§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Education, whether he was aware that there were many ex-teachers throughout the country who became teachers under the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, 1846–7, and were promised thereunder a pension on retirement after fifteen years' services of two-thirds of their retiring salaries; that this scheme was dropped in 1862 without any provision for payment of compensation to those who entered the teaching profession between 1846 and 1862; and whether those teachers who had retired since 1898 at the age of sixty-five on a smaller pension than that originally promised to them and had since been looking forward to the improved superannuation scheme now about to be introduced, would be allowed to participate in the additional benefits provided by such scheme.
Mr. PEASEWith reference to the first part of the question, I may perhaps be allowed to remind the hon. Member that a Select Committee of the House of Commons considered in 1872 the effect of the Minutes of 1846 to which he refers, and reported that, in their opinion, the Minutes were not intended to hold out any such promise as is suggested, but that their true construction was that the Committee of Council on Education took power, but did not pledge themselves to grant pensions. With regard to the second part of the question, I must refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on the 27th March last.