§ 40. Sir JOHN JARDINEasked the Secretary for Scotland if he will say, as regards the Lady Yester Mortification, ad ministered by the Jedburgh School Board, and the demand made by the auditor under Section 30 of the Scottish Education Act, 1908, that a part of the revenue shall be paid over to the secondary education committee of the district to be applied to the granting of bursaries, leaving the rest to be adminisered by the school board in pro viding books and stationery, on what ground the auditor or the Department has taken the amount expended in an abnormal year of change, namely, 1889, on books and stationery as an ordinary fair and average yearly amount, especially as the Department's minute of 26th August, 1889, did not come into operation until 1st Octo- 210 ber, 1889; whether, as the Jedburgh School Board has represented, under the second proviso of Section 30, that the selection of the calendar year 1889 is inapplicable and leads to unfair allocation of the revenue, he can see his way to allocating the parts for bursaries and books, etc., on an average of years of expenditure; and whether the rule stated in the Department Circular 441 of 10th May, 1911, about the normal measure of fairness, which the auditor relies on in the discussion with the Jedburgh School Board, has any support from Statute or is to be applied in all cases as a rule of law, or whether it is only an indication of the spirit in which the Department will be disposed to interpret Section 30 in normal cases?
Mr. McKINNON WOODI am sending my hon. Friend a copy of Circular 441, which will, I think, give him the explanation asked for in the first part of his question, and will also make it clear that the second of the two alternatives suggested in the last part corresponds most closely to the facts. In the particular case he mentions no formal reference has yet been made to the Department, but in reply to an inquiry the auditor states that the amount which he thinks it would be reasonable and fair for him to allow is not only larger than the sum spent by the Governors in the year 1889, but also larger than the average annual expenditure of any five continuous years prior to 1902. In these circumstances, I can hold out no hope that it would be possible to grant terms more favourable to the board should it be necessary for the Department to make a statutory determination.