§ Resolution reported, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment of. Parliamentary Grants to associations of schools in respect of every public elementary school belonging to such 1547 associations, and of a Parliamentary Grant in respect of instruction given in special subjects at centres, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to Elementary Education in England and Wales."
§ Resolution read a second time.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid his right hon. friend the President of the Board of Education had asked him to move the Report of this Resolution, because under the rules of the House he would not be able to speak twice, and he wished to hear the criticisms which might be desired to be made by the other side before he answered at a later stage of the proceedings. At this stage, there was, he thought, no need for him to go at any length into the position of the Government. The Prime Minister had said that what the Government proposed and desired was that contracted-out denominational schools should be given a reasonable chance of existence, leaving, however, a substantial burden to be borne by the denomination. He thought the main part of the House was on common ground, at any rate in theory, with regard to these schools. They all agreed that it was educationally disadvantageous to have any large number of contracted-out schools. Therefore, they did not want to encourage needlessly contracting-out. They were also aware that there was, in certain classes of the community, a conscientious dislike to the terms under which most of the schools were asked to accept a national settlement, and, therefore, it was not desired to make contracting-out impossible. Since this discussion had started, a certain number of Members of the House and of people outside the House had been practically, if not actually, asking the Government to make the grants equivalent to the present rates. So far as the Government were concerned, that, or anything like that was impossible, because where then would be the national settlement— [An HON. MEMBER: Where is it now?] —if all the thousands of contracted-out schools were to have an easy opportunity of standing out of a national system? The view of the Government was that 1548 there must be a real and substantial burden on the schools which stood out, but that there must not be required of them any ruinous sacrifice.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)Semi-starvation.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid his right hon. friend had had figures put before him by the representatives of various denominations, but he did not believe that any denomination had proved that the figures of the Government would not meet both those requirements. His right hon. friend invited criticism, but the more he examined the figures put forward by the Government, and when he considered the pooling arrangements of the grants according to the size of the schools, the more satisfied his right hon. friend was that the Government estimate was about right—namely, that something like 85 per cent. of the maintenance of the schools would be provided by the Government grants, and that something like 15 per cent. would remain to be found by the denominations. If those figures were correct, it was for the House to decide, after discussion, whether that was too much to ask the Churches who stood out of the national settlement to pay for the sake of privately controlling the schools and of the private patronage it brought. He begged to; move.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURBefore the hon. Gentleman sits down, can he tell us how the negotiations now stand with the Archbishop of Canterbury?
§ MR. TREVELYANMy right hon. friend will say something about that, but I am not in a position to say anything about it.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford), said that apparently the hon. Gentleman believed that nothing could be a national settlement unless it inflicted some sacrifice upon a large minority. He had risen for the purpose of entering a protest against the extraordinary position in 1549 which the House was placed at that moment. When the other night they were trying to discuss, indirectly at any rate, the first Schedule to this Bill and the amount of the grant to be provided, they were told that the Government were still considering this question and had asked for figures from various denominations, that they had received some of these figures and were making elaborate calculations with regard to them, and that when those calculations were completed, the Government would to-day on this Motion through the lips of the Prime Minister make a statement as to what the financial arrangement was to be. Yet, in the face of that pledge, they are now asked to commence a discussion upon the financial basis of the Bill without any financial statement whatever being made, without knowing whether they were discussing the first Schedule or not—
§ MR. RUNCIMANI can tell the hon. Gentleman at once. It is the first Schedule of the Bill and I take it that is the one we are now discussing.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDasked whether he was to take it from that that the negotiations had led to nothing. Was he to understand from that that the Government stood or fell by the Schedule and by the Schedule alone, or was he to understand that the Schedule was to be increased or enlarged? They were entitled to some better treatment than that. He submitted that that was trifling with the House. He ought to be informed whether the first Schedule contained the whole financial programme of the Government, or whether the Government were still considering whether that Schedule should be enlarged, whether they were still negotiating on the question as to whether it should be enlarged or not. If the matter was still, in suspense, he honestly thought the discussion should be adjourned. If the Government were negotiating to see how much further they could go to satisfy those who were asking for more, ought the discussion to go on? Through long years he had witnessed a series of new rules of procedure in the House which, he agreed with the Leaden of the Opposition, had gradually reduced the House to a position almost of con- 1550 tempt, but he did not know of any instance in the past of such utter contempt of the House of Commons as that of asking them solemnly to undertake the discussion of the financial basis of this Bill when the Government would neither tell them whether they were negotiating and endeavouring to enlarge that basis, nor on the other hand, whether they were going to stand by that basis. What were they going to discuss? Were they going to discuss this 49s. 6d. per child? What was the use of discussing it if they were at that very moment engaged in discussion and negotiation to see whether they could not go further to meet the further claims which had been made? He thought the House of Commons was being treated badly in the matter, and speaking for those whom Irish Members represented, he thought they had grave reason to complain. They were told their figures were disputed. They were asked to submit them for examination. Their figures had been submitted to examination. The most full and detailed statistics had been collected—not from Blue-books or general averages; he doubted if the Church of England had done the same—but statistics drawn from every individual Catholic school in England. They had been examined now for many days, and would it be believed that at that moment when they were asked to undertake this discussion, they had received from those to whom they had submitted the figures no statement of any sort or kind as to whether their figures were correct or incorrect, or as to what was the opinion of the Government experts upon them? He thought they had grave reason to complain. Up to this moment they had heard nothing whatever from the Government with reference to the figures, and he drew from that fact this conclusion: that the experts of the Government and the Education Office had found it impossible substantially to differ from their figures. Now he would, in a few words—because he did not want to make a long speech—deal with the various general aspects of the question at the moment. He felt it was almost useless to do so when they did not know what the position of the Government was or what their proposals were, but, he felt it his duty the moment this financial aspect of the question came up, 1551 to put their case with reference to these Schedules. Now the figures they had proposed were drawn from each individual school in the country, and they went to show that the total expenditure on the Catholic schools of England and Wales at this moment was £830,000 a year. Taking the proposed grant of the Government in this schedule at 50s. per child— that was something more than the amount of the grant—it would amount to £712,000, leaving a deficit of £120,000 for the Catholic schools of England and Wales. The President of the Board of Education spoke the other day of their having claimed a deficit of £300,000 upon their schools. No responsible person made any such statement. Was it made by anyone on these benches?
§ MR. RUNCIMANNo, I did not say it was made by anyone in the House. I said the statements were made on behalf of the Roman Catholic authorities and I quoted the statement.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDBy whom was it made?
§ MR. RUNCIMANIt was made by one of the dignatories of the Roman Catholic Church.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDMay I ask the name? I utterly deny it was ever made by any responsible person. It might have been made in newspapers, but so far as the responsible leaders in this House, or responsible leaders outside it were concerned, no such statement was made. The statement made was that there would be a deficit of £120,000 for the whole of England and Wales. Of these figures they challenged contradiction. He would take by way of illustration, first of all, London. He had the estimate of the deficit in London prepared by the diocesan authority. Excluding the charge for furniture—he would deal with that in a moment—it amounted to £34,094. The authorities, in order to make sure that they were right had these figures checked by the London County Council—the Education Authority—and he had there the official figures of the London County Council. The salaries alone amounted to £83,600, or 58s. 8d. per head; wear and tear, 1552 £1,068 15s., or 9d. per child; cleaning, £8,906 5s., or 6s. 3d. per child; books, £5,225, or 3s. 8d. per child; total maintenance, £15,200, or 10s. 8d. per child. Total cost, including salaries and maintenance, £98,800 a year, or 69s. 4d. per head. The grant proposed in the Schedule was £70,705, or 49s. 8d. per head, a deficit of £28,085 per year, or 19s. 8d. per head.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)What is the total per child?
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDsail the total of maintenance and salaries now was £98,800, or 69s. 4d. per child, in the Catholic schools. The grant according to the Schedule for salaries and maintenance would be £70,705 or 49s. 8d. per child per annum, which left a deficit of £28,085 per annum, or 19s. 8d. per head. Take the salaries alone. They amounted now to £83,600; the total given by. the Schedule for salaries was £70,755; therefore in London alone there would be a deficit on salaries, not to speak of anything else, of £12,825. The right hon. Gentleman would notice that he was not including in the charges maintenance or any of the matters mentioned in the White Paper to which he took exception the other night as not fairly to be counted as maintenance. He was only taking salaries, wear and tear, cleaning, and books. If they included furniture it raised the amount very much. How did furniture stand? The moment this Bill passed, the furniture would cease to belong to the Catholic schools. The whole of it would be taken away from them altogether, or they would have to pay for it either in a lump sum or have the amount spread over a number of years. These were the County Council figures which he was quoting now, not the figures of the diocesan authorities. If they included furniture then they had £83,600 for salaries; for maintenance, £15,200; for furniture, £4,631 5s., or 3s. 3d. per head; and the total cost of maintenance, furniture and salaries was £103,431 5s.; less the amount of grant, £70,775; leaving a deficit of £32,656 5s., or 22s. 11d. per child. That brought the checked figures of the London County Council within between £2,000 and. £3,000 of the figure which was originally 1553 quoted by the diocesan body. He quoted these figures as an illustration of the figures given by the Catholic body, as a checked and authorised statement of the case in London, and as a proof that their total figure of £120,000 a year deficit over the whole country was a correct figure. But it might be said that while he was sure of his figures which had been checked as to London, he could not say the same for the rest of the country. He had the total figures for Liverpool, which also had been checked by the local education authority of the town council. They showed a deficit in Liverpool of £11,500 a year in the thirty-five schools. They had got the details of other places in England and Wales. He did not want to quote them all, but he wished to give two or three illustrations in order to impress upon the House the accuracy of their figures, which had been checked by the local education authorities. If he took smaller places, he found that in Widnes there was a deficit of £1,039; and in Warrington—he quoted these small places in order to make his illustration complete— the deficit was £487. All through, these figures, as checked by the local authorities went to show that their estimate of £120,000 a year deficit over the whole of England on the Schedule of the right hon. Gentleman was an accurate figure. let him deal with one other matter. It had been suggested to them that by th.3 system of pooling, as it was called, they would be able to redress the balance, and that the great loss of £32,000 in London would be made up by the profit on the 50s. per child in other parts of England and Wales. They had gone most elaborately into those figures, and the pooling would be of absolutely no use to them at all. According to the figures which he had there were only two dioceses in England or Wales where there would be a profit, and in both the profit was insignificant. In the diocese of Menevia in Wales, he was told that there would be a profit of £340; and there would be a profit in Newport of £1,440. He was told that in no other diocese in England and Wales would there be any profit. Of what use was this pooling; of what advantage was it to Catholics? Where were the schools in London to look for the £32,000 1554 a year to enable them to make up that enormous deficit? The pooling was of absolutely no use. The Schedule as it stood, even with this pooling, meant for the Catholic schools of England semi-starvation and practical ruin. What would happen? If it were carried out, well-paid teachers would have to be dismissed and badly-paid teachers put in their place. The small classes into which these schools had been properly broken up of recent years would have to be amalgamated. They could not by any possibility have efficient schools even if the cost of education remained as it was, but they all knew the cost of education was rising and would rise, and in point of fact when he quoted the county council figures for these schools in London he had understated the case, because the salaries, £83,600, giving 58s. 8d. per head had since then been raised 2s. per head, and the figures he gave therefore were to that extent underestimates. They knew that the cost would increase rapidly. This system would mean for their schools inefficiency, starvation, and destruction. His colleagues and he took the strongest view against the whole principle of contracting-out. They were opposed to it root and branch, but he did not think that was the right opportunity for him to argue the principle of contracting-out, and he wanted to confine himself simply to the finance of the Bill, which was ruinous to these schools. He complained that their figures which were sent to be checked, if they had been checked, had not received the attention of the Government. If they had been found to be correct they ought to have been told of it. If they had been found to be incorrect they also ought to have been told so. He complained of the way they had been dealt with in this matter. He complained of the way the House of Commons had been dealt with. He had, during those few moments, been discussing the Schedule. He felt bound on the first opportunity to state their case and give their figures, but in a sense he was beating the air. He was talking about a Schedule which, for all he knew, did not exist, a mere shadow, and they were entitled to know from the right hon. Gentleman did the Government stand by its Schedule. If it did not, what Schedule did it stand 1555 by? At any rate, so far as they were concerned, speaking on the figures in the Schedule and from the statistics he had quoted, nothing could induce them to refrain from the most vehement opposition to every stage of the Bill.
§ MR. LYTTELTON (St. George's, Hanover Square)said that from the first he had desired a settlement of this question, but he had stated, and he trusted made clear, to the House that that desire was subject to the reservation that equitable treatment among other things should be shown to contracting-out schools and upon the question of transfer. He wanted to associate himself with the hon. Member who had just spoken when he said that in this matter it was not fair that the House should be kept so much in the dark as it had been day after day, and that those who favoured the settlement of this matter should be compelled to cast their vote in a state of uncertainty upon subjects of great importance. They were compelled to sink their opinions for the time being in expectation of promises being fulfilled when no means had been afforded and no statement of any sort had been made which would enable the House to decide whether those promises could be fulfilled. They were in the dark as to the finance of the Bill and as to the most important question of training colleges. Until that day he had had no communication with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had thought it was more desirable to conduct the negotiations apart from Members of the House. But the Archbishop had made a communication to him on this subject which it was right that the Government and the House should know. He held in the strongest way that it was the duty of the Government, having at their command the experience and the resources of the Education Department, to justify their own figures, and to give the House a perfectly clear statement as to the material on which they based them. His personal view was that the figures in the circumstances should be liberal and generous, and, above all, that the House should have time to consider them. The Government had not taken that view, however. On the contrary, they had asked the Church of 1556 England, the Roman Catholics, and those who dissented from the Bill and wished to stand outside its provisions, to bring forward their own figures and to justify them, they having nothing approaching the opportunity, experience, or organisation which the Board of Education had, and he presumed from the attitude they had taken up in regard to this schedule they intended to criticise those figures. Let the House not mistake him. He did not deny that, so far as he could judge, there had been great difficulty in getting any definite figures on such a vast subject in a short space of time He proposed, however, to rely for the validity of the position which was taken up by the Archbishop in this matter on the official figures supplied by the Department. In the communication received from the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed to the President of the Board of Education it was stated that the figures for the transfer schools were utterly inadequate, and that the amount which would be demanded on the basis of the Government proposals from the voluntary schools would be a contribution of 14s. 6d. per child. These were the views of the Archbishop—
The transfer and contracting-out provisions must be looked at as a whole. It is clear, therefore, that if the contracting-out schools are to be maintained efficiently without an impossible strain upon voluntary subscribers the amount of the grants set out in the schedule must be increased in each case at least 7s., and there must be a further provision that they are to rise-automatically year by year with the average expenditure for the whole country as set forth on page 3 of the White Paper already referred to. Unless you can concede these essential matters, I am obliged to say that the schedule will, in my opinion, take away what the Bill purports to give, and consequently it would seem that the settlement which seemed attainable as the result of our correspondence cannot be carried out. In that case it would be useless to discuss the many important points which. seem to me to call for amendment in the Bill itself, and especially in Clause 2 with regard to facilities. It gives me genuine distress that I should thus be obliged to contemplate at this stage of our discussion a result which, in my view at least, would be a real calamity to the interests of educational and religious peace; but I feel that it is necessary to speak explicitly on what, as you will know, I have regarded from the first as an essential part of any scheme of settlement. I am so well assured of your desire being in harmony with my own that I will not despair of your being able to take such steps as are possible for making your whole scheme a consistent and practical one, and thus effecting what will in the long run—despite present 1557 criticism and fears—redound to the country's good.In a postscript it was added that—The Representative Church Council meets on Thursday, and will reasonably expect from me a definite statement.No settlement either differing from or in accord with the representations of that letter had been made by the right hon. Gentleman, and it appeared that the Archbishop, who had shown the most earnest zeal in the interests of peace, had found the financial provisions of the Bill utterly inadequate. He claimed that the Archbishop had shown great moderation in the statement of his views, though he wished to guard himself from accepting fully the standard which the Primate had mentioned as the minimum which he could possibly accept. He did this because he had heard the statement of the last speaker, and he had also before him the White Paper which seemed to him to prove that the Archbishop's request was a very moderate one in the circumstances. This Paper showed that the expenditure per child over the country was 64s. 10d. He Was aware that this figure had been repudiated on behalf of the Government as containing matters regarding deductions of an important character. He had tried to look into the question, and he declared that the Paper as it stood was meant for the information of the public and not for the benefit of educational experts. What were the deductions which the President of the Board of Education had indicated ought to be made? He agreed that some deductions ought to be made in respect of the conveyance of children to schools—a trifling matter. There were deductions which he dared say would amount to 3s. 4d. per child for rates and insurance of school buildings. There was a deduction which could properly be made and which would come to very little for the purchase of land and the erection, alteration, and maintenance of school buildings. He agreed that where a school was purchased a deduction would have to be made, but he did not think the right hon. Gentleman would say that was an expenditure which had to be made except in very rare instances. He invited the right hon. Gentleman to show that the deductions referred to 1558 were not balanced by the additions which would necessarily fall on the contracting-out schools. The White Paper did not show the real average expenditure, because the general standard of the voluntary schools had not reached its highest point. In the next place, the country schools brought the whole average down, and he submitted that the vast number of country schools would not be able to contract-out at all. That was an important set-off against some of the deductions which he admitted had to be made. Take a more important matter still. The contracting-out schools would have the whole upkeep laid upon their shoulders, a most formidable item which did not exist at the present time. Then, lastly, there were the administrative charges, which the White Paper eliminated altogether. These could not be taken altogether off the contracting-out schools, for in future the whole administrative charges would fall on the contracting-out authority. He was informed that as far as an investigation, had been able to be made by the authorities of the Church of England in the short time available, the figures gained from 140 schools in divers parts of the country seemed to corroborate the conclusions arrived at in the White Paper—namely, that 64s. 10d. was the average and legitimate expenditure which was made by the local authorities on the schools of the country.. It seemed to him, therefore, that the request of the Archbishop—namely, that the rough average grant of 50s. should at the very least be added to by 7s.—was a moderate demand on the face of the only figures they had before them on official authority. He did not for one moment wish to underrate the case presented by the hon. and learned Member for Water-ford, and it was quite obvious from the greater consolidation and concentration of the schools for which he spoke that they had been able to get fair, complete, and accurate statistics, and therefore they were able to draw from them a more definite conclusion. All he wished to say was that the Archbishop's request seemed to be considerably under rather than over the cost. He wished to say that it had been to the honour of those who had spoken upon that side that they had 1559 firmly declared that contracting-out schools were never to fall below the provided schools of the country, and the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, in the speech he made, indicated that progress would involve further expense. Was it really to be contended that under a concordat and settlement which many of them wished to see carried through, the schools of the Church of England and the Roman Catholics as well should be placed upon a far lower standard than that which was enjoyed by their rival schools in the country? The effort of peace which was being made upon the bash of contracting-out was only being accepted on condition that those who accepted it would subject themselves to a strain far more intolerable than they endured before 1902. He wished to say in conclusion that he did not desire to use any provocative word upon this matter. The settlement, if it was to be a settlement, ought not to break down upon a point of finance. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh!"] Well, it ought not to break down on that point. There were far greater sacrifices to be made by both sides. There were sacrifices of most dearly-loved and cherished convictions which had to be made by hon. Members on both sides And he said with absolute sincerity that it would be absolutely useless to ask people to make such sacrifices of convictions which were dear to them if there was at the same time to be placed on the shoulders of those making them a burden quite intolerable, which would condemn these schools to a lower standard of efficiency.
§ SIR GEORGE WHITEsaid that, although many of them had heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman with very great regret, and specially the communication from the Archbishop, none could find any fault with the tone of the speech. He should endeavour to emulate that tone. He could not, however, agree with the expression of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to a question of this sort breaking down on a matter of finance when the matter of finance was so intimately connected with one of the essential principles of the Bill. He had at different periods of the history of educational controversies said that under certain conditions he might 1560 agree to the right of entry, and that under certain conditions he might agree to contracting-out, hut under no circumstances that he could foresee could he agree to the two operating in one area; and yet to a certain extent that was the position in which they were placed by this Bill. They were brought to that condition of things solely by the belief that at least those belonging to the Anglican Church would have been very largely, if not wholly, content with the operation of the principle of the right of entry, and would not have sought to enlarge the opportunities for contracting-out. Therefore, he was quite sure the House would see that the question of finance was so intimately connected with this great principle that it was impossible to look upon it as a light matter. What would be the position of those who had received a good deal of blame from their friends already if they consented to the right of entry in the towns and in other districts not single school areas—placing them in the position in which he believed they would be placed if they acceded to the figure named by the right hon. Gentleman and allowed the right of entry in all the council schools, at the same time giving every facility for contracting out for the whole of the denominational schools if they chose to do so? They could not face such a figure as that which was named by the right hon. Gentleman because they felt that sum would place every possible facility, so far as finance was concerned, in the way of contracting out. In the course of a long life he had had a good deal to do with educational figures, and he was bound to say that there was no class of figures which laid themselves open to so much misrepresentation and misunderstanding; therefore, it would be an extremely difficult thing to get at what was the exact cost of education under all the circumstances under which those contracting-out schools, would exist. From his own experience and knowledge, as well as from the information he had been able to gather, he felt that the figure which the Government had put into the Schedule was a liberal figure. Bearing in mind always the limitation which they had endeavoured to place upon the contracting-out system, namely, that those who engaged in it should at 1561 least have some reasonable sum to subscribe themselves as they did years ago under similar circumstances, they could not watch that sum absolutely disappearing and be content to go on with this arrangement under those conditions. He took up this position with very great regret, and he did so because they had reached a stage in the compromise which was a very serious one indeed. He would go so far as to state that the position of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the future attitude which the education authority might take in the interest of education in all the schools of the country would not be an unreasonable position, or that those demands as they applied to contracted-out schools should be reasonably met by the Board of Education in regard to future finance. He thought that was a reasonable proposition, but in regard to the present situation for him and his friends, with the figures before them which they had endeavoured to get as accurately as they possibly could, to consent to a condition of things in which they would be promptly charged with handing over the whole of the town schools to denominational schools, either through contacting out or the right of entry, would be to assume a position of which he for one could not take the responsibility, and he felt if this demand was persisted in, he personally should have to use all the influence he possessed to bring the compromise to an end. He hoped they had not even yet reached that position. He trusted the President of the Board of Education would be able to put figures before the Committee—figures which ought to be authentic, for the Board of Education was certainly the only body so far as he knew who could really ascertain what was the exact expenditure for education in the country. He was quite sure they all credited the right hon. Gentleman with the desire to put the facts as they were before the Committee and give the best information at their disposal. He would fain hope that there was some way out of the position in which they found themselves. He felt that there was a great difficulty also in regard to his hon. friends below the gangway. What he had to say in. regard to them he would put in the form of a question, and he hoped it would not 1562 be misinterpreted. He presumed that his hon. friends had in calculating the cost of their schools calculated the full salaries paid by the local authorities to all their teachers. They were perfectly justified in so calculating the salaries, but at the same time the deficiency between what the grant would yield and the amount of the expenditure credited to the salaries paid by the local authorities could not be said to be altogether a loss to their Church. It was a matter in which non-Catholics had no right to interfere in the slightest degree, but still it was a matter they might very well take into consideration in calculating what was the actual pecuniary difference which they would have to make up as against what they now received from the local authorities. He very much regretted to have to make this statement. He had certain responsibilities which had induced him to make it thus early, but he did not yet give up all hope that some way might be seen out of this dilemma. He was sure that if hon. Gentlemen would try to understand the position of those he represented, namely, that at this moment there was a prospect of all their town schools being practically in a greater or less degree put under denominational influence, they would feel that he was justified in taking up this position.
§ MR. DILLONsaid that while recognising the sympathetic and generous tone of the speech of the hon. Member for North West Norfolk he thought it must be evident to everyone in the House that the Catholic schools had no locus standi in this compromise. He must say a word in support of the position taken up by the hon. Member for Waterford. The hon. Member opposite seemed to have forgotten that the He see were now discussing the financial Resolution, on which, the First Schedule of the Bill depended. They were in the awkward position of not having had the statement in regard to the finances: of the Bill promised by the Prime Minister, which was necessary to enable them in a really rational and useful way to discuss this Resolution: Although they had been led to believe that the mind of the Government was not made up and that the 1563 Schedule was being revised, they were now debating in ignorance of what the mind of the Government was. The hon. Member for North West Norfolk had made an obscure hint as to the effect of the deficit which from carefully prepared figures the Catholic representatives had shown would fall upon their Church. He did not understand the hon. Member's remark, and he could only guess at its meaning. He presumed that there was an impression abroad that they would have to sweat the nuns, and that the Catholic Church had a certain body who would teach for nothing. That was a complete delusion. Those bodies did teach in some of the Catholic schools, and their teaching was so much sought after that it had been a matter of great embarrassment to find a considerable number of Protestants coming into their schools. These Protestants came in without being asked. Was it not very mean, though the nuns were earning their living and because they lived on very little, to take up the position, as the hon. Member had done, that they ought to be paid on a lower scale?
§ SIR GEORGE WHITEsaid what he meant was that when the Education Act of 1902 came into force a great number of salaries of Catholic teachers were certainly doubled, or at all events very largely increased by their being placed as they were bound to be on the status of other teachers. It was acknowledged at that time that those teachers were receiving small salaries, and that they in the interest of their Church were doing what was practically mission work. He did not deny for one moment that these teachers had a right to do what they liked with the salaries paid to them, but these salaries had been increased by many thousands of pounds by the Act of 1902.
§ MR. DILLONsaid he knew the hon. Member too well to imagine that he was so ungenerous as to suggest that the salaries of Catholic teachers should be cut down again. After all, in this matter a man was entitled to a fair wage, and it was most ungenerous and unfair—he did not make any charge against the hon. Member—to go behind and ask what he did with the money. They were not entitled 1564 to do that. Were they going to fine men or women because they had devoted the wages they received for work done to a religious purpose? Were they going to say to them: "We will fine you, and reduce your wages, because you choose to devote those wages to some purpose we do not approve of"? They had no right to do that. Any public teacher who did his work had as good a right to draw his wages as any teacher in the country. It was an extraordinary position for anyone to take up to say that, as a condition of the national settlement, the salaries of the Catholic teachers in this country should be fined down below those of other teachers.
§ SIR GEORGE WHITEI never made any suggestion of the kind.
§ MR. DILLONI do not think the hon. Member fully gave the bearing of his remark, but if it had any meaning it meant that—
§ SIR GEORGE WHITEI wish to disavow any such intention.
§ MR. DILLONasked how on earth salaries were to be kept up if the Catholic teachers did not come on the same scale as others. If they were not so paid, the deficit would fall upon the Catholic body. He wished to know how they could discuss Clause 3 to-morrow unless they knew fully the financial aspect of the question. The representatives of the Catholics had stated over and over again that they were opposed to contracting out; they had pointed out the dangers they foresaw; but they had never denied that their attitude towards the granting of contracting out would be largely modified by the amount of money they were going to receive. If the hon. Member opposite had indicated a sliding scale which would move in accordance with the general course of education in the country, and place Catholic schools in a permanent position of equality with the other schools of the country, that would largely modify their objection to contracting out. He still adhered to his view that the other settlement would be better, but how could they approach the discussion of Clause 3 until they knew the 1565 final decision of the Government in regard to the Schedule and contracting-out? Contracting-out might be tolerable if they were going to get a fair grant, but it would be intolerable if it meant the slow starvation of their schools. He had received that morning a resolution passed by the Synod of the United Diocese of Cork and Ross strongly protesting against the closing of certain small schools, on the ground that it would be a gross injustice to the members of their Church, namely, the Protestant Church in Ireland. He would point out that in Ireland there was a regulation that wherever Protestants were in a small minority in a Catholic parish, if they could gather not thirty but ten children they had a school of their own, paid for entirely out of public funds and under Protestant management, and without any inequality whatsoever. He asked the House to compare that with the treatment given to Catholic schools in this country. The Turn. Member for North-West Norfolk reminded Catholics the other day that they were only a small minority asking that there should be Catholic schools with Catholic teachers in a Protestant country. There was a minority of Protestants in Ireland, which was a Catholic country. Supposing the Irish people got Home Rule to-morrow, or even if they did not get it, supposing they had popular control of education in Ireland, and they said: "We are a Catholic country, and we decline to give to the Protestants of Ireland their Protestant schools." Supposing they said further: "We shall set up in this Catholic country that form of religious teaching which is acceptable to the majority of the population; we will establish and endow that religious teaching in the schools of Ireland"; and, supposing that they said to the Protestants of Ireland who were in the minority, that they might contract-out, but if they did they must be prepared to bear a considerable burden for the privilege of contracting-out. They had suffered too long to attempt anything of the kind, and if they had Home Rule to morrow they would not close one of the Protestant schools. But supposing they did; and that the Protestant minority in Ireland came over here and appealed to the party opposite 1566 for justice against such oppression, how could they answer them if they were going to do to the Catholics of this country precisely what the Protestants of Ireland would then complain of? They were not teaching them a good lesson in Ireland by this conduct. Last year, when this question was first raised, the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and other Protestants came to him personally and appealed to him to go to the Government to save their small Protestant schools, and he saw the Chief Secretary on the subject. He had a letter of thanks from the Provost of Trinity College for his assistance in keeping these small Protestant schools open. They did not require to get thirty children to keep them open as was proposed here. Some of these small Protestant schools had only ten children, and in some parishes in the South of Ireland only half a dozen, but these small schools were paid for in every respect the same as the Catholic schools. The question of religious equality was not affected by this question of the rates. In Ireland the education system was a State system. What he was asking here on this particular matter was not assistance from the rates, but assistance from the taxes. Again he asked, were they setting Ireland a good example in this matter? He contended that the facts proved that the Catholic majority in Ireland were more broad-minded and more generous to the Protestant minority than the Protestant majority in this country were in their treatment of the Catholic minority. Before he sat down he wanted to point out that there was another element of inequality in this treatment which made his case stronger in the matter of the upkeep of the school buildings. In Ireland the Protestant minority was the minority of wealth; they were the landlords and the professional classes, and could well afford to bear this burden of the upkeep of the buildings; but here it was proposed to inflict this fine for conscience' sake—for, whatever might be said to the contrary, it was a fine for conscience' sake—on the poorest of the whole population of the country. That was an intolerable position to take up, and one which it was impossible to defend. He thought the Catholics 1567 had been treated badly by the Government. They were promised a statement, and they ought to know what was the final word of the Government as to this question of grants to the contracted-out schools and forcing the Catholics out of the national system of education in England.
§ [Several Members on both sides of the House rose to continue the debate, and there were persistent cries from the OPPOSITION benches of "Runciman."]
§ MR. RUNCIMANHon. Gentlemen opposite need be under no misapprehension. I have no objection to speaking. They must know that I am under the Rules of the House. I wanted, when replying, to cover the whole of the ground, and with Mr. Speaker in the Chair I can only speak once. In the first place, I want to refer to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. I think his strictures were a little undeserved. He blamed me for not having got up at once and made a full statement.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDI complained that the statement, which was promised by the Prime Minister, was not given.
§ MR. RUNCIMANThe statement that I can give now, I think, will be quite sufficient. The only Schedule that we have under discussion at the present time—we are not, in fact, discussing the terms of that Schedule, but the Resolution which covers it—is that which is now in the Bill; end I think I shall be able to show that in fixing this scale as we did we fixed it on liberal lines. It is not a stingy scale. I think it was the right hon. Gentleman opposite who said that those who managed the voluntary schools had not the information with regard to the cost of maintenance of those schools which is at the command of the Board of Education, but the right hon. Gentleman is really misinformed in that matter. The Board of Education have not got the opportunities or means of knowing or finding out any of the figures for individual schools, and the hon. Gentleman who preceded me in the last Administration at the Board of Education knows that that is the case. As a matter of fact we are really in the hands of the local autho- 1568 rities for much of the information that must be provided if we are to know in full everything that can be known about the maintenance of voluntary schools. I hope, therefore, that the Board of Education will not be blamed for not having fuller information at its command than the managers of those schools. Then most of the local authorities do not keep their accounts for these schools separately and they cannot give it to us, even if we had the right to ask for it from them. The hon. and learned Member objected to our not having given him and his friends a full criticism of the whole of the information that has been given to us by the Roman Catholic authorities during the last two days. I will tell the hon. Gentleman why I have not been able to communicate with him earlier. A very large number indeed of the Roman Catholic forms were presented to us about two o'clock on Monday. Many only arrived at three o'clock yesterday, and since then I have had my officials hard at work examining those forms as carefully as they possibly could. No time has been lost, and up to a late hour last night and during the whole of to-day they have been occupied in examining not 140, as has been put forward, but well over 800 schools. That is no small task, and as far as I can give the House information, I am very glad to do so. The hon. and learned Gentleman also objected to a statement of mine that on behalf of the Roman Catholic communion there had been very wild figures used in exaggeration of the sum which might fall on them if they contracted-out. He referred in particular to the figure of £300,000 which I quoted the other day. When I referred to that figure I was quoting from a paper, which I believe is a Roman Catholic paper, called the Tablet, and I quoted that as an instance of the sort of exaggeration which many Members attempt in this House. The noble Lord opposite used very large figures, and I venture to criticise the figures that he put forward on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. He did not say that this scale would throw a burden of £120,000 on the Roman Catholic Church; he said the figure would be. £214,000.
§ LORD EDMUND TALBOTI was speaking from the White Paper.
§ MR. RUNCIMANThat just shows what an enormous discrepancy there is between the figures of the noble Lord and those which have been carefully compiled by those who represent the Roman Catholic Churches. I shall show both to him and to the Leader of the Opposition that the White Paper does not give, and does not purport to give, the cost of the maintenance of contracted-out schools. Now, if £214,000 upon examination by the Roman Catholic authorities is brought down to £ 20,000, I think we may take it that the smaller figure is nearer the mark than the larger. The Roman Catholic authorities, who were good enough to place this information at the disposal of the Board of Education, have given us, as far as they possibly could, the actual value. But they have in many cases given us the estimated amounts. So far as I have been able to ascertain from the summary which has been made from the balance-sheets and other figures which have been put before us at the Board of Education, we come approximately to the same result as the hon. and learned Gentleman. But I would point out to the hon. and learned Gentleman that in a very large number of instances the figures are estimated and are so stated in the Paper.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDSome of the instances I gave, such as London, Liverpool, and other places, are not estimates, but actual figures checked by the local authorities.
§ MR. RUNCIMANI was going to say that in the case of London, Liverpool, and one or two other places the figures are the actual amounts, but that does not apply to the whole country. A very large number of them are estimated figures. My officials found, in scrutinising these figures, that approximately the total estimated expenditure by the Roman Catholic authorities in their schools will work out at about 58s. 8d. per scholar, and I would commend that to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman opposite who thought that the Archbishop's figure of 64s. was nearer the mark. These are the actual figures from the accounts of 800 Catholic schools. [AN HON. MEMBER: "There are a 1570 thousand of them."] There are about 1,000 of these schools, but those which have been left out of account are immaterial. These are made up of teachers' salaries, which work out at 49s. 11d, per scholar, a figure which does not differ materially from that of the right hon. Gentleman; and of 8s. 9d. per scholar for the other items which have been included in the forms under the head of maintenance. But some of these items are items which do not properly fall under the head of maintenance.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDWhat are the items which do not properly fall under the head of maintenance?
§ MR. RUNCIMANI will state that later. Therefore the total amount that the Roman Catholics believe will fall on them if this scale is adhered to is £120,000, or about 8s. 9d. per scholar. But some of these estimates are quite clearly very wide of the mark. In one case the estimate for cleaning, warming, and lighting would work out at £1 per scholar, which everyone with experience of schools knows must be very wide of the mark. In most cases it works out at only a few-shillings at the outside. [An HON. MEMBER: "Have you the average attendances?"] I am afraid I have not the average attendances, but I do not think it matters. In other schools the same item is estimated at about 15s. 7d. per scholar, at Nottingham St. Mary's 14s., at Saffron Hill about 11s., and at Ilkley about 10s. It is clear these figures must be a little wide of the mark, but I have no quarrel with the Roman Catholic authorities who have done their best to give us information. The figure for books, apparatus, and stationery at Leeds St. Anne's Higher Grade School is estimated at 15s. 3d. per scholar, and that is the largest figure I have ever heard suggested, and it is very wide of the mark; at Rugby St. Mary's the amount is very nearly 10s. Then there is lumped together for "other expenses," the interpretation of which we have no means of knowing, something like 12s. per scholar at St. Anne's Underwood School, and in another case 9s. 7d., and so on. Thus, a number of the items, in so far as they are estimates, are not good 1571 estimates. I do not wish to draw any inference from that except that I am sure that the Roman Catholic authorities have not underestimated the amount of money which they would have to bear. One of the items included for maintenance is repair of the structure. That is a capital charge, and, therefore, it ought not to be put into the account. In two or three cases there is a charge for interest— interest, I presume, on mortgage loans. That, again, is never treated as a maintenance charge. In another case religious inspection is treated as an ordinary charge of maintenance, and in another case there is added in an amount of 12s. per scholar for alterations. I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not wish to maintain that those amounts are items which would properly come under the heading of maintenance. And, therefore, with those few criticisms, which I venture to offer as an example of how estimates get out of hand, I would suggest that the Catholic figures are very generous figures from their point of view. I do not think they are as greatly exaggerated as the £240,000 of the noble Lord opposite. They estimate that about 8s. 9d. per scholar would fall upon them under this scale if the child population in their schools did not diminish. But they must be quite aware of the fact that under the altered conditions—the building of new Council schools, and the fact that they have the power to put out of their schools those who are not of their own faith— there must in many instances be a diminution of their school population. I have specially framed the scale in the schedule of this Bill with that in view, and that would, I think, be of material assistance to them. The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that in London the amount per child worked out at about 69s. 8d. each and in Liverpool also at a very large sum. But under a pooling arrangement you cannot take one specific big town, you must take the country as a whole—the cheap schools with the dear schools, and make the money go as far as you can. The amount which the hon. and learned Gentleman says would fall upon them—8s. 9d. per child—may, I think, be diminished slightly because of the over-estimate—because we shall give a larger grant as the schools diminish in size, and for other reasons. In the year 1901 the amount which was produced 1572 by the Roman Catholic Church for their schools in this country, so far as we may gather from the published accounts, worked out at about 6s. 5d. per child, or, it may be, 6s. 6d. I do not think there is very much material difference between the estimated 8s. 9d. and the 6s. 5d. which is the actual figure which appears in the published statistics, and when the hon. Gentleman makes a demand that we should really support their schools as if they were still rate-aided, I really must tell him that we cannot do that. The hon. Member must know, and I am bound to say that we cannot make the grants to the contracting-out schools equivalent to what the grants plus the rates have been in the last six years. The hon. and learned Gentleman says then it will be of no use, for they will get no aid out of it. I doubt whether there is any denomination in the country better equipped for pooling arrangements than the Roman Catholic community. The hon. Member for Mayo quoted the Irish case, hut I have no doubt the Irish case would be entirely different. If there had been no rate aid given to the denominational schools there would be no education controversy in progress at the present time. If the voluntary schools were still as they are in Ireland, and had not been placed upon the rates, we should not have this raging educational controversy now. So that we cannot copy the example of Ireland. Ireland, after all, is a country of small schools, and the fact that they are not so efficient as the schools in this country or in Scotland is due to the fact that they are such small schools. Scotland is much nearer our case than Ireland. The Catholic schools in Scotland are not inefficient, they are very good. In Scotland, where the standard of education is much higher than in Ireland, the cost is 67s. 10d. per child. In Scotland, the Roman Catholics have been able to educate their children well and secure good, efficient teachers, and they have received in the past only a 40s. grant from the Exchequer. Therefore, I do not think we are making any unreasonable demand upon the Roman Catholics in England to do what their co-religionists are doing in Scotland. Then the right hon. Gentleman complained that we had kept the House in the dark in regard to the 1573 Schedule. We have not kept the House in the dark; it has been on the Table ever since the Bill was printed. The hon. Member must know that I cannot discuss the Schedule in full detail on this Motion, seeing that we have specially arranged the time so that we may have a full discussion of it when we come to it. The right hon. Gentleman quoted from the White Paper, and has made three exceptions, but he omitted four other items which cannot fall on the voluntary schools. Such items as cookery, handicrafts, drawing, etc., are all special expenses. He also mentioned the item for scholarships, an item which is growing rapidly.
§ MR. LYTTELTONAre the contracted-out schools to do without these advantages?
§ MR. RUNCIMANNo, Sir. We have Specially put in a clause in order that the local authorities may throw open their special facilities.
§ MR. LYTTELTONYes, "may."
§ MR. RUNCIMANWe cannot take the local authorities by the throat and compel them to do for the voluntary schools what they are not compelled to do for their own schools. I do not think the local authorities will be at all captious over these facilities, for they are all only too anxious to see the children in their own localities properly educated. Moreover, it cannot be suggested there is a religious difficulty either in the handicrafts or the cookery centres. Then the items for erection and alterations should come upon capital account.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONDoes the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the contracted-out schools will never require alteration or enlargement?
§ MR. RUNCIMANNo, but those are not maintenance, but capital charges. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is not going to suggest that the State ought to bear the capital charges of the voluntary schools. The wear and tear charges are not likely to be heavy. I cannot understand whether the right hon. Gentleman wishes to throw the administrative 1574 charges of these schools and these associations on the rates, and it surely cannot be solemnly suggested that we should vote money for the salaries and administrative expenses of the National Society. That is quite unreasonable, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman cannot have looked very closely into that item. I have never heard of a claim of that kind being put forward by any other portion of the voluntary schools. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to refer with a certain amount of brevity and reticence to a communication which passed to-day between the Archbishop of Canterbury and myself. In that letter the Archbishop of Canterbury relies upon the figures presented to him for 140 schools. These figures were presented to me not as a full statement of the case of the Church schools, as was done in the case of the Catholic schools, but as a sample of the case of the Church schools. [An HON. MEMBER on the Opposition Benches: "The full case could not be presented in regard to so many schools."] If it were done on behalf of the Roman Catholics, why could it not be done also on behalf of the Church schools?
§ LORD R. CECILHow could they do it for 11,500 schools?
§ MR. RUNCIMANThis does not apply to 11,500 schools. There are only 5,200 of these contracting-out Church schools. But I make no complaint. I only say if you are going to take a dipping sample of about 3 per cent. of the schools, you are not able to make a full and accurate statement of the position of the Church schools. The Archbishop was good enough to ask some of his experts to confer with us at the Board of Education, and go into the accounts of these schools. I refer to the 140 schools. We should have been glad to reconsider our grant if the case for these schools were substantiated, but it was not substantiated. Let me point out some of the discrepancies which came out during the discussion of these estimates. The Returns produced were not those of the actual annual expenditure, but were the estimate of managers of individual schools which, on the face of them, were quite unreliable. 1575 In the very first sheet that I examined I found among the items of annual expenditure a sum of £275 for rent. Rent is properly a capital charge, not a maintenance charge.
§ SIR HENRY CRAIK (Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities)No.
§ MR. RUNCIMANPerhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to know something about these charges.
§ SIR HENRY CRAIKIt is a maintenance charge.
§ MR. RUNCIMANPerhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to proceed. It is a long time since the hon. Gentleman was at the Board of Education himself. I am giving the best possible information and giving it perfectly accurately. I say that rent is not recognised as a maintenance charge.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONNo.
§ MR. RUNCIMANIt is impossible to get on with a running fire like this. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we ought to pay the rent of the voluntary schools?
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONI do not for a moment. But in the White Paper rent is put down as a charge of maintenance in the estimate of the general cost of the up-keep of council schools; and if rent is regarded as an element of maintenance in the case of council schools, it should be regarded as an element of maintenance in the case of the contracting-out schools also.
§ MR. RUNCIMANThe local authorities who have administered the Act of 1902 have never regarded rent as a maintenance charge. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that every item which appears on the White Paper should be borne by the State? Of course not. I come now to the next item. It is said that when those schools in London which have been furnished by the London County Council contract-out, the County Council will withdraw the furniture and that they will have to be refurnished. Well, £300 for furniture was put down not for one 1576 year but as part of the annual expenditure of one of the schools. I am sure that no one will justify an item like that. There is an item for a football field. There is also a charge for school-attendance officers. They are paid for by the local authority. I found also a charge for medical inspection. That again is a charge which is borne not by the Church schools but by the local authority. I say it is impossible to accept estimates like these in support of a claim for larger grants from the Exchequer. They are not drawn up on a uniform basis; they contain optional as well as necessary expenditure; capital expenditure and maintenance expenditure; charges to be borne by the magistrates, charges to be borne by the local authorities; and the various items are so inextricably mixed up that it is impossible to accept the statement as a full and accurate presentation of the case of the Church schools
§ MR. LYTTELTONI said I had no means of checking the returns in regard to those 140 schools. I mentioned that the Archbishop was so hurried that he could only get the figures in regard to these schools. What I ask the right hon. Gentleman to state now is what deduction from or addition to the 64s. l0d. per head he is prepared to make on the advice of his own experts?
§ MR. RUNCIMANWhen I have completed this part of my statement I shall be glad to answer the right hon. Gentleman. What I say is that estimates which are based on the accounts furnished by individual managers from all parts of the country, having no uniform principle running through them, are not sufficient to substantiate the case which has been put forward on behalf of the Archbishop. I do not blame the Archbishop, I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman. They relied on their experts, but I do think they have been badly advised, and I am quite sure that if their experts had dealt fairly with them they would not have made themselves responsible for statements such as those from which I have quoted this evening. The right hon. Gentleman relies on the White Taper. The right hon. Gentleman, if he had listened to the beginning of my speech, would know 1577 that we gave certain information from the local authorities—information that we had no right to demand and which some local authorities have refused to give—information in regard to some of the items. The item of 64s. 10d. is compared with 58s. 8d., but it is quite clear that the 64s. 10d. covers an entirely different set of items from those quoted by the right hon. Gentleman. You cannot add the cost of special subject classes scholarships, and there is no authority for knowing what the items cover. The right hon. Gentleman might throw up his hands, but where could we get the information? The local authorities decline to give it, and we cannot compel them to give it; they did not do it under his Bill; he had no statutory authority to require it. It is all very well to ask what is the use of the Board of Education; but the Board can only act on the authority it has under statute, and I think the right hon. Gentleman himself shared in the responsibility for the statute that set it up. I have given the basis on which we founded our calculation; there is nothing to conceal. We know the cost of the teaching staff, we have the power to find that out, and we have found it out. We know that the cost comes to £13,800,000, or an average of 52s. 3d. per child. It is high, and very largely because of the high salaries paid in London and the larger districts there is no cheap class of teachers. That is the amount, 52s. 3d. Now what other items fall on the cost of voluntary schools? There are fuel, lighting, cleaning, apparatus, books. Well, from all the information we can get under these heads I believe the cost works out at less than 8s. per child, that is to say, the total cost all over the country of Church schools that contract-out cannot exceed 60s. per child, and of Roman Catholic schools, 58s. 8d. Now what does that mean? The State actually under our contracting-out scheme provides five-sixths of the total up-keep of the schools, and we maintain that a sixth is not too large a proportion for the denomination to pay for the private management and private patronage they will enjoy. I might also say that on the 1578 other side we are giving a right of entry into county schools without charging a penny.
§ LORD R. CECILOur own schools.
§ MR. RUNCIMANI hope hon. Gentlemen will not put their claim too high. Is this proportion more than the Church of England can bear? Take the year 1901, the last year for which I have the figures, showing the amount of money coming from local sources towards Church schools. In that year the total grant amounted to, not 50s., but 35s. per child, and the amount coming from local resources to 10s. per child. We raised the grant subsequently to 47s., and then we raised it to 50s., so that with the grant we propose in this Bill we are making it possible for the Church schools to contract out without having to bear any greater burden than they had in 1901–2. The right hon. Gentleman may think we are cutting it rather fine, but that is not so, because that is on the assumption that every school will contract-out. The items do very nearly balance; but, as I was pointing out, there will be, under this Bill, a large number of Church schools which will be transferred. I am sure nobody will suggest for a moment that no Church schools will be transferred except in single-school districts. If that were so I should despair of any success coming to this Bill. If the Government had been under the impression that all the schools except in single-school areas were to contract-out we could not possibly have set our hands to this Bill. We have been told from the first by those who represent the Church of England that that Church looked forward to contracting-out being the exception and not the rule. If you are going to reduce that area, instead of having 5,200 schools outside, you will have 500 schools outside, and naturally the large sum of money which was at the disposal of the Church of England in 1901 would produce not 10s. per child but an enormously larger sum. If this Bill goes through, and the schools which are run now by the Church of England are to any considerable extent transferred, there is no reason why 1579 the Church of England schools should not be the most prosperous schools in England and Wales. It is quite possible that the subscriptions may have fallen in the interval, but they will have to cover a much smaller area than formerly, and I believe that those who hold so dearly to the principles of the Church of England are not likely to be less generous to the Church schools in 1909 than they were in 1901. One of the items which is missing from our Bill is a sliding scale for the future. I say quite frankly that we are prepared to put into the Schedule, if it is accepted in anything like a reasonable spirit, a Schedule which will provide that the contracted-out schools shall have a proportionate share in any increase above the grants under these proposals that may be made in Exchequer grants for the ordinary maintenance of public elementary schools. What I mean is this, we do not intend—and we would not like our successors—to give a larger Ex chequer grant to local authority schools than to contracted-out schools, and if the Schedule does not provide for that elasticity we are prepared to revise it. I can only say that the Bill and Schedule actually fulfil what was undertaken by the Prime Minister. We have given a right—a real and effective right—of entry into the council schools, which many of our friends much dislike. We have also given those schools which think they must contract out a reasonable chance of existence. We have increased the amount of the grant by 3s. If we had adhered to the 47s. proposed by my hon. friend I am sure he could have made out a good case for that amount. But we have gone up by 3s. in order to meet hon. Gentlemen opposite and those who represent the Church. We believe that our offer, if it errs at all, errs on the side of liberality. With all the information at our disposal we are forced to the conclusion that to give a material or even a moderate increase would actually put a premium upon contracting out. I know it is not the intention of the Archbishop 1580 of Canterbury, nor do I believe it is the desire of any sound educationist in this country, definitely to encourage contracting out. I admit that, with all its drawbacks, it may be necessary as an exception; I do not think it necessary as a rule; and, indeed, if we were materially to increase the grant we should actually destroy the very basis upon which this Bill is founded.
§ MR. JAMES HOPE (Sheffield, Central)said that the President of the Board of Education had attempted to show a discrepancy between the figure of £120,000 a year quoted by the hon. Member for Waterford as the annual burden on Catholic schools and that of £215,000 quoted by the noble Lord the Member for Chichester. The two were perfectly reconcileable, the one being based on present expenditure while the other was an estimate of the future burden which the Bill would lay upon the schools. Now subsection (1) of Clause 3 laid it down that the contracted-out school must comply with all such conditions of efficiency, as regards teaching staff, school premises, and secular instruction as were required by the Board of Education in schools provided by the local education authority, and, therefore, the only basis on which they could argue this subject was the difference between the cost of maintenance in the provided schools and the amount of the grant offered them under the Bill. How were they to arrive at that difference? They could only start on the basis of the White Paper. He thought it a little hard that the President of the Board of Education should base his case on odd accounts sent up by private managers under great pressure, by singling out particular items where the accounts were badly made out, and that he should try to destroy their contentions on those figures when it was the business of the Government themselves to supply statistics on which alone the House could be expected to judge of the matter. 1581 They must, however, go to the White Paper, and in reference to the figure of £215,000, that was based on the figure of the White Paper multiplied by the number of children in average attendance. He would like to take a smaller example for the sake of argument, and he would take the schools of the smallest religious community. In London there were some 6,700 children in average attendance in Jewish schools, and on the basis of the White Paper there would be a difference in round figures of 46s., which would appear to mean a charge on these schools of about £15,400 a year. What deductions were they to make from the White Paper? He invited the right hon. Gentleman to tell them tomorrow. In the case of these Jewish schools, a small number of schools all in the area of one local authority, these figures could be obtained as regarded London, and he thought that when they came to Clause 3 they ought to know what deductions were possible under the heads mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman from the figure of £15,400 which on the face of the White Paper would appear to be the sum which would have to be made up on the eight Jewish schools in London alone. To return to the figures of his own co-religionists, on the basis of the White Paper, the difference would come to £215,000. What deductions were they to make? He again invited the right hon. Gentleman to say. It could not be more than 4s. l0d. at the utmost, because under the right hon. Gentleman's own statement the 52s. plus the 8s. were chargeable in items which he himself admitted. He would make a very broad assumption for the sake of argument; he would say that these deductions might account for one-sixth of the difference. They thus got down to £179,000. Fees might have been charged in a very few schools before 1902, but he would make the assumption that £5,000 might possibly be raised in fees, and that got them Sown to £174,000. Then the 1582 right hon. Gentleman said that they would gain by the exclusion of scholars, which would get the schools on to a higher grant. They might gain infinitesimally per head, but they clearly would lose in the grant as a whole, and if economic laws held good with regard to the schools, the greater the bulk the cheaper the handling. Though they might, therefore, get a little more per child they would lose largely on the whole. With regard to pooling, he would not go into that, because it would in any case only be a slight shifting of the burden. Making every possible deduction, he put the future cost of these schools alone, on the present assured basis of expenditure, at £160,000 a year, exclusive of loan and administration charges. But, of course, there would be additions. In the first place, this 64s. l0d. was only an average, and in the second place the average varied, i.e., the 64s. 10d. was itself depressed by the fact that it included expenditure on voluntary schools, which had not come up to its natural level, because the increments of the teachers were only slowly, year by year, being earned. In London, the general expenditure was 94s. per child on the whole, but it was 99s. in the provided schools alone. Therefore, when the voluntary school teachers who were placed in the scale rose to their maximum the average would be 99s., instead of 94s., and the same thing was true of other towns. There must also be a large increase on administration. The handling of this very large though insufficient sum of money would require a large secretarial staff, and there would have to be auditors and branch officers in the provinces, and considerable travelling expenses. The administration charges generally were 3s. 5d. per child, but if he put them as low as 1s. per child that, in the case of these schools, would amount to £14,000 a year alone. They started with a minimum under the Bill of £160,000 1583 certain, which must be increased by the items to which he had referred, and taking the possible deduction and setting against them the certain additions, he could not make out that the expenditure of these schools could be less than £190,000 a year, and shortly might be £210,000. How could a difference like that conceivably be met? How were they to deal with that situation? Were they to refuse the increments already promised to their teachers, or were they to dismiss them? What was said about the right hon. Gentleman about elasticity was meaningless. It did not provide against an increase in rate charges. All he said was that if an increased grant were to be made from the Exchequer some proportion would go to these schools in the future, but that did not meet the point that with a limited grant the schools which contracted out would be condemned to an ever-growing and uncertain expenditure. It put them in the cruel dilemma that they were necessarily made to look with suspicion on all educational progress that was costly. If this scheme of contracting out was carried through, there would be many loyal subjects up and down the country who would feel a sense of the gravest hardship and intolerable wrong.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that as he listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman he continually asked himself—Is this a settlement? His whole tone was one of vehement and almost angry criticism of the figures submitted—
§ MR. RUNCIMANI did nothing of the kind. I was trying to give the House as full information as possible.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he would withdraw the word angry, but he was surprised as he reminded himself that he was listening to a discussion on a 1584 settlement that he himself had honestly endeavoured to work in favour of, and in which the right hon. Gentleman had borne an honourable part, because the whole tone of the right hon. Gentleman was extremely critical of figures submitted to him under great difficulty by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his advisers. What was the situation? The right hon. Gentleman had been negotiating for this settlement for months. The essence of the transaction, as in most of these transactions, after all was the money consideration in the case of the schools which would not come in to the general system. It was proposed that the denominations should surrender their schools to the control of the local authority, that they should receive in return a right of entry which they had been discussing more or less imperfectly for a day and a half, and that certain schools where the children were of one faith, and which could not come conscientiously under this system, should be allowed to contract out on terms which it was hoped would keep them not below the educational level of the rest of the community. On what grounds did he complain that the Archbishop's figures were ineffective and unconvincing? He was not sure that they were, but what was the position? The Roman Catholic denomination had 800 schools to deal with; the Church of England had more than 11,000.
§ MR. RUNCIMANOnly 5,200 Church schools can contract out.
§ SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that the whole cost of maintaining a voluntary school was surely an element of the calculation, and there were 11,000 voluntary schools in the country. In the estimate of the cost of maintaining a school all the schools were taken into consideration, and the schools which could not contract out were brought 1585 into the calculation. Under these circumstances it was not fair to say there were only 5,000 which would contract out when they used the other schools to lower the standard cost of maintenance. The right hon. Gentleman kept on alluding to one item after another and asking whether the Government was expected to pay this or that, as if the items submitted by the advisers of the Archbishop were items in a till. They were nothing of the sort. They were estimates of the expenditure which would fall on a contracted-out school, and they could not keep up to the educational level of the rest of the community without a larger demand than the Schedule allowed upon the Parliamentary grant. After all, what figures had they to go upon? The right hon. Gentleman produced a certain number of figures which he said had been submitted to him, and considered by his experts, and which he believed to overthrow the calculations of the Archbishop; but what had they had to go upon except his own White Paper? What were the shadowy calculations which he said had been submitted to him, and which had been produced under great pressure during the last two or three days, compared with the elaborate and considered estimate in the White Paper? It was very difficult to upset those figures. They showed the steady march of education. He had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman was familiar with the Report of the Departmental Committee which sat in 1906. The estimates for the cost of maintenance in London, in county boroughs and urban districts, were there given, and the White Paper showed a small, but very legitimate advance made on the cost of education for every 1586 one of those areas. Therefore, they might take it that the statistics of the White Paper were absolutely reliable, because the figures very nearly corresponded, just differing sufficiently to show the ever increasing cost of education in the country. Therefore, he entirely declined, and he thought those who were advising the Archbishop in these negotiations were entitled to decline, to consider figures for which they had no authority whatever, except the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that they had been considered in the course of the last few days at the Board of. Education, as against the authoritative document which was before the House. The White Paper made out a charge of 64s. 10d. a child. The right hon. Gentleman said that a great deal of the cost would not fall upon the contracted-out schools. He really doubted whether he was justified in striking out classes for special subjects. There was a Parliamentary grant for the special subjects and he presumed that the contracted-out schools would enjoy it, but he took it that the grant did not cover the whole cost, and that the local authority would make a charge upon the contracted-out school for the use of these classes corresponding to the expenditure out of the rates. Then with regard to scholarships. He did not understand also why contracting-out schools should not offer the same advantages to students in respect of scholarships as the local authorities' schools, nor why they should not estimate in their expenditure the scholarships that would be offered. The right hon. Gentleman had held up to ridicule the purchase of land, erection and enlargement, alteration and maintenance, of school 1587 buildings. If that was a fair charge to put down as an item in the maintenance of a council school, why was it to be unfair in the contracting-out schools? The contracted-out school would need to keep up its buildings, and from time to time to enlarge them just as much as the council schools, and those who had to bear the cost of the upkeep would also have to pay the rate which went towards the upkeep of the other schools in the county. Upkeep was an item which could not be left out of consideration nor could the cost of administration. It might very well be that the contracted-out schools would require officers to see to school attendance. If so, it was an item of cost in considering the financial position of the contracted-out schools. And when they came to the cost of administration the right hon. Gentleman forgot that he had put upon the Church of England the administration of, possibly, a couple of millions of money, which would have to be dealt with by apportionment to the contracted-out schools. Pooling, no doubt, did help where there was a great discrepancy in the case of one area as against another which was maintained at less cost, and which could help the one which was maintained at a greater cost. But he was afraid the contracted-out schools would always be found to be in areas of the same financial capacity, and that pooling would not be such an assistance as the right hon. Gentleman supposed. But, anyhow, the administration of this larger fund must be a considerable item of cost. That being so, they had the right hon. Gentleman's figures before them, which he would take as authoritative figures set forth in the White Paper, and they were not satisfied that the deductions 1588 which he proposed to make were justifiable. What was the upshot of the whole matter? How did they stand? The finance of the contracted-out school was really the essence of the transaction. The Roman Catholic schools had stated their own case. He was not prepared to be bound by the financial statement of the Roman Catholics. They might have their views as to the cost of maintenance and their own economy, which might not be that of other schools. At any rate, on the right hon. Gentleman's figures, it seemed to him that the Archbishop's contention that the grant must be increased by a sum of at least 6s. to make the financial position tolerable for the contracting-out schools was a minimum statement. He hoped that the financial question might be settled satisfactorily, but if it was not, he did not think that the fault would rest with the Opposition. The whole power of ascertaining the financial position of any school in the kingdom rested with the right hon. Gentleman. Under the Code he could get the figures of any school which he chose to ask for. He had had this matter before him for months. He had published a Paper, the figures of which they were prepared to accept. He disputed his own figures, and he disputed the Archbishop's figures, and under these circumstances he (Sir William Anson) was rather puzzled to know where they were, or what figures would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman as to the financial position of contracted-out schools. If he was a friend of the settlement he was no friend of contracting-out. If contracting-out, on the scale put forth in the Bill, was the last word of the Government, he should feel it his duty to oppose the Bill. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman 1589 might yet find it possible to enable him to support him, as he had hitherto done, in effecting a settlement which he believed he had at heart, but if his speech to-night
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 244; Noes, 119. (Division List No. 430.)
1545| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Houston, Robert Paterson |
| Adkins, W. Ryland D. | Craig, Captain James(Down, E.) | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Agnew, George William | Cross, Alexander | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Crossley, William J. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Jackson, R. S. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Ashley, W. W. | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Duckworth, Sir James | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond.) | Du Cros, Arthur Philip | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan | Lambert, George |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. |
| Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Lamont, Norman |
| Barker, Sir John | Erskine, David C. | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Essex, R. W. | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Beale, W. P. | Everett, R. Lacey | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Faber, George Denison (York) | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Bell, Richard | Fardell, Sir T. George | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Fell, Arthur | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. | Fletcher, J. S. | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Bennett, E. N. | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Fuller, John Michael F. | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Gardner, Ernest | Lowe, Sir Francis William |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Branch, James | Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W. | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Glendinning, R. G. | MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh |
| Brigg, John | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs |
| Bright, J. A. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham) | Maclean, Donald |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Grant, Corrie | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Brunner, Rt. Hn Sir J. T (Cheshire | Gretton, John | M'Arthur, Charles |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | M'Callum, John M. |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Guinness, Hon. R.(Haggerston) | M'Crae, Sir George |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | M'Laren, Rt. Hn. Sir C. B. (Leices. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Gulland, John W. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Magnus, Sir Philip |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Mallet, Charles E. |
| Byles, William Pollard | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Cameron, Robert | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Marnham, F. J. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Massie, J. |
| Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight | Hart-Davies, T. | Menzies, Walter |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Micklem, Nathaniel |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Harwood, George | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc. | Haworth, Arthur A. | Montgomery, H. G. |
| Chance, Frederick William | Helme, Norval Watson | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Cleland, J. W. | Helmsley, Viscount | Morse, L. L. |
| Clough, William | Henry, Charles S. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Herbert, Co!. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Murray, Capt. Hn. A. C. (Kincard. |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J | Higham, John Sharp | Myer, Horatio |
| Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Hill, Sir Clement | Napier, T. B. |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Hills, J. W. | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Hobart, Sir Robert | Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r |
| Courthope. G. Loyd | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Cowan, W. H. | Hooper, A. G. | Nield, Herbert |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. | Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Nussey, Thomas Willans | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Nuttall, Harry | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Verney, F. W. |
| Paul, Herbert | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Vivian, Henry |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Simon, John Allsebrook | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Walters, John Tudor |
| Percy, Earl | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Walton, Joseph |
| Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) | Wardle, George J. |
| Pollard, Dr. | Soares, Ernest J. | Waring, Walter |
| Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Spicer, Sir Albert | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Stadner, H. Y. | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan |
| Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradf' rd, E.) | Stanier, Beville | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Rainy, A. Holland | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk | Watt, Henry A. |
| Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Rees, J. D. | Starkey, John R. | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Rendall, Athelstan | Stone, Sir Benjamin | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Ridsdale, E. A. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmar'n) |
| Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Stuart, James (Sunderland) | Williamson, A. |
| Robinson, S. | Sutherland, J. E. | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.) |
| Ronaldshay, Earl of | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Rose, Charles Day | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter | Thomasson, Franklin | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E | Younger, George |
| Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark) | |
| Schwann, Sir C. E.(Manchester) | Thorne, G.R. (Wolverhampton) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Tillett, Louis John | |
| Seaverns, J. H. | Tomkinson, James | |
| Shaw, Sir Charles Edw.(Stafford | Toulmin, George | |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | |
| NOES. | ||
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Black, Arthur W. | Hodge, John | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Hudson, Walter | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Brace, William | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne |
| Chinning, Sir Francis Allston | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Seddon, J. |
| Clynes, J. R. | Joynson-Hicks, William | Shackleton, David James |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm'gham) | Kekewich, Sir George | Snowden, P. |
| Cory, Sir Clifford John | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster) | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E. | Summerbell, T. |
| Crooks, William | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Macpherson, J. T. | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Maddison, Frederick | Walsh, Stephen |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Fullerton, Hugh | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Gill, A. H. | O'Grady, J. | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Glover, Thomas | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Pirie, Duncan V. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Hutton and Mr. Clement Edwards |
| Hall, Frederick | Ratcliff, Major R. F. | |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Renwick, George | |
| Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E. | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n) | |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress; and ask leave to sit again"—(Mr. Runciman) —put, and agreed to.
| AYES. | ||
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Agnew, George William | Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall) | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Erskine, David C. | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Essex, R. W. | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Esslemont, George Birnie | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Lynch, H. B. |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Everett, R. Lacey | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Fenwick, Charles | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Fletcher, J. S. | Maclean, Donald |
| Banner, John S. Harmood | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | M'Callum, John M. |
| Barker, Sir John | Fuller, John Michael F. | M'Crae, Sir George |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Fullerton, Hugh | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald |
| Beale, W. P. | Furness, Sir Christopher | M'Laren, Rt. Hn. Sir C. B. (Leices. |
| Bell, Richard | Gibb, James (Harrow) | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) |
| Bennett, E. N. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | M'Micking, Major G. |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Glendinning, R. G. | Mallet, Charles E. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) |
| Black, Arthur W. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Marnham, F. J. |
| Brace, William | Guinness, W. E. (Bury S. Edm.) | Massie, J. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Gulland, John W. | Masterman, C. F. G. |
| Branch, James | Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Menzies, Walter |
| Brigg, John | Hall, Frederick | Micklem, Nathaniel |
| Bright, J. A. | Harcourt, Robert V.(Montrose) | Middlebrook, William |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc's) | Mildmay, Francis Bingham |
| Brodie, H. C. | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithn's-ssh | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Hart-Davies, T. | Montgomery, H. G. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Morrell, Philip |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Haworth, Arthur A. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Byles, William Pollard | Helme, Norval Watson | Murray, Capt. Hn. A. C. (Kincard |
| Cameron, Robert | Hemmerde, Edward George | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Henry, Charles S. | Myer, Horatio |
| Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Napier, T. B. |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Nicholls, George |
| Chance, Frederick William | Higham, John Sharp | Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncst'r') |
| Cleland, J. W. | Hobart, Sir Robert | Norman, Sir Henry |
| Clough, William | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Hooper, A. G. | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N.) | Nuttall, Harry |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Horniman, Emslie John | Paul, Herbert |
| Cooper, G. J. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grins'd. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Illingworth. Percy H. | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) |
| Cowan, W. H. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Cross, Alexander | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Pollard, Dr. |
| Crossley, William J. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Price, C. E.(Edinburgh, Central) |
| Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Laidlaw, Robert | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro') |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.) | Lambert, George | Rees, J. D. |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Lamont, Norman | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Ridsdale, E. A. | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Whitbread, Howard |
| Robinson, S. | Stuart, James (Sunderland) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Summerbell, T. | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh) |
| Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Sutherland, J. E. | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Rogers, F. E. Newman | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Rose, Charles Day | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury) | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland | Thomas, Sir A.(Glamorgan, E.) | Williamson, A. |
| Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Thomasson, Franklin | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Scott, A. H. (Ashtonunder Lyne) | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| Seaverns, J. H. | Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.) |
| Shackleton, David James | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Shaw, Sir Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Tomkinson, James | Winfrey, R. |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B) | Toulmin, George | Wodehouse, Lord |
| Shipman, Dr. John G. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Silcock, Thomas Ball | Verney, F. W. | Younger, George |
| Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Vivian, Henry | |
| Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Walton, Joseph | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Soares, Ernest J. | Waring, Walter | |
| Spicer, Sir Albert | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. | |
| Stanger, H. Y. | Wason, Rt. Hn. E. (Clackmannan | |
| Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Waterlow, D. S. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Nield, Herbert |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Nolan, Joseph |
| Ashley, W. W. | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard |
| Balcarres, Lord | Hay, Hon. Claude George | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.), |
| Baring, Capt. Hn. G. (Winchester | Hazleton, Richard | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Helmsley, Viscount | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N) |
| Boland, John | Hills, J. W. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hodge, John | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hogan, Michael | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Bull, Sir William James | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hudson, Walter | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hunt, Rowland | Reddy, M. |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Joynson-Hicks, William | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Kavanagh, Walter M. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Renwick, George |
| Clynes, J. R. | Keswick, William | Roche, John (Galway, East) |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm'gham) | Kilbride, Denis | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Cory, Sir Clifford John | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster) | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Crean, Eugene | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Crooks, William | Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.) | Seddon, J. |
| Dillon, John | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Lundon, W. | Snowden, P. |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Stanier, Beville |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Starkey, John R. |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Macpherson, J. T. | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Fell, Arthur | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.) |
| Ffrench, Peter | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.) | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr) |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | M'Kean, John | Walker, Col. W. H.(Lancashire) |
| Flynn, James Christopher | M'Killop, W | Walsh, Stephen |
| Gardner, Ernest | Meagher, Michael | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Gill, A. H. | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Ginnell, L. | Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Glover, Thomas | Mooney, J. J. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Morpeth, Viscount | |
| Guinness, Hon. R.(Haggerston) | Murphy, John (Kerry, East) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Captain Donellan and Mr. Patrick O'Brien. |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Nannetti, Joseph P. | |
| Halpin, J. | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
§ was the last word on the subject his hopes were sinking very low.
§ Question put.
1591§ Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 31st July, 1592 adjourned the House without Question put.
§ Adjourned at nineteen minutes before Eleven o'clock.