attempt to push it through at all costs without debate or Amendment.
MR. DALZIELhoped his hon. friend would not persist in his observations, because it was rather unjust to Scotland at this late period of the session, when at last something at all events was being brought forward of some interest to the country, that they should protest against its being taken, more especially as money was involved. He did not think his hon. friend would be abandoning any principle by accepting all the money the Government were prepared to give, and he hoped he would not press his opposition at this stage.
MR. CLAUDE HAYthought the Secretary for Scotland might have obtained the desired information during the opportunity that was afforded by the division on the Motion to report progress. This Resolution did not appear on the Order Paper.
*The CHAIRMANsaid it was quite unusual to put these Motions on the Order Paper, so that hardly formed a proper subject of complaint.
MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid it was all the more incumbent upon the Minister in charge to give some information. Was the Committee of the House of Commons to be assembled at midnight in order that the Secretary for Scotland should propose money Resolutions without informing the Committee what was the capital sum involved? If the right hon. Gentleman could not give after ten months even the slightest indication of how much money he was proposing should be devoted to the purpose of the National Gallery of Scotland, either the right hon. Gentleman must be very inartistic, or—if he would allow him to say so—veiy incompetent.
MR. SINCLAIRsaid he would endeavour to repeat the explanation which he had purposely made very brief at that hour of the night. The money Resolution the Committee were now considering consisted of two parts. It was necessary because the Bill involved an extra expenditure of public money. The first part authorised the expenditure out of Votes in connection with the National Gallery of Scotland. These charges amounted last year to something between £3,000 and £4,000, but it was not possible to tell precisely what the extra charge under this head would come to, and it was not possible on that occasion to go into the details of the proposals in the Bill. The charges were perfectly simple and of a routine character. Some of the maintenance charges of these buildings had been paid hitherto out of income of the Board of Manufactures in Scotland. Some of these charges would be borne by the Treasury. Another charge was that for the maintenance of a new building to be purchased for the use of the Royal Society. These charges would not be excessive; they would be usual charges, and would be open to the scrutiny of the House of Commons. Therefore he did not think fears need been tertained with regard to them. The second part of the Resolution dealt with the placing of an annuity of £2,000 which had been hitherto voted by Parliament fur this purpose. The Government thought they were right in following the recommendation of the Committee which inquired into this matter, that this annuity should be placed upon the Consolidated Fund. He did not think it would be in order to enter into details as to the proposals they could be discussed in detail on the Committee stage of the Bill, which had already passed Second Reading, Everything would then be made plain to hon. Members opposite so far as it was in his power to make it plain.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid the Committee had had an extraordinary explanation of a kind from the Secretary for Scotland. In the first place the right hon. Gentleman informed them that these items were to be found in the Votes. It seemed to be a little inconsistent that the right hon. Gentleman should then tell them that hitherto the first portion had

257
been paid out of the funds of the Board of Manufactures. If so, how was it that they had previously been in the Votes?
MR. SINCLAIRsaid the hon. Gentleman was confusing two things. The first portion of his remarks was directed to charges which would be on the Votes, and the second portion was directed to the £2,000 annuity which alone would be placed on the Consolidated Fund.
MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid the House had recently provided ten seats
in this House in order that the officials might attend with information for Ministers, and it seemed to be worth more than a protest on this occasion that despite those facilities the required information was not forthcoming.
MR. McCRAEmoved that the Question be now put.
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 181; Noes, 18. (Division List No. 491.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Farrell, James Patrick

Meagher, Michael

Acland, Francis Dyke

Fenwick, Charles

Meehan, Patrick A.

Agnew. George William

Ferens, T. R.

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Allen, A Acland (Christchurch)

Ffrench, Peter

Morse, L. L.

Allen Charles P. (Stroud)

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Findlay, Alexander

Murnaghan, George

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Murphy, John

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Fuller, John Michael F.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Fullerton, Hugh

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Barnard, E. B.

Gilhooly, James

Nicholls, George

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Gill, A.H.

Norman, Sir Henry

Beaumont, Hn. W.C.B.(Hexh'm

Ginnell, L.

O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary Mid.

Bonn, W. (T'w'rHamlets, S. Geo.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Bertram, Julius

Goddard, Daniel Ford

O'Doherty, Philip

Billson, Alfred

Gulland, John W.

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

Boland, John

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Brace, William

Halpin, J.

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

Brodie, H. C.

Haworth, Arthur A.

O'Grady, J.

Brooke, Stopford

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Hare, Patrick

Bryce, Rt. Hn. Jas. (Aberdeen)

Hodges, A. Paget

O'Malley, William

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Helme, Norval Watson

Paul, Herbert

Burnyeat, W. J. D.

Henry, Charles S.

Paulton, James Mellor

Byles, William Pollard

Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.)

Pirie, Duncan V.

Causton, Rt Hn. Richard Knight

Higham, John Sharp

Power, Patrick Joseph

Cheetham, John Frederick

Hobart, Sir Robert

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Hogan, Michael

Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford, E.)

Clancy, John Joseph

Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

Radford, G. H.

Clough, William

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Rainy, A. Rolland

Cogan, Denis J.

Hudson, Walter

Reddy, M.

Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W

Illingworth, Percy H.

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Redmond, William (Clare)

Corbett, C.H.(Sussex, E. Grinstd

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Renton, Major Leslie

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Joyce, Michael

Richards, Thos. (W. Monm'th)

Cory, Clifford John

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Richardson, A.

Cowan, W. H.

Laidlaw, Robert

Rickett, J. Compton

Croan, Ergene

Lamont, Norman

Ridsdale, E. A.

Dalziel, James Henry

Lever, A. Levy(Essex, Harwich)

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

Levy, Maurice

Robinson, S.

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

Lewis, John Herbert

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Lough, Thomas

Russell, T. W.

Delany, William

Lupton, Arnold

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Lyell, Charles Henry

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapal)

Dobson, Thomas W.

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Dolan, Charles Joseph

MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

Scott, A. H. Ashton-under-Lyne

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

MacVeagh, Chas. (Donegal, E.)

Seely, Major J. B.

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

M'Arthur, William

Shackleton, David James

Dunne, Major E. Martin(Walsall

M'Callum, John M

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

M'Crae, George

Sheehy, David

Elibank, Master of

M'Laron, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Sherwell, Arthur James

Erskine, David C.

M'Micking, Major G.

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Essex, R. W.

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Silcock, Thomas Bill

Evans, Samuel T.

Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

Simon, Join Allsebrook

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Verney, F. W.

Williamson. A.

Smyth, Thos. F. (Leitrim, S.)

Walsh, Stephen

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)

Soares, Ernest J.

Ward, W. Dudlcy (Southampt'n

Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Sullivan, Donal

Watt, H. Anderson

Winfrey, R.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Whitbread, Howard

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

Thompson, J.W.H.(Somerset, E

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

Toulmin, George

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Ure, Alexander

Willams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n

NOES.

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Hamilton, Marquess of

Starkey, John R.

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

Hunt, Rowland

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Balcarres, Lord

Keswick, William

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

Carlile, E. Hildred

Marks, H. H. (Kent)

Watson Rutherford and Mr. Claude Hay.

Courthope, G. Loyd

Morpeth, Viscount

Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

Nield, Herbert

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Resolved, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of the Cost of Maintenance and Repair of the National Gallery and other buildings in Scotland, and of all Expenditure incurred in connection therewith under any Act of the present session to establish a Board of Trustees to manage the National Galleries of Scotland, and for other purposes; and to authorise the charge on the Consolidated Fund of an Annuity of two thousand pounds presently payable out of moneys provided by Parliament in pursuance of such Act."
Resolution to be reported this day.

LAND TAX COMMISSIONERS BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[MR. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
Clause I:—
SIR CHARLES DILKEmoved an Amendment providing for publication of the Land Tax Commissioners' names and summons to meetings. He said that the Secretary of the Treasury promised some time ago that the publication should be otherwise than in the London Gazette, which was very unsatisfactory. The matter was one of importance on account of the appointment by the Land Tax Commissioners of the
260
Income-Tax Commissioners of both kinds, and of their assessors and clerks. It was obvious that the selection of the Commissioners should not be done in a hole and corner manner, and the Amendment he moved merely gave effect to the promise made.
Amendment proposed.
MR. J. H. LEWISsaid his hon. friend the Secretary of the Treasury was absent owing to a regrettable circumstance. On behalf of the Government he accepted the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 17, after the word 'estate' to insert the words 'either landed or personal."—(Mr. Claude Hay.)
Bill reported; as amended to be considered to-morrow.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.
Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of the 4th August last.
Adjourned at twenty-seven minutes after Twelve o'clock.