§ Order for Committee read.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe first three Instructions on the Paper are out of order 961 because the matters dealt with can be raised on the Kill either by new clauses or by way of Amendments. †
MR. STUART WORTLKY (Sheffield, Hallam)rose to move that it be an Instruction to the Committee, "That they have power to deal separately with Part IV. (Council for Wales), and to report the same to the House as a separate Bill. He said that the appearance of this Instruction upon the Paper would create little surprise amongst those acquainted with the provisions of the Bill." In moving the Instruction it would not be necessary for him to say anything which would give offence to any of the many representatives of Welsh opinion. With regard to Welsh questions, however, it behoved the House to order their proceedings with especial care when they reflected that in Wales there was a large and influential minority totally unrepresented in the House, and, in a large majority of instances, practically excluded from a semblance of power upon any of the elected local authorities. He submitted this Instruction upon grounds which need not excite any of the animosities which might possibly arise upon other parts of the Bill. He moved it, firstly, upon the ground that the clause ought not to have its fate tied up with the rest of this self-contained, but nevertheless quite sufficiently extensive measure. Separate treatment of the clause was advisable in the interests of peace. There was already
†The Instructions referred to were as follows:
§ MR. WINFREYThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to provide that Education Committees, constituted under Section 17 (1) of the Education Act, 1902, shall consist in part or entirely of persons directly elected by the ratepayers for this purpose only; and that all powers and duties of the education authorities shall be exercised by and through the Education Committees.
§ MR. RAMSAY MACDONALDThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that it have power to provide that it be a condition of the recognition of any public elemental y school that the education given during school hours and at the public expense shall be in secular subjects only.
§ MR. LAURENCE HARDYThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert into the Bill a clear definition of the particulars of the religions instruction which in future is to given at the cost of the nation in all public elementary schools where the local education authority authorises religious instruction to be given. 962 quite enough in the Bill to excite bitterness and give rise to suspicion without matters being added which necessarily raised the fear that there was an attempt on foot to give Welshmen the power of supervising education in England without allowing Englishmen the corresponding right of supervising educational matters in Wales. In the interests of good draughtsmanship and symmetry in our legislation this question should be dealt with separately. The clause was not a reform of education, but it might be regarded as the beginning of an organic or structural change in our system so great and far-reaching as to deserve the name of a constitutional change. When the House read the Bill a second time it was under a considerable misconception as to the genesis of the aims of this clause. In describing the proceedings of the conference which expressed in Wales an opinion upon this question the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, with quite pardonable optimism, conveyed to the House the view that the voluntaryists in Wales had practically agreed to the principle, if not to sonic of the details, of this clause. If the information which had reached him was correct, the most that the voluntaryists at that conference agreed to was the creation of some kind of central council for Wales, and that might very well amount to no more than the kind of proposal which he believed had been under the consideration of Lord Londonderry, namely, some kind of council consisting of delegates from all the local education authorities in Wales but wielding powers no greater than each local authority wielded in its own district. He was also advised that the voluntaryists at that conference never contemplated and never sanctioned anything like superseding the powers of the Board of Education in Wales to such an extent as to set up an executive department of the State responsible to no legislative body whatever. They did agree to the abstract idea of a Welsh Council, but they did not intend to do anything like ousting the only independent external authority which could at present arbitrate between disputing authorities, which were only too likely to be seen in conflict one with another in matters of administration under this Bill. Another impression which the President of the Board of Trade conveyed in his 963 very interesting speech on the Second Reading was that this clause conferred no power upon any council to legislate. Nobody said it did, but it must be quite clear that the clause might very well create a great deal of power without creating legislative power, and the clauses conferring power of this kind most deserving of scrutiny, if not of suspicion, were those which gave large powers of administrative and executive action of the very kind that admitted of unjust discrimination and oppression of all kinds, and which would be exercised free from the control which restrained Departments responsible to this House. It was clear that the power of the purse was about to be conferred on the Welsh council, by the Imperial grant being handed over to that body for distribution amongst the local authorities, and that power must be a source of and afford an opportunity for a great deal of injustice. What the House ought to be jealous of was the conferring of irresponsible powers to do injustice or make unfair discriminations of any kind. The Welsh Council in Wales would practically be judges in their own cause.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe right hon. Gentleman now seems to be discussing the merits of the clause. That is not relevant on the Instruction.
§ MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid the clause would impose an almost incalculable amount of labour upon the House in passing this Bill through Committee. He submitted that it was not a clause which the Bill ought to carry, for it was really a constitutional change which should be discussed under other conditions and at another time. He hoped the Government would see fit to make this change while there was yet time. He begged to move.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Education (England and Wales) Bill that they have power to deal separately with Part IV. (Council for Wales), and to report the same to the House as a separate Bill."—(Mr. Stuart Worthy.)
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.)said the Government could not see their 964 way to accept this proposal. It was no fault of the Government that all the representatives for Wales were of one way of thinking. He quite agreed that the proposal to establish this council in Wales might very properly be considered separately by itself, but on the other hand they had an Education Bill relating to England and Wales before the House, and he saw no reason why they should not attempt to secure what they considered was a very reasonable reform. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hallam division of Sheffield had admitted that there was floating about in people's minds an abstract idea of a council. What an abstract idea of a council was he hardly knew, but at all events everybody was aware of the fact that there had been a great disposition on the part of all authorities in Wales, belonging to the Church of England as well as to Nonconformist bodies, to believe that a time was coming when they might do for themselves in the matter of elementary education what they had done for themselves in the region of intermediate education with so much success. Believing that this could be clothed in proper form so as to represent the real wishes of the people, whose zeal for education could not be denied, the Government had thought fit to include this proposal in their measure. As a matter of administration everybody who had had anything to do with the administration of education at Whitehall knew very well that Welsh subjects and Welsh questions formed a part by themselves and were subject to considerations which did not apply so much to other parts of the country. He thought there would be no difficulty whatsoever, if wise counsels prevailed and wise methods were devised in handing to a people whole zeal for education was admitted the control in some important respects of the disposition of public money set aside for elementary education in Wales. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that they had a great deal of work before them in this Bill, and he thought that the best thing they could do was to set about it at once, and see whether they could not grapple with this difficulty as well as with the many others before them.
§ Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER (Croydon)said the right hon. Gentleman had not removed the difficulty as to whether Part IV. should be included in the Bill or not. 965 It seemed to him to depend almost entirely on what the intention was. A statement was made in the Second Reading debate by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade in which he gave his version and interpretation of the clause. If that interpretation stood, then he thought his right hon. friend's Motion was well founded. The President of the Board of Trade delivered what might be called a good-natured, but that the same time rather strong censure on the Leader of the Opposition for the opinion he had expressed with regard to the appropriateness of including this part in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman told the House that at a conference which was the genesis of this clause a resolution was unanimously passed in favour of asking the Government to set up a central council for the control and direction of education in Wales, and he pointed out that the Leader of the Opposition was entirely ignoring the fact that this resolution came with the imprimatur of both parties in Wales, and was the accepted rendering of their wishes in regard to education. Since that happened they had had another version of what the clause really meant. He understood that the right hon. Gentleman was present at the conference, and that he then spoke in quite different terms of the clause. He then stated that such an authority ought to deal with matters of a purely educational character, and that all the great controversies, as between parties and sects, ought to be settled in the first place by the Imperial Parliament. The hon. Member for Swansea, who also spoke at the conference, was still more definite; he said that the council would have nothing to do with the management of elementary schools. Did that stand? If it was really the fact that Part IV. of the Bill had nothing to do with the management of elementary schools, and if it was to touch none of those questions likely to raise strife or difference in Wales, it was conceivable that this part of the Bill might be allowed to pass without any great objection on that side of the House. He should like to know from the President of the Board of Education whether it was really the intention that elementary education should not come within the purview of this council. Could the House not be told at this stage whether 966 they were dealing with a matter that would raise controversy, or with one that was as innocuous as the council described by the President of the Board of Trade. He thought that an impression was created in this House by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman totally different from that which had been made on the mind of many who had read the other side of the story. There might be a misconception—he was sure there was no misrepresentation—and he should like to know whether the Government were going to eliminate from Part IV. anything which might be called controversial.
§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)said he apprehended from the Speaker's ruling that it would not be in order to discuss the broad merits of this portion of the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Instruction, before the Speaker gave his ruling, went sufficiently into the merits to indicate to his mind, and, he thought, to the mind of the House, that his Motion was directly in hostility to this portion of the Bill, and the right hon. Member gave his reasons, and was proceeding to give them at greater length when the Speaker intervened. The reasons the right hon. Gentleman gave, before he was interrupted, for his hostility to this portion of the Bill were reasons which rather recommended it to the Nationalist Members. The fact that it came here through an unanimous representation of Wales surely could not be held to be an argument against this portion of the Bill, at any rate in the minds of those who were Home Rulers. He did not desire, if it wore out of order, at this stage to go into the merits of the proposal. He accepted absolutely the description of its meaning which the President of the Board of Trade gave on the Second Heading. He accepted from him the statement that it was proposed in pursuance of an agreement come to by all parties and all religions, including Bishops of the Church of England and Bishops also of the Catholic Church; and that being so, he thought it would be extraordinary if those who represented Ireland in this matter were to withhold their support from including this in the Bill. He regarded the Instruction as a hostile movement towards this measure of Home Rule for Wales. The Nationalist Members recognised to the 967 full the obligations of gratitude they were under for many years to the support of the Welsh Members; and for these reasons and on the broad ground of Home Rule they would certainly vote against this Instruction.
§ MR. CLAVELL SALTER (Hampshire, Basingstoke)said that, apart from the convenience of debate, there was a strong practical ground for the separate treatment of Part IV. if their desire really was to arrive at a practical solution of the religious difficulty which the Bill was designed to meet. The President of the Board of Education, in opening the debate on the First Reading of the Bill, referred in two sentences to Part IV. of the Bill. The first sentence referred to the alleged, but he thought incorrectly alleged, unanimity in Wales itself. The second sentence was in these words—
If on investigation it is found that this country can hand over to Wales whatever her share may he of moneys allocated to education and leave her to distribute it in her own way, Whitehall will have no occasion to regret her departure.It appeared to him that as an exposition of Part IV., and as a defence of its policy, the observations of the right hon. Gentleman were a little inadequate, and undoubtedly it indicated that there was at that date in his mind an uncertainty as to whether Part IV. would be found practicable or not. He thought they were entitled to ask whether in the time that had elapsed since the right hon. Gentleman made that speech the investigation to which he referred had been hold. If so, who made it, and what was the result of it? If not yet made, when would the investigation be made, and by whom? If it was found, as the right hon. Gentleman plainly implied it might be found, that this country could not hand over to Wales her share, what was then to become of Part IV. of the Bill? Was not the plain meaning of what the right hon. Gentleman said that this was what would take place? The House was to be asked to pass Part IV. of the Bill as it stood, and then His Majesty in Council was to be clothed with authority to set up this strange new body if it should be found expedient to do so.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is now discussing Part IV. The instruction which has been moved is 968 that the Committee should have power to deal separately with that Part.
§ MR. CLAVELL SALTERsaid he would endeavour to avoid any second error. The Bill proposed to make certain experiments in England and Wales. In England it was proposed to invest the local authorities with delicate and important duties; and in Wales the same experiment was to be made, and concurrently with the change there it was proposed to alter profoundly the controlling authority. He suggested that it would be wiser to make the first experiment universal in England and Wales, and then if it was found to work well the second proposal in regard to the machinery and the controlling authority in Wales could be introduced at a later date.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)said that this Instruction was one greatly likely to lighten the labour of the House, which had a very serious task before it in passing those parts of the Bill which had been discussed at the First and Second Reading stages. This part of the Bill had never been discussed; it had never, except in a strictly legal narrow sense, been read a second time. It differed in its matter and object from the rest of the Bill. It did not even own the same paternity, for there was an impression during the debate on the Second Reading that whereas the Minister for Education was responsible for the main part of the Bill of which he was in charge, this part was due to the inventive ingenuity of the President of the Board of Trade. He thought that admission was got from right hon. Gentlemen opposite; but it was also elicited from a consideration of a, speech made towards the end of the Second Reading debate which showed why that Minister took an earnest interest amounting to paternity in this clause. The only defence of the Minister for Education of this part of the Bill in the Second Reading debate was that if the Education Department could get rid of the President of the Board of Trade and Wales, they would be delighted if they could do so by means of this clause, and if Wales could get rid of the Board of Education Wales also would be delighted. It was the case of a mutual desire to separate—a mutual repulsion with which they all had a natural 969 sympathy, knowing the two parties to the case—which showed how little this part of the Bill was in any true sense an integral part of a great measure dealing with education. It might be a good or a bad thing; but it was an important and an irrelevant thing. He would suggest to the Government that, dealing with suggestions both important and relevant, they should agree in their own interest to separate this part of the Bill from these parts which were relevant. Another reason was that, by the admission of Ministers themselves, this part of the Bill had never been considered by the Government; it had never been considered by the House of Commons. It was a mere sketch. He thought that it was manifest that that was so and he believed that he had proved it. It might be supposed that if this clause had been planned and threshed out in the ordinary manner of a Government Bill, it would have been something else than the almost unintelligible skeleton presented to the House of Commons. He would have supposed that the Government would have been prepared to say what was the particular flesh—the particular form of body with which they proposed to clothe this skeleton. The Government had told them little with regard to these proposals —they had not chosen the orthodox means of communication with the public They had chosen the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, who did not belong to their Party but was a man of great position. [An HON. MEMBER: You made him Lord Mayor.] He did not know what the hon. Member meant by saying that he made him Lord Mayor. It was the right of their municipal institutions alone to say who should be Lord Mayor. But this gentleman I was not, at any rate, a member of the Government, and yet he wrote a letter in which he said—
I am authorised to state that the fourth part of this Bill—the part now in question— will be amended in such and such a, manner.It would be improper for him to discuss what those alterations were likely to beat the present moment. They had not heard in the House what they were to be The Opposition did not know any more
§ than the Government; and they had had no authoritative statement except through the mouth of the Lord Mayor of Cardiff about the proposals the Government intended to make for administrative Home Rule in educational matters in Wales. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill did not in his speech add one iota to what he said on its First Heading. The right hon. Gentleman said the hon. Members for Wales last year wanted to get away from the Board of Education and that the Board of Education wanted them to go away; but that was no reason why they should bring in at the tail-end of the most controversial measure which had been introduced in Parliament— a measure which had been received with the greatest and most passionate opposition in all parts of the country, and which was calculated both on broad constitutional grounds and in relation to its details to prove a most controversial measure—a scheme which had never been dealt with or properly thought out either by the Government, or by the Government draughtsman, or perhaps even by the Secretary to the Board of Trade. That surely was not the way to carry a great legislative proposal. If a proposal for granting educational Home Rule administration in Wales had been brought forward some time ago it would have met with the most deep-seated opposition. Before the Committee stage of the Bill was concluded, the Government would see the desirability of not adding to a measure from which religions discussions and considerations could not be separated, another question which was not religious but political and constitutional, and of sufficient importance in itself to provide matter enough for a first-class Bill in any session. These teemed to him to be grounds—broad-based, sound Parliamentary reasons—why this instruction should be accepted. The Government had everything to gain and nothing to lose by adopting the course now suggested.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 102: Noes, 388. (Division List No 83.)
975| AYES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Arnold-Forster, Rt.Hn.Hugh O. | Balcarres, Lord |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Ashley. W. W. | Balfour, Rt. Hn. A.J.(City Lond |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey. |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry,N.) | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Middlemore, J. Throgmorton |
| Beach, Hn. Michael HughHicks | Fletcher, J. S. | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Forster, Henry William | Muntz, Sir Philip A. |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlingt'n |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Percy, Earl |
| Bull, Sir William James | Haddock, George R. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hamilton, Marquess of | Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd | Rawlinson, John Frederick P. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Heaton, John Henniker | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Helmsley, Viscount | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Cavendish, Et. Hn. Victor C.W. | Hervey,F.W.F.(BuryS.Edm'ds | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh. | Starkey, John R. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E. | Hills, J. W. | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (O 'f'd.Un. |
| Chamberlain, Rt.Hon.J. (Birm. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark.) |
| Clarke, Sir Edward (City Lond. | Hunt, Rowland | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W. | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancash.) |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Keswick, William | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E. | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., F'h'm | Wilson, A. Stanley(york, E.R.) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Cross, Alexander | Liddell, Henry | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart. |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Long, Col. Charles W.(Eveshm | Wyndham. Rt. Hon. George |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers. | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Younger, Geroge |
| Du Cros, Harvey | Lowe, Sir Francis William | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan | M'Calmont, Colonel James | |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'gh.W. | |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Magnus, Sir Philip | |
| Fell, Arthur | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordsh.) | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Blake, Edward | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Adkins, W. Ryland | Boland, John | Cowan, W. H. |
| Agnew, George William | Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Brace, William | Cremer, William Randal |
| Alden, Percy | Bramsdon, T. A. | Crombie, John William |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Branch, James | Crooks, William |
| Ambrose, Robert | Brocklehurst, W. D. | Crosfield, William J. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Brooke, Stopford | Crossley, William J. |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Brunner, J.F.L. (Lanes., Leigh) | Davies, David (Montgomery Co. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Brunner, Sir John T. (Cheshire) | Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberd'n | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Bryce, J. A. (Inverness Burghs | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Delany, William |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Devlin, Charles Ramsay(Galw'y |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Burke, E. Haviland. | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) |
| Barker, John | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Dickinson, W.H. (St.Pancras, N |
| Barlow, John Emmott (S'm'set | Burnyeat, J. D. W. | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Buxton. Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Barnard, E. B. | Byles, William Pollard | Dillon, John |
| Barnes, G. N. | Cairns, Thomas | Dobson, Thomas W. |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Caldwell, James | Dolan, Charles Joseph |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Cameron, Robert | Donelan, Captain A. |
| Beale, W. P. | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Duckworth, James |
| Beauchamp, E. | Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight | Duffy, William J. |
| Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Cheetham, John Frederick | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Cherry, Rt, Hon. R. R. | Duncan. J. H. (York, Otley) |
| Beloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. | Cleland, J. W. | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) |
| Benn, John Williams (D'v'np't | Clough. W. | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) |
| Bonn, W. (T'w'r H'ml'ts, S.Geo | Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W. | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) |
| Bennett, E. N. | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Edwards, Frank (Radnor) |
| Bertram, Julius | Cogan, Denis J. | Elibank, Master of |
| Bethell, J. H. (Essex, Romford | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Condon, Thomas Joseph | Erskine, David C. |
| Billson, Alfred | Cooper, G. J. | Esmonde, Sir Thomas |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Corbett.C H.(Sussex, E. Grin'std | Essex, E. W. |
| Evans, Samuel T. | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | O'Brien, Kend'l, Tipperary Mid. |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Kitson, Sir James | O'Connor, James (Wicklow.W) |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Laidlaw, Robert | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Ferens, T. R. | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) |
| Field, William | Lambert, George | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustance | Lamont, Norman | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | O'Dowd, John |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid | O'Hare, Patrick |
| Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Lea, Hugh Cecil (St.Pancras, E. | O' Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accr'gt'n | O'Mara, James |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Lehmann, R. C. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Gardner, Col. Alan (Hereford, S. | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Paul, Herbert |
| Gilhooly, James | Levy, Maurice | Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek) |
| Ginnell, L. | Lewis, John Herbert | Pearce, William (Lime-house |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Perks, Robert William |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Lough, Thomas | Philipps. J. Wynf'd (Pembroke) |
| Glover, Thomas | Lundon, W. | Philipps, Owen C. (Pombroke) |
| Gooch, George Peabody | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Grant, Corrie | Lyell, Charles Henry | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Lynch, H. B. | Price, C. E (Edinb'gh, Central) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E. |
| Grove, Archibald | Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) |
| Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford,E.) |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Maclean, Donald | Radford, G. H. |
| Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Halpin, J. | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Hammond, John | Macpherson, J. T. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merth'r T'dvil | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | M'Crae, George | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Hart-Davies, T. | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Rees, J. D. |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | M'Kean, John | Renton, Major Leslie |
| Harwood, George | M'Kenna, Reginald | Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | M'Killop, W. | Richards, T.F. (Wolverh'mpt'n |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester) | Richardson, A. |
| Hayden, John Patrick | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Rickett, J. Compton |
| Hazleton, Richard | M'Micking, Major G. | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Healy, Timothy Michael | Maddison, Frederick | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Mallet, Charles E. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Helme, Norval Watson | Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Roberts, John H. (Denoighs.) |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee) |
| Herbert, Col. Ivor (Mon., S.) | Marnham, F. J. | Robertson, Sir G.Scott (Bradf'rd |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Massie, J. | Robertson, J M. (Tyneside) |
| Higham, John Sharp | Masterman, C. F. G. | Robinson, S. |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Meagher, Michael | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. N. | Menzies, Walter | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Hodge, John | Micklem, Nathaniel | Rose, Charles Day |
| Hogan, Michael | Molteno, Percy Alport | Runciman, Walter |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Mond, A. | Russell, T. W. |
| Hooper, A. G. | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) |
| Hope, W.Bateman (Somerset, N | Montagu, E. S. | Samuel, Herbert L.(Cleveland) |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Montgomery, H. H. | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Mooney, J. J. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Hudson, Walter | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Schwann, Chas. E (Manchester) |
| Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Morley, Rt. Hon. John | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-und.-Lyne |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Morrell, Philip | Sears, J. E. |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Morse, L. L. | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Jackson, R. S. | Murnaghar, George | Seely, Major J. B. |
| Jacoby, James Alfred | Murphy, John | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Murray, James | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Myer, Horatio | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Jones, David Brynmor (Sw'nsea | Napier, T. B. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Nicholls, George | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Nicholson, Charles N. (Donc'str | Snowden, P. |
| Jowett, F. W. | Nolan, Joseph | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Joyce, Michael | Norman, Henry | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Kearley, Hudson E | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Spicer, Albert |
| Kelley, George D. | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Kilbride, Denis | Nuttall, Harry | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) |
| Steadman, W. C. | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | Wallace, Robert | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Strachey, Sir Edward | Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) | Williams. Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) | Williams. W. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent | Williamson, A.(Elgin and Nairn |
| Sullivan, Donal | Ward, W Dudley(Southampton | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Sutherland, J. E. | Wardle, George J. | Wilson, Hon. C. H.W.(Hull, W. |
| Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Taylor, John W. (Durham) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N. |
| Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury) | Wason, John Catheart (Orkney) | Wilson. P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Waterlow, D. S. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E. | Watt, H. Anderson | Winfrey, R. |
| Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. | Wodehouse, Lord(Norfolk, Mid |
| Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr | Weir, James Galloway | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Thomasson, Franklin | Whitbread, Howard | Woodhouse, Sir JT (Huddersf'd |
| Thorne, William | White, George (Norfolk) | Young, Samuel |
| Torrance, A. M. | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Toulmin, George | White, Luke (York, E.R.) | |
| Trevelyan, Charles Philips | White, Patrick (Meath, North) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whitehead, Rowland Pease. |
| Verney, F. W. | Whitehead, Rowland | |
| Wadsworth, J. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) | |
| Waldron, Laurence Ambrose | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
§ MR. SPEAKERruled that the Instructions on the Paper in the names of the hon. Member for the Kingston Division of Surrey and the hon. Member for Ayrshire were out of order, and that that of the hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield was in order to the end of the third line, the remainder being out of order, †
§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS (Sheffield, Ecclesall)said his object in moving that part of his Instruction which was in order was to divide this Bill into two. Part I. dealt with religious instruction and religious difficulty alone. It did not deal with education, properly so called. In
† The Instructions referred to were as follows:—
§ MR. CAVEThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for dividing parishes and consolidating any parts of parishes for the purpose of varying the incidence of the charge proposed to be created by Clause 30 of the Bill.
§ MR. COCHRANEThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for giving effect to the wishes of parents (of children in actual attendance at provided schools), with regard to the religious education to be. given to children attending such schools by giving to such parents direct representation on the management of such schools as their children attend.
§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTSThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to divide the Bill into two Bills, the one dealing with elementary education, and the other with endowments and other educational purposes, and that the second Bill be reported to the House before the other is proceeded with. 976 Part I. the right hon. Gentleman had attempted to deal entirely with the religious difficulty, but he did not think his attempt up to the present had been successful in satisfying any large section of the House. It did not satisfy many of the right hon. Gentleman's own followers; it did not satisfy those who represented Ireland and it did not satisfy those who represented Labour. Part II. did deal with education and in a very wide and comprehensive way. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out with respect to Part II. in his introductory speech that it widened and strengthened the Board's power to establish a more elastic system of co-ordination. Part II. gave the Board of Education very wide and extensive powers. It gave the Board power to make schemes in all cases, excluding the schools mentioned in Section 3 of the Public Schools Act, 1868. In all other cases, both in secondary and in elementary schools, the Board of Education took powers to make schemes. It was quite true that where the value of the endowment was more than £50 a year the scheme had to come to this House to be confirmed. But in all other cases the Board of Education had power to make schemes without there being any appeal. This Bill was a very lengthy one and very controversial. It was divided into five parts and contained forty clauses. It was full of difficulties, and the object of this instruction was to otter the right hon. Gentleman a golden bridge to get out of those difficulties. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman' to take Part II. first ["No !"] and give 977 himself and his colleagues time to reconsider Part I. He was afraid that if the right hon. Gentleman would not do that, before Part II. was got rid of a very long time would elapse. His suggestion was that the Committee should take Part II. first and deal with that. Part II. was a Bill in itself. Was it not right, before they dealt with Part I., that those who had educational establishments should know what their rights were? One of the difficulties with which the right hon. Gentleman was confronted did not come from the Church of England alone. It came also from Nonconformist bodies who had educational endowments, and there was some doubt in their minds as to what power the Board of Education sought to have overthose endowments. The language of the Bill was indefinite on that point, and the people interested in the schools were very anxious to know what their rights were going to be. Therefore he suggested that the Government should let those people know what their position was before they proceeded to deal with Part I. He had no wish to delay the House, and simply put his suggestion before the Government that as these two parts of the Bill were absolutely distinct they should be taken separately. The right hon. Gentleman might have had a mandate for Part I., although he doubted that, but he was certain there was no demand in the country for the Government to deal with the endowments of the schools in the way they proposed to deal with them in this Bill. He begged to move.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSON (Oxford University), in seconding, said he would like to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of the Instruction of his hon. friend on the ground of practical convenience. Part II. proposed to deal with the endowments and to deal with them in a way which made the subject extremely contentious. He would not enter into the merits of Part II., but he would like to point out the very important matters in which changes were proposed and upon which lengthy discussion was almost inevitable. The Bill altered the law in the way of substituting new powers for those which the Board of Education had under existing Acts; it altered the time which exempted endowments from interference; it altered the terms which entitled endow- 978 ments to special treatment: it abolished the cyprés doctrine, and so altered the principles upon which trusts and endowments were dealt with; it altered the definition of endowments and left it to the Board of Education and gave them liberty to say what an endowment was. Owing to the somewhat curious manner in which that clause was drafted an educational endowment was anything that the Board of Education chose to regard as educational. It was impossible to say that that was a provision that was not contentious or one that the Opposition could accept without a very lengthy discussion. He suggested to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education that this particular portion of the Bill, Part II., involving as it did so many extremely technical questions, would be much better dealt with apart from the rest of the Bill which it encumbered and embarrassed to a degree which the right hon. Gentleman would hardly realise until he reached that portion in Committee. Although they could not press this Instruction like the last on the ground of great constitutional importance, he thought that they could press it on the ground of general convenience to the House.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Education (England and Wales) Bill that they have power to divide the Bill into two Bills, the one dealing with elementary education, and the other with endowments and other educational purposes."—(Mr. Samuel Roberts.)
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid the hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield had shown very great sympathy for this measure, and he hoped that he would continue to show that sympathy throughout the whole of the debate. But all were agreed that Part I. of the Bill was the part that would receive most discussion, and all must be anxious to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Whatever might be the difficulties in Part II., that part stood by itself and did not affect the consideration of Part I. The difficulties of Part II. belonged to Part II., and when they were raised they would be dealt with in due course. He appealed to the Committee to get to work on Part I. as soon as possible; when that had been dealt with he thought they would have 979 no difficulty in forming its opinion on Part II.
§ LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E.)hoped that the Government would see their way to take Part I. as a separate Bill. It was conceded by the President of the Board of Education and the Government generally that Part I. was unquestionably the important part of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman in his introductory speech scarcely alluded to any other part. Might he, therefore, impress upon the House the great importance of adequate discussion being given to that part I The express object of the Bill, the real object of the right hon. Member, was to arrive at some solution which would bring peace in the religious conflict. He could not see how Part I. would accomplish that object, but of one thing he was quite certain, namely, that there was not the least chance of bringing that home to anybody without fair and adequate discussion of Part I. The Bill was not quite clear upon that subject. If the President of the Board of Education looked at the Notice Paper he would see that there were thirty pages of Amendments with respect to Part I. alone. If the Government intended to get through that Part with proper and adequate discussion he could not help thinking that if Part II. were superadded the task before the House would be so heavy that great pressure would be put upon the Government to devise some means for unduly curtailing the discussion on that part of the Bill.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he was glad the right hon. Gentleman dissented, but they were now only at the beginning of the Committee stage, and sometimes right hon. and hon. Gentlemen changed their views during Committee. He could not help feeling that one portion of Part I. was absolutely destructive of the whole intention of the Government, and he thought that some of the Members of the Government were quite at sea as to the moaning and magnitude of Part II. The magnitude of the proposals in Part II. was enormous. Unless he wholly misconstrued the definition of education endowments, it appeared to him that it would be possible to consider 980 under Part II. every kind of endowment, and, when they took it in conjunction with Part IV., it meant that the Council for Wales would have the power of dealing with any kind of endowments, however purely religious or denominational such endowments were, or of making any provision they liked. It was quite evident that there was abundant matter both in Part II. and in Part IV. for very elaborate discussion, and there were other clauses, such as Clause 16, which must necessarily take a very long time. He could not see how the Government proposed to get through all those clauses if they were to allow full and free discussion of Part I., and he ventured to think that if they could really dispose of the religious difficulty and set at rest the fears of denominationalists and undenominationalists, they would facilitate the progress of the Bill. He did hope the Government would devote their whole energies to disposing of this question, and leave the other questions raised by the Bill, many of which were difficult, to be disposed of on a future occasion.
§ MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)said that since Mr. Speaker had ruled out of order the last part of this Instruction, it had become rather absurd. The only real point in the Instruction was the portion which had been ruled out of order. But supposing the Instruction were passed, its only effect would be to enable the Committee to divide the Bill into two Bills and to report them both during the present session. But it was competent for the Committee without any Instruction at all so to divide the Bill by simply dropping Part II. if they found that the discussion on Part I. had occupied too much of the session. All they had to do was to omit the clauses forming Part II. and take them up as a new Bill next year. That in his opinion was a thing which was not at all likely to happen; therefore, he could not vote in favour of this Instruction. Another reason was that, although Part II. would be exceedingly objectionable to the Catholic Party, the Government had distinctly and repeatedly said that it was not their intention to do what in the Catholic meetings throughout the country they had been charged with doing in the Bill, and that they were prepared to 981 receive with a perfectly open mind Amendments to Part II. And if he properly understood the intention of the Government it might be perfectly possible to come to an understanding satisfactory to those for whom the Nationalist Party spoke. There was another reason why he would be sorry to declare war on Part II. He thought they knew what were the real intentions of the Government in regard to that portion of the Bill. On the other hand he was somewhat in a difficulty, because undoubtedly, though it was not the true meaning of a vote against that instruction, it would bear the appearance to the outside public that the Nationalist Members were in favour of Part II. as it now stood, which they were not. And while at this stage he was not disposed to offer to the Bill irreconcilable or unreasonable opposition until they knew how far the Government would carry out the promises and indications given on the Second Heading, he certainly was not prepared to give any vote which could be interpreted as approval of Part II. Therefore he proposed to abstain from voting at all, and he thought that in that matter he expressed the opinion of his friends of the Nationalist Party.
§ MR. RAWLINSON (Cambridge University)said Part II. of this Bill was perhaps the most revolutionary proposal that had been put forward for many years. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education had curtly dismissed it as a few simple clauses to get over a difficulty, but he had never defined what those clauses proposed to do. The right hon. Gentleman might be aware, but he ventured to say that many Members of this House and the general public certainly were not aware, that Part II. not only referred to elementary and secondary schools, but to such institutions as theological colleges. Under this Bill such institutions could be immediately taken away from the trustees, although they wore entirely for teaching of a denominational nature. The Bill also gave the power to take away the trust deeds of those institutions and to deal with any privilege which the denomination might have over educational purposes. It applied also to Church training schools where the teachers for various elementary schools were trained. Whether or not 982 that was intended he did not know, but he understood from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education that he did not mean to touch those schools. Hut there was not the slightest, doubt that the draftsmen of the Bill did intend it and had carried out the intention, of course acting under the instructions of the President of the Board of Education. It would also apply to all such schools as convent schools in England which wore clearly schools of a denominational character. After the most flattering remarks of the President of the Board of Education and the President of the Board of Trade as to the Roman Catholic religion, it was a wonder the right hon. Gentleman should have included in Part II. a right to confiscate practically every convent school in the country. Further than that, it applied to such schools as choir schools annexed to to such places as cathedral towns. Not a word was said about this on the Second Heading. There were also institutions founded by Nonconformist bodies on strictly denominational lines, such as the Leys School at Cambridge. They had to render accounts every year. That might be an excellent innovation, although he differed from those who hold that opinion. There were lots of people in this country —he did not agree with them—who thought it would be an excellent thing that all convent schools should be shut up to-morrow. But the subject required discussion in this House. The Leys School and the other schools he had mentioned would have to render accounts to the Board of Education each year under this Act. All the theological colleges would have to do the same. It would affect other institutions probably not so familiar to hon. Members. There were various schools, such as high schools for girls, which had been worked under different denominations, notably the Church of England. Part II. of the Bill affected all of them. There was one other point which he wished to press very fully, because he was certain the right hon. Gentleman had not realised it. It was understood by everyone who heard or read the right hon. Gentleman's speech that, when a school belonging to trustees was taken, rent was to be paid for it. How would that work out in practice if Part II. of the Bill were allowed to remain? Let them take a small village 983 where there was a school vested in trustees, the trust having existed for more than thirty years, and there was a small separate endowment of about £50 a year. The innocent elector thought that some part of the £50 a year was going for Church purposes. Not at all. Part II. would come along. The President of the Board of Education would send down, without the consent of the trustees, and against their wishes and those of the managers, a man from the Board of Education who was bound to follow the instructions under the Bill. What would be the fate of the £50 a year in the little village? It was bound to be put down for educational purposes. What other educational purpose was there in that village once the question of Church and creed was eliminated? [An HON. MEMBER: Scholarships.] He agreed. What more excellent educational purpose could they have than the board school of the villages, and so the £50 they were giving with one hand, they were taking back the next moment with the other. The President of the Board of Education had told them that the money would be devoted to the payments which would be incurred by the necessary renting of the schools, but they knew now that it was nothing of the kind.
§ MR. SPEAKERI fail to see the bearing of the hon. Member's argument. The Instruction is that the Bill should be divided into two parts. They may both be either good or bad, but the only question is whether they should be divided.
§ MR. RAWLINSONsaid the effect of Part II. was that it absolutely ousted the jurisdiction of the High Court in connection with such trusts. [Cries of "Order, order !" from the MINISTERIAL Benches.] Not only this, but it utterly altered the law of trust deeds. [Renewed cries of "Order !"] The very cries from the Ministerial Benches were the strongest argument in favour of the course suggested by his right hon. friend the Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield. This was an important proposition which deserved full and calm discussion. The President of the Board of Education had told them the story of his walk in Battersea Park. On the Saturday previous to the First 984 Reading of this Bill the right hon. Gentleman perused some documents to be ready to open his case in this House on the Monday, and apparently he had not time to read his brief further than Part I. and consequently they did not hear anything about Part II. In other walks of life, such as the law courts, it was frequently desirable to give a learned counsel time to read the whole of his brief, and no harm would be done by taking Part II. as a separate Bill, because it raised questions of great importance and proposed sweeping changes.
§ MR. BURDETT-COUTTS (Westminster)said the President of the Board of Education had expressed a desire to get to work, but the reason why they could not get to work was that the right hon. Gentleman had attached to a Bill dealing with elementary education two great public questions which on all grounds ought to be treated apart from an Elementary Education Bill. Although the proposed sweeping treatment of endowments might not, like the Welsh Council, involve a great constitutional principle, it certainly was the initiation of a new theory and practice which would be of far-reaching importance to the country, and was of sufficient importance to require separate treatment at the hands of the House. The principle at stake was whether it was right or expedient for the House, on the plea of facilitating some legislation with regard to a particular subject, to pass a Bill which enabled them to alter the law wantonly and violently in regard to endowments, and trusts, and money, and property which had been handed over upon conditions which were perfectly legal. That was a new legislative departure for this House, and it would have very serious effects upon the whole practice of testamentary benefactions from which many of the less fortunate class in this country had reaped such great benefit. They were proposing to take into their own hands the power to divert endowments and trusts from their original and legitimate purpose which in many cases had been confirmed by schemes on which the ink was hardly dry, and granted by the authorised department of the Government. They would in this way be telling people that it was no use for them to single out objects for the public good to which to leave their money.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is giving very good reasons against Part II., but that is not the question. The question is whether it should remain part of this Bill or be dealt with as a separate Bill.
§ MR. BURDETT-COUTTSsaid he was endeavouring to show that Part II. of the Bill introduced a new treatment of the principle of endowments which went far beyond the scope of any question of education, and that this constituted a strong reason why that Part deserved to be treated in a separate Bill.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he should not have intervened had it not been that he thought some observations made by the hon. Member for East Mayo might possibly greatly mislead both hon. Members from Ireland and the House generally as to what was likely to occur if this Instruction were rejected. The hon. Member appeared to suppose that if the Government found Part II.—which carried with it an absolutely revolutionary proposal in connection with the whole trust system of the country—too heavy a load for them to carry, they could omit it from the Bill and go on with other parts of the measure which were more relevant. The hon. Member for East Mayo was mistaken, because nothing that the Committee could do if the House rejected this Instruction would put them in the position which the Instruction would put them into. The Instruction would practically divide the Bill, and enable the House to deal separately with the question of elementary education.
§ MR. DILLONDoes the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that it would not be competent for the Committee to omit Part II. if they chose to do so?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid the hon. Member for East Mayo had led some hon. Members to believe that, if the House rejected this Instruction they could, as it were, retrieve their steps at a later stage of the Bill, and then do what they now deliberately refused to do. That was not so in two very important, but different, respect. In the first place, if this Instruction was carried, and only if carried, they would be able to get two Bills—one containing the provisions 986 in regard to elementary education and Welsh administrative Home Rule, and the other containing the revolution in the principle of trusts. The two Bills would be there to their hands, and they could be proceeded with as time allowed. But even if it were possible to defer their proceedings to the middle of the Bill, there would be the right of discussion at some later stage. If they did not agree to this Instruction now, they would only be able to omit Part II. clause by clause, and having done that the Government would have to bring in a new Bill.
§ MR. DILLONsaid the right hon. Gentleman was not correctly representing what he said as to the effect of not accepting this Instruction. What he said was that the Committee without the Instruction would have power to drop Part II.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid the hon. Gentleman was wrong even in that statement, as he would show if allowed to go on with his speech in his own way. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that they could defer a decision on this point until a later stage of the Bill, and quite unintentionally he misled some hon. Members when he said that they could drop Part II.
§ MR. DILLONYou can drop it clause by clause.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that at the end of each clause a Motion to omit the clause could be put down. A Motion of that kind would have to be put down separately for each clause, and all the amendments relating to each clause must be disposed of before the Motion to omit it could be made. A Motion to omit a clause could not be made at the beginning of the clause. He did not say that that was a good system. It was a system which he tried to alter when he made proposals to the House on procedure, but the House did not like the alteration. It was impossible for the Government under the Standing Orders to omit a clause in the Committee stage of a Bill until the whole of that clause had been discussed line by line and amendment by amendment. The hon. Member for East Mayo would see from what be had said that it would be perfectly impossible 987 for the Government, if they rejected this Instruction, to come down to the House and carry out in any shape or form the lightening of the Bill in the way urged now. He was quite sure the advice offered to the Government was good. They were initiating in Part II., as any lawyer, of whom there were plenty on their own side, would tell them, an immense revolution in the whole law of trusts which touched every class of the community—Nonconformists, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans alike. Every class of the community, rich or poor, was interested in this law of trusts, and why on earth the Government, having insisted already this afternoon in initiating one great revolution, should now insist on initiating another in the middle of a Bill which was certainly revolutionary enough, and was going to lead to heart burning and bitterness throughout the country, he did not know. Now, and now only, was the time for the Government to diminish the burden they were carrying and to lessen the difficulties they had to surmount, and he urged them not to neglect the warning which he, for the second time this afternoon ventured to give them.
§ SIR FRANCIS LOWE (Birmingham, Edgbaston)said that whether they agreed or disagreed on the question of having one or two Bills the point which they had to consider now was whether Part II was germane to Part I. He ventured to say that the one had nothing whatever to do with the other, and that the one was not necessary in any shape or form to the other. The first Part dealt wholly with elementary schools, and the second Part gave the Board of Education power to deal with schemes and charitable endowments, and said that the courts of law should in future cease to have power to make any such schemes. There were only a few public schools such as Eton and Harrow which were exempted from this portion of the Bill. The question whether such schools as Rugby, Wellington, Marl-borough, Shrewsbury, and Uppingham should be deprived of their endowments was a separate question from whether something should be done to deal with religion in public elementary schools. He thought the Motion was a perfectly fair and reasonable one.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 107; Noes, 353. (Division List, No. 84.)
991| AYES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Gardner, Krnest (Berks, East) |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Cecil,Lord John P. Joicey- | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Cecil, Lord K. (Marylebone, E.) | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S. |
| Ashley, W. W. | Chamberlain. Rt. Hn. J.(Birm. | Haddock, George R. |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham) | Hambro, Charles Eric |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H.A.E. | Hamilton, Warquess of |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashfird |
| Balfour, RtHn. A.J.(CityLond.) | Courthope G. Loyd | Harrison-Broadley, Col. H.B. |
| Balfour, Capt C. B. (Hornsey) | Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim,S.) | Healy, Timothy Michael |
| Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester) | Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.) | Helmsley, Viscount |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Craik, Sir Henry | Hervey, F.W. F(Bury S. Edm'ds |
| Beach, Hn.Michael Hugh Hicks | Cross, Alexander | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Dalrymple, Viscount | Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh.) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon | Hills, J. W. |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Houston, Robert Paterson |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Du Cros, Harvey | Hunt, Rowland |
| Bull, Sir William James | Duncan, Robert(Lanark,Govan | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Kenyon-Slaney,Rt. Hn. Col.W. |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Fardell, Sir T. George | Keswick, William |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Fell, Arthur | King, SirHtnrySeymour(Hull) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ed. H. | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Fletcher, J. S. | Lee, ArthurH. (Hants. Fareham) |
| Cavendish, Rt.Hn.Victor C.W. | Forster, Henry William | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage |
| Liddell, Henry | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Walker, Col. W.H.(Lancashire) |
| Long, Col. CharlesW.(Evesham) | Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne | Walrond, Pon. Lionel |
| Lowe, Sir Francis William | Rawlinson, John Frederick P. | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| M'Calmont, Colonel James | Remnant, James Farquharson | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| M'Iver, SirLewis(EdinburghW | Roberts, S.(Sheffield,Ecclesall) | Wilson, A.Stanley(York, E. R.) |
| Magnus, Sir Philip | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert | Wolff, Gustav Wilbelm |
| Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Salter, Arthur Clavell | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C.B.Stuart |
| Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Starkey, John R. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Middlemore, JohnThrogmorton | Stone, Sir Benjamin | Younger, George |
| Morpeth, Viscount | Talbot, Rt.Hn.JG(Oxf'd Univ. | |
| Muntz, Sir Philip A. | Thomson, W.Mitchell (Lanark) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | Thornton, Percy M. | |
| Pease,Herbert Pike(Darlington | Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Byles, William Pollard | Ferens, T. R. |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Cairns, Thomas | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace |
| Adkins, W. Ryland | Caldwell, James | Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry |
| Agnew, George William | Cameron, Robert | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Fullerton. Hugh |
| Alden, Percy | Causton, Rt. Hn Richard Knight | Gardner, Col. Alan (Hereford, S. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Cheetham, John Frederick | Gibb, James (Harrow) |
| Armitage, R. | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Clarke, C. Goddard (Peekham) | Glendinning, R. G. |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Cleland, J. W. | Glover, Thomas |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Clough, W. | Gooch, George Peabody |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Coats, Sir.T. Glen (Renfrew,W. | Grant, Corrie |
| Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.) | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Griffith, Ellis J. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Collins, SirWm. J(S. PancrasW, | Grove, Archibald |
| Barker, John | Cooper, G. J. | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton |
| Barlow, John Emmott(S'D'rs't | Corbett, C.H.(Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis |
| Barnard, E. B. | Cory, Clifford John | Haridie, J.Keir(Merthyr Tydvil |
| Barnes, G. N. | Cotton, Sir H. J. S | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Cowan, W. H. | Harmsworth, Cecil B.(Worc'r) |
| Beale, W. P. | Cox, Harold | Harmsworth. R.L. (Caithn'ss-sh |
| Beauchamp, E. | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Hart-Davis, T. |
| Beaumout, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Cremer, William Randal | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Crombie, John William | Harwood, George |
| Benn, John Williams(Dov'np'rt | Crooks, William | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Benn, W.(T'w'r Hamlets,S. Geo. | Crosfield, A. H. | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Crossley, William J. | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Bertram, Julius | Davies, David(Montgomery Co. | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Bethell, J.H.(Essex, Romford) | Davies, M.Vaughan- (Cardigan | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Billson, Alfred | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Henderson, J.M. (Aberdeen, W.) |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Henry, Charles S. |
| Black, Alexander Wm. (Banff) | Dickinson, W.H.(St. Pancras, N. | Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon.,.) |
| Black, ArthurW.(Bedfordshire | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) |
| Bolton, T. D.(Derbyshire, N.E. | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Higham, John Sharp |
| Bottomley, Horatio | Dobson, Thomas W. | Hobart, Sir Robert |
| Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Duckworth, James | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Brace, William | Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness | Hodge, John |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Holden, E. Hopkinson |
| Branch, James | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Holland, Sir William Fenry |
| Brocklehurst, W. D. | Dunne, Major E. M. (Walsall) | Hooper A. G. |
| Brodie, H. C. | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset,N) |
| Brooke, Stopford | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Horniman, Emslie John |
| Brunner, J.F.L.(Lancs.,Leigh) | Edwards, Frank (Radnor) | Horridge, Thomas Gardner |
| Brunner, Sir John T.(Cheshire) | Elibank, Master of | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Bryce. Rt. Hn. James(Aberdeen | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Hudson, Walter |
| Bryce, J.A.(InvernessBurghs) | Erskine, David C. | Hutton, Alfred Eddison |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Essex, R. W. | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Evans, Samuel T. | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Eve, Harry Trelawney | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Burnyeat, J. D. W. | Everett, R. Lacey | Jackson, R S. |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Jacoby, James Alfred |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Nicholls, George | Steadman, W. C. |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Nicholson, Charles N.(Doncast'r | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea | Norman, Henry | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Jowett, F. W. | Nuttall, Harry | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Kearley, Hudson E. | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Stuart, James (Sunderland) |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Parker, James (Halifax) | Summerbell, T. |
| Kelley, George D. | Paul, Herbert | Sutherland, J. E. |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek) | Taylor, Austin (East Toxeth) |
| Kitson, Sir James | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester) | Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury) |
| Lamb, EdmundG.(Leominster) | Pearson, W.H.M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Perks, Robert William | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Lambert, George | Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E. |
| Lamont, Norman | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr |
| Lawson, Sir Wilfrid | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset, E |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh.Central) | Thorne, William |
| Lea, HughCecil (St.Paneras, E. | Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.) | Tomkinson, James |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Torrance, A. M. |
| Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich | Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford, E. | Toulmin, George |
| Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Radford, G. H. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Levy, Maurice | Rainy, A. Rolland | Verney, F. W. |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Raphael, Herbert H. | Vivian, Henry |
| Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Wadsworth, J. |
| Lough, Thomas | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Walker, H. De. R. (Leicester) |
| Lubton, Arnold | Rees, J. D. | Wallace, Robert |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes. | Renton, Major Leslie | Walter, John Tudor |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Richards, Thomas (W.Monm'th | Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) |
| Lynch, H. B. | Richards,T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Richardson, A. | Ward, John(Stoke upon Trent) |
| Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs | Rickett, J. Compton | Ward, W. Dudley(Southampton |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Wardle, George J. |
| Maclean, Donald | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan) |
| Macpherson, J. T. | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Wason, John Catheart (Orkney) |
| M'Crae, George | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| M'Kenna, Reginald | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Watt, H. Anderson |
| M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester) | Robinson, S. | Wedgwood. Josiah C. |
| M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Robson, Sir William Snewdon | Weir, James Galloway |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Roe, Sir Thomas | Whitbread, Howard |
| Maddison, Frederick | Rogers, F. E. Newman | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Rose, Charles Day | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) |
| Manfield Harry (Northants) | Rowlands, J. | White, Luke (York, E.R.) |
| Mansfield. H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Runciman, Walter | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Marnham, F. J. | Russell, T. W. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Massie, J. | Samuel, Herbert L.(Cleveland) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Menzies, Walter | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Schwann,Chas.E. (Manchester) | Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Scott, A.H.(Ashton under Lyne | Williamson, A.(Elgin andNairn |
| Mond, A. | Sears, J. E. | Wilson. Hon. C.H. W. (Hull, W.) |
| Money, L. G. Chiozza | Seaverns, J. H. | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Montagu, E. S. | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Montgomery, H. H. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T.(Hawick B.) | Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh. H) |
| Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Shipman, Dr. John G. J | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S. |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Simon, John Allsebrook | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Morley, Rt. Hon. John | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Winfrey, R. |
| Morrell, Philip | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Wodehouse, Lord(Norfolk, Mid) |
| Morse, L. L. | Snowdon, P. | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Woodhouse, Sir J.T. (Huddersf'd |
| Murray, James | Soares, Ernest J. | |
| Myer, Horatio | Spicer, Albert | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. |
| Napier, T. B. | Stanger, H. Y. | |
| Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Stanley, Hn. A.Lyulph.(Chesh.) |
§ MR. SPEAKERThe Instruction in the name of the hon. Member for the 992 Holderness Division, and the subject matter of all the other instructions on 993 the Paper †, may be raised either as Amendments to existing clauses in the Bill or by new clauses, and they are therefore out of order.
† The Instructions referred to were as follows:—
MR. STANLEY WILSONThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions for altering boundaries of parishes for the purpose of varying the incidents of the charge proposed to be created by Clause 30 of the Bill.
§ LORD R. CECILThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions for establishing a central education authority in London to be called the Council for London.
§ MR. BRIDGEMANThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions for establishing a central education authority for the county of London, to be called the Education Council for London.
§ MR. RADFORDThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for the establishment of an education authority for London directly elected for the purpose of education only.
§ MR. EVERETTThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision in the Bill for the constitution of local education authorities elected for educational purposes only for areas of suitable size, with provision for the combined action of such authorities where thought expedient in county or other large areas.
§ MR. CHANNINGThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for the establishment of authorities directly elected for the purposes of education only in areas of suitable size throughout the country.
§ MR. BECKETTThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions for establishing central education authorities for the counties of York and Lancaster consisting of members to be appointed by the councils, county boroughs, and other municipal authorities of the said counties.
§ MR. PICKERSGILLThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for the creation of a directly elected body to constitute the local education authority for London, and having only educational duties to perform.
§ LORD BALCARRESThat it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions that in the event of excess of authority on the part of the council proposed to be created under Clause 37 of the Bill the powers thereby to be conferred shall, ipso facto, cease and determine, and revert to the Board of Education.
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
§ Clause:—
§ MR. LAURENCE HARDY (Kent,. Ashford), in moving to postpone Clause I., said that he could not be accused bringing forward the Amendment in an obstructive sense, for an Amendment to a similar effect was moved by the hon. Member for Northampton, E., when the Education Bill of 1902 was before the House. If it was desirable to raise a discussion on the point then, it was tenfold more so on this occasion, when the wording of the first clauses of the two Bills was compared. He wanted to put shortly before the Government the reasons why they would do wisely in postponing this clause. What did the Government, inform them on the Second Reading of the Bill? They said they had to fulfil certain mandates: one referred to local control, and the second, which had a new and vague description, was the abolition of tests for teachers. If those were the objects with which the Government had brought forward their Bill, he would point out that this clause did not deal with either, because so far as local control was concerned, it was limited in its wording. These were council schools; they were virtually under local control, and if the words passed as they stood, the Bill did not deal in any sense with the question of complete public control. Neither did it deal with the question which had reference to the tests for teachers, because in these council schools there were not, even in the opinion of hon. Gentlemen opposite, any real tests for teachers. Therefore, so far as their mandate was concerned, the Government were not, under this clause, dealing with either of these great questions, and if they desired the conciliation of which they spoke there was a very grave and serious reason why they should consent to do justice by postponing this clause. In a few words the clause provided, when it had been passed, that every public elementary school should be a provided school. [MINISTERIAL cheers] Hon. Members cheered that statement, and they therefore desired in a one-sided manner, by departing from the concordat which had existed in this 995 country for thirty-six years, to destroy by three lines in a Bill 16,000 schools which were educating half the children of this country. Nobody could deny that this clause did that. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] Hon. Members said "no," but how could a voluntary school at this moment be a "provided" school? He saw that hon. Members were silent now. Practically he thought they could sum up this clause in no other phrase than in a very well-known rallying cry belonging to another religion which ran —
There is but one Allah and Mahomet is his prophet.He thought that they might say that the Government asserted by this clause that "There is but one school and Cowper-Temple is his prophet." There was good reason for postponing this clause, because the Government had to make further arrangements, and having destroyed the whole of the schools in the country which were worked under voluntary principles they might, by a subsequent clause "deem" them to be provided schools, and use words to that effect. Supposing one desired to be conciliatory, one did not on meeting a man in the street knock him down first and then say "Now I am willing to come to terms with you, but you must remember that if you do get up, I have another chance of knocking you down again under a scheme for a Commission, and it will be the worse for you if you refuse this Bill." Another reason for accepting the Amendment was one of expediency. The proposal to postpone the clause was an alternative to a proposal to omit it. He should be sorry under present circumstances to see it omitted because he desired that they should have one form of school for secular education in this country. He voted for the 1902 Bill believing that he was voting for one co-ordinated form of secular instruction. If that Act required strengthening he was willing to go forward and strengthen it provided it could be done with justice Surely, therefore, it was better for them to deal with clauses standing between 1 and 13 which would enable them to find means of transferring the voluntary schools to the local authority with full justice and fairness before passing this clause. Then if they were satisfied and Members representing other denominations were satisfied, 996 instead of being the subject of amendment Clause 1 might be accepted without any discussion at all. So long as this was put in the forefront of the Bill they were, however, bound to oppose it. Another argument was the financial one, which he thought showed that the clause should be postponed. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were extremely anxious for economy, and if they could only hit upon some just means of transferring these schools it was very possible that the £1,000,000 a year or the £20,000,000 proposed to be spent under this Bill might be saved. Hon. Members opposite seemed to think that the desire for money was the only consideration which affected them. He believed that none of the denominations interested were desirous of money. They desired to secure the advantages they had at present, which they believed vital to their own schools, and to carry through the main object for which the schools were established, the religious education of their children. Another reason for the postponement was the maze in which they found themselves from the speeches delivered from the front Ministerial bench. They did not know whether the schools were to be handed over in the spirit of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy, or in the spirit of the speech of the President of the Board of Trade. They had not yet been favoured with any opinion from the Prime Minister, and they had before them no presentation of a satisfactory basis for a great settlement. He therefore thought that on the ground of the different tenor of the speeches dealing with the most vital subjects they ought not to commit themselves without due consideration of the terms to the suppression of those schools, which, after all, had been built and carried on under the guarantee of the State for a great number of years. It was most unfair that they who might be called the elder brother in education should have their interests entirely disregarded and forgotten as they were in the first clause of the Bill. They had been taunted that they did not care for Bible teaching, but there was one passage of that Book of which he was reminded. They were told that the schools of 1870 were not to supplant but to supplement the voluntary schools, but this clause was finally going to supplant and not to supplement them, and they might well 997 recollect the pathetic words which they read in the Bible of the elder brother—Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me these two times; he took away my birthright, and behold now he hath taken away my blessing.They might have to part with their birthright in these schools under the intolerable strain of poverty and hunger but they were determined that if they did they would not part with the blessing, viz., the blessing of definite religious instruction of the children in the tenets of their parents' faith by teachers who believed in that teaching.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 1 be postponed."—(Mr. Laurence Hardy.)
§ THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (SIR W. ROBSON, South Shields)said he would not follow the hon. Member into the merits of the clause, and he was afraid if he did so he should not be successful in keeping within the strict limits of order because this Amendment raised no question as to the merits of that clause but only referred to the place it should occupy in the measure. It was said that they should discuss the clause at the end of the Bill, but undoubtedly it embodied the fundamental principle of the measure, and he could not understand if it wore postponed what sort of discussion they were likely to have upon Clauses 2, 3, and 4. Those clauses were consequential to Clause 1, and it was therefore essential that they should take the principle of the primary clause in its proper place. The hon. Member dashed to the ground the hope he at first raised that they might get the clause without debate by denouncing it in unmeasured terms.
There is but one school and Cowper-Temple is his prophet"—that was not exactly holding out a hope that by postponing this clause they would find themselves in such a position that there would be no difficulty in agreeing to it. The hon. Member had not mentioned what the Amendments were in the second clause which would satisfy him and his friends, upon which they would accept Clause 1, which contained the principle of the Bill which they denounced on its second reading. He was afraid from the statement of the hon. Member they must accept his promise as an illusory one and relegate it to its 998 proper place. The Government could not accept the Motion.
§ MR. WYNDHAM (Dover)said that this was not a dilatory Motion, neither was it one that would kill or mutilate the Bill. The first clause embodied the fundamental proposition of the measure, and this meant that it fulfilled the pledges given by many hon. Members opposite during the election. Undoubtedly the clause would place the appointment of the head teacher of a non-provided school in the hands of the local authority instead of, as now, giving the local authority the right to consent to the appointment or not. But the clause also said that what was known as the Cowper-Temple clause of the Act of 1870 should from a certain date govern all religious instruction in every school in the country. The Opposition regarded that as an act of injustice, and it seemed to them, rightly or wrongly, that it ought not to be placed in the forefront of the Bill, because if hon. Members insisted upon giving it that place, and stating that it was the fundamental proposition of the Bill, with what confidence could they ask the Opposition to look forward to the discussion of exemptions and exceptions from the clause? If this clause were passed it would kill all denominational instruction throughout the country. ["No, no."] There ought to be in the clause some announcement that the Government were prepared to meet the Opposition claim that the State should act impartially as between the different kinds of religious instruction for which individual sections of the community had a preference. But the clause contained nothing of the kind, and the Bill in effect was a measure enabling the local education authority to take over on terms the present non-provided schools. Then why not begin with Clause 2, which said that the local authority, if it so desired, might enter into an arrangement for renting schools? Surely that was the logical starting point for a Bill which contemplated arrangements of this character. Instead of adopting that course, however, the Government had drawn up their Bill in the most provoking manner that could have been selected, thereby destroying any hope raised by the assurances, often repeated, that the Government wished to meet the just claims of those who urged provision for denominational education. Once the first clause was enacted the 999 Government created a presumption for all time that this was the proper kind of religious instruction to be given in all places, and nothing they might do afterwards would defeat the presumption so created. They said, therefore, that it was not just to create a presumption in favour of a system which at its best, the high-water mark of the Hampshire syllabus, did not satisfy a great number of their fellow-countrymen, and which at its worst did not coincide with their religious convictions
§ MR. DILLONsaid that Clause 1 undoubtedly contained the fundamental principle of the educational proposals. It was intended to set up in this country a uniform system of State schools under popular control, and not only to do that, but to set up in those schools the endowment of one particular form of religious teaching. He recognised that as the principle of the Bill, and while so far as he was concerned he thought that ideal a false one—false from a purely educational point of view as well as from the point of view of religious justice—still, under certain circumstances, he and those who worked with him on this question would be prepared to accept that system, not because they thought it was fair but because they were a minority in the country. He was amused to hear the hon. Member who moved the Amendment say that he should be sorry to omit Clause 1 because he desired to see one form of school for the whole country.
§ MR. LAURENCE HARDYFor secular education.
§ MR. DILLONremarked that surely all schools must be for secular education. He did not suppose that the hon. Member would banish secular education altogether. He believed that the ideal that was set up as a fetish of one cast-iron system of school in the country was a false ideal and that in the end they would find that out. The history of humanity had taught that all improvement in education and in everything else came not from Governments but from individuality. The Irish people had enough to complain of in the way of education, but there was one bright spot in the education of Ireland which challenged comparison with the primary education of any other country 1000 in the world, even Germany; it was the system which governments had not touched or interfered with. The Christian Brothers conducted a system of primary education by private effort as good as any which existed. Why had their system been so marvellously successful? It was because it was original. It was devised by the Brothers themselves, and they had always refused to have it cramped, cabined, or confined by the Government. Therefore he said that so far as he himself was concerned, and he was glad to have that opportunity of saying so, from a purely educational point of view they would not be pursuing the true ideal if they set up a bed of Procrustes and attempted to stretch every system of primary instruction in the country upon it. His ideal was to encourage diversity, and he did not believe in uniformity. But he thought that there ought to be in every country a State system, though every effort should be made to encourage variety and individual effort.
THE CHAIRMANOrder! order! I think the hon. Member is getting rather wide of the Question before the Committee.
§ MR. DILLONadmitted that he had done so. He would go on to show why he thought the clause ought to be postponed. He had already stated that he could not share the view of the hon. Member who moved the Motion. As the clause was good in itself they were prepared to accept it if the other causes were so found and amended as to enable them to obtain justice and save their schools. But how were they able to determine what their attitude was to be towards Clause 1 or as to the various amendments on Clause 1, when they did not know what facilities were to be given in Clause 4 and the other clauses? He did not think that it was quite so absurd as the Solicitor-General on behalf of the Government seemed to think, that this Clause 1 should be postponed until Clauses 2, 3, and 4 and other clauses were decided upon, for by such postponement the length and bitterness of the discussion on the Amendments to Clause 1 might be enormously decreased. He did not know what the feeling of the Opposition might be on this matter, but his own feeling, and the feeling of 1001 his colleagues, was that they trusted that the course of the debates on other clauses of the Bill would take such a shape as would enable them heartily to accept Clause 1. But when they were in a state of uncertainty as to what the future course of these clauses was to be, it put things in a very different light, and it might necessitate their taking part in a discussion on this particular point He did not wish to be misunderstood; he was not now pressing the Government to disclose their intentions with regard to Clauses 3 and 4. He did not think it would be reasonable to ask, or politic on the part of the Government to disclose them, and he did not see that the attitude of the Government on Part I. could be altered by a forecast as to what they proposed to do on Clauses 3 and 4. The only way to meet the difficulty was by allowing discussions on Clauses 2, 3, and 4 to come on, and then they could make up their minds as to their attitude on Clause 1.
§ SIR FRANCIS LOWEsaid that on much the same ground as the hon. Member for East Mayo he pressed very hard the postponement of this clause, which proposed that no elementary school should be regarded as such unless provided by the local authority. That was to say, that unless it became a provided school, it should cease to have any assistance from the rates and taxes. It might be possible that some of them would consent to such a course being adopted if they knew the terms and conditions on which they were asked to concur in the arrangement, but to ask them to consent to the 16,000 voluntary schools being handed over to the local education authority without knowing on what terms they were to be handed over, was very much like asking anyone to sell his property without knowing what the purchase money or the other items wore to be. He thought, however, it was quite possible that equitable terms might be arranged by which these voluntary schools should be handed over to the local education authority, and so far as he was concerned he was most anxious to assist in bringing about such an agreement as would settle this difficulty once and for all. But first of all they wanted to know what facilities were to be afforded for denominational teaching. 1002 Clause 3 said that facilities were to be given on not more than two mornings of the week, it did not say that they were even to be given on two mornings, and they need not be given on more than one morning. It did not say whether they were to be given in or out of school hours. [Cries of "Question."] They wanted to know whether these facilities were to be real or illusory.
§ SIR FRANCIS LOWEsaid he was only trying to show that if fair and equitable terms were accorded they might agree to Clause 1, but it was impossible to agree to it until they knew what the terms were to be. It was only reasonable that they should ask for the clause to be postponed until the Government had more clearly made known exactly what facilities they proposed to give for denominational teaching, and for that reason he strongly supported the Amendment.
§ MR. CARLILE (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)supported the proposal to postpone the clause. If the right hon. Gentleman in framing the measure had avoided throwing this tremendous bone of contention at their heads in the very forefront of the measure, it was likely the Bill would have been received with more consideration by the Opposition and the country at large. When the right hon. Gentleman introduced the measure he referred to himself as a singularly untrained man. Hon. Members might have their own opinion as to the sort of training that the, right hon. Gentleman had had, or as to his capacity, but at any-rate they greatly appreciated the great ability and skill with which he introduced the measure. If he had illustrated in the arrangement of the measure the same skill and ability, they would not have found the first clause where it now was. It had caused the friends of education, and more particularly that portion who were deeply interested in the welfare of the voluntary schools, to meet the whole Bill with a non possumus. The mere fact that this clause did away with any diversity or variety in the schools would in itself condemn the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing the measure, referred to the glorious work of 1003 the School Boards. That work was greatly appreciated.
§ MR. CARLILEsaid he merely wished to show that the clause was placed in a wrong place. Unless the clause were put later in the Bill, those who had as they thought the highest interests of education at heart could not do otherwise than contest the clause word by word and line by line.
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid that it was generally a good rule to begin at the beginning. This clause meant rather more than the right hon. Member for Dover attributed to it, because it meant the establishment of the principle that all schools which received public money should be placed under public control. If the Bill became law, whatever might be the facilities given under Clauses 3 and 4—and he hoped that they would be found by no means illusory—they would still be given in schools under the control of the local education authority. Therefore, Clause 1 was a real good clause standing by itself. The Government would have departed from fair dealing and common sense if they had not put the bone of contention in the forefront. This first clause was the spinal cord of the Bill, and he did not see where else they could have put it. It was therefore impossible for him to accept the Motion.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that this was much more than a mere drafting question. From the point of view of drafting he entirely agreed that Clause 1 ought to come first; but it did not follow that it ought to be considered first. There were strong reasons why it should be postponed until the Government plan in regard to Clauses 3 and 4 was known. It would be much more convenient if this clause were postponed so that the Government might state what their policy was in regard to Clauses 3 and 4. The hon. Member for East Mayo had said that he saw no way of gaining that object without actually postponing the clause. The most strenuous and anxious admirers of Clause 1 must admit that it had produced a very painful feeling amongst all those who were interested in voluntary schools. 1004 The most ardent Nonconformist would have sufficient power of sympathy to understand that it could not be an agreeable process for those who had spent vast sums upon establishing schools for denominational purposes to have those schools turned into provided schools. Was it not fair to the class they wished to oppress [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh"]—the class they wished to deprive of their schools—that before assenting to this summary justice or injustice they should know what were the mitigating and alleviating circumstances the Government meant to bring forward? Had the Government themselves made up their minds? The Minister for Education, in his opening speech, quoted from a different draft of the Bill to that which they had now before them and made two material and most important variations from the text of the Bill presented to the House. Which was to stand? Did the conversations to deputations contain the kernel of the new policy? The Committee ought to approach the consideration of Clause 1 with some knowledge of what were the mitigating circumstances in relation to the great injury proposed to be done to the whole system of religious education. They ought not to have to consider Clause 1 blindfolded if the Government could give them any light upon the most important portion of their own Bill.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANS (Glamorganshire, Mid.)did not think the Minister for Education would act the part of the fly to the spider of the Leader of the Opposition. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down of what he said when a Motion was proposed to postpone Clause 1 of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill of 1902. At that time the right hon. Gentleman declared it was good drafting to place the principle upon which the Bill depended in the early part of the measure, and that what hon. Members had called "the backbone of the Bill" should be in front. [An HON. MEMBER: But this Bill is robbery.) He did not think hon. Members on the Opposition side would advance the cause by cries of "robbery." If the right hon. Gentleman was of the same opinion as he was in 1902 he ought to vote against this Motion.
§ SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University)Might I ask the hon. Member how he himself voted on that occasion?
§ SIR FRANCIS LOWEWill the hon. Member read an extract from his own speech upon that occasion?
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSI do not think I spoke upon that occasion.
§ SIR FRANCIS POWELL (Wigan), in supporting the Motion, claimed that all the parties who were about to he injured by this measure—the parents whose rights would be interfered with, the teachers whose liberty would be fettered, and the founders of great schools whoso property would be, he would not say confiscated, but alienated—all these were entitled to further information as to the intentions of the Government.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Baronet must confine his remarks to the Motion before the House, which is that this clause should be postponed.
§ SIR FRANCIS POWELLsaid he was endeavouring to give reasons why the Bill should be postponed. It seemed to him that the children of the parents whose rights were interfered with by the Bill and the founders of these great schools were entitled to some consideration.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid there was a wide difference between the first clause of this Bill and the first clause of the Act of 1902. The latter was merely a transfer of this control of secular instruction from one sort of local authority to another. This clause involved not merely a transfer of property, but an invasion of rights of conscience. He thought, therefore, the Committee were justified in looking closely into the terms of the first clause and asking for some assurance from the Government which would enable them to proceed with the consideration of the Bill in a more satisfactory frame of mind than was possible at present. It was proposed to transfer all voluntary schools and convert them into provided schools. He thought the Opposition were entitled to ask what was meant by a provided school. He hoped the President of the Board of Education would enlighten them on that point.
THE CHAIRMANsaid the hon. Baronet was asking questions with regard to the clause, whereas he was supposed to 1006 be arguing in favour of postponing the clause.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he would not put his argument in the form of questions; instead of asking a question he would state a difficulty. They knew what was meant by a provided school now. It was a school entirely belonging to the local authority, wherever it was. Then Clause 2 stated that voluntary schools with which arrangements would be made under the Bill would be deemed provided schools. But besides these there was a large number of schools with regard to which it was contemplated that no arrangement would be made, but with regard to which schemes would be made. Were they to be provided schools?
§ MR. SOARES (Devonshire, Barnstaple)asked the Chairman whether the hon. Baronet was in order.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONexpressed regret that he should have departed from his undertaking not to use an interrogative form. The Committee, however, were entitled to know what was to be the position of a school which was transferred under a scheme, and in what sense the term "provided" applied to a voluntary school in respect of which a scheme was made. The country was threatened with a uniformity of education which he deprecated. The Government said there was a possibility of escaping that uniformity. The Government assured the Committee that things were in the Bill which he confessed he could not find. They had been told that Clause 4 would be a reality. He saw no reality in that clause. The Opposition wanted to know whether the facilities which were suggested were going to be realities or not. They were entitled to information on such matters, and for that reason they were compelled to ask for the postponement of the clause. They ought to be informed as to the reality of the concession which the Government had promised before they wore asked to dispose of the very drastic provision which turned the voluntary schools into council schools.
§ MR EVELYN CECIL (Aston Manor)said he was very much struck by one sentence which fell from the President of the Board of Education. It was that when they came to discuss Clauses 3 and 4 he was quite disposed to think that the Government might accept Amendments. He thought that was the first time there had been an indication that the Government would be disposed to accept Amendments on these clauses. It was a very important statement, and he was exceedingly glad to hear it, but it made; the matter all the worse if they were not allowed now to postpone the consideration of Clause 1. In what direction were Clauses 3 and 4 to be Amended? It would make the whole difference. The Committee should be allowed to postpone Clause 1 until they knew what the Amendments on Clauses 3 and 4 were to be. They wanted also to know exactly how these schools were going to be provided by the local authority. They had heard nothing about what syllabuses were going to be imposed, and they should have some information on that subject. Nor had they heard anything about how the local authorities were going to make use of the £1,000,000 which had been promised. That was a matter of material importance when they were considering whether this clause should be postponed.
§ MR. RAWLINSONappealed to the Government to reconsider their position on this point. Their conduct might be misunderstood in the country. It would be said in the country, if the Motion for the postponement of this clause was rejected, it was because, if the clause was pressed to a division now, hon. Members would vote under a misapprehension of what they were voting for. Hon. Members from Ireland who spoke on behalf of the Roman Catholic community had stated over and over again that they would not be content with Clause 4 as it stood, and that they would demand further concessions. It had been said by Nonconformist Member after Nonconformist Member that they would not vote for this Bill if Clause 4 remained part of it. Did the Government take that seriously or did they not? Nonconformist Members had stated that they objected strongly, if he might say so, to the preference which was to be given to the Roman Catholic religion. He ventured to say that every Nonconformist Member knew that 1008 the Nonconformist constituencies wore strongly opposed to any preference being given to Roman Catholics. He was not discussing the desirability or otherwise of this clause. No harm could be done by postponing the consideration of it; on the other hand it would remove a real grievance.
§ MR. CLAVELL SALTERsaid that of those who would vote in favour of the first clause, one-third would support it in the hope that Clause 4 would be dropped out of the Bill. Many would support it in the hope that Clause 4 would be not merely retained, but strengthened; and a third portion of the supporters of the Government who would voce for the clause would do so in the hope, which they had so strongly expressed, that the Bill would result in the banishment of religion from the teaching in State schools —a result repugnant to Roman Catholics and Nonconformists. It was certain that two of the three parties would be bitterly disappointed, and if the Government had made up their minds which of the three sections these were to be, they ought to say so before the division was taken.
§ LORD HELMSLEY (Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk)who was received with Ministerial cries of "Divide," said he would endeavour to keep within the limits of the Chairman's ruling, but he had considerable doubt whether he could keep within the limits of the ruling of hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House who seemed to arrogate to themselves some of the functions of Chairman. If this question was to be looked at from a fair point of view, he would say that, if the Government forced the acceptance of Clause 1 before Clauses 3 or 4 were considered, it would be like putting a noose round a man's neck and then trying to make a bargain with him. If Clause 1 were passed trustees and owners of non-provided schools would be absolutely driven without any alternative to accept any terms which the Government chose to offer them in the Bill, or which the local authorities might offer them when the Bill became law. Therefore, he thought it would be more convenient to the minority, and more consistent with the dignity of the Government if the course recommended by the Motion was adopted.
§ Question put.
1010§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 160; Noes, 335. (Division List, No. 85.)
1013| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E. | Ffrench, Peter | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Ambrose, Robert | Field, William | Muntz, Sir Philip A. |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Murnaghan, George |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Murphy, John |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn Hugh O. | Fletcher, J. S. | Nolan,, Joseph |
| Ashley, W. W. | Flynn, James Christopher | O'Brien, Kendal(TipperaryMid |
| Balcarres. Lord | Forster, Henry William | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | O'Connor, James(Wicklow, W. |
| Balfour, Rt Hn. A.J.(CityLond.) | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Baring, Hon. Guy(Winchester) | Gilhooly, James | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
| Barrie H.T. (Londonderry,N.) | Ginnell, L. | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Barry E. (Cork S.) | Haddock, George R. | O'Dowd, John |
| Beach, Hn. Michael HughHicks | Halpin, J. | O'Hare, Patrick |
| Beckett Hon. Gervase | Hambro, Charles Eric | O'Kelly,James (Roscommon,N |
| Bignold Sir Arthur | Hamilton, Marquess of | O'Malley, William |
| Blake Edward | Hammond, John | O'Mara, James |
| Boland John | Hardy, Laurence (Kent. Ashford | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Hayden, John Patrick | Pease. Herbert Pike (Darlington |
| Bull, Sir William James | Healy, Timothy Michael | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Helmsley, Viscount | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Hervey, F.W.F. (BuryS.Edm'ds | Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) | Ratcliff, Major R F. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh.) | Rawlinson, John Frederick P. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hills, J. W. | Redmond, John E. (Waterford |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hogan, Michael | Redmond, William (Clare |
| Cavendish, Rt. Hon. VictorC.W. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hunt, Rowland | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Joyce, Michael | Rutberford.W.W. (Liverpool) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm. | Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W. | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East |
| Clarke,Sir Edward(CityLondon | Keswick, William | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Coates,E. Feetham (Lewisham) | Kilbride, Denis | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | King,SirHenrv Seymour (Hull) | Starkey, John R. |
| Cogan, Denis J. | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | Sullivan, Donal |
| Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim S. | Lee, ArthurH.(Hants.,Fareham | Talbot, Rt. Hn J G (Oxf'dUniv. |
| Craig, CaptainJames (Down, E. | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Liddell, Henry | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Crean, Eugene | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Walker, Col. W.H.(Lancashire |
| Delany, William | Lundon, W. | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Devlin,CharlesRamsay(Galw'y | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Dillon, John | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Dolan, Charles Joseph | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal.E. | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | M'Calmont, Colonel James | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Du Cros, Harvey | M'Kean, John | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B Stuart- |
| Duffy, William J. | M'Killop, W. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Magnus, Sir Philip | Young, Samuel |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Meagher, Michael | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | |
| Fell, Arthur | Middlemore JohnThrogmorton | |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Mooney, J. J. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Barlow John Emmott(Somerset |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Ashton, Thomas Gair | Barlow, Percy (Bedford) |
| Adkins, W. Ryland | Asquith, Rt.Hn. Herbert Henry | Barnard, E. B. |
| Agnew, George William | Atherley-Jones, L. | Barnes, G. N. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Barran, Rowland Hirst |
| Allen, Percy | Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E. | Beale, W. P. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Beauchamp, E. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Beaumont, Hubert(Eastbourne |
| Armitage, R. | Barker, John | Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Eve, Harry Trelawney | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich |
| Bonn, John William (Devonp'rt | Everett, R. Lacey | Levy, Maurice |
| Benn,W. (T,w'rHamlets,S Geo. | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Bennett, E. N. | Ferens, T. R. | Lloyd-George. Rt. Hon. David |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Lough, Thomas |
| Bethell, J. H. (Essex, Romford) | Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Lupton, Arnold |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Fuller, John Michael F. | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes |
| Billson, Alfred | Fullerton, Hugh | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Furness, Sir Christopher | Lynch, H. B. |
| Black, Alexander Win. (Banff) | Gladstone. Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshire | Glendinning, R. G. | Macdonald. J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs |
| Bolton, T. D. (Derbyshire, N. E.) | Glover, Thomas | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Bottomley, Horatio | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Macpherson, J. T. |
| Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Gooch, George Peabody | M'Crae, George |
| Brace, William | Grant, Corrie | M'Kenna, Reginald |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) |
| Branch, James | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | M'Micking. Major G. |
| Bright, J. A. | Griffiths, Ellis J. | Maddision, Frederick |
| Brocklehurst. W. D. | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Mallet, Charles E, |
| Brodie, H. C | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Manfield, Harry (Northants) |
| Brooke. Stopford | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) |
| Brunner,J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Hardy, George.A. (Suffolk) | Marks,G.Croydon (Launceston) |
| Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen | Harmsworth, Cecil B.(Worc'r) | Marnham, F. J. |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Harmsworth, R. L.(Caithn'ss.sh | Mason, A. E W. (Coventry) |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Hart-Davis, T. | Massie, J. |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Masterman, C. F. G. |
| Burnyeat, J. D. W. | Harwood, George | Menzies, Walter |
| Buxton. Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Micklem, Nathaniel |
| Byles, William Pollard | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Cairns, Thomas | Haworth, Arthur A. | Mond, A. |
| Cameron, Robert | Helme, Norval Watson | Money, L. G. Chiozza |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Montagu, E. S. |
| Causton, Rt, Hn. Richard Knight | Henderson'J. M. (Aberdeen. W. | Montgomery. H. H. |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Henry, Charles S. | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Cheetham, John Frederick | Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon., S. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarther |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Morley. Rt. Hon. John |
| Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham) | Higham, John Sharp | Morse, L. L. |
| Cleland, J. W. | Hobart, Sir Robert | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Clough, W. | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Murray. James |
| Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W.) | Hodge, John | Myer, Horatio |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Holden, E. Hopkinson | Napier, T. B. |
| Collins. Stephen (Lambeth) | Holland, Sir William Henry | Nichells, George |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S.Pancras W | Hooper, A. G. | Nicholson, Charles N.(Doncastr |
| Corbett,C.H(Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset,N | Norman, Henry |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Horniman, Emslie John | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Cory, Clifford John | Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Nuttall, Harry |
| Cowan, W. H. | Hudson, Walter | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Cremer, William Randal | Hyde, Clarendon | Paul, Herbert |
| Crooks, William | Illingworth, Percy H. | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Cross, Alexander | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Crossley, William J. | Jackson, R. S. | Pearce, William (Limehouse) |
| Davies,David(Montgomery Co. | Jacoby, James Alfred | Pearson,W.H.M. (Suffolk, Eye) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Jardine, Sir J. | Perks, Robert William |
| Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S. | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembrok |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Johnson, W. (Nuneator) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Dickinson, W.H.(St.Pancras,N | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh.Central) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford, E.) |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Jowett, F. W. | Radford, G. H. |
| Duckworth. James | Kearley, Hudson, E. | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness | Kekewich, Sir George | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Duncan, J. H. York, Otley) | Kelley, George D. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| Dunne, Major E. M. (Walsall | Laid law, Robert | Richards, Thomas(W.Monm'h. |
| Edwards, Cement (Denbigh) | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster | Richards.T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n |
| Edwards, Enock (Hanley) | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Richardson, A. |
| Edwards, Frank (Radnor) | Lambert, George | Rickett, J. Compton |
| Elibank, Master of | Lamont, Norman | Ridsdale. E. A |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Erskine, David C. | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Essex, R. W. | Lea,Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras.E. | Roberts. John H. (Denbighs) |
| Evans, Samuel T. | Lehmann, R. C | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee |
| Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Stuart, James (Sunderland) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Robinson, S. | Summerbell, T. | Weir, James Galloway |
| Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Sutherland, J. E. | Whitbread, Howard |
| Roe, Sir Thomas | Taylor, Austin (East Toxeth) | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Rogers, F. E. Newman | Taylor, John W. (Durham) | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) |
| Rose, Charles Day | Taylor, Theodore C.(Radcliffe) | White, Luke (York, E. R. |
| Rowlands, J. | Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury) | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Runciman, Walter | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Samuel, Herbert L,(Cleveland | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Thompson, J. WH(Somerset,E.) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Sandys, Lieut.-Col.Thos. Myles | Thorne, William | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Schwann, Chas. E. (Manchester | Tillett, Louis John | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Scott,A.H.(Ashton under Lyne | Tomkinson, James | Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Sears, J. E. | Torrance, A. M. | Williamson, A.(ElginandNairn |
| Seaverns, J. H. | Toulmin, George | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Wilson, Hon. C.H.W.(Hull,W.) |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | Verney, F. W. | Wilson, John (Durham Mid.) |
| Shipman, Dr. John G. | Vivian, Henry | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Simon, John Allsebrook | Wadsworth, J. | Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh. N.) |
| Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Walker. H. De R. (Leicester) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras S.) |
| Snowden, P. | Wallace, Robert | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Soares, Ernest J. | Walters, John Tudor | Winfrey, R. |
| Spicer, Albert | Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) | Wodehouse, Lord(Norfolk,Mid) |
| Stanger, H. Y. | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent) | Woodhouse.SirJ T. (Huddersfd |
| Steadman, W. C. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southmp'n | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | Wardle, George J. | |
| Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr, Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease |
| Strachey, Sir Edward | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan) | |
| Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) | Waterlow, D. S. |
§ MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.) moved an Amendment to provide that the Bill should not come into operation until "after the first election of a local education authority which shall take place" after January 1st, 1908. He said that the object of his Amendment was to provide that there should be a special election ad hoc before the Bill came into operation at which forms should be issued which would be plain to the elector. School Boards had been abolished, and they all knew that in every part of the United Kingdom in which school boards existed, the electors were compelled to vote not only on the question of education, but upon topics connected with religion. This Bill introduced topics of greater importance to the English Church than disestablishment, and he thought that as the country had not had for two centuries a pronouncement on the kind of religion which should prevail in schools, it was only reasonable that the educational authority should be instructed by the electorate with a direct and distinct knowledge of what it was they were to do. Towns in England elected their councils to deal with gas works, tramway powers, roads, sewage, lighting, electric lighting, and kindred topics connected with municipal life. But once 1014 this Bill was passed, the municipal authorities would have to consider questions quite distinct from anything that had ever concerned them. Once this Bill became law, he thought that councillors ought to pass a competitive examination as to the teachings of the first four great Councils of the Christian Churches; as to the cause and course of the Reformation in the Church in England, and as to the causes which led to a great body of the Nonconformists seceding from the Church of England. A member of a town council ought to be acquainted also with the merits of the Secularist programme, because many gentlemen were coming forward in public life who with marked ability supported that programme. They had seen that from the utterances of the Labour Party in this House, which he thought was rather surprising, as he should consider that nobody would be more benefited by Christian teaching than the masters of this country. It was the fact, however, that very many of the Labour members were in favour of secular torching; therefore it was not unfair they should say at the very outset of this Bill that the Local Education Authorities should be elected ad hoc and that every man who came forward as a town or municipal councillor should tell his 1015 supporters the lines upon which he desired that their children should be religiously educated. Hitherto municipal elections had been conducted upon questions connected with gas and water, but for the first time for many years, the Government were now introducing into English life animosity and sectarian bitterness which was unappeasable, and would not dream of any compromise. When one came to deal with the future life of a child, no compromise was possible; therefore it was desirable that every body who came forward to sit upon one of these bodies should understand the nature of the questions they had to deal with. There were some people who were singularly indifferent. They would vote for indifference. Some were singularly keen, and it was to be expected that throughout the country, when this question of religion was raised, there would be a keen contest. At one moment they were told that Clericalism was the enemy, and undoubtedly every one of those gentlemen who had been assailed because they preached the truths of the Christian religion as they understood them, would come forward on every municipal platform in the country to resist that statement, and to declare they were the friends and not the enemies of the country, and to advocate that every man who voted at a municipal election should vote for the truths they taught. He was very much struck on arriving from Ireland in the early hours of that morning to see a huge banner twelve or fifteen feet long and not less than three or four feet high in front of an English Church school. It bore the device "Churchmen, defend your schools," and he supposed every church school all over the country would have a similar banner or device. So it would be found that instead of being elected to deal with gas and water, roads and pavements, the only question which would be considered would be the eternal welfare of the children. That being so he did hope that before this new Education Authority was created there would be an election ad hoc. One of the advantages of the school boards was that at an election a clear cut issue was presented, and another advantage was there was a minority vote. As a result they might find a Catholic priest at the head of the poll in a constituency of 100,000 people, owing to the fact that the minority were able to pool their 1016 votes. In this case, however, there would be only one man one vote, and the only consolation the minority would get was to be told by the Minister for Education that suffering was the badge of all their tribe. It did not come to that in Clause 4, because under that one-fifth could rule four-fifths, and in some cases one-fourth could rule three-fourths. He was not going into that. All he said was that in creating this new authority the people of England should have the opportunity of creating it by a great and solemn act; that before this Bill came into force there should be an election of the authority which would have to administer it. The Government might be prepared to meet this by a separate clause. All he desired was that the voters of the country should know what they were doing, and should put this Act, when the Bill became an Act, into operation by a great and solemn declaration.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 1. line 7. after the word 'and,' to insert the words 'after the first election of a local education authority which shall take place.' "—[Mr. Healy.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid he did not think any man ever uttered a reproof in this House without regretting it. He regretted having said minorities must suffer, but the fact remained that they did suffer and always must suffer. The Amendment moved by the hon. and learned Gentleman would have the effect of postponing the operation of this Bill until after January 1st, 1908. With regard to the hon. Gentleman's desire that the people of the country should have an opportunity of electing their councillors before this Bill became law, he would point out that in March, 1907, there would be a triennial election of councillors, and so the people would have an opportunity of electing councillors so far as boroughs and urban districts were concerned where the councillors went out triennially. He did not think anything would be gained by the Amendment, and he thought on the whole, although the general question as to the date on which the Bill would commence might be considered after all its provisions were settled, it was desirable that the Government should take upon themselves the responsibility for saying 1017 when the Act should come into operation. It could not be allowed to come into operation piecemeal in different parts of the country.
§ LORD R. CECILsupported the Amendment, which he thought was of very great importance, He had boon struck during the course of the debate by the utter failure of any hon. Member on the opposite side to realise the importance which attached to the Bill. The hon. Member for Glamorgan resented very bitterly the suggestion made by the Leader of the Opposition that Members on the Opposition side regarded the first clause as robbery. He could assure hon. Members that that was a very moderate statement of their views upon the clause. Hon. Members opposite would make a very great mistake if they thought they were going to carry this Bill through by ill-mannered clamours. Still more would they make a mistake if they thought this was the kind of Bill that could be forced through the House by brute force.
§ THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. CALDWELL, Lanark, Mid.)Order! order! The noble Lord must speak to the Amendment.
§ LORD R. CECILbowed to the ruling of the Chair, and said that what he was endeavouring to emphasise was that an important change of this kind could not be entrusted to a body elected on grounds which had nothing to do with the religious education of the children. The Amendment proposed that the Bill should not come into operation until after the first election of the local authorities after a particular date, the object being to insure that the local authority which had to administer this Act should have been elected to carry out its provisions with the full knowledge of the important duties cast upon it. It was for that reason that he ventured to insist on the importance of the change and the difficulty any local body would have in respect to this matter. The right hon. Gentleman had said that by January 1st, 1908, before this Bill came into operation, a large number of local education authorities would have undergone a fresh election. That might be so, and it might not. It entirely depended whether the Bill came into operation by that date. It might not be in operation then. He 1018 could see no solid ground for objecting to the Amendment, because if that were true it would not postpone the operation of the Bill and therefore the Amendment would not have any effect. But if it did postpone the operation of the Bill, then it was only right and proper that there should be an election.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYsaid the right hon. Gentleman had not in any sense met the point of his Amendment. It was perfectly true that there would be an election of county councillors in March, 1907, but as regarded the urban areas, with which the Catholics were mostly concerned, they were not governed by county council elections at all, but by municipal elections. The system of those elections was triennial. Let them take a ward of three members. In March, 1907, a Methodist might be elected; in 1908, when the question became acute from the point of view of the Church of England, a Church of England man might be elected, and in 1909 a member of some other communion or an atheist. Then those three would have to select an alderman. Fancy the religious convictions of an alderman composed of those variegated religious components! If there was one thing which concerned the Catholics it was the urban areas, and it was only in those urban areas that Clause 4 was to have effect. It was absurd, it was idiotic, to say that there should be a body elected upon those presumable conditions to deal with this tremendous question. It was an absolute mockery to otter them Clause 4 under those conditions, and he respectfully said that this matter had not to be faced by county councils or rural councils. Those areas were not to have the power to put Clause 4 in force. As a matter of fact, the Government had fixed on 1908 because they reckoned on there being an election in 1907. Was it not a mockery to say that these bodies should decide upon questions of religion, as to questions of the Cowper-Temple clause, and all the other mysteries that affected the Christian faith and Christian mind? The spirit in which the Amendment had been tossed aside by the right hon. Gentleman showed, he feared, that he had not given the smallest consideration to the question. The right hon. Gentleman had looked at it solely from the point of view of the 1019 agricultural communities; he had not considered it from the point of view of the municipal communities, and, above all, he had not looked at it from the point of view of the piecemeal vote in these cases which had to be considered. Therefore, in 1908 there might be in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, and in all the other great constituencies of the country a municipal council elected as to two-thirds by reference to gas and water, and as to one-third by the question of Christianity or by what was called sectarian interest. And this was the body to which the tender mercies of the children were to be consigned. It was a body elected without the smallest regard to any Christian sentiment, but to decide solely on rates and taxes and questions of sewage and water-closets. It was to such bodies that they were going to entrust the religious future of the children.
§ MR. LANE-FOX (Yorkshire, W.R., Barkston Ash)considered the reply of the right hon. Gentleman a very inadequate one to the objection that so many of the large urban authorities which would have the largest share in carrying out Clause 4 would not have an election before the time they came into operation. That applied with special force to those Northern towns in which a large proportion of the population was denominational. Unless this Amendment were accepted the Commission which was to be appointed would have ample time to re-model and alter the status of the schools which came under its control without the electorate having any chance of giving their opinion on the matter. This was not treating the parents and the electorate fairly. Without some such Amendment as was now suggested a grave injustice would be inflicted. Surely they could trust the people, which was the doctrine so frequently voiced by Ministerialists, and let them carry out the Act in their own way even if it retarded the operation of the Bill for a very little time. A great many local authorities at the present time had been elected on totally different issues from those which would be brought within their purview under this Bill. He would grant that a certain number of local authorities had been elected on the question of the carrying out of the Education Act of 1902, and he would admit still further that 1020 a certain number had boon elected on the principle of opposition to that Act. But this Bill would confer an absolutely new power and give an entirely new scope to the local authority. It would give the local authorities a chance of dealing with the rights of parents and children that they had never before possessed. He therefore maintained that before Parliament put these enormous powers in the hands of local authorities, elected for absolutely different purposes, the electorate ought to be given a chance of choosing men whom they believed to be capable and honestly anxious to carry out its provisions. They on the Opposition side had been told that they had said too much about the inalienable right of parents. This Amendment would allow that right to be safeguarded. In view of the great responsibilities they were placing upon the local authorities they ought to be very careful about rejecting this Amendment, which was founded on such just and fair principles. Certainly no one who had the religious interests of the children really at heart could oppose the Amendment.
§ MR. CARLILE (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)said there were a number of Amendments on the Paper which they could not expect would appeal to supporters of the Government, but this Amendment, he ventured to say, did appeal, and appealed strongly, to hon. Members on the Ministerial side. Since 1902 they had heard everywhere clamours for the ad hoc principle, and that principle underlay this Amendment. It claimed that the religious instruction of the children should not be placed under the control of an authority in the election of which parents had not had the opportunity of ascertaining whether they were the persons to whom they would safely commit such a high and holy responsibility. He commended to Ministerialists the consideration of the ad hoc principle. As it was, the men who were selected for their knowledge of mere material matters, who might be most unspiritual persons, might be called upon to administer the greatest of all responsibilities that could be laid upon any man with reference to the children. The other day, when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was speaking, he ventured to interpose to state that he knew a borough where, 1021 since 1870, no religious instruction of any kind had been given to the children. They wanted the opportunity of changing that, especially when they considered that, not only were the council schools in that borough to be under the control of such men, but also all the voluntary schools in which definite and religious denominational instruction was now given, whether Wesleyan, Roman, or Anglican, and which was held to be of such vital importance, and for which they had made such sacrifice since 1870, and far beyond. This religion was to be handed over in those borough councils to men who had been elected because qualified for such matters as other speakers had before enumerated. He had great pleasure in supporting the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment.
§ SIR W. ROBSONsaid that by the Act of 1902 the duty of controlling education was taken away from the School Boards, who were elected ad hoc apparently as persons of high spiritual perception, and handed over without any interval for an election to the "gas and water" people, who apparently were thought sufficiently qualified to undertake it. That reminiscence discounted the indignation of the hon. Member who had just sat down. What was the substance of this complaint with regard to the transfer of the control of the school in which religious instruction was given?
§ MR. CARLILEsaid that under the Act of 1902 religious instruction was left in the hands of those whom they thought were spiritually minded persons qualified to deal with it.
§ SIR W. ROBSONsaid that under this Bill religious teaching was to remain in the hands of a religious community. [OPPOSITION Cries of "No, no!" and "Where?"] Special facilities and extended facilities were to be given to those who desired that in voluntary schools religious teaching of their own faith should be given. Those facilities would be paid for by the people who believed in the doctrines that would be taught. Those facilities would be put in the hands of persons of exceptional spiritual perception—they would be taken out of the hands of the lay teacher and put in the hands of the 1022 ecclesiastical teacher. That was denounced as a transference to some persons of minor or inferior spiritual perception. There was nothing in the objection.
§ MR. T. M. HEALYThere is nothing in the answer.
§ SIR W. ROBSONsaid that substantially the religious teaching given now would be continued under the Bill, and if it was not continued it would be the fault of those who believed in the religion which they desired to have taught. There was no reason on that ground why the operation of the Bill should be delayed. The hon. and learned Member for North Louth had said they must have an election ad hoc. There would be elections in 1906 and 1907 in the urban districts. Did the hon. Member for North Louth desire that the operation of this Bill should be delayed until three years after it had passed in order that these might be three annual elections upon it? That was doing little justice to those who would vote in the elections of 1906 and 1907, who would have ample opportunity of giving effect to their opinions in those elections. There was no reason why the Bill should be delayed on that account.
§ SIR EDWARD CLARKE (City of London)said he was glad the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had been present to listen to the speech of the Solicitor-General. He had said, Why should they have three elections at each of which religious bodies would stir up religious strife? He foresaw the mischief as well as they did. Their suggestion was that it would be better to have no religious strife at these elections at all. They knew that by a more excellent way than was provided in the Bill there would be no necessity for any religious strife. The Solicitor-General had also said that religious instruction would remain in the hands of those who had directed it hitherto, because facilities were to be given for religious teaching. He wished it said so in the Bill. There was no such provision in the Bill. There was a provision that the local education authority might come to an agreement concerning religious instruction, but there 1023 was no compulsion on them to come to any agreement even in regard to the minor facilities, still less in regard to extended facilities included in that extraordinary clause, No. 4. He had not the opportunity of hearing the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill upon its introduction, but he had read it, and he thought the same draft that must have been before him then had remained in the memory of his hon. and learned friend the Solicitor-General. In his speech on the first reading the President of the Board of Education said these facilities were to be given and it was only when they saw the Bill in print that they found there was nothing in the Bill which would compel those facilities to be given. If hon. Gentlemen opposite believed in local control they ought to accept the Amendment, because it was by it alone that they could censure that the administration of the Act would come into the hands of people who had been commissioned by the people at large to carry out those duties. If they did not believe in the principle of local control or intelligent local control, then he could understand their tossing this important matter of religious education to a body not elected in order to deal with it, and which hitherto had had no power to deal with it. It had been said that in the Bill of 1902 those who passed it had handed over this educational question to an authority not elected with a knowledge of the matter at all, but to local bodies already constituted for other purposes. That was perfectly true, but the Act of 1902 did not hand over any authority or power with regard to religious education. The denominational schools remained under the managers subject to the presence on the board of two persons who were intended to be the representatives of public judgment and public opinion in dealing with the secular teaching. [An HON. MEMBER: Not in board schools.] In that respect the Act of 1902 made no difference.
§ MR. LEIF JONESUnder that Act the local School Boards directly elected
§ by the parents had their schools transferred to the county authorities.
§ SIR EDWARD CLARKEsaid he did not think he was misrepresenting what the learned Solicitor-General had stated. He said that in 1902 the same thing was done as that of which they were now complaining, namely, that the responsibility for education was thrown upon bodies not elected for that purpose. In reply to that he contended that the great question of denominational teaching did not come under the alteration made in 1902, and that so far as the denominational schools were concerned, under the Act of 1902 religious instruction remained substantially under the control of those who had had control of it in the past. Therefore, on all three points he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill to take a different view of the proposal now made. If it was desirable to avoid strife on religious questions, surely it was desirable to modify this Bill so that that strife would not be aroused. If it was desirable to have the judgment of the people who had been elected, and who, knowing the responsibilities they had to fulfil, were prepared to be entrusted with those responsibilities, then it was only reasonable that this Amendment should be accepted, and that they should take care not to throw on those bodies, elected without any regard to this matter, duties so onerous and difficult.
§ MR. DICKINSON (St. Pancras, N.)said he should like to point out that the effect of this Amendment would be that in London and the other administrative counties the Act would not come into operation until after March, 1910— that was to say, they would have to wait four years for the Act to become effective.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 134;Noes, 284. (Division List, No. 86.)
1027| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Anson, Sir William Reynell | Balcarres, Lord |
| Acland-Hood RtHn.Sir AlexF. | Arkwright, John Stanhope | Baldwin, Alfred |
| Ambrose, Robert | Ashley, W. W. | Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester) |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Ginnell, L. | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. |
| Beach, Hn. Michael HughHicks | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Haddock, George R. | O'Donnell John (Mayo, S.) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Halpin, J. | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Blake, Edward | Hamilton, Marquess of | O' Kelly, James (Roscommon, N |
| Boland, John | Hammond, John | O'Malley, William |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B. | O'Mara, James |
| Bull,.Sir William James | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Helmsley, Viscount | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Hervey, F W.F.(BuryS. Kdm'ds | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) | Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh.) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hills, J. W. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Hogan, Michael | Rasch. Sir Frederic Carne |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Houston, Robert Paterson | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm. | Hunt, Rowland | Rawlinson, John Frederick P. |
| Clarke, Sir Edward (City Lond. | Joyce, Michael | Redmond, John E. (Waterford |
| Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham) | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Kilbride, Denis | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cogan, Denis J. | King,Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield,Ecclesall) |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Crean, Eugene | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Dalrymple. Viscount | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Delany, William | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Devlin,CharlesRamsay(Galway | Lundon, W. | Starkey, John R. |
| Dillon, John | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Dolan, Charles Joseph | MacVeigh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Sullivan, Donal |
| Donelan, Captain A. | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E. | Talbot.Rt Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | M'Calmont, Colonel James | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Duffy, William J. | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | M'Kean, John | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | M'Killop, W. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Magnus, Sir Philip | Walker, Col. W. H.(Lancashire) |
| Fell, Arthur | Mason. James F. (Windsor) | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Ffrench, Peter | Meagher, Michael | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Field. William | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Mooney, J. J. | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Morpeth, Viscount | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Murnaghan, George | Young, Samuel |
| Forster, Henry William | Murphy, John | |
| Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | Nolan, Joseph | TELLERS OF THE AYES—Mr. T. H. Mealy and Mr. O'Hare |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary,Mid | |
| Gilhooly, James | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham. William (Rhondda) | Benn, John Williams(Devonp'rt | Burnyeat, J. D. W. |
| Adkins, W. Ryland | Benn.W.(T'w'rHamlets,S. Geo. | Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles |
| Agnew, George William | Berridge. T. H. D. | Byles, William Pollard |
| Ainsworth. John Stirling | Bethell, J. H. (Essex, Romford) | Cairns, Thomas |
| Alden, Percy | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cameron, Robert |
| Allen, A. Acland(Christchurch) | Billson, Alfred | Causton, Rt. Hn. RichardKnight |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Channing, Francis Allston |
| Armitage, R. | Black, Alexander Wm. (Banff) | Cheetham, John Frederick |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Black. Arthur W.(Bedfordshire) | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Bolton. T. D. (Derbyshire.NE.) | Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham) |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Bottomley, Horatio | Cleland, J. W. |
| Baker,Joseph A. (Finsbury,E.) | Boulton.A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Clough, W. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Brace, William | Clynes. J. R. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Bramsdon, T. A. | Coats,Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W.) |
| Barker, John | Branch, James | Cobbold, Felix Thornley |
| Barlow, JohnEmmott(Somerset | Brigg, John | Collings, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Bright, J. A. | Collins,SirWm.J.(S.Pancras,W. |
| Barnard. E. B. | Brocklehurst, W. D. | Corbett.C.H.(Sussex,E,Grinst'd |
| Barnes, G. N. | Brodie, H. C. | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Beale, W. P. | Brooke, Stanford | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Beauchamp, E. | Brunner.J.F.L. (Lanes.Leigh) | Cowan, W. H. |
| Beaumont, Hubert (Eastbourne | Bryce,Rt.Hn.James(Aberdeen) | Cremer, William Randal |
| Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Crooks, William |
| Bellairs, Carylon | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Cross, Alexander |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Lehmann, R. C. | Rutherford. V. H. (Brentford |
| Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Lever, A. Levy(Essex, Harwich) | Samuel, Herbert L (Cleveland) |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Dickinson.W. H.(St. Pancras.N | Levy, Maurice | Schwann,Chas.E.(Manchester) |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | Lewis, John Herbert | Scott, A.H.(Ashton under Lyne |
| Duckworth, James | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Sears, J. H. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Lough, Thomas | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Lupton, Arnold | Shackleton, David James |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Dunne, Major E. M. (Walsall) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Lynch, H. B. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Edwards, Frank (Radnor) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Elibank, Master of | Macdonald,J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs | Snowden, P. |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Essex, R. W. | M'Crae, George | Spicer, Albert |
| Evans, Samuel T. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Eve, Harry Trelawney | M'Micking, Major G. | Stanley, Hn.A.Lyulph (Chesh) |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Maddison, Frederick | Steadman, W. C. |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Mallet, Charles E. | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Stewart-Smith. D. (Kendal) |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Marnham, F. J. | Stuart, James (Sunderland) |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Masterman, C. F. G. | Summerbell, T. |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Menzies, Walter | Sutherland. J. E. |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Micklem, Nathaniel | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Glover, Thomas | Molteno, Percy Alport | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Mond, A. | Thomas. Sir'A.'(Glamorgan, E.) |
| Gooch, George Peabody | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset,E |
| Grant, Corrie | Morse, L. L. | Thorne, William |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Tillet, Louis John |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Murray, James | Tomkinson, James |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Myer, Horatio | Torrance, A. M. |
| Harmsworth, R.L.(Caithn'ss-sh | Nicholls, George | Toulmin, George |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Nicholson, CharlesN.(Doncaster | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Norman, Henry | Verney. F. W. |
| Harwood, George | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Wadsworth, J. |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Haslam Lewis (Monmouth) | Nuttall, Harry | Wallace, Robert |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Helme, Norval Watson | Parker, James (Halifax) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Paul, Herbert | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Henderson, J.M.(Aberdeen, W.) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek) | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent |
| Herbert, Colonel Ivor(Mon.,S.) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Ward,W.Dudley (Southampton |
| Higham, John Sharp | Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester) | Wardle. George J. |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Pearson, W.H.M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney) |
| Hodge, John | Philipps,J.Wynford(Pembroke) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Holden, E. Hopkinson | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Watt, H. Anderson |
| Hooper, A. G. | Pollard, Dr. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Hove, W. Bateman(Somerset,N. | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central | White, Geor (Norfolk) |
| Horniman Emslie John | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | White, J. D. (Dunbartonshire) |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Priestley, W.E.B(Bradford, E.) | White, Luke, (York, E. R.) |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Radford, G. H. | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Hudson, Walter | Rainy, A. Rolland | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Raphael, Herbert H. | Wiles. Thomas |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Jackson, R. S. | Renton, Major Leslie | Williams. J. (Glamorgan) |
| Jacoby, James.Alfred | Richards, Thomas (W.Monm'th | Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Richards,T.F.(Wolverh'mpt'n | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Johnson, John. (Gateshead) | Richardson, A. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Johnson, W (Nuneaton) | Rickett, J. Compton | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Ridsdale, E. A. | Wilson, J. W.(Worcestersh. N.) |
| Jones, Wiliam (Carnarvonshie | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Wilson, P. W. (St, Pancras, S. |
| Jowett, F. W. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee | Winfrey, R. |
| Kelley, George D. | Robertson, J. M. (Tynesi le) | Wodehouse,Lord(Norfolk,Mid'.) |
| King, Alfred, John (Knutsford) | Robinson, S. | Wood, T M'Kinnon |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Lambert, George | Roe, Sir Thomas | |
| Lamont, Norman | Rogers, F. E. Newman | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr J. A. Pease |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | Rose, Charles Day | |
| Lea, HughCecil-(St,Pancras,E.) | Rowlands, J. |
§ Mr. PIKE PEASE (Darlington) moved an Amendment to leave out "January" and insert "April" in the first Clause. He said that it would be remembered that the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education had said that it would be a great improvement if all the schools were to adopt the same year, and he hoped the Government would accept his Amendment.
§ Amendment proposed—
§ "In page 1, line 7, Clause 1, to leave out the word 'January' and to insert the word 'April.'"—(Mr. Pike pease.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'January' stand part of the Clause."
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. LOUGH, Islington, W.)said that the hon. Member had not said much in support of his Amendment. He supposed that the date proposed for the recognition of public elementary schools did not correspond with the financial year recognised in the House. The right hon. the Minister for Education had told the House that the exact date on which the Bill would come into operation would be carefully considered.
§ MB. PIKE PEASEasked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that it ad been stated that the date on which his Bill would come into operation would he considered hereafter, but now that the date was actually before them it seemed to him the proper time for its consideration. As the Bill now stood the initiative for making any arrangement was to come from the local education authority. Anyone who read the Bill must see that there was a wide opportunity for discussion as to the arrangements which might be made for the use of the schools, as to the school hours, and as to facilities which were to be given. All these as the Bill now stood were to be matters of negotiation, although he and his friends hoped that the Bill would be made mandatory and not voluntary. If the negotiations broke down, and the local 1030 authority still wanted to acquire possession of a non-provided school during school hours, their next course was to apply to the Commission. Many thousands of schools would come before the Commission. He thought the Government far too sanguine in their estimate of the time which would be necessary to make the arrangements for the transfer of the schools. It would be very much better if they would give plenty of latitude in respect of time, and then the friends of voluntary schools would be more sure that they would get fair treatment both by the local authorities and the Commission. There was a strong probability that the Commission would find itself burdened with a large amount of work in coming to its decisions. He regarded the whole of Clause 8 as of the most threatening character in respect of the voluntary schools. If the Government declined to grant this concession in respect of time, he should be disposed to think that the Commission was after all a mere process of guillotine, constituted in order to transfer the property in the voluntary schools in the shortest time, and with the smallest amount of consideration to the local education authority. He begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 1, line 8, to leave out the word 'eight,' and insert the word 'ten.'"— (Sir William Anson.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'eight' stand part of the Clause."
§ MR. LOUGHsaid he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not press his Amendment. A very generous promise had been made in regard to this matter of dates. The right hon. Gentleman insisted on taking the view that there would be a struggle in every locality. But what if the negotiations should all be carried out peacefully? If a change of this kind was to be made he was sure that the Committee would agree that it would be better if the period of transition were not unduly prolonged. At present there were in the country 327 local education authorities, and the machinery for all this business existed. There would be hardly any of the difficulties which 1031 existed in 1902 when the whole of the machinery had to be put down.
§ MR. LAURENCE HARDYsaid he did not agree with the hon. Gentleman, because if they left this question unsettled they would have to leave other dates in the Bill unsettled. The Bill provided for other dates. For instance in Clause 8, January 1st, 1907, was mentioned, then if they got out of the difficulty in regard to that date, Clause 11 mentioned another, namely, January 1st, 1908. In that and other clauses, moreover, the date of January 1st, 1909, was mentioned. Therefore, on the Government's own admission, it would require three years to get this Bill into operation. Had not the Committee therefore better minimise the difficulty in regard to these dates, which the hon. Gentleman had admitted, by fixing a later date and one which would enable them to get these proceedings in force in a proper manner? In regard to Clauses 10 and 11 he did not think that it would be a very agreeable task for the owners of voluntary schools to carry them on under the conditions laid down for such a number of years. In view of the minimising effect of this Amendment upon the later clauses he would urge the Government to reconsider the point.
§ LORD BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley)said he did not think that the Secretary to the Board of Education fully appreciated the meaning of the Amendment when he described it as unfair. It was a perfectly fair Amendment.
§ LORD BALCARRESsaid he was sorry if he had made a mistake, but he thought the hon. Gentleman had so described it. In his opinion, if this Amendment was not accepted, it would be impossible to bring other clauses of the Bill into operation in time. If the hon. Gentleman would refer to the definition clause he would see that the expression "owners" was defined in a very wide manner, and anybody who could be conceived to have a trusteeship or ownership would be able to put his case forward before a transfer. That was of course just and 1032 proper, but the owners, being a composite body, would have to correspond between themselves and would have to take legal advice so as to define their position in regard to each particular trust. If the hon. Member would consult his officials at the Board of Education they would, he was sure, assure him that there was no branch of the public work of the Education Department which was slower and more complex than that which dealt with trustees and their responsibility. The hon. Gentleman thought that these matters might be very easily arranged. That might be the case, but it was difficult to believe it would be so when it was remembered that the Act would extend to 14,000 or 15,000 schools in regard to which arrangements under Clause 2 and proceedings under Clause 8 would have to be dealt with. The trustees or owners of these schools would have to start by defining their own position in the matter. They would have to take legal advice and discover what their responsibilities were. Having done that they would communicate with the local education authority or the local education authority would communicate with them. Of course the local education authority would immediately refer this matter to a sub-committee, because it would be quite impossible for the whole council to look into the details of each case. All this took time, and even then, when the local education authority had prepared a scheme, the owners or trustees could not, he thought, take it off-hand without further inquiry. That again would take time. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No, no!"] Well, he thought that was a reasonable view to take, and after the hon. Gentleman had had experience of the cumbrous process of dealing with trustees at the Education Department he would know that it was a matter which could not be pressed forward with great speed. In cases where arrangements had not been made the question was taken before the court— the triumvirate—and the whole question might be re-opened. Questions as to definition of the terms "owners" and "trustees" might arise; all these subjects might have to be re-opened and the matter referred back to the local education authority or to the trustees. 1033 No doubt the right hon. Gentleman took the power of extending the time, but the original intention was to deal with 14,000 or 15,000 schools in twelve months. He did not think it possible that these schemes could be satisfactorily brought into operation in the limited time, placed at the disposal of the local education authority and the trustees. Under these circumstances he submitted that the Amendment was quite a reasonable one and worthy of the consideration of the Government.
§ MR. CLAVELL SALTER (Hants, Basingstoke)thought that the Amendment was a very reasonable one indeed, and he was certain that if hon. Members opposite realised the view which was taken, not merely on those Benches, but outside the House, of the proposed constitution of this Commission by all of those who were in any way conversant with the working of the law, they would listen very carefully to the plea which was being urged for delay on that score. For his part he did not attach great importance to the plea for delay in order that there might be time for the making of arrangements. In those cases where arrangements were possible, they would not take long to make, especially having regard to the position which the contracting parties would occupy. But in the great majority of cases no arrangement would be possible, because these schools were held under trust deeds and the trustees were bound by law to maintain the particular school for the purpose of having Roman Catholic teaching or Church of England teaching alone afforded. It therefore did not rest with the trustees to make a bargain which would deprive such a school of its character. They had no legal competence or power to do so, and in every case where there was a trust they would be driven to go to this Commission. The Commission were vested with a most delicate and difficult work. They were empowered by this Bill, in so many words, to come to the conclusion that an absolute and direct violation of the trust deed was the best way of carrying out the trust. They were dealing with cases in which a man had died and left money for the establishment of a school and expressed his wishes 1034 as to what should be taught in that school.
§ MR MYER (Lambeth, N.)rose to a point of Order and asked if the hon. Member was in order in discussing the merits of the trusteeships question.
§ THE CHAIRMAN (Mr. EMMOTT,) Oldham, who had taken the Chair, said he had only just come in and he would listen to the hon. Member.
§ MR. CLAVELL SALTERsaid he was endeavouring to keep in order. His plea was that the Government ought to accept this Amendment in order to show that they intended that the Commission should be a judicial body. Was it possible that they could dispose of more than one school in one day? Could they tear up a man's scheme and arrange for a wholly changed status of a school at the rate of more than one school in one day? He thought that the Amendment would throw a great light upon the question of whether the Commission was to be a judicial and impartial body on which those interested in voluntary schools could depend. There were only 200 days in the legal year, and supposing the Commission made a complete new scheme every day they would only dispose of 200 cases in the year. Was it reasonable in view of that to object to the two years postponement? If the Commission was to be a mere packed body of hardy partisans the period named in the Bill was no doubt ample, but if it was to be a real judicial body, in which those interested in voluntary schools could place confidence, then the Amendment was most reasonable. The proposal of his right hon. friend was a most reasonable one. Nobody could say whether the Government intended that this body should be a judicial and impartial body or not.
§ MR. WYNDHAMsaid that under Clause 8 the Commission came into being if an arrangement had not been made before January 1st, 1907. That being so, these words were a direction to the Commission and nothing else. That was why they thought them improper. There was no need to have a date in the first clause at all, because in the clause 1035 relating to the Commission it said that if an arrangement was not come to by a certain date the local authority could apply to the Commission and the Commission would make a scheme. Why state, therefore, at the beginning of the clause, which was drastic and peremptory, that the Commission had to complete its labours within this brief period? They complained of the clause because it gave a bias to anything that succeeded in the Bill; it gave a bias to any administrative or judicial action that might be taken under it. When it said that all these matters were to he settled, defined, and laid down within this brief period they found in that an index to the whole tenor of the Bill, and they were justified in saying that the Government should so far concede to the Opposition as to give them two years as the definite period for the confiscating purposes of the Bill, which could not be carried out with any decency in a shorter period.
§ SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University)said he did not wish to detain the Committee; he merely desired to put two Questions to the right hon. Gentleman. First, he wished to know what was to happen if the schemes were not settled by the date mentioned in the Bill? Were they to be dropped, and were some schools to be left without any terms of settlement at all? On the other hand, was a Bill going to be brought in to prolong the time during which the Commisisoners might perform their duties? That was the first Question; the second was, had the right hon. Gentleman calculated how many schemes were likely to be settled, because unless they knew approximately it seemed to him to be a very unbusinesslike way of drawing up a Bill by setting a rigid limit of time for the Commissioners to get through their work?
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid it was curious how Members opposite desired to press this matter through before any answer at all had been given to the question which had been put. Up to the present they had had no answer at all, owing to the right hon. Gentleman not having been in his place, and it was only fair to the right hon. Gentleman that if he wished he should now have an 1036 opportunity of realising the points upon which they would like some information. The Bill provided practically that this Star Chamber procedure should not come into operation till January, 1907. The Bill by its first clause provided that on and after the 1st day of January, 1908, no school should be recognised unless it was a school provided by the local education authority. His right hon. friend had ventured to ask, and it was a reasonable question, whether the Government could give any estimate as to whether their anticipation was likely to be realised. Out of the numbers of schools that must come within the schemes of trusts there might be a very large number that would come within the purview of the Commission. Were the Commissioners supposed to undertake their work in one year, and, if not, was there to be another B ill? It was impossible that the whole of these schools could be adjudicated upon in any judicial manner in anything like twelve months. It was a perfectly reasonable request, and they wanted to know what was in contemplation. Were they to be told that twelve months was the period in which all these adjudications would take place; if so, they would like to know on what that calculation was based? If it was not so, then the Bill must fail, because there was no power to extend the time beyond one year.
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid that, as the Bill stood, the local education authority could begin making its arrangements under Clause 2 to take over any schools it was desirous of taking over at any moment after the Bill became law. On 1st January, 1908, the State aid and the rate aid ceased to be given to any existing voluntary school; it could only be given to those schools which were under the control of the local education authority. Consequently the local education authority must make provision either by taking over the voluntary schools, or, if there was no alternative, for building new schools. Between January 1st, 1908, and January 1st, 1909, the authority would, under Clause 10, have power to use any voluntary school buildings they might wish to use temporarily, subject to the proper obligation of allowing religious instruction in those schools to go on as before. After January 1st, 1909, the local 1037 education authority would be responsible for providing all the schools which were necessary for the elementary education of the country. He agreed that it was difficult to say how long precisely it might take either under Clause 2 or by the proposals before the Commission of three. The Government and the Committee had to make some estimate of their own. The Government were of opinion that the time allowed was ample and sufficient, and to grant more time was not to obtain greater security that the difficulties would be settled. If some pressure of time were not exerted, the negotiations might linger on for ever. He was hopeful that when the Bill was better understood than at the present time, a good deal would be done under Clause 2, aided by the rulings of the Commission, which would be a perfectly impartial body applying principles of law. But they had to put some period to them, and in the opinion of the Government the time they had afforded was ample and sufficient. If it were proved by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite that the Government's calculations were mistaken, it would be necessary to extend the time. The matter did not admit of exact calculation, because so much depended on the temper and disposition of the parties concerned.
§ MR. WYNDHAMexpressed his obligation to the right hon. Gentleman for having dealt, from the point of view of his own justification of them, with many of the dates in the Bill, but pointed out that he had omitted to deal with the one date mentioned. Clause 8 stated that if no arrangements had been made with respect to the school house under this Act, at any time after the 1st day of January, 1907, the local authority could apply to the Commission to make a scheme. On whom was the pressure going to be put? The words at the beginning of this Clause, "On and after the 1st January, 1908," did not apply to the trustees or to the owners of the schools, because, if they failed to come to an arrangement before the 1st January, 1907, the local authority, the other party to this precious bargain, under these very fair conditions, could at once back out of the bargain and have the proceedings removed to the Court—because this Commission was a court, and he treated it 1038 as a court. Here the Government said, not to the owners and trustees of the schools, but to this Commission, the only tribunal from which they could seek justice tempered with mercy, that they must deal with all these intricate legal questions involving trusts respecting 14,000 voluntary schools in twelve months. It would really expedite the proceedings if the right hon. Gentleman would answer the arguments he was venturing to advance, and in this matter he could assure him that he did not wish to bring heat into the discussion. He had shown much self-restraint in face of the twice repeated threat that if those concerned did not agree with their adversaries quickly the credit of the State was sufficient to build schools all over the country. Those were the terms under which the trustees and the people who cared for the teaching given in these schools wore asked to bargain. Was not that enough? Was it necessary also to say in the first line of the Bill that the only legal protection to be given was to be confined within twelve months? What credit could be attached, not to the sincerity, but to the value of the Government's promises at later stages of the Bill if in the first line such protection as was afforded in this miserable manner was to be shut off absolutely when the twelve months had come to an end? After that justice had been done ! Then they came to execution. What was the nature of the execution? After the time limit had expired what would happen to the schools which had failed to come to an arrangement? Would they become efficient schools under some obscure clauses in the Act of 1860, or what would happen to them? Supposing they were deprived of all State and rate aid, would they go on? The answer to this question was not in the Bill, and it was not given in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that he noted the Government's challenge to the ratepayer to provide schools all over the country in place of voluntary schools. He trusted that the ratepayers through-out the country, who were already complaining of the cost of education, would also note this. The Government might 1039 be left on this point to settle accounts with the ratepayers. But if the ratepayers failed them under this most economical of Governments he supposed the taxpayers would be called in. He would leave that to be settled between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the person he had described as a sturdy beggar. But would the President of the Board of Education pay attention to the dates in this clause? If the voluntary school had not come to terms by the date specified it became liable to a scheme framed by the Commission on the initiative of the local authority, and he trusted some assurance would be given that the Commission was going to be a judicial body, for the date in Clause 1 and the words in Clause 8 gave a very broad limit to the Commissioners to make short work of the voluntary schools.
§ MR. LAURENCE HARDYsaid he did not think the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education had quite accounted for the difference between the date in Sub-section 6 of Clause 9 and the date inserted in Clause 1. As matters stood, while the Commissioners could go on making schemes after 1908, nothing short of an Act of Parliament would be required to enable non-provided schools to receive the assistance they had always received.
§ SIR E. CARSONventured to make an appeal, because he could hardly imagine that he had rightly understood the answer of the Minister for Education. He asked the right hon. Gentleman what would happen if the Commissioners had not time to carry out the necessary schemes for taking over these schools. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to reply—
If they had not time, people had better come to an agreement, or if they do not, we build at the public expense.Did the House of Commons think that a fair argument? The default was not because people were unwilling to submit schemes, but because a proper date had not been fixed by the House of Commons. It was not a fair, was what 1040 he called a bullying argument. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—A good deal will depend upon the temper in which these matters are approached by the country in administering this Bill.He entirely agreed. Did the right hon. Gentleman think that at the very moment he was driving those who valued their religion out of their schools he would add to their good temper by telling them that for no fault of their own they were bound to contribute to the expense of erecting new schools? The right hon. Gentleman had not yet realised that there were people in this country in earnest in this matter.
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid he certainly did not intend to jest. If when the appointed date arrived there were still sub judice a number of schemes before the Commissioners who were considering the proposals on their merits, and this happened simply because there was not time to consider them all, he did not mean that all these schools should at once become provided schools without any regard being had to the terms of the proposals.
§ SIR E. CARSONBut it is in your Bill.
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid it might be that they had inaccurately estimated the mode and the manner in which these transactions would be carried on, and he quite agreed that it might be necessary by legislation to insert another date if they found the Court blocked by schemes which had not been properly adjudicated upon. He had no desire, simply by the operation of a particular date, to deprive the owners of the schools of the facilities given to them by applications to these Commissions. The Government had to make a proposal of their own, and, after full consideration, they came to the conclusion that these dates were adequate. He was not certain now that it would be found to be ample, but if so be when the date arrived that the Court was blocked with schemes which had not been properly considered it would then, no doubt, be necessary to extend the time.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURthanked the right hon. Gentleman for that clear and 1041 conciliatory answer to one of the questions at all events which had been put to him, but he thought the right hon. Gentleman would see that that answer showed that some Amendment of the clause was necessary. The Commissioners might find as many cases blocking their Courts as there were standing in the way of the Judges of the High Court. The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that his estimate of time might be wrong, and that the difficulty, if it arose, would be so serious that further legislation might be necessary. If further legislation were required, this Bill was very badly drafted. They ought to arrange this Bill so that another would not be required. He would suggest the difficulty would be overcome by adding after the first day of January, 1908, these words: "or such later date as may be determined."
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid he was disposed to think it would not be a bad thing to allow a latitude in this matter, although he still was of opinion that when the matter came to be considered and the trust deeds came to be classified under a few heads the task of the Commissioners would not, perhaps, be so gigantic as the imagination of the right hon. Gentleman suggested. He thought the whole question of the date for the commencement of the Bill was a subject which they might, when they knew exactly what the nature of the Bill was, very fairly reconsider; and he was not at all indisposed to allow the latitude which the right hon. Gentleman had suggested, that the clause should specify January 1st, 1908, "or such other date as"——[Cries of "No."] The intention was simply to provide for a conjuncture which he hoped might never occur— namely, that the labours of the Commission might not be concluded. He thought words to that effect would not be beyond the ingenuity of draftsmen. It seemed to him that Clause 8 would be the proper place to insert words of that kind.
§ MR. WYNDHAMconsidered that if Clause 8 were amended in the direction indicated, these words would be made more intractable than at present. He hoped more latitude would be given for arriving at some arrangement. If the words suggested by the right hon. 1042 Gentleman were inserted in Clause 8 the Bill would be nonsense; whatever change was made must harmonise with the Bill as a whole.
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid that any school without State or rate aid could keep its doors open as a school inviting children to attend it. If it submitted to inspection and became a certified efficient school, attendance at that school was recognised as obedience to the law.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that if the right hon. Gentleman would agree to the words "January 1st, 1908, or such later date as the King in Council may determine," he thought his right hon. friend might well be disposed to withdraw his Amendment, and the Committee might avoid a division.
§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)hoped the President of the Board of Education would not agree to that. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover upon this point was nonsense. If the Leader of the Opposition and the Member for Dover had read the Bill, they would have seen that what they wanted was provided for. Clause 9, Subsection 6, provided that the powers of the Commission should remain in force until December 31st, 1908, and if there had not been agreement, the Commission could be continued by Order in Council. Clause 10 provided for the continued use of a school from January 1st, 1908, to January 1st, 1909, if an agreement had not been arrived at. If that was not long enough to allow the question to be settled, he did not know what more could be done for the trustees of denominational schools. He thought the Bill perfectly elastic under Sections 9 and 10, and hoped the President of the Board of Education would go no further.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONthought it was a little premature for the hon. Member for North Camberwell to say that his right hon. friend the Member for Dover was talking nonsense. It would be a fair retort to ask the hon. Member to take the trouble to read Clause 1. That clause provided that on and after January 1st, 1908, no school should be recognised as a public elementary 1043 school unless it was a school provided by the local authority. The Commission might be sitting, and its sittings might be prolonged under Clause 9, or the local authority might be taking possession of the schools without payment under Clause 10. But a school would cease to be recognised if by January 1st, 1908, it had not become a provided school under Clause 1, and it could only become a provided school within the meaning of the Act, being a voluntary school to start with, if either
§ an arrangement had been made under Clause 3, or a scheme had been made under Clause 8. Under these circumstances he thought the hon. Member for North Camberwell should consider whether it was not to himself or to Clause 1 that the word nonsense was most appropriate.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 349; Noes, 171. (Division List No. 87.)
1047| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, Willian., (Rhondda) | Buxton, Rt. Hn Sydney Charles | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Byles, William Pollard | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Adkirs, W. Ryland | Cairns, Thomas | Fullerton, Hugh |
| Agnew, George William | Cameron, Robert | Furness, Sir Christopher |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Causton. Rt. Hn. RichardKnight | Gardner, Col. Alan(Hereford, S.) |
| Alden, Percy, | Channing, Francis Allston | Gibb, James (Harrow) |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Cheetham, John Frederick | Gill, A. H. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert Jn. |
| Armitage, R. | Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham) | Glendinning, R. G. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Cleland, J. W. | Glover, Thomas |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Clough, W. | Goddard, Daniel Ford |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Clynes, J. R. | Gooch, George Peabody |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W.) | Grant, Corrie |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Greenwood. G. (Peterborough) |
| Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W, | Griffiths, Ellis J. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Cooper, G. J. | Grove, Archibald |
| Barker, John | Corbett, C.H.(Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill |
| Barlow, John Emmott (Somers't | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Cory, Clifford John | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Cowan, W. H. | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore 'r) |
| Beale W. P. | Cremer, William Randal | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh |
| Beauchamp, E. | Crombie, John William | Hart-Davies, T. |
| Beaumont, Hubert (Eastbourne | Crooks, William | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Crosfield, A. H. | Harwood, George |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Davies, David (MontogomoryCo | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Benn, John Williams (Devorp'rt | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Benn, W. (T'W'rHamlets,S. Geo. | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Bennett, E. N. | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Dickinson,.W. H. (St. Pancras,N | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Bethell, J. H. (Essex,Ron.ford) | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Dobson, Thomas W. | Henderson, J.M.(Aberdeen, W. |
| Billson, Alfred | Dodd, W. H. | Henry, Charles S. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Duckworth, James | Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon. S.) |
| Black, Alexander Wm. (Banff) | Duncan,C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe |
| Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshire | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Higham, John Sharp |
| Bolton,T.D. (Derbyshire, N.E.) | Dunn, A. Edward (Can borne) | Hobart, Sir Robert |
| Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Dunne, Major E. M. (Walsall) | Hodge, John |
| Brace, William | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Holden, E. Hopkinson |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Hooper, A. G. |
| Branch, James | Edwards, Frank (Radnor) | Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset,N |
| Brigg, John | Elibank, Master of | Horniman, Emslie John |
| Bright, J. A. | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Horridge, Thomas Gradner |
| Brocklehurst, W. D. | Erskine, David C. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Brodie, H. C. | Essex, R. W. | Hudson, Walter |
| Brooke, Stopford | Evans, Samuel, T. | Hutton, Alfred Eddison |
| Brunner, J. F. L.(Lancs., Leigh) | Eve, Harry Trelawney | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberd'n) | Everett, R. Lacey | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Ferens, T. R. | Jackson, R. S. |
| Burnyeat, J. D. W. | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Jacoby, James Alfred |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Nuttall, Harry | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | O'Donnell, C J. (Walworth) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Parker, James (Halifax) | Straus, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Kearley, Hudson, E. | Paul, Herbert | Stuart, James (Sunderland) |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Paulton, James Mellor | Summerbell, T. |
| Kelley, George D. | Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek) | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Kincaid-Smith, Captain | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Pearson, Sir W. D. Colchester) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Pearson.W. H. M. (Suffolk,Eye) | Taylor, Theodore C (Radcliffe) |
| Lamb, Edmund,G.(Leominster | Perks, Robert William | Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury) |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Philipps, J.Wynford (Pembroke | Thomas,Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Lambert, George | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Thomas, SirA.(Glamorgan. E.) |
| Lamont, Norman | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | Pollard, Dr. | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Lea, Hugh Cecil (St.Pancras, E. | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Thompson. J.W.H. (Somerset, E |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.) | Thorne, William |
| Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Tillett, Louis John |
| Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford, E. | Tomkinson, James |
| Levy, Maurice | Radford, G. H. | Toulmin, George |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Rainy, A. Rolland | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Raphael, Herbert H. | Verney, F. W. |
| Lough, Thomas | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Wadsworth, J. |
| Lupton, Arnold | Renton, Major Leslie | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Richards, Thomas (W.Monm'h | Wallace, Robert |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n | Walsh, Stephen |
| Lynch, H. B. | Richardson, A. | Walters, John Tudor |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Rickett, J. Compton | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs | Ridsdale, E. A. | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent) |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southamp'n |
| Maclean, Donald | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wardle, George J. |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Macpherson, J. T. | Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee) | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan) |
| M'Crae, George | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney) |
| M'Kenna, Reginald | Robinson, S. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W., | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Watt, H. Anderson |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Roe, Sir Thomas | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Maddison, Frederick | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Whitbread, Howard |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Rose, Charles Day | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Rowlands, J. | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) |
| Mansfield,H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Runciman, Walter | White, Luke (York, E.R. |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Russell, T. W. | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Marnham, F. J. | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) | Whiteley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Massie, J. | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Menzies, Walter | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Schwann, Chas. E.(Manchester) | Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen) |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Scott, A.H.(Ashton under Lyne | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Mond, A. | Sears, J. E. | Wilson, Hon. C.H.W. (Hull,W.) |
| Money, L. G. Chiozza | Seaverns, J. H. | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Montagu, E. S. | Seely, Major J. B. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Montgomery, H. H. | Shackleton, David James | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N. |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Morley, Rt. Hon. John | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Winfrey, R. |
| Morse, L. L. | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Wodehouse, Lord(Norfolk, Mid |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Murray, James | Snowden, P. | Woodhouse, Sir J. T. Huddersf'd |
| Myer, Horatio | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Soares, Ernest J. | |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Spicer, Albert | TELLERS TOR THE AYES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. |
| Nicholls, George | Stanger, H. Y | |
| Nicholson. Charles N-(Doncast'r | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | |
| Norman, Henry | Steadman, W. C | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E. | Anstruther-Gray, Major | Ashley, W. W. |
| Ambrose, Robert | Arkwright, John Stanhope | Balcarres, Lord |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Arnold-Forster.Rt Hn. HughO. | Baldwin, Alfred |
| Balfour, Rt Hn A.J.(CityLond. | Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. |
| Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester | Gilhooly, James | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry,N. | Ginnell, L. | O'Doherty, Philip |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Haddock, George R. | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Halpin, J. | O'Dowd, John |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Hamilton, Marquess of | O'Hare, Patrick |
| Blake, Edward | Hammond, John | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon.N |
| Boland, John | Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashford | O'Malley, William |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B. | O'Mara, James |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hazleton, Richard | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Healy, Timothy Michael | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Helmsley, Viscount | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Hervey, F.W.F.(BuryS. Edm'ds | Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Hill, Sir Clement(Shrewsbury) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff' sh.) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hills, J. W. | Rasch, Sir Frederic Came |
| Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C.W. | Hogan, Michael | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Houston, Robert Paterson | Rawlinson, John Frederick P. |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Hunt, Rowland | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Joyce, Michael | Redmond. William (Clare) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm.) | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. SirJohn H. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Clarke, Sir Edward (City Lond. | Kenyon-Slaney.Rt. Hn. Col.W. | Roberts, S. (Sheffield.Ecclesall) |
| Coates, E.Feetham (Lewisham) | Keswick, William | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Kilbride, Denis | Rutherford, W. (Liverpool) |
| Cogan, Denis J. | King,Sir Henry Seymour(Hull) | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Craig, Captain James(Down,E.) | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Crean, Eugene | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim.S.) |
| Cross, Alexander | Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham | Stanley,Hon.Arthur (Ormskirk |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Starkey, John R. |
| Delany, William | Lundon, W. | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Devlin, CharlesRamsay(Galway | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Sullivan, Donal |
| Dillon, John | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Talbot,Rt. Hn J. G.(Oxf'd Univ |
| Dolan, Charles Joseph | MacVeigh, Charles(Donegal, E. | Thomson,W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | M'Calmont, Colonel James | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Walker, Col. W. H.(Lancashire |
| Du Cros, Harvey | M'Iver,SirLewis (Edinburgh, W | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Duffy, William J. | M'Kean, John | Warde, Col. C. E. (Mid, Kent) |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark,Govan | M'Killop, W. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Magnus, Sir Philip | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Wilson, A. Stanley(York, E.R.) |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Meagher, Michael | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart |
| Fell, Arthur | Middlemore,John Throgmorton | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Mooney, J. J. | Young, Samuel |
| French, Peter | Morpeth, Viscount | Younger, George |
| Field, William | Muntz, Sir Philip A. | |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Murnaghan, George | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Murphy, John | |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield) | |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Nolan, Joseph | |
| Forster, Henry William | O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary Mid |
§ MR. BRIDGEMAN (Shropshire, Oswestry) moved to insert after 1908 the words "or such later day as the Board of Education shall appoint in any district upon the application of the local education authority for the purposes of this section." He appealed to the House to assent to the desirability of his Amendment because he did not think hon. Members had entirely realised that if the discussion of this Bill continued, as it probably would, till late in the autumn 1048 there would only be about two months to elapse, or perhaps less, before the Christmas holidays intervened and there would be no possibility of coming to an arrangement before the January 1st, 1907. He had, therefore, some reason to hope that the right hon. Gentleman would accept his Amendment. They had heard a great deal about the concessions which were going to he made by the Government, and he should be very proud if the first little concession which 1049 they were going to give should be upon the Amendment which he had moved. He thought there was some hope, as the Minister for Education on the last Amendment virtually admitted that it was necessary to have an Amendment more or less to this effect, the right hon. Gentleman having said that he did not think it was beyond the ingenuity of men to devise an Amendment which he could accept. He hoped he had anticipated the right hon. Gentleman's wishes in drafting this Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed—
In page 1, line 8, after the word 'eight, to insert the words 'or such later day as the Board of Education shall appoint in any district upon the application of the local education authority for the purposes of this section.' "—(Mr. Bridgeman.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. BIRRELLThis is very much the same proposal all over again. I want to say that the Government are quite prepared when they come to Clause 8 to deal with the proceedings of the Court by extending the time in order to ensure that all the duties put upon the Commission shall receive proper and due judicial attention, but to insert an Amendment here will be most inconvenient. It will extend and add to the difficulties of the transferring period with which we have to deal, and I think it will be far better that we should adhere to the clause as it now stands than provide for a difficulty which perhaps may never arise when we come to Clause 8, viz.: that the Bill as originally drafted does not give sufficient time to the Commission to enable them to deal with the cases which come before them.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURthought the right hon. Gentleman had misapprehended the point of the Amendment. Under the Bill, the bargains were to be made before January 1st, 1907. The proceedings on the Bill might, probably would, last for a considerable time. How could they have any security, any hope, that there would be adequate time left, 1050 before the beginning of next year, for carrying out these transactions between the various owners and trustees of voluntary schools and the local authorities with whom they were expected to bargain? He did not see how that could be put right by any Amendment to Clause 8. They were told that this Clause 1 was the spinal cord of the Bill and dealt with the whole subject, and Amendments of this kind ought to be made there, and not on subsequent clauses. The point was not the same as that which they had been discussing, and they should deal with it now upon the clause which pre-eminently concerned the working of the Bill. If they were going to put a pistol at the heads of the, unfortunate owners and managers of the voluntary schools and say that within three weeks or a month they must come to a satisfactory arrangement with the local education authority they were going to make the Bill unworkable.
§ MR. BIRRELLSo far as voluntary arrangements under Clause 2 are concerned it seems to me that the scheme of the Bill provides ample time.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONdid not think that the President of the Board of Education understood the difficulty presented. There was not sufficient time before January 1st, 1907, for these arrangements to have been arrived at, considering the vast number of voluntary schools, the difficulty of making arrangements, and the possibility that the Bill might not become law until nearly the close of this year. Then there was the period up to January, 1908, when either an arrangement or a scheme might be made. He did not think that the short period of twelve mouths was enough to allow for all negotiations with regard to subjects of a complicated character taking place.
§ SIR FRANCIS LOWEthought the Amendment was in favour of the Government and the Board of Education who had to make this Bill work and to secure that the arrangements between the owners and trustees of the voluntary schools were of a satisfactory character. These arrangements 1051 would be complicated and take a long time. If the Government wished the Bill to succeed they should support the Amendment, and allow a sufficient time for negotiations to be brought to a successful conclusion. Under those circumstances he could not for the life of him see why they should not accept the Amendment.
§ SIR E. CARSONsaid that it occurred to him that the real substance of this Amendment had not been replied to by the right hon. Gentleman. It was not to extend the time at all, but to give the local authority, if it deemed it necessary, power to apply to the Board of Education for an extension of time. Did the right hon. Gentleman so distrust the Board of Education that he thought that they would not be able to grant the time asked for if it was necessary, or to refuse if it was not necessary; or was the right hon. Gentleman afraid from something which had happened in the Committee this afternoon that he would not be allowed to have any discretion upon the matter? Had it really come to this that an application made by the local education authority, which was the authority to which they were going to entrust all the various powers that were to be created under this Bill, was to be looked upon as something which would destroy or overrule some of the main provisions of the Bill? Could they not even trust the local education authority to make an honest application for a proper period of time to settle a scheme for a particular district? They could not trust the local authority, and the Board of Education could not trust itself, and it was under those conditions that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen were going to legislate.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he could not help thinking that if the right hon. Gentleman would disregard the views of some of his extremely zealous supporters he would not dissent from this Amendment. Even the hon. Member for North Camberwell, who prided himself on having mastered the contents of the Bill, had not yet quite mastered the dates. Under Clause 1 all grants and rates came to an end in all non-provided schools on January 1st, 1908. The 1052 school must, therefore, come to an end then, and the only way of extending it was under Clause 10, which provided that from January 1st, 1908, to January 1st, 1909, the local authority might—he observed, without payment to the owners—occupy a school for the purpose of public elementary education. Therefore it came to this, that unless the owners agreed, or unless the Commission managed to determine a scheme by the 1st January, 1908, which might well be an impossible matter, the owners were bound to hand over their school without payment on that date. The alternative was that the local authority should build a school and crush out the voluntary school. The fact remained that under this Bill as it stood unless the whole of the proceedings were concluded by the 1st January, 1909, they came to a hopeless impasse. Surely that was an unjust and unreasonable provision. He would have thought until he had had experience of the present House of Commons that the only question before them was what was the best provision to be made for meeting that difficulty, and that the proposition of his right hon. friend the Member for Oxford University was extremely fair and moderate. His Amendment proposed to leave the extension of the time to the Board of Education on the application of the local authority. That was only a fair and reasonable provision.
§ MR. BIRRELLsaid the noble Lord had overlooked the fact he had already stated that the time for making an extension of time would be on Clause 8 or on Clause 10.
§ MR. WYNDHAMsaid the interpolation of the right hon. Gentleman showed that he did not understand that the date in Clause 1 applied to the Commission and not to the recalcitrant trustees or owners. Clause 10 was another pistol in the armoury of the Government, and if arrangements were not arrived at under that clause, then it was a case of "Bother all arrangements, go and take the school." The local authority would walk in without any arrangements. When discussing this Bill on Second Reading the Chancellor 1053 of the Duchy of Lancaster was outraged in his feelings because some of them had spoken of confiscation, and said that they might as well say the clause contemplated burglary. He received a postcard from a teacher next day who said that this Bill did propose burglary by Clause 10.
§ DR. MACNAMARAsaid that upon the Second Reading of the Bill the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone said that money was nothing to him.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he wished the hon. Gentleman would not misquote him; he certainly never went so far as to say that money was nothing to him. The hon. Member must have forgotten that he had practised at the Parliamentary Bar. What he did say was that money was nothing compared to the religious interests.
§ DR. MACNAMARAsaid he would put it in this way—that money was next to
§ nothing to the noble Lord; that the most important thing was the continuance of the religious instruction in the way that it bad been given in the past under the trust. Let him refer the noble Lord to the Sub-section (2) of Clause 10, which provided that the local education authority should permit religious instruction to be given in the school of the same character as that previously given, and also permit teachers in the school to give that instruction as part of their duties. The noble Lord was ungrateful to the Government for having conceded to him all that he could ask for.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid the hon. Member seemed to think that, because the Government had not done the grossest injustice that could be conceived, therefore he ought to be perfectly satisfied that they should take his money and not provide that for which the money was originally given.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 176; Noes, 354. (Division List, No. 88.)
1059| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork. N. E.) | Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm. | Forster, Henry William |
| Acland-Hood. Rt Hn. Sir AlexF. | Clarke, Sir Edward (City Lond.) | Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East) |
| Ambrose, Robert | Coates,E. Feetham (Lewisham) | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Gilhooly, James |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Cogan, Denis J. | Ginnell, L. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Condon, Thomas Joseph | Glover, Thomas |
| Arnold-Forster,Rt Hn Hugh O. | Courthope, G. Loyd | Haddock, George R. |
| Ashley, W. W. | Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim,S. | Halpin, J. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Craig, Captain James (Down, E. | Hamilton, Marquess of |
| Balfour.Rt.Hn A.J.(CityLond.) | Craik, Sir Henry | Hammond, John |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Crean, Eugene | Hardy, Laurence (Kent,Ashford |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Dalrymple, Viscount | Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B. |
| Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester) | Delany, William | Haydon, John Patrick |
| Barnes, G. N. | Devlin, CharlesRamsay (Galway | Hazleton, Richard |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Dillon, John | Healy, Timothy Michael |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Dolan, Charles Joseph | Helmsley, Viscount |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Donelan, Captain A. | Hervey. F.W.F. (BuryS.Edm'd |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Du Cros, Harvey | Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh.) |
| Blake, Edward | Duffy, William J. | ills, J. W. |
| Boland, John | Duncan, Robert (Lanark,Govan | Hogan, Michael |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Esmonde Sir Thomas | Houston, Robert Paterson |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Faber, George Denison (York) | Hunt, Rowland |
| Bull, Sir William James | Fardell, Sir T. George | Jowett, F. W. |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Farrell, James Patrick | Joyce, Michael |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Fell, Arthur | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. SirJohn H. |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Kenyon-Slaney.Rt. Hn. Col.W |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Ffrench, Peter | Keswick, William |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Field, William | Kilbride, Denis |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | King, Sir Henry Seymour(Hull) |
| Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C.W. | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Fletcher, J. S. | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Flynn, James Christopher | Lee, ArthurH. (Hants, Fareh'm |
| Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | O'Doherty, Philip | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Lowe, Sir Francis William | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk |
| Lundon, W. | O'Dowd, John | Starkey, John R. |
| Macpherson, J. T. | O'Hare, Patrick | Sullivan, Donal |
| MacVeagh,Jeremiah (Down, S. | O'Kelly, James(Roscon n on,N | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (Ox'fdUniv. |
| MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E. | O'Malley, William | Thomson. H. Mitchell-(Lanark |
| M'Calmont, Colonel James | O'Mara, James | Thorne, William |
| M'Hugh, Patrick A. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| M'Iver, Sir Lewis(EdinburghW | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Valentia, Viscount |
| M'Kean, John | Parkes, Ebenezer | Waldron, Laurence Ambrose |
| M'Killop, W. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlingtn | Walker,Col.W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Magnus, Sir Philip | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Power, Patrick Joseph | Walsh, Stephen |
| Meagher, Michael | Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Ratcliff, Major R. F. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Rawlinson, John Frederick P. | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Mooney, J. J. | Redmond, John E. (Waterford | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Morpeth, Viscount | Redmond, William (Clare) | Wilson, A.Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Muntz, Sir Philip A. | Remnant, James Farquharson | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Murnaghan, George | Roberts, S.(Sheffield,Ecclesall) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Murphy, John | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert | Young, Samuel |
| Nicholson, Wm. G.(Petersfield) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | Younger, (George |
| Nolan, Joseph | Salter, Arthur Clavell | |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Bridgeman and Mr. Evelyn Cecil. |
| O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | Smith,Abel H. (Hertford,East) | |
| O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Smith,F. E. (Liverpool, Walton | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Branch, James | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Brigg, John | Dickinson, W.H.(St. Pancras.N |
| Adkins, W. Ryland | Bright, J. A. | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. |
| Agnew, George William | Brocklehurst, W. D. | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Brodie, H. C. | Dobson, Thomas W. |
| Alden, Percy | Brooke, Stopford | Dodd, W. H. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Brunner.J.F. L.(Lancs., Leigh | Duckworth, James |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Bryce,Rt. Hn. James (Aberd'n | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness |
| Amitage, R. | Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Burnyeat, J. D. W. | Dunne, Major E. M. (Walsall) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Buxton, Rt. Hn. SydneyCharles | Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Byles, William Pollard | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Cairns, Thomas | Edwards, Frank (Radnor) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury,E.) | Cameron, Robert | Elibank. Master of |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Causton, Rt. Hn. RichardKnight | Erskine, David C. |
| Barker, John | Channing, Francis Allston | Essex, R. W. |
| Barlow, JohnEmmott(Somerset | Cheetham, John Frederick | Evans, Samuel T. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Eve, Harry Trelawney |
| Barnard, E. B. | Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham) | Everett, R. Lacey |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Cleland, J. W. | Ferens, T. R. |
| Beale, W. P. | Clough, W. | Ferguson, R. C. Munro |
| Beauchamp, E. | Coats, SirT. Glen (Renfrew, W.) | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace |
| Beaumont, Hubert Eastbourne | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter |
| Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Collins,Sir Wm J.(S.Pancras,W | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Benn, John Williams(Devonport | Cooper, G. J. | Fullerton, Hugh |
| Benn, W.(Tw'rHamlets,S.Geo. | Corbett, CH (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Furness, Sir Christopher |
| Bennett, E. N. | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Gibb, James (Harrow) |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Cory, Clifford John | Gill, A. H. |
| Bethell, J.H. (Essex,Romford) | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. HerbertJohn |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cowan, W. H. | Glendinning, R. G. |
| Billson, Alfred | Cremer, William Randal | Goddard, Daniel Ford |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Crombie, John William | Gooch, George Peabody |
| Black, Alexander Wm. (Banff) | Crooks, William | Grant, Corrie |
| Black, Arthur W.(Bcdfordshire | Crosfield, A.H. | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) |
| Bolton, T.D. (Derbyshire, N.E. | Crossley, William J. | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward |
| Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey) | Davies,David(Montgomery Co. | Griffith, Ellis J. |
| Brace, William | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Grove, Archibald |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill |
| Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | M'Micking, Major G. | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Maddison, Frederick | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Hardie,J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil | Mallet, Charles E. | Scarisbrock, T. T. L. |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Mansfield. H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Schwann, Chas. E. (Manchester |
| Harmsworth, R.L. (Caithn'ss-s | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston | Scott,A.H. (Ashton-under-Lyne |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Marnham, F. J. | Sears, J. E. |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Harwood, George | Massie, J. | Seely, Major J. B. |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Menzies, Walter | Shackleton, David Jones |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Micklem, Nathaniel | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Molteno, Percy Alport | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Mond, A. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Helme, Norval Waltson | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Montagu, E. S. | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Henderson, J.M.(Aberdeen, W.) | Montgomery, H. H. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Henry, Charles S. | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Snowden, P. |
| Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon.,S.) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Morley, Rt. Hon. John | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Higham, John Sharp | Morse, L. L. | Spicer, Albert |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Murray, James | Stanley, Hn.A.Lyulph (Chesh.) |
| Hodge, John | Napier, T. B. | Steadman, W. C. |
| Holden, E. Hopkinson | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Hooper, A. G. | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset, N | Nicholls, George | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Nicholson, CharlesN.(Doncast'r | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Norman, Henry | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Stuart, James (Sunderland.) |
| Hudson, Walter | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Summerbell, T. |
| Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Nuttall, Harry | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Hyde, Clarendon | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Taylor, Austin (East Toxeth) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Parker, James (Halifax) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Paul, Herbert | Taylor, Theodore C.(Radcliffe) |
| Jackson, R. S. | Paulton, James Mellor | Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury) |
| Jacoby, James Alfred | Pearce, Robert (Staffs Leek) | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Pearson. Sir W.D. (Colchester) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan,E.) |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Pearson, W.H.M.(Suffolk, Eye) | Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr |
| Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea | Perks, Robert William | Thomasson, Franklin |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Philipps, J.Wynford(Pembroke | Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset E. |
| Jones, William(Carnarvonshire | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Tomkinson, James |
| Kearley, Hudson E. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Toulmin, George |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Pollard, Dr. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Kelley, George D. | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Verney, F. W. |
| Kincaid-Smith, Captain | Price, Robert John (Norfolk. E. | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Priestley, W. E.B.(Bradford,E. | Vivian, Henry |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Radford, G. H. | Wadsworth, J. |
| Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster | Rainy, A. Rolland | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Lamb, ErnestH. (Rochester) | Raphael, Herbert H. | Wallace, Robert |
| Lambert, George | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Lamont, Norman | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | Rees, J. D. | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent) |
| Lea, Hugh Cecil (St Pancras,E.) | Renton, Major Leslie | Ward, W. Dudley(Southampton |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Richards,Thomas (W.Mon'mth | Wardle, George J. |
| Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Richards, T.F. (Wolverh'mpt'n | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Lever, W. H.(Cheshire, Wirral) | Richardson, A. | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan) |
| Levy, Maurice | Rickett, J. Compton | Wason,John Cathcart(Orkney) |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Ridsdale, E. A. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Watt, H. Anderson |
| Lough, Thomas | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Lupton, Arnold | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Whitbread, Howard |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Robertson, Rt. Hn.E. (Dundee) | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | White, J. D. (Dunbartonshire) |
| Lynch, H. B. | Robinson, S. | White, Luke (York, E.R.) |
| Macdonald, J R (Leicester) | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Macdonald,J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs | Roe, Sir Thomas | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Wiles, Thomas |
| Maclean, Donald | Rose, Charles Day | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Rowlands, J. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Runciman, Walter | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| M'Crae, George | Russell, T. W. | Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen. |
| M'Kenna, Reginald | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Wilson, Hn. C.H.W. (Hull, W.) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) | Winfrey, R. | |
| Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) | Wodehouse. Lord (Norfolk.Mid) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease. |
| Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon | |
| Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.) | Woodhouse.SirJ.T. (Huddersf'd |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ And it being after Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.