§ LORD R. CECILsaid the matter he desired to bring to the attention of the House by the process of moving the adjournment was one of some consider- 1630 able importance and related to the action taken by the local education authority in the county of Merioneth with regard to the salaries of the teachers in non-provided schools. Hon. Members would remember that as soon as the Education Act of 1902 was passed a considerable agitation was aroused in Wales, largely by Members of the present Government, the object of which was to bring about what was commonly called the Welsh revolt. The general purport of the movement in the first instance was to decline to work the Act altogether, but that was soon abandoned because some of the chief movers in the revolt accepted places of profit for the administration of the Act. The next phase of the revolt consisted of depriving the voluntary schools of assistance out of the rates. No one who watched what took place could doubt that the real object underlying all was to injure the Church of England. He knew that that was denied, but looking at the facts of the case he had very little doubt that that was the real object. The methods by which this was sought to be carried out were various. One was to under staff the voluntary schools.
§ MR. ELLIS DAVIES (Carnarvonshire, Eifion)That is not true.
§ LORD R. CECILThe hon. Member, with scant courtesy, said that was not true.
§ MR. ELLIS DAVIESTrue in a single instance only, but not generally.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he had brought cases to the notice of the House. Another method was to underpay the teachers in Church schools. They were not only paid at very much lower rates than prevailed for similar teachers in the council schools.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA, Monmouthshire, N.)said he understood that the noble Lord had risen to draw attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance. He wished to know if the hon. Member was in order in going into the whole history of this question.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he was only briefly discussing the subject. In this movement the county of Merioneth had always taken a very active share, and he dared say was very proud of it. They had been supported by conferences and by public bodies, to whom the President of the Board of Trade had made valuable and very strong speeches. He remembered one in 1905, and he thought the President of the Board of Trade had taken his part in stirring up the people of Merioneth to resist as far as possible the enforcement of the law.
§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS (Merionethshire)The President of the Board of Trade has never been in Merioneth.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he did not say that the right hon. Gentleman had been in Merioneth, but he had spoken at other places. The teachers of voluntary schools were entitled to receive their quarter's salary on the 1st July, or shortly after the 1st July. So were the teachers in the council schools. The teachers in the council schools had all been paid, every one of them, he believed, by the 12th July. The teachers in the voluntary schools had not been paid. There were twenty-one voluntary schools in Merioneth, employing fifty or sixty teachers. Not one of those teachers had received a penny of salary up to the present time from the local authority. He asked the House to consider what that meant to men in this walk of life. Most of them were deprived of the opportunity of taking a holiday at all. Many of them had suffered more serious disadvantages. Obviously the case was not so much one of paying them out of the rates as of delaying payment. It was an organised delay of payment to the voluntary teachers of their salaries. It had been done over and over again since 1904, and this was a particularly complete and flagrant case. It was not an isolated question of administration; it was a deliberate deprivation of these very poor men and women of the means they would otherwise have of taking the very necessary holiday which their work allowed them. One teacher, by this action of the local authority, had been prevented from paying his insurance premium and keeping up his insurance. 1632 In another case—he admitted that it was a mere accident that it should be so—the teacher had a bedridden wife; and of course the injury fell far more on the invalid than on the healthy members of the household. Admittedly the whole defence of this action was the injury which it would do to denominational schools. He did not know whether hon. Gentlemen realised what this proceeding of the local authority meant. They were inflicting gross injustice and hard ship on men and women who had done no wrong at all, in order to further an object with which, whether worthy or unworthy, these people had no concern. He did not think it was recognised by the people who supported these lawless proceedings that it was always the poorest and weakest who suffered. Proceedings of this sort were directed against rich corporations and political organisations. The rich and powerful corporations were wholly unaffected, and the political organisations gained rather than lost. The people who suffered were the poor men and women who were deprived of their salaries. One of the teachers had written to him, he must say with admirable self-restraint. He said—
I think it very hard indeed, after such hard work, for the money to be withheld in Party spite, to prevent teachers having a holiday and paying important bills.That seemed to him a very serious indictment. The remedy was exceedingly simple. It was provided by Parliament and could be employed by the President of the Board of Education without the least difficulty. He referred to the Defaulting Authorities Act. It provided that the Board at Whitehall might repay the managers the expenses which the local authorities ought to have met. It was true that the managers would have to pay the teachers first out of their own pockets, but the President of the Board of Education had only to send a circular to the managers of the twenty-one schools telling them that the money would be repaid to them, and nobody could doubt that within a week every voluntary school teacher who had been deprived of his salary would be paid. Many of these managers were nearly as poor as the teachers themselves, and to ask them to run the risk of a long lawsuit with the local 1633 education authority without being assured beforehand of the support of the Central Department was to ask them to do something which was utterly un reasonable. He did not think they would be discharging their public duty if they fell in with any such proposal. The plan which he suggested would do justice and hurt no one, except that it would, no doubt, injure the effective carrying out of this mean and paltry form of persecution. He was asking the right hon. Gentleman to do that which was very much against human nature, for the President of the Board of Education had spent many hours in the last Parliament in denouncing this Act. [MINISTERIAL cheers.] He observed that hon. Members opposite cheered this statement. He confessed that in view of recent history he was amazed at those cheers. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen took the trouble to recall some of the Bills at the present moment before Parliament, they would remember that one contained powers to coerce local authorities far more extensive than anything contained in the Defaulting Authorities Act. It contained powers to compel county councils to undertake experiments in land culture which they did not desire to do, and then compelled them to pay the expenses of that culture out of the rates rather than out of the taxes. The same policy had been adopted in connection with the Labourers (Ireland) Act last year. But he had a more definite statement by the Prime Minister, who said in reference to the question of unemployment, as long ago as 1904—While the central authority should give latitude to local bodies, it ought to have large powers of compelling local authorities to do their duty.The policy of the Defaulting Authorities Act had been put into force over and over again by the Liberal Party. The only possible reason for declining to enforce it now was the recollection of the irresponsible utterances of Gentlemen who now sat on the Treasury Bench. At any rate, whether that was the reason or not, he was quite certain that he had the concurrence, in their own minds, of nine-tenths of the people who heard him. This scandal, this attempt mali- 1634 ciously to persecute voluntary school teachers who had committed no fault whatever, who had stuck to their duty and had taught the children entrusted to their care to the best of their ability, must be put a stop to. H was quite confident that he carried wit him the opinion or judgment of practically the whole House. He did not believe that if they searched through the last fifty or one hundred years they would find a case comparable to that which he was putting before the House. They were told that it was members of the Church of England who were intolerant. In the greater proportion of the local authorities members of the Church of England were in an enormously overwhelming majority. ["No."] It was so. Could hon. Members opposite quote a single instance of treatment even remotely resembling that which had been meted out to the teachers in this case, in any Wesleyan or other school? He knew they could not. If they took action of the kind to which he now drew attention there would be such a storm among hon. Gentlemen opposite that a Motion for adjournment would be regarded as a poor and inadequate remedy. This was a course of intolerance and bigotry; it was very mean and cowardly besides, and ought to be put a stop to directly by the Central Government. It was this spirit of intolerance and bigotry which made the settlement of the education question so difficult, if not impossible. Until the Welsh authorities, under the leadership and instigation of the right hon. Gentleman and others, abandoned this kind of policy, he was perfectly certain that whether, as the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to say a few days ago, they came with the sword or in peace, they would not settle the education question, whatever legislation they passed. A stop must be put to this action, and put with a very strong hand, in the interests of education and of peace, and, above all, in the interests of the teachers and of the children they taught. He begged to move.
§ *MR. LANE-FOX (Yorkshire, W.R. Barkston Ash), in seconding the Motion, said it seemed to him hat his case was 1635 of a gross and marked kind, directed against a class who were least able to defend themselves. It was a striking case in which the Government ought to try to do justice to those who were unable to protect themselves against a strong and powerful local authority. He was surprised that none of the hon. Members below the gangway were supporting this Motion, because it was a case of protecting the weak against the strong. Under the Act of 1902 it was the duty of the Board of Education to protect the teachers from oppression of every kind. The President of the Board of Education seemed to be throwing away his power of seeing fair-play between the teachers and the local authority. This system of using the teachers in a political campaign was no new matter; it had been tried in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Upon a previous occasion the present Chief Secretary for Ireland when he was at the head of the Board of Education insisted upon the law being carried out. What made the present instance more important was that this was not the first time this sort of thing had occurred under the administration of the present President of the Board of Education. In a case which occurred at Royston in the West Riding, of Yorkshire, the right hon. Gentleman proved that he was not prepared to stand up for the teacher against the local authority.
§ MR. MCKENNANonsense.
§ *MR. LANE-FOXsaid he was not aware what were the canons of civility on the Treasury Bench; but was it usual for a Minister of the Crown to interrupt a speaker with the word "Nonsense"?
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. EMMOTT)said he did not hear who used the expression, but he must point out that these constant interruptions tended to disturb and prolong the debate.
§ MR. LYTTELTON (St. George's, Hanover Square)pointed out that the expression fell from the Minister for Education, and he trusted Mr. Deputy-Speaker would ask the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
§ MR. McKENNAMay I ask whether, when an hon. Gentleman charges me with 1636 refusing to fulfil my duty in protecting the weak against the strong, I am in order in informing the hon. Gentleman that he is talking nonsense?
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI certainly do not think that "nonsense" is a phrase that ought to be used. [Cries of "Withdraw."]
§ MR. McKENNAIn deference to your ruling, sir, I withdraw.
§ *MR. LANE-FOXsaid that in the case he had mentioned the action of the right hon. Gentleman justified him in saying that they had every reason not to trust him in the matter because he did not fulfil his responsibility and failed to protect a man who required his protection. [Cries of "Order, order."]
§ MR. LEIF JONESasked if the hon. Member was in order in making a charge which it was impossible for the Minister for Education to reply to because it would not be in order.
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI confess that I do not see the relevancy of this particular matter. I must remind the hon. Member that he must keep within the terms of the Motion.
§ MR. LYTTELTONasked if it would not be in order to show that this was part of a system and that there had been other instances.
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI cannot see that other instances even of a like kind arise on this Motion which is a Motion for the adjournment of the House to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz.,—the case of Merionethshire. The debate must be confined to the case of the Merionethshire teachers, which is the "definite matter of urgent public importance" to which attention is now being called.
§ MR. LYTTELTONsaid that if it could be shown that there had been other instances surely that was relevant.
§ MR. McKENNAsaid the case to which the hon. Member was referring was not a similar case at all, but a totally different one.
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERIt is quite clear that the hon. Member cannot discuss other cases in detail. This debate ought to be confined to the question on which leave of the House was granted, and my ruling is that the discussion must be confined to that.
§ *MR LANE-FOXsaid he had no intention of going into the case he had alluded to in detail, and he only mentioned it as an illustration. When this question was raised a short time ago the right hon. Gentleman sheltered himself behind the plea that the teachers could sue the managers. Did not the words "maintain and keep efficient" put the whole responsibility upon the local educational authority? There was another reason why they had strong grounds for not having absolute faith in the Board of Education, and that was the undoubted bias of Mr. Davies, the Superintendent of the Welsh Department of the Board of Education, in regard to his post before he was appointed. That was why the managers would be unable to have confidence in the impartiality of the Board in this case. Where a clear case of oppression of the teachers was proved the House ought to back up the managers. The right hon. Gentleman stated that he was prepared to do as much as the Member for Oxford University to secure fair play for the teacher, and he had given that deliberate pledge to the House. What the late Government did in similar cases was to put into effect the Defaulting Authorities Act, and that was what they asked the right hon. Gentleman to do now. All the President of the Board of Education had to do was to send a circular round to the managers letting them know that if they incurred this expenditure they would be backed up by the Government, and there was no doubt that then the way would be clear, and the teachers' salaries would be paid. The reason why they insisted upon immediate action was that this was part of what was known as the Welsh revolt, and nobody would attempt to deny that revolt had been largely the practice in Wales. He thought he could prove why it was necessary that hon. Gentlemen should act speedily. The whole essence of the revolt he had alluded 1638 to was that there should be a series of protracted delays.
§ MR. MCKENNAasked if the hon. Member was in order in proceeding to enter into this question, because he would, not have an opportunity of answering him. [OPPOSITION cries of "Why not?"]
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERThe question of the Welsh revolt is not the definite matter of urgent public importance raised in the Motion, and therefore it is not in order.
§ LORD R. CECILasked if his hon. friend would be in order if he dealt with any topic which might affect the necessity for this Motion.
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI did not interrupt the hon. Member when he merely said that this was part of the Welsh revolt, but he was proceeding to go into the tendencies of that revolt and that is not in order. The discussion must be confined to the definite matter of urgent public importance.
§ *MR. LANE-FOXsaid what he was proposing to go into was that the essence of the Welsh revolt was systematic delay, and therefore this case under discussion was the beginning of a series of delays in Merionethshire.
*MR. DEPUTY-CHAIRMANIf this case is the beginning of a series, then this one case may be and is a definite matter of urgent public importance, but the remainder of the series cannot be discussed. They can be neither definite nor urgent, for they have not occurred.
§ *MR. LANE-FOXsaid this case was one in which the teachers really wanted support and help. He appealed to the President of the Board of Education as a man of fairness to see that justice was dealt out as between these teachers and the local education authority. He thought the urgency of the matter fully justified his hon. friend in bringing it before the House.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— (Lord Robert Cecil.)
1639§ MR. MCKENNAsaid he did not remember a case in which the adjournment of the House had been moved on such flimsy grounds. He was not speaking now of the hardship of the teachers, which he admitted had been serious, nor of the desire which everybody entertained that the hardship should be put an end to, but he was speaking of the charge against the Government of having failed to do their duty. Neither the noble Lord nor the hon. Member who seconded the Motion had the faintest suggestion to make as to what the Government could legally have done under existing circumstances. The teachers had not been paid their salaries which were due on the 1st of July. As the facts stood, there were only two remedies open to them. The first was for the teachers to sue the managers, who could then have joined the local authority as defendants. Thus speedy judgment could have been obtained in the county courts.
§ LORD R. CECILindicated dissent.
§ MR. MCKENNAsaid the noble Lord shook his head. He did not know that the noble Lord intended to dispute the accuracy of what he had said.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid he did. The right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that it would have been open to the local authority to put every possible obstacle in the way of a speedy judgment.
§ MR. MCKENNAsaid the noble Lord was apparently not familiar with the procedure. What obstacle could the local authority put in the way of the county court procedure? By this time the teachers in every case would have obtained judgment. The Government were in no wise responsible for the neglect of this remedy. The second remedy open was that the Government could have considered the propriety of proceeding against the local authority by mandamus. Here he must remind the House that what the noble Lord had really complained of was not the action of the Government, but the Act of 1902, which was responsible for this state of things. Did the noble Lord suggest that if the Government had proceeded by mandamus in the month 1640 of July that would have been of the faintest advantage to the teachers? That would have been a case in which the local education authority could have caused an infinite amount of delay. And his hon. friend the Attorney-General reminded him that he could not have got even a mandamus to pay money. Would the noble Lord tell him what other procedure was open to the Government? The noble Lord relied on the Act of 1904. He had not read that Act.
§ LORD R. CECILOh, yes, I have.
§ MR. MCKENNAsaid he could not understand how the noble Lord, having read that Act, could have made the speech he had made. The Act said that the Board of Education might, if they were satisfied that it was expedient to do so on account of any default of the local authority in the performance of their duties, if it appeared that the managers of a school had for the purpose of maintaining and keeping the school efficient incurred any expense for which provision had been made by the local education authority, pay to the managers such amount of expenditure as in the opinion of the Board was properly incurred. He could assure the noble Lord that it did not appear to them that the managers of any school had for the purpose of maintaining and keeping the school efficient incurred any expense. It was, on the contrary, well within the knowledge of the Board that the managers had not incurred any expense. He had to be satisfied that the managers had incurred expense before he began to consider whether it was expedient to act. He had no power to issue a circular. He had no statutory power to give a guarantee beforehand as to the payment of public money to the managers. The method of the Board of Education at present was to proceed according to the law. The noble Lord had been brought up in a different school. He had no power to consider a refund of any sums of money until the managers had themselves paid the money. Where had the Government failed to act? The House would be surprised to hear, notwithstanding the moving tale of a bedridden wife, and a teacher prevented from paying his insurance, that, as a matter of fact, 1641 through the action of the National Union of Teachers the salaries of the teachers had been paid.
§ LORD R. CECILsaid the hon. Gentleman was entirely mistaken. Out of fifty or sixty teachers not more than twelve to fifteen were members of the National Union, and they had only received two-thirds of their salary.
§ MR. McKENNAregretted to hear that so small a number were members of the National Union. He had been informed that, as a matter of fact, the teachers were paid. Everybody deplored that any teacher should suffer, but he appealed to the House whether the obvious and appropriate remedy was not that the teachers should sue the managers, who could exercise their right of joining the local authority as co-defendants.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSON (Oxford University)thought the hon. Gentleman took a singular view of his functions. These teachers' salaries were in arrear. Their holidays were approaching, if they had not already begun. They had no money with which to pay their more immediate bills. That money was unlawfully withheld by the local education authority, whose duty it was to maintain the schools and to pay the teachers. The teacher wanted his money and the right hon. Gentleman offered him a lawsuit, and that when he had the remedy in his own hands and could secure the payment of the salaries at once. Then be mentioned the alternative of a mandamus; but the result of proceeding in that way would probably be that for about a year and a half the teacher would have to go without his salary. What were the means the right hon. Gentleman had under the Defaulting Authorities Act? If the Board of Education were informed that the teachers were not paid they should write to the local education authority and invite their observations. If they get unsatisfactory observations they should write to the managers to ask whether the salaries had been earned and were unpaid. That was a form with which the right hon. Gentleman ought to be familiar by this time. The Board should then write again to the education 1642 authority and say, "If you do not do what you are bound to do, we shall enable the managers to pay, and the money will be deducted from your Parliamentary grant." If they got an unsatisfactory answer, all they had to do was to say to the managers, "You can pay the teachers and we shall regard that payment as a payment for which provision should be made by the local authority, and we shall pay you when the time comes." That was the law, and it had been put in practice without question and with most satisfactory results. So much for the unfortunate incapacity of the right hon. Gentleman to do what was right. He had told the House that he was awaiting a reply from the local authority. The President of the Board of Trade in one of his speeches in the early days of the Welsh Revolt had said that one weapon the local education authority could use with effect was delay. He described how the voluntary schools could be injured by withholding the teachers' salaries, by under-staffing, or in various other ways in which an ingenious local authority could persecute them; and he pointed out that the Board of Education would communicate with the local authority and they would give an assurance that the matter would be fully considered at the next meeting, that care should be taken as to the position of the matter on the agenda, and that by the time it was reached the council would be weary, the last trains would be leaving, and the matter would be postponed to a more convenient season. Meanwhile the voluntary school would undergo, as the right hon. Gentleman hoped, a gradual process of starvation. So much for the latitude of communication which the President of the Board of Education thought was necessary before he could put into operation the Defaulting Authorities Act, and do common justice to the teachers in these voluntary schools. It is not as if this was a solitary instance. It was part of a scheme of oppression by the local educational authorities. This was not the first but the third or fourth time that the voluntary school teachers had had their salaries withheld till the quarter after the holidays.
§ MR. MCKENNAsaid there was delay in 1905.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he believed that there was delay in that year, but it did not come to his knowledge, or he would have come to the rescue, as in the case of Montgomeryshire, and with good effect. There was no delay or laches on his part; it was mere want of information.
§ MR. MCKENNAIt happened before.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he did not think so. The county of Merionethshire was, the first local education authority in which the Defaulting Authorities Act was put into operation, but on other grounds. The question was urgent and important because it was an illustration of the attitude of the Board of Education on these matters. Wherever a voluntary school made any lapse in the exact requirements of the Board of Education, every opportunity was taken to destroy it. [An HON. MEMBER on the MINISTERIAL Benches: Hear, hear!] The hon. Gentlemen said "Hear, hear," and that was the embodiment of the Nonconformist conscience. Did the hon. Member desire that every advantage should be given to the county council schools and that no relief should be given to the voluntary schools? [An HON. MEMBER on the MINISTERIAL Benches: Denominational schools; there are no voluntary schools.] At any rate, this illustrated the attitude of the Board of Education. In the case of a school near Halifax every arrangement had been made for carrying out necessary repairs. The Education Bill of last year threw into suspense every matter of that nature. But at the beginning of this year the managers were prepared to carry out there pairs, and the Board of Education said that the time had passed and the school was ruled out.
§ MR. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS (Carmarthen District)asked whether the hon. Baronet was in order in referring to other schools.
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERsaid he did not see that the hon. Baronet's argument referring to the action of other local authorities was relevant. The action of the Board of Education in reference to 1644 repairs o! a school not even in Merionethshire was clearly outside the definite case of the Merionethshire teachers.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that that was an illustration of the action of the Board of Education in failing to secure justice being done to the teachers of denominational schools, while it was in their power to see that justice was done.
*MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERsaid he thought the hon. Baronet must feel that his remarks did not come within the scope of the Motion, which referred to a matter of definite urgency and public importance—the non-payment of the teachers in certain schools in Merionethshire.
§ *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he would not say one word more as to the stringency with which rules were enforced on voluntary schools, but he would add a few words as to the deplorable laxity with which the President of the Board exercised his powers in enforcing the law as regarded the duty of the county councils schools. The right hon. Gentleman ought to insist upon the county council doing its duty to the voluntary schools. If there was a body of men who deserved well of the State it was the teachers in the elementary schools. Their holidays were, moreover, especially necessary to enable them to bring back freshness of mind to the discharge of their duties. Yet here was a body of men who were denied the enjoyment of their holidays for no other reason than that they belonged to denominational and voluntary schools, whereas the teachers in other schools got their salaries and their holidays. The Board of Education would not raise a hand to secure that both classes of teachers should be treated in the same way. The business of a Government Department in these matters was to interpret the law strictly and equally between all parties and creeds. That was the line which, in his humble way, he had endeavoured to take, and that was the line which he desired to see carried out now. It would be very unfortunate if in departmental administration a difference were made between the supporters of the Government and their 1645 political opponents, and least of all in matters which concerned the education of the children. Surely those small animosities which existed against the voluntary schools should not be exhibited to the detriment of the teachers who had served the State so well, and which would be reflected on the children who if the teachers Suffered would not be so well taught. He thought it was not foreign to the Motion to call attention to the partiality of the Board of Education and its lack of judicial power in dealing with two different parties of religious teachers, or to lament that the President of the Board of Education should have taken so narrow—he might almost say so trivial—a view of his own responsibilities as to raise specious objections and technical points when the remedy was ready to his hand, and he had only to employ it, and the teachers would be paid.
§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS (Merionethshire)said that he was as earnest a Churchman as the noble Lord himself, and had been returned unopposed by the most nonconformist county in Great Britain. There was, accordingly, no question of persecuting church schools in this matter. The Merionethshire Council were fighting for a principle. When the Act of 1902 was passed the then county council passed a resolution that they would not levy a rate for the maintenance of non-provided schools unless they had complete control and management. The present county council had followed and re-affirmed that principle, with the consequence that the county of Merionethshire had never spent any of the money derived from the rates on the maintenance of those non-provided schools. They kept them going, however, as long as they could, the grants they had earned being used for this purpose. They had come to an end of their resources, and there was nothing else left for the county council to do than to refuse to pay the salaries of the teachers. They could not do otherwise without violating their conscientious convictions and breaking the pledges they had given to the ratepayers. That was the position, and he ventured to say that if the Bill of last year had been passed their troubles would have been at an end. They were disappointed in 1646 that, and he very much regretted that they were constrained to continue the fight for conscience, and that the Government had been caused any difficulty by their attitude. The action of the county council had had the excellent result, at any rate, of preventing 90 per cent. of the ratepayers of Merionethshire from being forced to become passive resisters. He regretted the unfortunate position in which the teachers were placed, but when all was said and done it was very largely their own fault. These people knew all along that this resolution had been passed by the county council, and that the county council had no money except the grants. The best course of procedure which the teachers could have taken would have been to resign. The schools would then have been closed, and after a time taken over by the local authority, when these very teachers would have been re-engaged at largely increased salaries and under much better masters.
§ *MR. EVELYN CECIL (Aston Manor)said that the defence made by the hon. Member of this iniquitous action of the county council was simply that it was defying the law. He denied that the county council were justified in breaking the law. If they were going to be told that breaches of the law of this character were to be condoned because a fight for conscience was in progress, all he could say was that, when this Government went out of office, it was extremely likely that masses of people would have cause for a good many fights for conscience of this kind. He did not pretend to say that would be justifiable, but it was very much to the point to say that what the hon. Gentleman said was perfectly unjustifiable. He was amazed that a defence of this kind was put forward. The President of the Board of Education let them understand it was his duty to do nothing. He evidently had an extreme reluctance to deal with the matter at all. That had been a characteristic of his whole conduct. When they questioned him on Thursday he told them that the Act of 1902 was somewhat obscure as to the powers of the Board of Education and of the local education authority in relation to certain matters, of which this was one, and he was not quite certain, he added, what the powers were in this respect. He supposed 1647 he could so far congratulate him that between Thursday and now he had at any rate discovered what possible remedies there were and how far he would be disposed to apply them. They asked whether he would do his utmost to get the salaries paid at once, and they had not got an answer. They did not yet know clearly whether or not he was going to do his best to get the salaries paid at once.
§ MR. MCKENNAI stated that at question time.
§ *MR. EVELYN CECILsaid he was not aware that the right hon. Gentleman had answered. Perhaps he would not mind telling them what the answer was.
§ MR. MCKENNAI said I had made representations to the local educational authority asking them to pay the salaries as soon as possible.
§ *MR. EVELYN CECILsaid he was glad to hear that. That was certainly a step forward. Had the right hon. Gentleman had any reply?
§ MR. MCKENNANo reply yet.
§ *MR. EVELYN CECILsaid he did not know whether, in the event of refusal, the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to act further, but he submitted that, according to his duty, he ought to act. He gathered from his speech that he based the defence of his inaction on the fact that he was not strictly bound by the four corners of the Defaulting Authorities Act of 1904. The learned Attorney-General was no doubt going to say that relying on the strict wording of that Act the President of the Board of Education was not bound to take action unless the managers had incurred any expense, and that at present they had not. Surely, when they saw a large number of teachers not being paid although they had earned their salaries equally with other teachers, it was an odd interpretation of duty for the President of the Board of Education to say it was not necessary to take any steps in the matter. He could not help believing that on reflection the right hon. Gentleman would see that all the teachers ought to be 1648 treated fairly and equally. They heard much of religious equality, and it seemed to him it was the Party opposite who were breaking that principle. It ought to make no difference what school a teacher worked in, and no distinction in payment ought to be made on the ground of religious differences. If their salaries were all due on 1st July they ought all to be paid on 1st July. That was his idea of religious equality. Apparently it was not what the words conveyed to the right hon. Gentleman. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would see what dangerous consequences would probably follow if he encouraged such differentiation. He objected to his whole method, which was wrong and objectionable. He could not understand anybody in an official position allowing organised delay of this kind to be tolerated any longer, and not taking prompt steps to stop it. This systematic and organised delay had been resorted to on several occasions, and he could not help noticing that the President of the Board of Education appeared to know very well when those occasions were. It occurred to him that perhaps he had had some hand in those earlier revolts, because he seemed to quote the date, "Christmas, 1904," very glibly and to know very well what occurred in 1905.
§ MR. MCKENNAOh, no.
§ *MR. EVELYN CECILsaid he was very glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman had no part in that agitation. He hoped the debate would lead to more satisfactory administration and remove a public scandal.
§ *THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (SIR JOHN WALTON, Leeds, S.)said that he was anxious to avoid the zone of fire which seemed to surround the county council for Merioneth as the education authority for that area. The Motion sought to attach censure to his right hon. friend, and it was suggested that something ought to be done by him in addition to making these representations to the educational authority of the county which he had told them he had made. As far as he could form any opinion on the subject his right hon. friend could do no more than he had done. It was a 1649 deplorable fact that the teachers were unpaid, and it was hinted that his right hon. friend had the right to use the public revenues for the purpose of supplementing the arrears of salary. He failed to understand that contention. The teachers were employed under contract by the managers of the schools. That situation was not forced by the House on the managers of these schools; it was a situation which they invited the House to place them in when the legislation of 1902 was passed. In the seventh section of that Act it was provided that the managers of the schools should have the exclusive power to appoint the teachers. That entailed the obligation of a contract, for which they alone were responsible, that the salaries of the teachers should be paid. It was the expression of a statutory liability in the form of a legal instrument, in which the managers of the schools accepted that responsibility. It was, therefore, clear that the obvious duty to pay the arrears fell on the managers. But it was also clear that Parliament had recognised that the managers might be placed in an awkward position. The Local Authorities Default Act contemplated, not the liability of the managers in future, but the expenditure they had made in the past. No question between the managers and the Education Department could arise until after an expenditure had been incurred. His right hon. friend therefore had no power to improve the situation until the managers had discharged the duty which rested on them by their own contract. When they had done that then they might have recourse to his right hon. friend. The noble Lord suggested that his right hon. friend might issue a circular holding out to the managers the hope that they would be reimbursed and giving a guarantee in reliance on which these payments might be made. Upon a question where principle arose, and where a point of conscience was said to be involved, it was of the utmost importance for a Minister to act within the law, and unless he had the power to do so he could not in law or propriety issue a circular.
§ LORD R. CECILsuggested that it was within the province of the Department to advise the managers that they would be safe in making the payment.
§ *SIR JOHN WALTONsaid the noble Lord knew very well that a guarantee would be read into the terms of such a letter, and the managers would say they paid reliving on the assurance of the Department. The section contemplated that after the expense was incurred then the Minister could consider the circumstances and nature of the dispute. That was the position. What else could be done? The dilatory, obscure, antiquated method of enforcing compliance with a statutory obligation by mandamuswas out of the question, because there existed the ordinary remedy by an action at law. The obvious remedy was for the managers to do their duty. They should not have entered into the contract if they were not prepared to abide by it. Let them fulfil their duty and then approach his right hon. friend, and if he proved impenetrable to sympathy, or, as had been suggested, was influenced by bias, there was the remedy in an action against the education authority, because they were clearly bound under Section 7 of the Act to indemnify the managers for expenditure properly incurred under the Act. That was the answer to the Motion. His right hon. friend had acted scrupulously within the law.
§ MR. LYTTELTONsaid the Motion had revealed a thoroughly discreditable state of affairs in Merionethshire. There had been a deliberate attempt to withhold salaries from voluntary school teachers at a time of year when the money was most needed. There had been no defence. There had been two lawyers' speeches, because the President of the Board of Education had dropped the administrator and had sheltered himself behind the most technical point of law, in which he was backed by the Attorney-General. But this was not a point of law at all. Under Section 7 of the Act of 1902, the local authority had the obligation to maintain the schools in efficient order, and, therefore, to pay the teachers. They might as well say that a man who had an obligation to maintain a building was not bound to pay the builder for doing the work as to say that the local Education Authority was not bound to pay the teachers. The managers 1651 had not the duty of paying the teachers; they had only the right to appoint them.
§ *SIR JOHN WALTONThe managers had entered into a contract; they were the masters of the teachers; they had the right to appoint and dismiss them. More over their contract with them expressly bound them to pay their salaries.
§ MR. LYTTELTONsaid that if the right hon. Gentleman would point to any section which provided that the managers should pay the teachers he would admit that he was in error, but until he did that he could not. But supposing that it was a condition precedent to any action that the managers should have been sued. Clearly the administrative duty of the Board of Education was to tell the managers that they should pay. Circulars advising local authorities as to their legal obligations were frequently sent by the Home Office, the Local Government Board, and the Education Department. Why not in this case?
§ MR. McKENNAsaid he had stated again and again that it was the managers' duty to pay the money. The Board of Education insisted on the managers signing a contract, and the teacher was not allowed the appointment until the contract was signed and the managers knew that perfectly.
§ MR. LYTTELTONsaid that according to the right hon. Gentleman the managers had twice committed a breach of duty; he had asked the right hon. Gentleman if he had informed them that they had committed that breach, and if he himself would see that they should do their duty, and if he might use so discourteous a phrase the right hon. Gentleman had fenced and quibbled with the House upon this matter.
§ MR. MCKENNAsaid that he had no power to make the managers pay.
§ MR. LYTTELTONsaid that he did not suggest he had. What the right hon. Gentleman could do was to advise and exhort them to pay, and it was well within his province to issue a circular to that effect. But, if as in this case, they 1652 were poor men and had no money to pay' the right hon. Gentleman had only to give the information and the managers would be able to raise money on such a circular in order to discharge their duty. A number of men had been appointed managers under the Act, and they were anxious to do their duty and pay the teachers. The local authority were bound to give them the funds to pay, and the local authority had made wilful default, he cared not for what purpose, and those who sat on the Treasury Bench were bound to enforce the law. When right hon. Gentlemen opposite saw that the local authorities made default and that the managers were unable to pay they ought to say to the managers "we will see you through this, we will compel the local authority to pay, and you are perfectly entitled to discharge your first duty and pay the teachers." That was the plain course, and the technical objection of the Attorney-General was no answer at all. The fact remained that these poor teachers were now confronted with the loss of their salaries for some considerable time, or with litigation against the managers. or, as the Attorney-General said, the local authority could be brought into such an action and be made to indemnify the managers. It was possible that that might be so. But they were told that there being no contract between the teachers and the local authorities they could not be properly be brought into such an action. He did not for a moment put that authority against the authority of the Attorney-General.
§ SIR JOHN WALTONThey can be brought in as third parties.
§ MR. LYTTELTONsaid he did not say that that was a good point of law. He knew the way in which bad points of law were fought in Wales; he knew very well what it would be. Provided there was any colourable pretext for resisting an action, he was certain that the pretext would be accepted, and these unfortunate teachers, who were deprived of their salaries and means of livelihood, would have the liability of an action, which he was perfectly certain would end in their favour, but which would cost them many a penny before they got the 1653 justice which the Board of Education ought to give them.
§ MR. WILLIAM JONES (Carnarvonshire, Arfon)said that the question had been answered by the President of the Board of Education and the Attorney-General. Merionethshire had a population 90 per cent. of which consisted of Nonconformists who had dealt with the question of education in no niggardly way. He noticed that neither of the hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded this Motion was in the House when the Defaulting Authorities Act was passed: if they had been they would have seen the whole of the Opposition march out because they were not allowed to take the main Amendment on this question, and he believed that the opposition in Wales had backed them up, not merely then, but during the last General Election, when they sent up every Member a Liberal to that House. But that was not the principal question before the House. Who were the managers of these schools? Four of them were Churchmen, and he ventured to say that, apart from his hon. friend the Member for Merionethshire who was a Churchman and a Liberal, nearly all the extensive landlords in that county were Churchmen and Conservatives; they were the people who had tried to retain the denominational schools at the expense of the rates. Let the rich landlords and Churchmen take pity on the hardships of these teachers. Merionethshire was a rich county to begin with, so far as the landlords were concerned; but the Nonconformists, who were 90 per cent. of the population of the county, were amongst the poorest in Wales; and yet what had they done for education in Merionethshire? It was worth while that hon. Gentlemen opposite, who knew absolutely nothing of the facts, should know this, namely, that peasants, labourers, small tradesmen, and quarrymen had spent more on education, elementary, higher, university, and technical, than not merely any other county, but more in proportion than Prussia, which, it was known, had done more than any other State in Europe in behalf of education. It was the Nonconformists of Merionethshire who had done all that, and they sent 1654 Church boys and Church girls to their secondary and university schools to be maintained at their expense. The Nonconformists had never kept away a single Church girl or Church lad who had won scholarships. It was the quarrymen who first of all endowed the universities of Wales with scholarships, and the children of Tories and Churchmen had benefited from the action of the Nonconformists. Why? Because these institutions were controlled by people who had no sectarian feeling. That was the main question. ["No."] His hon. and right hon. friends had proved that; they had knocked the bottom out of the legal argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to the duties of the local authorities under the Act of 1902. The contract was not between the teachers and the local authority, but between the teachers and the managers, and they could not make the Central Department a sort of county court to compel the local education authorities to pay the salaries of the teachers. In his own county of Anglesey, and in the Division which he represented, they had come to an understanding on the education question, and there was no cause to grumble. Let hon. Gentlemen opposite come and help them to deal fairly with these schools, and all these teachers would be paid. Let them not stand on a mere quibble of the law. ["Oh."] He said "quibble" because they had not had a right exposition or interpretation of the law from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had not given the right interpretation of it, firstly, because the education authority had not incurred the liability, and secondly, the Board of Education had no right to compel the local education authority to pay. The only way to settle this question was for Churchmen and Conservatives to deal with it in other counties as generously as they had done in Wales. In that way they would do away with sectarian bitterness and sectarian prejudices. During the controversy in Merionethshire, a Churchman and one of the hierarchy, said what a pity it was that the Education Bill did not give more facilities for Church teaching; and a Church teacher, the headmaster of a National Church School, got up and said—"Why, the Bill gives us more facilities than we have now, for we only 1655 teach the Catechism once a week, and this Bill gives us facilities to teach it twice a week." He wished hon. Gentlemen opposite would help them by assisting to transfer these schools to the local authorities, and then the whole of the teachers would be properly and adequately paid, and there would be no religious bickerings or sectarianism. He made an earnest appeal to all classes concerned in the interests of true citizenship to end this miserable petty squabble.
§ *MR. CAVE (Surrey, Kingston)said he desired to bring the House back to the real matter before it. They had heard from the hon. Member for Merionethshire a speech admitting their whole case. The hon. Member had admitted that it was the duty of the local education authority to provide funds for payment of the teachers. He had admitted that the authority had refused to do this, and the only reason given for that refusal was that the local education authority in Merionethshire did not approve of the Act of Parliament under which those salaries were payable. The hon. Member said they were going to continue the fight against the Act of 1902. Was that fight to be carried on by depriving these unfortunate teachers for weeks and months of salaries which were admittedly due? Was that a fair way to carry on a contest for conscience sake? It was said that these teachers knew they would not be paid and they ought to have resigned. Was that really the case for Merionethshire? Because a man knew that he was going to be cheated out of his salary was he to resign his post? Was it not possible that the teachers felt some kind of duty towards the managers and the children? Was it not even possible that they relied on the Government of the country to see that the local education authority did its duty? Not a single Minister had said a word in defence of the action of the local authority. It would have been a surprising thing if the Attorney-General or the Minister for Education had ventured to defend what seemed to him to be a gross and flagrant illegality. The hardship being admitted, they asked the Government to come to the rescue and find a remedy. What was the answer 1656 they received? The Minister for Education said the managers ought to pay. He agreed that they were legally liable to pay, but many of the managers were no more able to provide these funds than the teachers were able to do without their salaries. The right hon. Gentleman said: "Let the teachers sue the managers." Really, was that the answer of the Government? To sue meant further delay, and judgment could not be obtained before the end of September. That was rather a hard course to suggest especially when the managers were willing to pay but had not been provided with the means. There was an easy course open to the Government. They suggested that a simple letter should be written to the managers to the effect that the money would be refunded if they paid the salaries of the teachers by the Board of Education under the Act of 1904. The answer of the right hon. Gentleman was that the Government could not take that course until they had heard what the Local Education Authority had to say on the subject. But the Government had already written to that authority pressing them to pay, and the authority had not thought fit to reply. If necessary, they could be pressed for an answer. But failing some explanation other than that which had been given to-day the course of the Board of Education was clear. He was sure that the Government did not wish to make themselves the accomplices of the local authority. If so, let the Government meet this Motion in the spirit in which it was made and the whole difficulty would be at an end.
§ MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)said that the President of the Board of Education had done all he could in regard to representations to the local education authority. The hon. Member for Merionethshire had told them that the local education authority were at the end of their tether and had not sufficient money out of the grants in hand to pay the teachers their salaries. He gathered that in the past they had a surplus in hand, but now it had gone and the demands of the teachers could not be met in consequence. He would recommend his right hon. 1657 friend to inquire if that was the case. If it was the case, it seemed to him to be a proper one for putting the Defaulting Authorities Act in operation. Failing that, his right hon. friend should consider whether some new system could be devised whereby these schools might be put on a satisfactory basis. This was a small matter in a small county. The teachers needed their salaries, and every other consideration apart, they ought to have their salaries paid. It was particularly hard that they could not use some part of their salaries in taking a holiday away from the county. This was an exceptional case in the whole of the Principality.
§ *MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)said he wished to reply to some observations which fell from the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion. He desired to redeem the character of the county of Montgomeryshire and to assure the hon. Member for Barkston Ash that the facts were not as had been represented. It was not the case that the delay in paying the teachers was due to sectarian feeling, for the head of the Education Committee for Montgomery actually paid the salaries of a great many teachers and guaranteed an overdraft at the bank.
§ MR. LANE-FOXsaid he only referred to the case as one in which action was taken by the late Government.
§ *MR. REESsaid the Government of the day took action in that case, and deducted the salaries from the grants earned. He understood however that the action which was taken was illegal. He must regard the Attorney-General as the best possible authority in this matter, and the hon. and learned Gentleman had told the House that the hon. Member for Oxford University had been guilty of bad and unconstitutional law in what he did. However, his point was that there had been no callous disregard of the sufferings of the voluntary school teachers in the county a district of which he had the honour to represent, and no sectarian persecution. There had been the assertion of a great principle, but so far from its having been associated with hardships to individuals, or disregard of their claims, the local education authority had gone to great 1658 lengths to obviate the occurrence of hardships to those whose salaries were inevitably paid later than would have been the case had there been no effort to force the local authorities to carry out a policy of which they disapproved. The charge that the action of the county council had been illegal fell to the ground.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that every word which had been uttered as an explanation or apology by the hon. Member for Montgomery was a separate condemnation for Merioneth. Nobody defended the action which had been taken by Merionethshire, not even the Member for Merionethshire, and he was quite sure the Minister for Education did not defend it.
§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMSThe right hon. Gentleman was not present in the House when I spoke.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that although he had not had the honour of hearing the hon. Member's speech, he had done his best to inform himself of its substance. He understood that there was no question whether Merionethshire had obeyed the law, the only question being whether the people of Merioneth had obeyed their consciences. Therefore from the legal point of view Merionethshire stood without defence, and the only question the House of Commons had to discuss was whether in the illegal action of Merionethshire, His Majesty's Government were to be counted as accomplices. It was evident from the speeches made by the Government that they were not only accomplices, but willing and deliberate accomplices. The Minister for Education was perfectly aware, and did not deny that he was aware, that the illegal action of the County Council of Merionethshire had been the cause of inflicting a great deal of undeserved suffering upon men who were certainly poor, who had certainly earned their salaries, and who certainly needed their salaries more at this time of the year than at any other. He admitted that the teachers, men and women, were not many. An hon. Member had said that it was a small matter because it concerned few people. He admitted that it concerned few people, but he did not admit that it was a small 1659 matter. It was important to the men and their families that the salaries honestly earned should be honestly paid. They had not been honestly paid; and the President of the Board of Education had not pretended that the Government had used their administrative powers to tell the managers that if they paid the salaries the legitimate authority and undoubted powers of the Government would be used to see that the unquestioned debt of the local authority was discharged. The managers could not be blamed because they had not advanced the salaries out of their own pockets. It was not the business of any man in this country to pay money out of his own pocket which should be paid out of the rates. He believed that the managers had been ready to advance money if the Government had said that they would be liable for it.
§ MR. MCKENNAThe Law Courts would compel them.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURHOW? By mandamus? It was the duty of the Government to assure them that the rates, which were liable in law, would be made liable in fact.
§ MR. MCKENNANo; the sum could be recovered by an action in the county court.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid the right hon. Gentleman's idea of the way for a poor and hard-worked teacher to spend an agreeable holiday was to bring an action against his employer in the county court. The teachers in the schools should be under the guardianship of the Minister for Education, but the right hon. Gentleman had not given them any advice except to bring an action against a public authority. The managers, had they been assured that the Government would exercise their undoubted rights and extract from the local authority their undoubted debts, would no doubt have been perfectly ready to help their teachers over the time of difficulty. Why did not the Government give that assurance? They had ample power to do so.
§ *SIR JOHN WALTONTheir powers are stated in and are limited by the statute.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid it was in the Act of Parliament that the education I authority "may" do it, not that they I "must" do it.
§ MR. MCKENNAWill the right hon. I Gentleman kindly read the section— Section 1, Subsection (b). When the managers have paid, when the condition, in other words, has arisen, then I shall have to consider whether it is expedient that they should be recouped.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid the section stated that if it appeared to the Board of Education that the managers of a school, on account of any default of the local education authority in the performance of their duties, had, for the purpose of maintaining and keeping efficient the school, incurred any expenses payable by the local authority the Board might pay to the managers such amount in respect of those expenses as, in the opinion of the Board, was properly incurred. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman on this technical point that he could not pay out of public funds money to the managers until they had themselves incurred any expense. Nobody doubted that. But what they did say was that the Board of Education should have informed the managers that, if they did incur expense under the Act, the Education Department would consider it a case in which the Act should be put in force. If they had done that, the teachers would have got their emoluments. They had not done that because they thought it better to be in collusion with the illegal action of those county authorities, and that no encouragement should be given to any manager of the voluntary schools to pay the teachers. That was the policy of the Party to which the right hon. Gentleman belonged and of the Government of which he was a Member. It was publicly avowed. Nobody denied it. He did not particularly quarrel with that, profoundly as he disagreed with it. He did not take exception to any Gentleman in a public position saying "We object altogether to voluntary schools." 1661 That was an intelligible policy, although, in his opinion, a wrong one. But that that policy, whether good or bad, should be advanced by the petty persecution of the county council for Merionethshire, backed by the Education Department and this House, was a procedure totally new in our political and public history; for hitherto Ministers on that Bench, however much opposed to voluntary schools, had never sunk to using weapons of that kind. They had never condescended to visit upon the heads of these hard-worked, poor, and helpless teachers the sins of a system of which they disapproved. He thought the House, having
§ before it the case as presented by the two Gentlemen on that Bench, whatever their views might be, however much they disapproved of the voluntary schools, and however much they thought parents should be deprived of the right to have their children given the religious education they desired, might, at all events, abstain from methods utterly mean and wholly beneath the dignity of a powerful Ministry supported by a great majority.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 78; Noes, 145. (Division List No.376.)
1663| AYES | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Duncan. C.(Barrow-in-Furness) | O'Grady, J. |
| Ashley, W. W. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Pease,HerbertPike(Darlington) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fell, Arthur | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Balfour, RtHn. A. J. (City Lond.) | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Randles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Forster, Henry William | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Gardner. Ernest (Berks, East) | Roberts,S.(Sheffield,Ecclesall) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Gill, A. H. | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Glover, Thomas | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Gordon, J. | Scott. Sir S. (Marylebone. W.) |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Hardy,Laurence(Kent,Ashford | Shackleton, David James |
| Bull, Sir William James | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford East) |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Henderson, Arthur (Durham | Steadman, W. C. |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Hills, J. W. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hudson, Walter | Thomson, W.Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Cave, George | Hunt, Rowland | Thorne, William |
| Cavendish, Rt.Hon. Victor C.W. | Jowett, F. W. | Walker,Col.W.H. (Lancashire) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Kennaway,Rt. Hon.SirJohnH. | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone,E.) | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton |
| Chamberlain,RtHn. J.A.)Worc. | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Younger, George |
| Clynes, J. R. | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Corbett,A.Cameron(Glasgow) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester | |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Masterman, C. F. G. | Alexander Acland-Hood and |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Viscount Valentia |
| Crooks, William | Moore, William | |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Nicholson, Wm.G.(Petersfield) | |
| NOES | ||
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Byles, William Pollard | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne |
| Allen,A.Acland(Christchurch) | Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Dunne,MajorE.Martin (Walsall |
| Astbury, John Meir | Carr-Gomm. H. W. | Elibank, Master of |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Erskine, David C. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Essex, R. W. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Cleland, J. W. | Esslemont, George Birnie |
| Barlow. Percy (Bedford) | Clough, William | Everett, R. Lacey |
| Beale, W. P. | Collins. Stephen (Lambeth) | Ferens, T. R. |
| Bell, Richard | Collins,SirWm.J.(S.Pancras,W. | Ffrench, Peter |
| Benn,W.(T'w'rHamlets,S.Geo. | Cooper, G. J. | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Corbett.CH (Susex.E.Grinst'd) | Fullerton, Hugh |
| Bertram, Julius | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Cremer, Sir William Randal | Goddard. Daniel Ford |
| Brigg, John | Dalziel, James Henry | Greenwood. G. (Peterborough) |
| Bright, J. A. | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Gulland. John W. |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Dickinson,W.H.(St.Pancras,N. | Gurdon,RtHn.SirW.Brampton |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Duckworth, James | Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | M'Micking, Major G. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Mallet, Charles E. | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Henderson,J.M. (Aberdeen, W. | Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Henry, Charles S. | Marnham, F. J. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Hodge, John | Massie, J. | Snowden, P. |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Micklem, Nathaniel | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Holt, Richard Durning | Molteno, Percy Alport | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hyde, Clarendon | Morley, Rt. Hon. John | Ure, Alexander |
| Idris, T. H. W. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Vivian, Henry |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Myer. Horatio | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Nicholls, George | Walsh, Stephen |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Walters, John Tudor |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.) |
| Jones,William (Carnarvonshire | Partington, Oswald | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| King,Alfred John (Knutsford) | Price, C. E. (E'dinb'gh, Central) | Waring, Walter |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Pullar. Sir Robert | Wason,John Cathcart (Orkney |
| Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster | Radford, G. H. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Lamont, Norman | Rainy, A. Rolland | Watt, Henry A. |
| Leese,SirJoseph F.(Accrington | Rees, J. D. | Wedgwood. Josiah C. |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Ridsdale, E. A. | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshir |
| Lever, A. Levy(Essex,Harwich | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | White, Luke (York, E.R.) |
| Levy, Sir Maurice | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth. |
| Lough, Thomas | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Lupton, Arnold | Rowlands, J. | Wilson, HenryJ. (York, W.R.) |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Runciman, Walter | Wilson, P. \(St. Pancras, S |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Sears, J. E. | Tellers for the Noes—Mr. |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Seely, Major J. B. | Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease |
| M'Crae, George | Shaw, Rt, Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | |
| M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Sherwell, Arthur James |
Bill read a second time.